It is Wednesday and rainy so I have time to write about Monday and sunshine. L. T. has a job now so he went to work. I stayed here and planted things. In the greenhouse I planted squash in pots and flats. Hubbard, zucchini, white scalloped, and vegetable marrows. Vegetable marrows sound so romantic and mysterious to me as I first read of them in British cozy mysteries like those of Dame Agatha Christie's. Then and for years I had no idea what they were. Now I know. They are very similar to zucchini but lighter green. My first try at raising them did not work out so well. Hopefully this years crop will fare better.
    After I finished in the greenhouse I went into the garden and planted a very long row with two varieties of peas. Sounds like a lot of peas but we love them both to eat out of hand in the garden., we call them nature's candy, and to cook. They are delicious creamed with new potatoes.
    I went on to plant two varieties of onions, celery and radishes.  I then turned to grubbing out the raspberry rows. 
    Our raspberries were up and doing well when we had 4 or 5 freezing nights. Those night killed a lot of the growth but didn't harm the dandelions and other weedy things growing up around them. I dug with my trowel, aggressively attacking everything but the raspberries. I managed to dig out several new leafy starts of berries from among the weeds.
    By now it was getting very warm, 80's, and uncomfortable as the freeze took many of the leaves off the neighboring trees so I stopped and took a reading and snack break.  I finished Jeffery Deaver's Garden of Beasts over lunch. Garden of Beast is a chilling book but I could not put it down till I had read the last page.
    About 1:30 I went out to clean the stalls and work the horses. Only Thousand was happy to have his play time with Mom. In fact after working on his yield on the forehand for some minutes we had him moving smoothly around in a 360 pattern then click and treat. He already yields his hindquarters beautifully. L. T. has him wonderfully calm and willing to do but I'm not L. T. so we have to work some things out. That day he wanted to circle me close up so we walked in circles with me keeping him at arms length with a hand on his withers. After a time he gave it up and stayed back. Later I asked him to line up at the fence for me to get on him. He walked right up to the fence, lined up nice and close and let me sit on him like a chair. I did this twice. Clicking and treating him each time I got off. 
    Shunka was bratty. He didn't want to play with Mom he wanted to play with Pony. I had to send him out for laps around the round pen a couple of times before he would line up properly and let me sit on him. He is a horse with a mind of his own. Though our games of "Who's the Boss" are few now and not at all exciting. The don't involve any kicking, bucking, or anything like the rowdiness they did when he was a colt. We still play the game and I still have to win each time. He did exhibit to me that he has the first step toward learning the Spanish walk down pat. I have only to point to his cannon bone on either right foot and he paws out. Now we must learn step 2.
    I never did get to play with Pony that day. He was very excited about playing with Shunka. They were being rowdy youngsters- shoving each other, rearing, nipping and so on. He didn't want to see me at all. I did not force the issue. A horse must be a little willing to learn to accomplish anything.
    I took them out to the grass then. And snapped his picture of Thousand running toward me when he saw me crawl under the electric fence to get some pictures of all three of our mustangs.  He always comes to make sure I'm ok if I go in the pasture.

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