Little miss Abby is growing up quick! She's still not very big (at least for being 5 months old!), but she's a lot bigger than what she was! She had a great time playing at home over break...4 dogs to play with is much more fun than just one! She got initiated into the Leak family holiday tradition of decorating the dogs and taking a million pictures...she made an adorable reindeer.
My awesome new boy, CNS Mr. T, is officially #1 in the ILR-SD UAP Top 10 for yearling non-breeders! He more than beat out the competition for the title, with at least 5 times more points than the runner up. I'm so excited to get him into the show ring next year. I've been having a lot of fun clicker training him (he's VERY food motivated!), and hope to run him over the obstacles a few more times before our first show, the Hillsdale Hobo show in Hillsdale, MI the end of April. And if I get really lucky this summer, I'm going to hit him hard with the obstacle training, as well as really start his ground driving. He'll be 2 years old in May, so I've got about another year before I can hitch him to a cart.
And of course I'm knitting lots of cool things! I just finished a fake-cable earband, knit out of two strands of grey handspun yarn (1 angora rabbit and 1 alpaca/llama blend). It looks very "rustic" since the two colors blend together in weird ways, but it is incredibly soft and promises to be very warm! I'm now working on a pair of socks for my sister. She actually asked for them! (She's finally starting to appreciate handknit goods!) One sock was finished over my New York vacation in December/January, and the other is now halfway done. Once this is done I'm starting to knit with some handspun merino that I just finished. I'm going to be selfish and make myself a cowl, earband (with an angora lining!), and some sort of mittens (maybe fingerless or convertible). It's cold up here in Michigan, and these will go great with my "new" (hand-me-down) winter coat!
