A couple of recent rides

I am getting awfully slow about relating our weekend adventures! Sorry!

Weekend before last, Jupiter bucked me off. I am not sure why. Lynn says he was mad because Ziggy cut us off and got in front coming off the new trail. This is definitely a possibility. It could however be that since I am more of a novice rider than perhaps I appear--I may have done something that caused him to rebel. He was picking up his pace and I may have pulled too hard on the reins. I don't know. It felt like he was crow hopping and twisting. At any rate, I went off sideways to our right. I landed on a shoulder and knee and kind of twisted. But I think I popped up pretty quickly--you know everything happens so fast, it's hard to know exactly. Anyway, I am fine. Another scraped knee--another scar--another story to tell. Sandi says it's better to have a horse who fights to be in the front than a horse who never wants in the lead; so that's one way to look at it. (:

Last weekend we went up Underwood to ride our new loop. It turned in to an adventure, too. We saw two fawns about the same size as Haley. She was on one of them--inches from catching a leg or landing on top of it. She disappeared and we called and called. Finally she found us. Then we saw a woman sitting on car wrapped in a blanket. I figured she had spent the night under the stars with her hubby (who was going potty in the bushes). As we went down the road, we met a car coming up toward the woman. They were friendly enough, but it was weird. Then we met ANOTHER car! It came from the direction of a dead end road. Lynn said and we agreed that probably they were checking to see who was in the second car.

But then Haley disappeared again! This time Lynn and Ziggy ran back up the road looking for her. She came to Shirley and me down at the bottom, but as Lynn was coming back, Haley took off again up the mountain! They thought maybe she was scared and lost and couldn't see or hear Lynn who was 10 yards clomp, clomping (Ziggy not Lynn) from her, but I think there was something in forest that she was concerned about. We had to call and call again and look for her a little in the woods. Anyway, based on her trip to the top, Lynn said all the people in the three cars were friends. So I guess they were just ordinary drug dealers/growers. It was still weird to see people and cars way back in there. (I wonder if they have hidden cameras and know when it's just us.)

Coming up the hill where there's a tree across the road, I decided to take the route Lynn and Alisa took rather than the one Shirley and I took last time. I knew Jupes didn't want to go that way and I figured it would be good to make him do what I wanted. Well, he was right. We got caught up in the brush, which he doesn't like at all; I got wrapped up in it too and as I was calming him down and trying to free myself so I wouldn't be brushed off, he jumped sideways and banged my left knee into a tree. Doggone it! Another swollen and scabby knee!

Haley was so tired that night that she just went to bed (Lynn's bed, not her own)--probably from stress as well as physical activity. I didn't get to go on Sunday and haven't heard any stories, so it must have been without any weird events and everyone's horse behaved and the proficient riders they are just sat their seats. (: 

So there you have it--two weekends in one post.