More Horses, Hounds...and a Double Rainbow

This time of year is a busy one for me. Besides keeping up with things around the house and trying to undo the damage done by six months of neglect in my flower beds I'm out following the local hunts as they exercise their hounds and snapping photos of just about anything I like, which is a lot.

Sunday mornings I usually take a walk with the girls who live across the farm (ages 10 and 12) and in past years we had hound puppies to take along with us, but this year it seems I won't be able to keep any pups because of construction on the farm. Darn it! It's my favorite thing about being here, I think, though I probably have about a million favorite things here come to think of it.

This afternoon my friend Kmo and I went out driving around some of the little lanes within 20 miles of the farm and we visited several of the beautiful old churches that are located out in the countryside. On the way back we happened to be driving from Llandrindod Wells up over a big hill called Rogo (probably not spelled that way!!) and over to Hundred House, then along that road that leads back to the A-44. Well, just as we started up onto the Rogo we spied the most vibrant rainbow (well, to me -- the folks over here don't seem to think much at all about rainbows!) and I asked to pull over. I got my camera out and began snapping away at the rainbow, the stone walls, the beautiful trees and oh yeah, the sheep. It began to rain, of course, and my lens got really wet so don't know how the photos will turn out, but it wasn't long before there were TWO rainbows fairly close to each other. I tried to get both ends of the rainbow into the picture, but my wide angle wasn't wide enough, sadly, so I had to just try to be creative with one end at a time. Guess I got soaked, too, but I never pay much attention to that!

My little 10-year-old friend K. and I had a nice walk this morning through the two small woods on the farm. The walks are fun not only for what we see and hear and smell but maybe especially for all the things we talk about and share. You may remember that I wrote about these woods a few months back...the girls and I always took the hounds there for walks. Each girl has a "fort"; L's fort is "Leaping Hound Lodge" and it was once a pheasant pen. K's fort is called "Hound Haven" and it is a lovely place with lots of laurels and other trees - such as K's "Koala Tree." We will probably always take walks to these forts but it sure is sad and lonesome without some hounds along to keep things interesting.