Farm Day!

Some friends of ours have a horse farm and we went out this weekend.  Trajan is a huge fan, but we actually haven't been out in something like a year?!?

I was smart and on the way there we went by our local and awesome kids shoe store and got Chiron his first pair of shoes explicitly purchased for him.  He likes them!  He generally just had a great time of it, walking and meeting animals and people and just enjoying life.  And nature is pretty cool.

We took Gretchen, the younger dog with us and she proved again that she really is a champion farm dog.  No leash needed, gives horses an appropriate amount of space, doesn't overreact to noises and things and just generally has a great day of it.

We did see another aspect of her role as a farm dog and that was as a little boy supervisor.  Wherever Trajan roamed, there she'd be:
Those two dots to the left of the tree in the center are Trajan and Gretchen :-).  He yelled back at about this point "I found a lot more nature!"

Since it had been a year and a half or so since we had been out there, Trajan was impressively older in terms of doing things.  It's funny how it's the little things that surprise you at times.  The fact that without seeing anyone do it he knew how to climb up a fence and hang on it just kind of startled me:

He also went riding.  In the past, he's mainly ridden the little pony (with the exception of the one time he insisted on riding a big one and so we put him up on a Grand Prix horse.  He promptly declared he was good with Tex, the pony then), but we actually started him out with a medium sized horse this time.

He got her from the pasture, led her into the barn and crossties, helped some with brushing her down and waited while her tack was put on.  I insisted that he learn some, so he learned the word mane and frog.  Then it was out to the mounting block to learn how to mount and then to the ring.

(Someday I will figure out a way to put pictures together so they don't eat up space like they do if uploaded individually, but also aren't cut off like they are when I make collages now).

For some reason the other videos I shot are showing up sideways despite the fact that I held the phone the same way, so who knows.  This video is of him on the flat.  He also worked on going over some poles and a low oxer.  Those went well.  Then somehow the brilliant idea occurred to have him go over a flower box jump.  Well, this resulted in a real jump and perhaps a bit of an agitated buck.  Kid is super athletic though and though he went flying in the air, he kept his hands on her and stayed pretty aligned with the horse.  Our friend who owns the farm and was in the ring with him sort of caught him in the air and between them he was right back in the saddle on the other side.  He thought this was amusing rather than traumatic, so that was good!

After we played around the farm some more, we ended up back in the barn and he went for a quick bareback ride around the farm on the pony.  That's him on Tex in the last picture in the collage.  Perhaps the post fascinating part of that is the crazy cat they have at the farm!  He's about one and so we hadn't met him before.  When we got there, I forgot to remind Trajan of the rule that he is allowed to roam pretty much anywhere on the farm, but he shouldn't go in the barn without an adult.  So, I ended up following him (with Gretchen) of course into the barn early on and we found this cat.  Who started to play with Gretchen and followed us down to where we were sitting waiting for our friends.  And proceeded to play and romp with Gretchen. 

I'm bringing the cat, Kitty Boy, up because when Trajan was out on his bareback ride, the cat followed them along and kept divebombing the pony!

How wacky is that?!?

Trajan also rode his Daddy:

Chiron was so tired by the end of the day, he'd had about an hour long nap on the way there and when we first got there, that he literally fell asleep in our friend's daughter's arms, something he hasn't done in months.

And stayed awake being passed between a number of people and then being placed into his carseat.  Even when our friend's daughter's eight pound Yorkie ran across him in the carseat, he stayed asleep!

Good day had by all!