Fred (I believe his real name is Fortissimo) is going to be your new horse! Not completely 100% yours, but we are going to be co-buying him with your instructor, Amy. We promised you that if you got straight A’s for your entire 3rd grade year, that we would lease or co-buy a horse, and we are fulfilling that promise 🙂

Fred is 11 years old, a male, originally from Holland. He was imported into the US (I don’t know when), and he even has a horse-passport (I didn’t even know there was such a thing)! Amy purchased him outright 2 weeks ago, and he was brought to Yarra Yarra 1 week ago. So far, according to Amy, he is getting along just fine at Yarra Yarra, and adapting to his new environment.

He is a very friendly horse, not shy or timid at all. The first time we met him he was loving all the petting and hugs, and he was trying to eat everything in sight, including the zipper on my jacket! LOL. You are going to go visit him this Friday (6/4/21) to spend time with him and get to know him. Our co-buying agreement is that you get to ride him 3 times per week (2x by yourself, and 1 lesson per week with Amy). I really think you are going to improve and excel with so much more time ‘behind the reins’ 🙂

We lost our ducks, Lemon and Meringue, last Tuesday, May 18th, 2021. Well, we lost Lemon for sure. I found her dead on the sidewalk across the street. We haven’t seen Meringue since.

I was not aware they were ready to fly yet. They never had shown any indication of being ready to fly or trying to fly. But I think that is what happened. They tried to fly, probably flew a little, fell, repeated, etc.. But from the looks of Lemon’s body when I found her, her neck was snapped. So I’m assuming she was in a tree or a high elevation and just couldn’t fly anymore ore fell out of the tree, and snapped her neck when she hit the sidewalk. It was heartbreaking to find her like that.

It was weird because I saw them at 2am that same morning. Our dog, Abby, was tap-dancing on the hardwood floor downstairs because she had to go pee, so I got up and took her outside. When I took her out both ducks were right there, awake and walking around, everything was fine. I get up early, at 5:30am, and when I opened the blinds I didn’t see them. I figured they were cuddled in the bushes underneath the window which they often did. At 6am I still hadn’t seen them, so I went outside to feed them, and they were gone. There were no signs of ‘foul play’, or that they had been attacked. I walked up and down our block with their bag of meal-worms because that will always get them to come to you. But they did not come.

We always figured they would fly away at some point, just not so soon. Again, there were zero indications of being ready to fly that I had seen, and I spent a good amount of time with them and watching them. So we thought they flew away, somewhere close, and were fine. And who knows, at that point they could have been. But, I had to start work and couldn’t spend all morning looking for them. At 3pm when I was finishing up work, I took another walk to look for them on another street behind us, and there was Lemon. Just laying there dead. Those two ducks were inseparable, so I’m very surprised I did not find Meringue nearby. Despite Lemon being dead, she looked OK, as in she had not been attacked, preyed upon, or hurt by any other animal. It had to be an accident. She just wasn’t ready to fly yet, but she was trying, unsuccessfully 🙁

As for Meringue, who knows. I figured he would have came back by now if he were still alive. I would like to think he is still alive, but I have no idea. The thought does make me feel better though.

RIP Lemon & Meringue. 3/15/21 – 5/18/21

Yesterday (Friday, April 16th, 2021), you had another belt promotion for Taekwondo. You passed (of course). Part of the test was to break a board with a kick. You were so excited that you did it, you wanted to break the piece of the board you just broke in half again. That is much harder because it is much smaller, but you still did it 🙂

If you keep up your current pace, you are going to be a black belt in one year’s time.

Duckies

Last week while you were on Spring Break, you and Mommy went shopping and decided to take a detour to Concord Feed. That led to you getting two ducks and bringing them home as pets! They are so cute, and growing so fast. They have acclimated to the house, you, and us very quickly. For the most part they are pretty chill and relaxed. You named them Lemon, and Meringue, due to their color 🙂

You’ve learned to lay them on their back and rub their belly, they love that. They’re growing so big though, I have no idea what we’re going to do with them. They will be full grown within 2 months!

Easter 2021

Mommy and Unsa organized the egg hunt this year. You and Harris had a blast running around the front trying to find the eggs. You found most of them in about 10 minutes, but there were 4 remaining that took a while longer. You eventually found the last one about 10 minutes later 🙂