This past week and weekend have been busy, just not a lot of knitting.

Over the weekend I drove out to Walker, Minnesota, to spend time with friend of mine. It was a "horse weekend" where we went shopping (I spent far too much money), had a late lunch, time got away from us so I spent the night. The following day we played with her horses before I headed home. I brought my knitting bag, but my projects only came out so I could show off what I was working on.

The drive there and back was beautiful. Most of the trees have lost their leaves, but the Tamaracks were bright yellow, and looked gorgeous against the other pine trees. With each drive to my friend's, the 2 + hours fly faster; 3 CD's and I'm there!

Last week we started putting Abby, the puppy, in a crate when we leave for work. She was having far too much fun in "her room" (my craft room), and seems much more at ease in her crate. She does not like going in it and we often have to play "catch me if you can" with her running all over the house with me in hot pursuit! Our older dog lays by the crate and I think it's easier on her instead of being locked in a room in the basement. MIL loves Abby and often comes over mid-day to let her out so she can go outside and go potty and run and play. Yesterday was the first day since we started crating Abby that MIL wasn't able to come over during the day to let her out. Abby put in just under 9 hours in her crate. She survived just fine, me, I had to rush home as soon as the students leave, so I guess it was harder on me than her!

This week was the return to not having to rake the toxic Red Maple leaves out of "the boys'" pen. It's been nice to come home and do other things besides 1 to 2 (or more) hours of raking! Monday Sox got groomed as well as his hooves trimmed; Wednesday was Willow's turn.

Last night ,while working with Willow I was reminded of why I like his so much. He is so laid back, and so patient. Because he didn't "argue" (pull his feet away from me) with me over trimming his feet, they were done lickity split!

Sox, on the other hand. OMG! He is three years old, going on four. Those are the years that horses start to make the change in their heads between child and adult. AKA -- it is their teen years! Now, mind you, Willow was not a dream either at that age, but he was in it and out of it rather quick, and has come out the other side a rather mellow old man (at the ripe old age of 4 going on 5).

Like human teens, where some go through their teens rather quickly and don't give their parents much problems; others have a hard time, fight tooth and nail, and seem to take their time. Willow was the one that gave me a couple issues, we had some rather, "No! I'm the leader of this herd and kicking humans is NEVER okay! You will respect me as the alpha horse!" discussions and he is great now. Sox? Well, not so much! He is just this little snot right now, everything we do is a discussion about who's the lead horse. He's really been causing poor Willow a time too. Sox will back up into Willow and start kicking! I teach at a school with students in treatment for emotional and/or behavioral issues. If Sox were a human teen, he'd probably attend my school!

I was reminded of this when I worked with Sox Monday and then with Willow last night! Night and day they are!

And knitting? I was actually able to spend some time after dinner last night knitting on hubby's wool hunting socks, otherwise, not much new knitting was done over the past weeks since my last post. Hopefully, with an extra couple hours back into my life, I'll be able to get those socks done before hubby goes off deer hunting.