s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Sunday was a nice day, the forcast rain held off till evening. For our morning activity we took Jim on a walk. We wanted to take up up the back hill and through the gate to Stuart’s side for walk along the ridge line. I tried calling, but he wasn’t home. Since it is not good form to take animals onto his side without permission, we decided to walk down the road.

We went quite far down, about 2 km. This brought us to John and Michelles place. They raise horses. The yearlings in the near paddock were doing the usual goggle-eyed stare at Jim (you could see their little though baloons of “what the &*$% is THAT?”). Then in the small yard by the house we encountered their minitaure horses. Jim was pretty darn freaked. He did not know what to make of them. Five meters was plenty close enough, and any movement on the part of the nearest wee pony would send him leaping back.

So after that trauma we headed back up the valley, and ironically ran into a woman who had come to take her miniature horse (a 9 month old colt– very cute) for a walk, both to exercise it and to help wear-down its little wee hoofs. That walk was most entertaining, as Jim would try to run for it every time the curious little pony approached. Finally we got him going, by letting him follow behind (where he could keep a keen camelid eye on the little devil!). All in all, probably good for Jim. He has to get used to weird and wild stuff if he going to be a good pack llama to take trekking.