The boys, birds, and good dogs

Yesterday when I got home from work I was kinda lazy feeling, didn't want to get off my comfy couch and go out to do chores- but I'm glad I did. The sun came through the clouds, and I turned Beamer out in his pasture to play for a while. He was rather lazy too, until I chased his sons out of their pen to visit daddy.

The behavior of Nitro and Rio towards their daddy is always interesting to watch. They are both submissive to him, and Rio tries to boss Nitro around with varied success; Nitro is pretty good at standing up for himself, as a hoofprint on Rio's chest testifies. Nitro doesn't think twice about double-barreling Rio when he gets too pushy.

After the herd dynamics got sorted out, it was play time.

Nitro and Beamer stroll down the fence together; Rio doesn't really do this; he will come and greet Beamer but then goes off on his own.

Nitro was feeling good- here he is showing off some of his moves while Beamer shows how to trot the sidepass:

Beamer- that move is showing off your cutting blood- now if only I had some cows to work.
Rio finally got out and played too- but not for long.

All that work made Nitro a thirsty boy, time for some of that bubble-up.

A little later I went  out to bring Beamer in and spotted this fellow on a fence post:

I grabbed Beamer's bridle and hopped on bareback to see if I could get a little closer for a better photo.... got a little sidetracked by some geese....

 I didn't manage to get any closer to the eagle, but it was interesting to watch and listen as a female eagle flew over, and he was talking to her.

Look closely... the Eagle is... shall we say... excreting?
He flew away after that, but since there was a field full of Canada geese we made our way over to them. The dogs were with me, and I didn't want to alarm the geese, so I asked them to lie down and stay,

which they did for the next 15 minutes while Beamer and I rode near the geese and watched them for a while.

We made our way a little closer, and the geese weren't too disturbed by our presence. a few bunches would fly away,but not all of them.

It was fun, a nice relaxing way to spend the afternoon.