Big Loop

After a long, six-day work week (isn't it summer?what am I doing?!), I got to spend Sunday morning with my best friends. A phone call from Lynn on Saturday ensured my attendance on Sunday's ride: Jupiter threw a tantrum on Saturday when Ziggy and Star left the pasture without him. She said he ran and whinnied and kicked and bucked--he wanted to go! When they returned, he ran from the far corner to the gate to meet them. He likes to go and doesn't want to be left at home.

We did the long ride that was cut short when Alisa was here last--no crazy stud horse loose on the trail this time. We started out somewhere around 6:30am and finished up by 10:30, right when it was starting to heat up. We had a great ride! Unfortunately, I think we are going to have to find an alternate route; there were too many "camps" for comfort. One of them had a friendly pit bull, but one of them had a dog chained up who sounded a little vicious. We don't want trouble for Happy for sure, and I don't want to have to kill someone's dog either. We want to do this ride with Susie, so we need to work on cutting a trail.

After passing the last camp, we rode through a dense, bushy area (right before the cut block where we have a short rest and treats) of wild lilacs. In some parts, I just lay over Jupe's neck rather than fight the brush. When we emerged from the bushes, not only did we smell good, both Lynn and I had lilac blooms inside our ears!

On the way up, we saw turtles in the little pond. Although it has water in it now, the pond will probably dry up if the weather stays like it has been. So Shirley wants us to drive up there, hike in, and retrieve them so they can live in her pond.

Some of the fun things we did included jumping over logs. It has been awhile since we rode through there and some trees have come down. Jupiter loves to jump. I think it's fun, too. Ziggy is so tall and long-legged, most of the time he doesn't have to jump--he takes it all in his long stride. He sure looks pretty when he canters, too. Jupe and I trotted and ran a little faster this time, but I am still nervous about being out of control. Nevertheless, I think he had fun yesterday, too.

How many days 'til Saturday?

Cowgirl work

Yesterday, Lynn and I strung electric fence wire. It was an adventure. (Well everything with Lynn kinda turns out that!) We used the quad to hold the wire and then went along the fence hanging it on the insulators. There were problems of course, but Lynn was able to "jimmy-rig" everything to work. (She is her father's daughter afterall.) Then we came to the biggest obstacle. She makes me nervous, but as anyone who knows her can attest, there's no stopping her when she gets an idea.

The fence stretches from the highway to the upper fence line, crossing an arm of the pond in the field next to Shirley's house. The spool of wire is a little heavy and the pond was probably 8 feet across--bank to bank. We weren't sure if we could pitch it across and catch it before it rolled down into the brakish water. Izzy was playing in the water right there chasing water walkers and was muddy to her belly. Lynn decided belly deep wasn't that deep and she would drive the quad across the pond. In both of our minds was the kind of bottom she would be driving across. Would she sink? Would she get stuck in the muck? The alternative was to take off her shoes and wade across--yuck!! Salamanders and gunky, oozy black mud? It was worth the risk.

We rolled out 10 feet of wire and she drove in, with me holding the wire so it didn't get tangled. Her first attempt found her unable to get traction and she spun out trying to get up the bank on the other side. She backed back over to the side I was standing on and said, "Don't hold on to the wire, I'm going to gun it across!" Ha! Well, she made it! She didn't even get her feet wet. Success all around.

Rattlesnakes, Squirrels, and Vultures; Oh My!

Saturday was a new adventure for us. Lynn and I loaded up the sleepy and somewhat nervous boys to head for Redding in the dark morning hours. She had moved them from the pasture with everyone else to a closer one with just the two of them. They spent the night by the gate nearest the older boys, who were a whole pasture away. Ziggy about jumped out of his skin when Lynn called his name. He thought for sure a monster had come for him. Once he recognized her voice and the sleep cleared from his head, he came right to her.

We met Alisa and our new friend, Suzy for breakfast. The world truly is small and soon we realized that we had friends in common who had been trying to get us all together and we did it accidentally! Too funny. Suzy took us to the Clear Creek/Swasey Trail loops. We began by following her and her pretty boy Forest on the trail that leads to the bathroom at the trailhead to start with and Jupiter finally peed with the saddle on! I was happy. The man in the parking lot probably wasn't as the yellow river ran downhill toward him and smelled strongly. He probably thought I was nuts because I was so excited over this event. (:

From there we set out to make some nice loops with gorgeous overlooks. Odie really wanted to lead and Alisa had to work to make him settle down, but Ziggy set a good, long-legged pace that made Jupiter trot every now and then to stay up. It was a gorgeous day and not too hot. I heard two rattlesnakes; one that rattled and one that whizzed! I am just as glad that I did not see them, nor did Jupiter, I think. All of the horses did fine if they did see them! We also had a tiny squirrel run out of a hole at Odie, run alongside Jupiter, through Forest's legs and then stop under Ziggy. Fortunately, Ziggy did not step on him and squish him.

Jupiter does not care for the gray piles of dead limbs and bushes. He is concerned about gray rocks sometimes. He has not shied, but really keeps his eye on them. He is pretty sure that they could be monsters. Well, as we were heading down the trail to end our day, sure enough a monster did come to life! Vultures were startled by our passing and rose up out of some brush to our left. Jupiter did not bolt or whip around, but he stopped on a dime! There were probably four or five vultures flapping up and off whatever was in there. I can't blame Jupe, it startled me too. Now he'll never believe me when I say, "Silly boy, they're only sticks," again. He might start talking like Star and tell me, "Oh yeah? Remember that one time?"

One of the highlights of the day was in between trails we rode down to Clear Creek. It was a nice spot to let the horses get into the water and drink. I think all the horses thought we could have spent more time playing in the water, as they seemed to like it.

After riding on the opposite side of the road for an hour or so, we decided to call it a day. But what a day! It was fun and we look forward to doing many more rides with Suzy.

Good Grief!

Lynn and I went for a short ride and did a new little loop. She is figuring out how to make it a longer loop. All was going pretty well, but Jupiter--who likes to go downhill in the soft stuff a little faster than I want him to--stumbled. In my mind, I pictured both of us going head over heels; however, it was only me. Yep. I did it again. Lynn said I almost did a complete somersault and if I would have stood up at the end of it, I could have earned some points. Sheesh. Jupe's toes are a little long and hopefully we'll get new shoes next week and we won't stumble anymore.

Jupiter and I try to stay farther back on the downhills so we can watch Ziggy and give him some room. His big ol' long legs need extra distance. He did really good and only slid on his hocks instead of his butt. The dirt was extra soft and churned up, so no one got any real scrapes or bruises.