Just one of the horses.



Umber is doing great in his new solo life and spends the day 'hangin' with the Wild Boys'. Now that he gets his own bucket of feed in the mornings and evenings, he comes tearing down the slope like a giant, smelly furball on legs. It's pretty funny actually.



His comfort zone of approach has gone from about six feet down to about three feet now that he knows I'm carrying a bucket of food for him. My goal is to slowly narrow that down until I can rub his scruffy head for him. After that, a sheep halter and learning to lead. Followed by shearing and neutering in the spring which will hopefully reduce the fragrant 'sheep wind' that follows him around and keep him from getting aggressive. Though it's kind of hard to imagine Umber having the motivation to be aggressive. With Lilly no longer leading him around, he is proving to be pretty passive.



When the former owner came up last weekend we still had some snow on the ground and he told me that he had seen fresh bear tracks coming up our road, stopping at the gate, then following the fenceline up the mountain. I told him that's the first sign of bear being around here that we have ever seen and he said it was probably due to our dogs. I'm thinking that because it was such a dry summer, they probably didn't get enough to eat and came in closer to feed on the bumper apple crop most people had this year. Hopefully, this bear was heading up to find a long winter nap spot and we won't have any problems with him or her. It does make me more cautious about checking out the upper fence though!

And now some (mostly) peaceful breakfast scenes ~










That feeder is MINE!