Fugly...
Saturday was a busy day in town, catching up on a backlog of machines, which allowed for a well-deserved chance to sleep in a little on Sunday. Not too much though, as we wanted to head out to Looney Pond for brunch. Trixstir's mother is visiting for the weekend, and she's never been to Looney Pond, so that was another reason for going. There's been more work done at the site, and there's a new concrete pad going up near the shower-room; rumour has it that Bill's planning to put a hot-tub in there! Don't know if that's really what it's for, but all the more power to him if that is the plan!
Before we headed out to the pond, we put the boys back in the larger paddock so they could run around a little, and chew down more of the grass that's still left in there. This was the first day in the last few weeks that we've finally had decent weather, clear skies and calm winds allowed us to get caught up on some long overdue outdoor work: Trixstir was able to get up on the roof to fix the loose (and missing!) shingles, while I stayed on the ground and tried to make myself at least somewhat useful by holding the ladder. It's not being on the roof itself that bothers me; it's climbing up and down the ladder that freaks me out, especially the coming down part. Going up is bad enough; the ladder shakes and wobbles, but at least you can just look up and ahead and just go up. Comign down, you haven't any choice but to look over the edge of the roof and look down, and that's where my blood runs cold. Thankfully, patching some loose shingles is a fairly simple job, and not something that I have to do myself. I could climb up on the roof if I absolutely had to, but I'm quite happy to avoid it as much as possible.
By evening, the long grass had dried out enough that the Kidling and I were able to cut it. It had grown over 12" high in places, so the going wasn't easy; my mower has a 6.5HP engine but the discharge chute is much too small for it, and it clogs up constantly. Whoever designed that part of the machine should be forced to mow a few acres of high grass with it! When the job was almost finished, we got a visitor...
A Brindle Bull-Mastiff dog came trotting along, and it was pretty obvious that he had tangled with a skunk recently. He was friendly enough, but he had no tags or collar, and he looked a bit thin but otherwise healthy. My concern was that he'd bother the horses, and he did to a point; he tried to get the boys to play, trotting up and down the outside of the corral panels, but they just ignored him. He tried going over to the girls' paddock, but Molly shot him a glaring look, and he slinked away very quickly (maybe he's tangled with an irate donkey/mule/hinny in the past?) A bigger worry was when a second Bull-Mastiff showed up, this one the more common tan colour. It wasn't as friendly as the first one though, and stayed well away from us. It didn't bother to stick around either, and headed across the highway and out into the neighbour's field. The other one though, seems to want to stick around. The last thing I want around here is a hobo-dog, especially one as downright ugly as a Brindle Bull-Mastiff! If he insists on staying, I'm going to name him "Fugly"... :/