Winnie and Bill go on a playdate. Photos by Ann Clifford

Neighbours of ours attended the fundraiser October 30th and asked me to come play with their horses. Bill went with me to their barn. Standing in the aisle, looking up at these animals he asked, “Are they all standing on pedestals in their stalls?” Yep, they’re BIG! Nowadays my guys look like dwarfs!

The bay mare, Lulu, has been shipped to our arena twice. She stepped up on the pedestals, crossed the bridge, walked the teeter-totter, sniffed the big ball and didn’t want to go home after she’d been playing for over 80 minutes. I was amazed when she activated the Easy button on her second try. After her first attempt when she used her nose to push against the button I tapped my teeth and said, “Bite the button”. She moved her teeth over it and we all heard, “That was easy.”

On Friday an eleven year old joined us. No school that day! Her mother emailed:

“Thank you so much for today. It was wonderful to be there and my daughter really enjoyed herself. I overheard her telling her friend about it and words such as ‘patience’, ‘slow’ and ‘kindness’ were all part of her conversation. Loved hearing that.”