Getting every penny's worth out of our new shoes!

Two good days of riding in a row! We are now able to get up early and get out and back and still have time for chores. We are still riding in our chinks and gloves, but able to wear fewer layers and lighter coats. Both Jupiter and Buster were ready for a ride and came easily to us.

Saturday was a short ride, but due to my picking the wrong trail, which led us back to the road kind of early, it worked out; because like Lynn said, it is just good to be out and ahorseback. We both had things to do when we got home anyway.

We didn't ride last weekend due to rain and the boys have been on grass all week. The week before we had been taking them out for half an hour to get used to grass. They are fat and happy. But then there's Mr. Sassypants. Every weekend that we have ridden, he has been huffing and stopping to catch his breath. I didn't expect to have issues with him--after all, he is now 13 and is supposed to be past all that mischief. Nope, he is a twisty-neck horse who wants his own way. Heaven forbid we pass up a good grassy spot without eating. (He kept looking back to make sure Buster didn't get any either!) Or maybe he thinks all the grass will be gone by the time he gets home. Or maybe, and this is probably most of it, he needs to be ridden--a lot--so he remembers how to act and who is in charge. Every year we start out like this.

Sunday we rode Underwood. After worrying about getting stuck in our usual parking place, we decided parking at the dry camp a few turns up the road might be just the ticket! Yepper. Perfect. The boys thought we were somewhere new. We had a great ride and got back in time for church; my idea of a perfect Sunday morning.

Lynn's saddle should be here tomorrow. She is super excited and plans to work on getting it just right. She will probably take Zigs and go for a short ride--which will make that jealous boy happy.

A few days in April

We have braved the cold and the wet and ventured out ahorseback and every moment has been good for the soul. We have ridden every Saturday and had a glorious Wednesday thrown in. The boys have been easy to catch and ready to roll.

Buster is doing so much better--he absolutely loves Lynn. He comes right to her and although he was extremely head shy when we brought him home, he now likes to have his face rubbed and will put it on you for some attention. He unloads slowly and carefully, rather than barreling out like he was in a stock trailer; he stands still for her to mount, instead of taking off. She doesn't even use a mounting log! She says he's so short and easy to get on and off. He doesn't throw his head anymore going downhill. Ziggy is very jealous and bites at Buster all the time. Her new saddle will be here in a couple weeks and I think it will be Bus who becomes jealous. He loves to go. She gives him his granola bar slathered with marshmallow with some arthritis medicine in the middle and he's ready; however, she says she can tell that it hurts a little going downhill. We are thinking we will pony him and then take him with us camping this summer. Food for thought!

That fat, greedy boy I ride got my finger yesterday--totally my fault. We had stopped in a green grassy area and I pulled out a broken up granola bar for the girls. I don't usually give him the broken pieces from the saddle; if I am sharing a broken one, I do it from the ground and have him take from my palm. Yesterday, I was tossing them to the girls and he was twisted around so far that I thought I could do it, but nope! Even though I had no fingers out, he caught one. It's fine. Just some ripped skin. (Probably a good thing I had gloves on.)

Jupiter was a little high the first days we rode, even wanting to buck for joy. He was tossing and twisting his neck and ready to do a hard trot to a lope. I think he was wanting to be in front of Buster and get to the grassy spot first--you know how he loves to eat! But the last two times we rode, he had other things to think about: being alone and steep hills making him be out of breath.

First of all, we did a little work on them. We split up, went by ourselves on two different branches of the trail, and then came together to met on the lower end of the trail. The first time, Jupes went quite a ways before he stopped and looked back for Buster. He stopped a few times, looking for him. I just sang to him and kept his feet moving down the road. Ziva was with us and everything seemed fine. Haley joined us on a dead run. We turned off the road toward the bottom trail and Jupe started to whinny. He whinnied probably three times--big belly shaking whinnies. I told him, "You don't even like him! What's the matter with you?" :) When we saw them on the trail, he trotted quickly up to them.

Lynn's side of the split was quieter. Buster kept looking for us, didn't whinny and just felt nervous, but didn't do anything other than what he was supposed to do. Although, when Haley abandoned them, Lynn said he got more nervous.

The second time, Buster was in front. Lynn said he just motored on like it was nothing. This time Jupes could see we were not going together and he got balky. He tried a couple times to follow Buster, but eventually did what I asked of him. When we came to the road, we could see them down on the bottom corner and he did not want to get on the next trail and whinnied big time. However, he did what he was supposed to do and we met up at the bottom again.

It was interesting and fun to split up. I have never ridden alone, either. Jupes and I have never had to go for help like Lynn and Ziggy and we haven't ever had to run back to the trailer for a boot and then catch up. (Knock on wood!!) Nothing like that. We have always been with the group. Being apart was good for all of us.

We have ridden in water and mud every one of those April days. It is just running down the trails and pooled up into big ponds. Our get-on rock at the turtle pond has been nearly submerged and Lynn says she has never seen the pond so full. Yesterday, she and Buster rode through pond on what is our normal trail and the water was up to his thighs--not quite belly high--but close. Remember, he does have short legs, but it was pretty deep considering that was our normal trail. We saw lots of turtles and Lynn watched one fall into the pond shell-side down--he must either be the show-off of the family or the klutsy, gomer of the family.

Anyway, we have work to do at home and church to attend, so Sundays have been our off days. As much as I love to attend (and NEED to) church, I am sorry we are not out there right now. It is cold, but it is sunny and beautiful. So when we're retired, will we ride 4-5 times a week and then do our chores? Seven times a week? We need to make more trails! Will our chores ever be caught up enough? At least I won't have to do school stuff. Hmm. Does that mean my house will get dusted? Ha! Probably not.

A Second Opinion

The Trail Trial Obstacle Course turned out to be a mixed bag--it was fun and everyone was friendly and appreciative. Many of the riders said, "Thank you," and enjoyed their experience. Being on the ground and walking them through our events was fun and we got to see a lot of pretty horses. The interactions between the llama and the horses was the fun to watch and the lost hiker with the map, large backpack and tall antennae was fun, too. One of the first horses to come through totally shied away from the hiker and her map, as she said, "Hi! I'm a lost hiker!" The woman on the horse said, "And this horse isn't going to help you!" It was funny. He did settle down after a couple minutes.

All the riders said exactly what we would've said, "I trail ride all the time. We see stuff like this every day, but he acts like he's never been outside!" It was funny. Lynn kept reminding them, "You're in an arena. It's not the same. It's an arena; there are horses in stalls whinnying, people in bleachers above them, and roof over the top of them. It's weird lighting (kind of dark) and there's a lot of horses in here." They agreed, but even though they were having fun, you could tell it was a little frustrating sometimes. Lots of people got off their horses and walked them through the "scary" part and then got back on.

I didn't ever hear Lynn say it, but "monkey see, monkey do," was probably part of it, too. There were probably plenty of horse brains saying, "That horse is scared of something over there--I better be ready to whirl and run!" There were horses whirling in circles. There were others lifting off their front feet in the air and turning away from obstacles, and others backing up quickly and swinging around. At some point in the day, most riders were going sideways. Now--not all. There were also some very calm, "git 'er done," horses--both males and females--who did the course with one eye peeled, but with little visible effort or trepidation.

Because the llama guy was chatty and horses were a little freaked, I spent some time talking with people waiting to for their turn to pass by him (the first time--they had to do it twice). Several said, "I can feel his heart beating!" The llama was cute. He would put his nose up to the horse's nose if he could; of course not all horses were up for that, but a lot went nose to nose--especially the babies. They were like, "Hey, who are you?" They weren't overly afraid of anything.

Next to the llama was a mule. He brayed all day and dug to China. He had big white pack boxes on and some people said, "My horse does not like the white things." :) Horses balked at the crisscrossed down logs and they didn't like turning around at the downed tree; I guess a lot horses bypassed the bear and mountain lion event completely; although, one lady said she finally got her horse by the bear and it shied a little at the mountain lion, but after she reached up and rang the bell, her horse reached up and rang it, too! Another woman said that she got her horse to back down the "narrow canyon," but then the rooster crowed and it was all over from there. :) So, it was fun. We didn't get to see the horses go through the events at the far end, but our end was pretty entertaining.

Unfortunately, the event planners were way off in their expectations. I wish they had not said anything Saturday night about the numbers. We had already walked the outside area looking for where we would park and had it planned out. In addition, we got there before 8am Sunday, and could have easily got our horses set up to hang out. It was a beautiful sunny day, as well. Because only a little over 40 people registered and paid their fees, we got them all through before lunch. After lunch, they all got to go through again--some of them went three times. Then the committee started going for their horses and they were riding the course. It was at the point that I told Lynn, "Okay, let's go; I'm done." At lunch, Lynn said she had considered calling Lee and telling him to load up our boys and bring them over. Had we brought them, they (and us) could have easily handled the day. Oh well. We have a new plan for next time: help set up the night before, bring our horses and pay the fee, ride the course, offer to give people breaks, ride the course a second time after lunch, and go home. :)

However, I really enjoyed doing my event and I think Lynn did, too. That's rub about doing things like this--there has to be people who will help. We were those people this weekend and I didn't see anyone else hanging around offering to do it. There were 13 people manning the individual events; 2 people starting the horses from the entrance; 2+ cooking hamburgers and hotdogs; 2+ selling/taking money for the concessions; 2-3 working the membership table and selling t-shirts, 50-50 tickets, and admission bracelets; one guy teaching knots; one guy who gave breaks to people threatening to use the trees as cover to go potty behind; and one woman who said, "I'm here to help clean up." So that's approximately 25 people just to run the event. I don't know how many people there are in the Redwood Unit of BCHA, but I am willing to bet there are a quite a few who are like us: pay our dues and read the newsletter, but never participate with the group. In the end, I feel good about volunteering and I know Lynn does, too. Sometimes, it's okay to sacrifice your own fun for the fun of others. It was just another kind of fun. And honestly, I would do it again.

One and Done

The Back Country Horseman  (Humboldt County branch) advertised that were putting on a Trail Trial Obstacle Challenge. We tentatively began talking about whether we wanted to go. Then they sent out emails that asked for volunteers to work the event with the hook that they would get to do the course at the end of the day for free. That sounded like fun. So, thinking we would be good members and get involved more, we gave up our Saturday ride and headed to Ferndale.

Well, it worth a few chuckles. It wasn't as organized as either of us expected and there was quite a bit of disagreeing (bickering) among the three women "in charge." We spent three hours setting up and walking through the course. It has potential to be fun. They are bringing in turkeys, chickens, llamas (!), a fan to blow and rattle a tent, bear pee (?), and there are doves and pigeons flying to their nests in the rafters all the time. It should be interesting.

But then we heard that 200+ people were coming. They said that last year, they had 30 and it took all day. Everyone started mumbling that maybe they would rethink bringing their horses.

We had already been out scoping where to park and how to handle our boys. We didn't want them standing on pavement all day. We weren't sure about being in the trailer from 5:30 am to 4:00 pm either. They weren't going to be where we could see them. We weren't sure if we were even going to get bathroom breaks, let alone check on the horses breaks. Although we really wanted to do the obstacle course, we decided to leave the boys home.

According to Facebook (where I think they are getting their numbers), there are over 200 people "interested" in the Trail Trials Challenge. There are 50ish who are "going." We are going to be super disappointed if there aren't that many and we could've done the course without a lot of stress of having the our horses there. We are going to be very tired if there are tons of people and we spend the day standing at our posts. Most of all--it is going to be beautiful day and we are going to miss out on a second day of riding. AND hang out with people who are only marginally friendly.

Next time, we will do this differently.

FEBRUARY

It's been a good month! Alisa and Keota came over to ride on Keota's birthday weekend, which coincided with Lincoln's day off for Lynn. We rode bundled up both Saturday and Sunday. They were cold, but glorious days. We called it early on Sunday because the wind was really moving and everyone was a little jumpy; but Saturday we rode on the left fork and went up and around to the turtle pond. It was fun. It feels like forever since we rode with Alisa. All the dogs had fun and horses were glad to get out and see some country.

The next weekend it was dreary. Lynn called and said it was cold and supposed to rain and we all had things to do. Fine. I went in and worked on something (wasting time more like) and when I came out the sun was shining.
        I called Lynn instantly, "THE SUN IS SHINING!"
        She said, "I'll see you in few minutes!"
And we were off! We had a great ride and worked on our new trail.We turned around at the top and came home, but it was fun and we all loved it.

Today was another "Do we or don't we?" day. We have done this practically all month. We want to, but it's cold. We want to, but we have stuff to do. We want to, but we need to go to town for groceries. Sheesh. Talk about two indecisive people! All our weather advisors told us it would not rain until after 2pm. I wanted to go to church, but we wouldn't be back in time. What to do? Silly question. We rode!

It was 35 degrees and snow was on the ground and in the trees. It was beautiful and worth every minute. We only rode to the spot where we would have to ride the road because it was icy on the road. I guess our next project needs to be to make a trail that bypasses that long stretch of road. Unfortunately, it's pretty steep all along there. Anyway, we saw icicles and were careful around big clumps of snow that threatened to go down our backs. We slipped and slid a little, but came home happy.

After unsaddling at home, we walked Bus and Jupes to Shirley's so she could see they weren't sweaty and cold and she could nuzzle with Buster. I think it made her day--made ours, too.

Bare footin' and grousing

February is here and with it usually a false spring. Saturday was such a day. The forecast was for 70+ degrees; although I don't think it reached that temp while we were riding, it was still a glorious day!

After a week of being able to think of nothing else, Lynn said we would start at 7am. We knew we needed to brush all the mud and pitch off Jupiter and Buster; load the saddles, head stalls, helmets, and the other necessary detritus into the 4-wheeler; connect the pickup; and then put everything all away again; and I needed to be home around noon-1:00. Gene had company and wanted to run around a bit, so I was on Mom duty.

At 6:30, she called and said, "Um, it's really dark out there." I laughed. Yep, so it is. I told her we didn't really need five hours. So at 8:00, I arrived. Boy they were dirty horses. But we got them loaded and off we went.

The original plan was to toodle around the ranch. The boys are barefoot and we figured it would easiest on their feet. But we as we headed that way, we began to see bits and pieces of car parts. Both of us started worrying about the state of the meadow. Sure enough, it was torn up. Bad. Off to the side of the road was the chassis of a vehicle. It had two wheels, with tires surprisingly, and was upside down. We decided not to go on down to the lower meadow. :(

We continued up the road with both boys looking for the softest ground to walk on. When we rounded the corner just below the little road that leads to the big mess of a campsite above the meadow (got that? :) LOL), we saw something. It was the body of the car off on that little road. I am not sure what exactly Buster did (he was ahead of us), but he snorted or something and you know Jupes--he snorted, shied, and we whirled away from it. I talked him through it and we were able to walk, albeit a little sideways, past it. Suddenly, Haley jumped up a grouse. Good grief! Flap, flap, flap, flap! You got it--another shy, this time much, much larger. :) But he recovered before anyone could tease him and walked on like it was nothing.

We rode up to our trail and found a new way to go. We all really like it--well let me change that--Jupes did not. It was a little narrow where there were trees with branches sticking out and he did not want to go through it. But after a solid, knees locked balk, I told him he had to and he gave in. On our way back down it later, we fixed some of the trail, but next time we will need to cut some of those branches. At least now I know what we will fail at if and when we ever do a trail trial--it will be those colorful nerf branches off the poles. He will not want to do that for sure. (Especially since he is so smart, he'll be like, "Seriously, can you not see that we can go around it?")

Haley and Ziva jumped up three more grouse, in three different places, but all they got was an ear. The two of them had a wonderful time. The two of us had a glorious time. And I think the boys enjoyed getting off the place, they just wished they had some shoes on. :)

I'm am already looking forward to next weekend.

Cowgirlin'

On Shirley's 86th birthday, Lynn and I rode on Underwood. It was wonderful. We didn't do the whole ride--skipping the steep hill and then going around the pond, but it was glorious nevertheless. Have we said we love our chinks enough? Probably. :)

Bus and Jupe did a little competitive trotting up the road and Lynn said again how smooth Buster is. I'm glad. I like to trot.

Afterward, we fed Barry and Nancy's horses and met the cutest kitten. Then we came home to fix fence. It was so cool! We got these twisty wires (fence stays?) and we rode/walked the fence line with Lee and the chainsaw. They work so great! It was fun. Then we moved the horses to the hill. They were so happy.

Funny story:
On Wednesday, I had a meeting in town so I did everyone's grocery shopping. :) I called Lynn and said, meet me at my house to pick up your stuff after work. I drove by her as she was pulling onto the highway after work. When she didn't come, I called her and found out that she was working on a water problem uptown, so I went to feed the horses.

First of all, it was getting dark. I hurried, but did not get Lynn's headlamp. First mistake. But I got the hay bale down and cut the string without a lot light--first hurdle accomplished.

I got Happy, Haley, & Ziva all lined out and we were off. No horses at the gate, no bucking and being wild. All good so far.

I drove up the hill to where we have been feeding. I parked and left the motor running and lights on. I was trying to get the hay as fast as I could, but there was Jupes, slinging hay off the four-wheeler. Next to him was Big Zig grabbing off the other side. I hollered at Star,"stay there, I'm coming!" I told Buster, "just hang on, I'll get you some." I'm pushing at Jupes, "Doggone it. Look what you did!" I reached down and scooped up all the now loose hay off the ground and started toward the tree to give Buster some.

Next thing I know--I am sprawling across a down tree. "Oh no, oh no," I say loudly as I go down onto my knees and then a belly flop onto the hay. (I did not say, "Shit!" I know you're surprised.) "OH NO!" I am scrambling and pushing at Buster's knees--I have lost my glasses in the mud and hay and DARK. I cannot see anything except Buster's feet. "Wait," I tell him. I am scooping at hay and sticks and trying to feel the frames of my glasses. Jupiter is almost on top of me, "What're you doin' NOW?" I was so worried about my glasses, I didn't have time to worry he might step on me. Thank goodness they can see.

Anyway, finally one scoop of hay and sticks also had something that felt like frames--YAY! I found them. I scrambled up and scooped the hay to take to the original destination I had planned. I managed to get all the hay spread out for them and back up the four-wheeler without anything getting broken and any of us getting hurt. A big win.

And funny.

After hearing my story and seeing the mud and detritus on my glasses, Lee gave me a free cleaning. Then I drove home with another adventure under my belt from The Place aka 10 Firs aka Acorn Alley. I'll be a cowgirl, yet.

:)