I feel good. Work went fine. Therapy went fine. A really good day at the Plume ranch. Pictures coming up. If you look at one of my picture-heavy entries and one or two of the pictures seem to not want to load fully then it usually helps just to reload the page. Then it all works. Just so you know.

Also, I tried playing a little with brightness/contrast on some of the pictures. Can you spot any that look completely horrible? If so, please leave me a note about it. To me it looked like the fiddling was an improvement, but maybe on other screens it'll look bad. If you notice anything odd then tell me. Of course, it might just be a natural oddness. My goal with these pictures aren't to create great art, obviously. They're meant to make you go awww and smile. Because that's a good thing.

I should probably let the pictures do the talking. It's late. And I'm tired. I actually slept through a Brøndby-FCK game. That's crazy. It's the biggest soccer game in Denmark. Brøndby is my love. FCK the big rivals. Okay, it was only a cup game. But still. I wanted to take a nap before it but when I woke up the game was almost over. Sucks. If that had happened a year ago I would have been furious. If it had happened 3 months ago I would have been sad. Now? Ah well, it's only soccer. And anyway, I did manage to catch the only goal in the game, scored by Brøndby. So that wasn't all bad.

Yeah, so much for letting the pictures do the talking. Bah. Talked to my therapist about the playground. She thinks it's a good place for me to do some of the exercises and social training. With the lovely animals there you always have something to talk to people about. An excuse to be around others. So yes, now I have an official good reason to go to the playground. It's therapy. I always knew it was therapeutic but now it's actually therapy.

This little guy melts all the troubles away. For once he wasn't surrounded by a sea of kids so I got to walk around with him a little and give him some good cuddles. He almost napped a little at the carrot too. But still preferring milk and branches.

Walked around and said hello to everybody.

Musse and Sine. They were galloping around at one point. Fun.

The kids couldn't stay away from Magnet forever, of course.

Being around them is good training. And this guy.

The supervisor. His name is Kurt. He seems like such a nice guy. Calm and gentle, yet with authority when it comes to the kids. And nice to talk to. I was taking pictures of Magnet...

...hehe. And Kurt came by and said something like "you sure must have a lot of pictures of him by now". And I said yeah and told him that I liked to go around taking pictures. Told him I hoped they didn't mind. And they didn't of course. I knew that, if they minded me taking pictures they would have said something long ago. But good to make conversation. "You must have pictures of him from day one almost" he said. Yup. Almost. I think my first pictures of Magnet must be from when he was two or three days old. It might actually have been his first steps outside the stables that I saw. "He's not getting less cute though" Kurt said when we talked about how Magnet was growing. He sure ain't.

Later on we talked a little bit more. It seems the city wants to build a club on part of the playground's grounds. That would be such a crime. What, do the troubled ghetto kids need a club or a beautiful peace of green nature with wonderful animals and nice people? I'm sure clubs are nice. But this place is cement ghetto, troubled people. They should think about planting more trees, not chopping them down. I hope it won't happen.

I also asked him how old Mads was. Almost two years old. That's still an oldtimer compared to Magnet of course.

A daycare group came to see the animals.

Don't tell me animals aren't what kids need.

As I was getting ready to leave I went to see the sheeps.

Up on the hill.

And all about. That was where the daycare group was.

Hehe. Everybody was a little afraid of the mama. But the lambs are irresistable too.

I love his facial expression, White. He looks so cute.

So I was going to go, but then suddenly I saw Mathilde coming. She actually came from the other side of the playground, to me. Well, I don't know if she came to see me specifically. And even if she did then she came mostly because I'm the great provider of carrots. But it was still very sweet. Seeing this shy goat coming to see me, looking for me.

So I ended up staying longer. Standing on the hill. Seeing Magnet interact with the sheepies.

Hehe. Mathilde actually rammed mama sheep at one point. That's the most assertive I have ever seen her be, I think.

There was a kid who was kind of teasing the animals too. Not to be mean I'm sure. But he got Mads going.

At one point the kid was running and jumping around and he was getting Mads to jump around too. Mads jumping in the air, trying to ram the kid. It was almost like bullfighting, Mads would charge at the kid and the kid would jump away.

He teased mama sheep too. And Kurt kept telling him to stop. "If you don't stop I'll set her free". Mama sheep was on a chain. With the lambs walking around free. But the kid kept teasing mama and then Kurt did it, he set mama free. And the kid didn't think it was fun anymore, haha. He started running away.

And mama sheep took chase. I'm not sure she was actually running after him, but she was running. And the lambs ran after. And the kid ran for his life.

There's really no reason to be afraid of mama sheep. She's a bit big and she comes on a bit strong if she senses food, but I doubt she could hurt anyone either. Of course that's easy for me to say, I'm big and strong hehe. It is quite cute when some of the kids get scared of Mads or the sheep. Not terrified or crying or anything. I'm not sadistic. But just sort of intimidated. And then I feel like the old, wise natureguy because I go up and calmly cuddle the animals. It's a good feeling actually, getting comfortable around the animals. I can feed them with flat hand, I can cuddle them. Mads can try to ram me. It doesn't scare me. A year ago I had no experience with animals really. Now I feel completely comfortable. It's great.

Grrrrargh, it's so late. Must go. I'll leave you with Magnet, because I want the world to adore him.

Ta ta!

PS. Maile, I hope everything will be okay. The world can be a good place, don't let it get you down.