It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend from a weather standpoint. Sunny. Highs in the mid to upper 70s. AWESOME!

Horse Expo
It was also a very busy weekend. Friday evening, my wife and I took in the sights at the Minnesota Horse Expo. Although my wife has been there many times, this was my first time, and I was quite surprised how big it was. It was held at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. A big section of the grounds, including the Colliseum, the horse barns, the cattle barns, and several other buildings were filled with horses, donkeys, mules, carriages, and horse related paraphenalia. We spent all evening there and we just scratched the surface. The biggest highlight for me was the baby donkeys. One of the exhibitors had a pair of donkeys that were literally just a few days old. They were unbelievably cute. I’m amazed we didn’t somehow end up with them joining the herd at the farm. I’m looking forward to having another chance to see that in the future.

Helping Paws Run & Romp
Saturday brought me to the Helping Paws Run & Romp, an annual fundraiser that is a Run/Walk event where we encourage you to bring your dog. We had a good turnout again this year and amazing weather. Last year it was pouring rain and very cold. The year before that it was sunny, but is was cold and windy. This year was an absolute gift. The only drawback from my perspective was that I was too stupid to put on some sunscreen, so I am now sporting a mild sunburn on my face, neck, and forearms.

I arrived early to help with the setup in the morning and my wife joined me later with Libby so we could actually participate. There were several choices for participating, but we chose to walk the course, and we also chose the 4K course. What a blast!

Emmet Gets a Swim
After getting home, we decided that Emmet needed to do something special, since Libby got to go to the walk. The special treat for him was an opportunity to go swimming in the pond in our backyard. You have to understand that Emmet would rather swim than do anything else — including eating — which is a bit unusual for a lab. Labs love water, but as a general rule, they love eating more. Not my Emmet. The bad part about that is that it is often very difficult to get him out of the water once he gets started with his swimming. His first swim this year proved to be no exception. My only saving grace here was that I had *planned* on him going swimming, so I blocked out a good hour of my time to supervise him and throw his retrieving dummy. He had a blast as usual. I love watching him swim. He really is quite a talented swimmer.

Yard Work
Today was a chance to do a little yard work. It started with me getting rid of the brush pile in the backyard and with me doing some more tree trimming in the trees lining the shoreline of our pond. I swear that those damn trees shed more branches than they have growing from them. What was going to be just an hour of work ended up taking almost three hourse worth of work — and there is still more to do. I also had a chance to do a little spot weed control on the dandelions in the backyard. I need to get the weed & feed fertilizer down as soon as possible before I’m growing nothing but weeds in the backyard.

Hope your weekend was as good as mine was.

–Pete