Turtles!

Map turtle

Basking turtles

Smooth Softshell turtle

Another map turtle

Young Whitetail

Just passing through...

Keep Moving, Tag!

There's a bird on your bum!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Jack In The Pulpit

Swamp Buttercup

Plum Blossoms

Apple Blossom

 Violets

Happy May Day!

More Cowboy Challenges

With Spring, comes horse shows & competitions

 and this year I decided to try doing some more cowboy challenges.

A cowboy challenge exposes your horse to unusual obstacles 

and tests how well he listens (and obeys) you in spite of the scary situation.

All week we've practiced while Maggie has watched.

This is one of our practice obstacles where you have to throw a hula hoop over the cow's head.

 The challenge day dawned rainy and cool, but we decided to head to the challenge anyway.
The competition arena was full of mud and soupy sand which made things interesting,
and a slight drizzle came down as Rocky & I competed.

We had to move a ball with a broom into a hula hoop,
a kind of broom polo.

The course included a horse (car) wash.

We stepped over tires and into trash pits.

 And dipping toy ducks out of one bucket and moving them to another bucket.

We finished, even though we had a few operator errors.
But I was proud of my horse and
 the generous judge placed us 2nd in the senior division.
WooHoo!

Bleeding Heart

Just Pokin' Along

After all the recent rain, I found this slug on a rock.