Another Horse-Filled Weekend

Shar and I had the plan to, once again, ride both weekend days.  It had been cold and windy all week, so we hadn't done any mid-week riding at all.  Nathan was with me for the weekend, so I told him the tentative plan for both days and asked if he wanted to come with me Saturday, and he did.  We arrived to find almost all of the horses laying flat-out, basking in the sun.  Arya's a behemoth, but seems even bigger when she's laying down and you can really see how wide her barrel is!

We were originally thinking of riding down to the river, either on the same route I took on my solo ride the prior week, or possibly lengthening one leg of it to make a longer loop.  We headed out the driveway to the left.  Then Shar proposed that we actually head down the road we'd done in the dark a few weeks prior.  Coming back up would be good cardio for the horses, especially if we trotted some of it, and we could explore in the daylight to see if there was any way to hook up to the trails on the other side of the golf course.

To get to that road with the least amount of travel on busier roads, we needed to backtrack.  We decided rather than retracing our steps and then passing the house, especially with Dalai who has some naughty behavior when it comes to trying to return home (Arya too, but Dalai actually hops and spins a little more animated-ly than Arya), we'd just keep going, then go all the way around the block to where we wanted to be.  So we got to the first intersection and turned left, as everyone expected.  Then we got to the next intersection, where we almost always turn right, and we turned left.  This takes us toward home, so the horses were fine with this decision.  Next corner of the block, there's not really an intersection there, so we have no choice but to turn left, which turns us toward home again, so happy ponies.  Then it's a quick right onto the road we wanted to take, and the first turn that takes us in a not-so-pleasant (according to the bitchy mares) direction.  We were careful (well, Shar was--I often kept forgetting my role) to flank Dalai closely to prevent her getting much steam in the wrong direction.  She actually didn't try very hard, so it was pretty good.  And since Arya was pulling up the rear, she didn't mind following her buddies as much as she would have minded the turn if we were leading or solo.  So it went well.

Then we decided to trot, and Dalai thought maybe a combo of cantering and/or turning for home would get the better of Nathan, but he stuck with her, brought her back to a trot and got her back on track without too much trouble.  We turned at the next corner and walked and trotted that road without too much incident, though Arya (and I'm sure Dalai) were trying to inform us which direction home was from there.

We crossed the busy road without incident (and approaching it, there was a ton of traffic going both directions, but right as we got there, we had a nice big gap in which to cross--yay!), and proceeded along it a bit, then were back onto a quiet dirt road again.  We did a bit more trotting, including "pass and be passed."  We walked down the hill, Dalai and a pretty good pace, and Arya and Flash following a little more slowly.  At the bottom, we continued on the road past where Shar and I had turned around in the dark.  From the satellite view, it looked possible that the road petered out into a trail, and then it was hard to tell whether it went around the golf course or just kind of ended there, so that's what we wanted to check out.  We came to a gate, but since it only said "controlled access" and not "no tresspassing," and had a nice wide area for horses or people on foot to get around it, it definitely seemed they only cared about keeping vehicular traffic out, so we proceeded.  After the rough gravel leading up to the gate, it was nice footing after it, and I think we trotted a little bit more.  Then the horses spied the golfers and went on high alert, and we walked, watching for the best trail to follow without getting too close to the golf course.  The trail took a right, but then it got to the golf cart path and said No Tresspassing, so we were stuck.  I'm pretty sure the only other option would have been to cut through private property of individuals, so we turned around and retraced our steps again.  No biggie.  We'd extend the ride another way, since this had been a very short out-and-back so far.

As we got onto the uphill section, we took up a trot.  Arya wanted to go faster, possibly canter, but I wanted to hold her back to a slow trot as we had a LONG uphill slog, and I was hoping to trot at least most of it, if it didn't tire her out too much.  I'd just been telling Shar how annoying it is when she tosses her head in the trot (partially because of my nervousness issues, but also because I'm pretty sure she's not watching her feet at all when she does it, so while it's not so scary on a nice flat road, it can be pretty dangerous on singletrack with hazards like rocks and roots and holes), and Shar had suggested I let one rein go loose while keeping the other one taut when she does that, so she doesn't have the satisfaction of feeling like she might be able to get the reins out of my hands, but neither does she get the satisfaction of zero rein pressure, either.  When I tried to contain her at the bottom of the hill, sure enough, she started her head tossing, and after a couple back-and-forths, tried the one rein trick, and sure enough--she quit pretty quickly.  Ha!  Gotta remember that trick!  We trotted up the hill at a slowish but still hard-working pace, and then I decided to give it one good gusto and go for a canter when it flattened out a bit and the spacing between horses seemed right (we were getting a bit behind Flash, but not so much so she'd try to race to catch up, either).  I tried to get my weight a little further back in preparation, urged her on, and she did it!  At first, she seemed ready to break back to a trot after only a couple strides, but I squeezed her on, and we even passed flash a bit, probably doing only five or six strides of canter.  But I stayed calm, wasn't worried, and didn't bounce out of the saddle too much.  Yay!  When we came back to a trot, I let out a huge WOO HOO, as did Shar.  Nathan wondered what all the commotion was about.  :-)  But it's huge for me to canter these days, so it was a good moment to not only canter successfully, but without fear.  We walked the rest of the way up the hill, as Arya was breathing pretty hard by this point, and deserved a bit of a reward for her good behavior, too.

We retraced our steps a ways, crossing the busy road without incident again, and I was getting warm, so I removed my jacket (while still wearing my safety vest, though unzipped--basically like removing a bra while still wearing a shirt).  I needed to tie it to the saddle, but while I can't really steer Arya one-handed, I REALLY can't steer her zero-handed, and needed both hands to do the ties, of course.  Just after we turned left (away from home), I finally decided to just stop her rather than letting her get way off course while I tried to tie, then steering her back on track and having to start all over again.  Problem was, since we had JUST turned the "wrong" direction, this was really just about the worst time to actually stop rather than keep going and trying to do it later, either while moving, or stopping much further from the problem intersection.  Oops.  Bad trail buddy.  Luckily, I got the jacket tied on right about when Shar was miffed enough to just get going without us, so we all proceeded along together.  Another couple trot sessions, including one in which Arya spooked pretty hard at nothing I could identify, and kind of went it the ditch, but I managed to stay seated.

Then we came to where the road dead ends, and we all dismounted.  I re-adjusted my jacket a little more securely, and also removed Arya's bridle so she could graze while we moseyed around.  Shar thought she remembered there being a safe-ish trail to proceed down off what is, in most places along there, a sheer cliff, but has occasional places where it's more of a bouldering expedition instead.  She found such a spot, though I think "safe-ish" is even a little optimistic.  She and Flash led the way, and watching him stumble a bit and nearly get his foot caught between two large rocks (though he didn't), I was more than a bit concerned, as Arya's not the most graceful under normal conditions.  This could end up being a disaster.  I tried to stay a bit out ahead of her, so if she had to lunge a bit, she wouldn't have to choose between trampling me and crashing straight down the hill or something, and she actually did REALLY well.  She chose her foot placement carefully, and while a bit hesitant (and constantly stopping to eat), she willingly followed me down the not-trail over some pretty big rocks.  Good girl!  Then Nathan and Dalai followed in our steps, and did as well as we had done.  So yay for us!

Once down on the flat, we were back on familiar territory (for me and Shar, anyway--Nathan hadn't been there before).  We all took a potty break before mounting back up, but just as we were about to climb back on, a ranger (BLM) appeared, and asked if we'd seen any transient camps.  We hadn't, but he gave us his card and we told him we'd report them if we saw them.  And with that, we finally mounted back up and headed for home.  Nathan led the way on Dalai, with a few instructions from the peanut gallery who had actually ridden the trail before.  :-)  One more road crossing (where a hot pink trailer waited for us, holding back traffic, which was nice, though it's traffic from the OTHER direction, with a blind curve, that we really needed to worry about), and we were done with those for the ride.

Shar asked if we wanted to pick up a trot again.  This was a stretch where Arya has gotten pretty nasty about me holding her back in the past, especially on solo rides, though we weren't solo today.  We also haven't ridden it in probably close to six months, so maybe it was worth a shot.  Though I was behind Dalai but in front of Flash, which is the worst position for controlling her.  Dalai has a fast trot, especially when starting off (and with Nathan aboard--Shar can control it), and Arya wants to keep up, of course.  If Flash were in front of us (in either position), Shar would control the speed.  If Arya was in the very front, she wouldn't be too likely to trot very fast, and I could probably just ride it out until she naturally slowed down a bit anyway.  But I steeled myself mentally and physically, and agreed to trot.  Gotta work on stuff like this.  Sure enough, Dalai took off like a rocket, and I clenched the reins, and Arya put her head down and broke into a canter to catch up.  The first few strides felt VERY up and down, and the old me might have even called it a buck, but I had been prepared, both mentally and physically (leaning back), so I stuck with it, looked ahead not down, and reminded myself I can ride a canter.  After the initial "bucky" strides, she wasn't as adamant about having her head down, and it smoothed out into a more normal canter, and I was able to use my weight and reins to bring her back to a trot (plus we'd pretty much caught up to Dalai).  Shar was hollering for Nathan to slow Dalai down, but either he doesn't know how to effectively, or she figures he doesn't and therefore doesn't listen, as he was having a heck of a time getting her to slow down.  I mean, it wasn't a SUPER fast trot, by any stretch.  Just fast enough that Arya felt a canter would help her catch up and keep up, especially on that stretch of trail where she feels like she ought to be able to run for home.

But...I stuck with it, stayed calm, and while it wasn't what I wanted her to do, we all lived through the experience.  We trotted a little longer in that same session, then came back to a walk for pretty much the rest of the ride, I think.  We made it up the hill where Arya and Noelle and I had all been spooked by a flock of birds in both directions on our solo ride without incident.  On a couple of the last stretches before home, Shar warned Nathan and me first, then did a couple of canter sessions with Flash, both toward and away from home (he doesn't have the issues the girls do, so they can do that sort of thing--we need to reinforce walking CALMLY home with the mares, plus they're both in worse shape and sweated more than him, so benefited from walking home in that way, too).  The girls were apparently tired enough, or well-behaved enough, anyway, that that wasn't a problem, and they did some nice cantering, away from us out ahead, then back past us going the opposite way, then past us again.  Good ponies all the way around on that!

We got back, and Aschere (the baby) was very excited to see his buddies come home, and it was fun to watch him running along side us in his pasture.  I think it was while we were untacking and relaxing a bit after the ride that I remembered Aarene's recent post about whorls on horses faces, and checked Arya to see what she had going on.  She has double whorls (swirling the opposite directions RIGHT next to each other) at what is apparently considered a "low" point.  A bit of googling tells me that the personality associated with the placement of the whorls is probably fairly accurate--the higher they are, the higher-strung the horse, and the lower, the more laid-back.  She's definitely laid back.  However, double whorls are supposed to indicate a double personality, or two sides to her in some respect, and I just can't think of anything about which that applies.  Not that I believe in that kind of stuff anyway, but it's just interesting to read and consider, and in her case, it doesn't really match up (just like my horoscope often doesn't on a day-to-day basis, but I do usually see both sides of any given issue, as a Gemini probably ought to).  Anyway, so that was interesting but pointless.  :-)

After our ride, we gave all the horses who got ridden a little "mash."  Except the alfalfa pellets don't really dissolve, so Arya once again made a huge mess with hers, trying to get the pellets off the bottom without actually ingesting any of the water.  Ugh.  We went inside, watched a bit of TV while waiting for Richard to get home, then all four of us went to the Pump House for dinner.  We asked Nathan whether he'd be likely to ride with us on Sunday, and while apparently the only soreness he experienced afterward was on his seat bones from sitting in the saddle, and not really muscle soreness or chafing or anything, he said he'd stick with just the one day per weekend of riding.

Sunday, I arrived at Shar's house pretty early so we'd have time to load up and get to Henderson by 10:00, which is the time we'd planned to ride.  It was hovering right around freezing, maybe a little above, so while Arya was blanket-free out in the pasture, I figured that being confined in a very breezy box whizzing down the highway at 65 mph, she might prefer a little protection.  I threw the fleece cooler on her (for simplicity and because she probably didn't really need the heavy winter blanket).  She was NOT amused.  I'm pretty sure her train of thought was somewhere along the lines of "I'm a MUSTANG.  I should be running wild and free, not wearing these dumb purple jammies."

We also fetched Flash and he got a blankie for the ride.  And guess who else got to go!  After his awesome outing to the trail course last weekend, Shar was inspired (actually, she'd been talking about doing this for a while), and she decided to bring Aschere along!  If the group had been very large, she wouldn't have brought him at all, and if the group was large-ish, she'd probably have kept him on the lead line the whole time, but since it ended up being just Lianne who came, she figured maybe he'd get to roam free.  He'd come along with us (both free, and then eventually tethered when Arya started getting pissy with him) on a VERY short "trail ride" on the "poop trail" at Julie's place (a few loops of trail where they spread their shavings and manure to make some pretty good footing, and he'd done the trail obstacles at the event the prior week, but this would be his first real trail ride, and definitely his longest.  Woo hoo!

Julie had told me the night before that she wouldn't be able to go, and we messaged the other people we'd invited, and none of them were able to make it, so it was just going to be Lianne.  And Shar realized, after texting her that we were running a little late, that she might've actually told her 11:00.  She checked back through her messages, and sure enough.  Oops!  So now Lianne probably felt rushed to leave the house when she saw our messages, even though since she was the only other person coming, it really didn't matter.  Oops!  Oh well.  We arrived before her, since even though we were running late, we were much closer to the location than her (and had planned to be there a full hour before her), so we took our time tacking up, and goofed around doing other stuff.  I listened to heart rates and gut sounds on all the horses, Shar trimmed bridle paths on her boys...  But we didn't have to wait too long, and especially didn't have to wait long once Lianne arrived, since she had trailered with the saddle on.  Soon enough, we were mounted up and ready to go.

Lianne and Rascal (and Noelle and Arya's ears) at the trailhead

Shar, Flash, and Aschere at the trailhead, plus Noelle and a tiny piece of Arya's year

Setting off--Lianne and Rascal leading the way (that boy walks FAST!), then Shar, Flash, and Aschere, then me and Arya.

 Apparently Arya had rubbed her head on the trailer and some of the white paint rubbed off on her ears, as she had white-tipped ears the entire ride.  Heh.

Shar kept Aschere on the lead for a little bit, to make sure he was with the program, then after checking that Lianne and I were okay with it, she let him off the "leash."  He stayed close for a few seconds, then quickly realized he was free and began scampering around a little further afield from the group, but never wandering too far.

We headed out on the main road that leaves the trailhead we parked at, and passed the staging area for the OHVs.  Noted that they have a restroom there, though we didn't hop off to see if it's unlocked.  It's a bit far from where we park to be useful, but I suppose if it is unlocked, it might be something to keep in mind during the wanderings...

The road slogged up a LONG uphill section.  Steep-ish at first, then flattening out a bit while still being a bit of a hike.  The horses were not amused, and Arya was breathing hard by the end of the steeper portion.  Even the baby was getting tired and breathing kind of hard.  He was so funny!  He'd trit-trot along side us for a bit, but then he'd go scampering off to one side or the other, maybe tripping over some bushes, then he'd come galloping and crashing through the bushes to get back to us again, before taking off some other direction.  The bigger horses weren't super amused with his antics, but they took it pretty well.  Arya's been pastured with him on and off, so she's used to his baby-like antics, and he's used to reading her "back off" body language.  :-)  Rascal was less amused, but still did really well with it.  Luckily, while Aschere did threaten to bite the rump of a couple horses a couple times, he never really got up to any truly naughty behavior.  And it was impressive the stuff that DIDN'T trip him up while he was galavanting out there.  If Shar keeps up with these trails rides for him, he'll be really sure-footed. not to mention well conditioned, when he starts packing a human around.

When we got to the top of the hill, we saw a cattle guard so Shar put a rope on the baby, but we figured there was a way to go around it with the horses (you do NOT let a horse go over a cattle guard, as their foot will likely be trapped and they'll break one or more legs; cattle guards in horse-friendly areas will often have a gate, or even a gap in the fence with appropriate cattle-proofing to let riders go around the cattle guard), but there didn't appear to be.  It had fencing on both sides, and no gates within sight.  Hmm...Shar knows the area and Lianne and I do not, so we followed her lead and we all turned left.  There was a wide trail (the OHV area is for both dirt bikes, which have some narrower trails dedicated to them, and quads, so a lot of the trails are about a horse-and-a-half wide.  Not quite suitable for riding two abreast, but nice and wide.

However, soon the trail we were one, which had been pretty level up to this point, dropped off down a STEEP hillside.  Shar warned us it was steep and suggested we all dismount and walk down it.  We did so, and when we got to the bottom, the trail headed UP and equally steep hill, so we stayed on foot and hiked up it.  Poor Lianne was getting over a bad cold and probably didn't envision her horseback riding outing going like this.  But she passed me up when I took a break during the uphill hike, and I had the idea of trying to "tail" Arya.  Long-distance riders use this technique to save their horse's back, and strength and energy, from having to haul them up hills while mounted, but also to save their own human strength and energy a bit by using the horse to essentially tow them up the hill. While there can be a bit more technique to it, the basic idea is you just hang onto the tail and use your own feet plus a bit of a boost from the horse to go up the hill.  I'd tried it before with Arya, but on a downhill section, just to see how she'd do with having me behind her, hanging onto her tail.  She didn't mind then.  I tried it once some other time, on level ground, solo, and she didn't get the concept and wouldn't go forward.  But this time she had the other horses in front of her for motivation, so I gave it a shot.  I held onto the end of the rope, let her go on past me, and grabbed her tail.  She barely noticed, so I hitched a ride the rest of the way up the hill.  Nice!

We went down one more hill, then Shar (in the lead) got to a junction that indicated we'd been on a "most difficult" trail, but were now intersecting with an "easiest" trail.  Whew!  So after a brief potty break for me, we mounted back up and headed out.  Except while it seemed a bit easier, it still had a couple steep hills.  Luckily the steepest ones were uphill for us, so we stayed mounted.  One was bare crunchy rock.  Oops.  I just kind of grabbed mane and the wither strap of the breastcollar and hung on, letting her trot if she felt that was best, and letting her have enough rein to use her head to balance and lunge her way up the hill.  Poor thing, lugging my weight around.  But we made it.

Luckily, there were just the one or two more mounted uphills before we finally found our way to much flatter ground with much more normal hills.  But hey, both the riding horses AND the baby were definitely getting their workouts this ride!  Once on the flatter, less tree-sheltered land, we started getting hit with a bit of rain/snow mix.  I decided to put my rain shell on before it started coming down in earnest, since I was wearing a cotton sweatshirt that would be miserable when wet.  The shell was tied to the back of the saddle, and I got it untied without much issue, but between Achere running up behind Arya and the jacket unfurling and flapping in the breeze a bit, she got a bit jumpy.  So I just draped it over the front of the saddle for a couple minutes, until she got used to it and the baby was off in front of us (in sight), then tried again.  Managed to put it on (over the vest, not under this time!) without her minding much at all.  Good girl.

We found our way to the water trough we'd found on the ride when Shar and Nathan and I were out there, but none of the horses wanted to drink from it, even though they'd probably worked up a bit of a thirst.  The "trough" is actually an old truck or tractor tire turned inside out, so you kinda can't blame them for not wanting to drink from it.  Oh well.  We weren't going to be out for long enough, or working hard enough, that it was imperative that they drink.

From there, we wound around taking the same route back to the trailer that we'd taken with Nathan two weeks earlier, with one detour to avoid a truck parked out there that definitely had dogs and may or may not have been shooting from it, so that none of us disturbed the other.  We did a couple more trot sessions, then walked the last mile or so back.  At one point, Aschere was getting braver and braver about wandering farther away from the group, and Arya would make sure to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't surprise her when he came back.  :-)  And another interesting point was at a junction in the trail.  We were last in line (except Aschere was still behind us, I think), and the other two horses both turned right and headed back toward the trailer.  I was messing with something on the saddle, or drinking water or something, and wasn't steering Arya, and she actually turned left.  Not only away from her buddies, but away from the trailer!  Weird!  In retrospect, I probably should've let Shar know what I was doing and seen how long she wanted to do that, but I just turned her around and followed the group.  Hopefully it wasn't just a momentary lapse, but an actual sign that maybe she likes riding out and exploring, and will be willing to leave her buddies to do so.  We'll see...

Anyway, the rest of the ride was uneventful, we got back to the trailer, untacked, I put Arya's "jammies" back on her, much to her consternation, and we let the ponies graze on the grass there for a bit before loading up and heading home.  Back home, I decided to give Arya water with electrolytes and plain salt rather than adding any pellets.  She stuck her nose in, rooted around for pellets, found none, jostled the bucket a little with her muzzle, searched again, and dumped the bucket over.  Sheesh.  Gotta get to the feed store and get some Special Blend, since it dissolves to mush nearly instantly.  Then she'll have no choice but to slurp it up, electrolytes and all.

So, two days of riding.  First day 9.5 miles with one big hill and one small one, second day only 5 miles, but I think much more of a workout for Arya.  Both days were GOOD days.

Riding-filled Weekend!

Yay, what a weekend!

So, Shar and I rode Tuesday night, four miles in the pitch black (moon didn't come up until the middle of the night), on a new-to-me and new-to-Arya route.  She did SO well, I was so proud of her!  The only spooky moments we had were when cars were coming behind us on the main road, making ALL the shadows move every which way, which freaked her out, and probably disoriented her a bit, and then at a random driveway.  Not sure what the last one was about, but it was back on familiar turf.  Whatever.  She did so awesome.  About a mile or so of the ride was down and then back up a long hill, so that was good for her.

But yeah, weekend.  The weather forecast was for nice weather both days, so we decided we'd probably go ahead and ride both days.  Saturday, we hauled to the Trail Crossing trailhead, where we've done a decent loop up behind Smith Rock and back down, but this time we went the other way, into an OHV area that's supposed to be closed to motorized traffic this time of year.  We saw a couple of road-worthy vehicles on what were actual dirt roads where it was probably allowed (they were polite), and saw a couple of quads from a distance that were most decidedly NOT supposed to be there, but luckily didn't get close to us.

The footing was mostly awesome, with a few patches where it got kind of sloppy, and only a couple places with rocks.  The ponies did awesome, but Arya does NOT like it when it gets sloppy, and she tries to rush through it (which duh, is only going to be worse in the short term, but she doesn't have that kind of reasoning capability, obviously).  It was kind of overcast, but I wore short sleeves and was fine.  So awesome to be wearing short sleeves in February!

Here are some photos from that ride:

Nathan on Dalai, during a section we were kind of bushwhacking, sometimes following cow trails

Selfie with Nathan behind me

Photo op at the top of a hill--got a photo of Shar's two ponies together, plus Noelle, too

Arya staring at Noelle

Ane one more, 'cause it's too cute, with Noelle looking up at her mom so admiringly

We rode about seven miles.  A lot of it was up and down.  Nothing TOO steep, for the most part, but the fatties (Arya and Dalai) were breathing pretty hard a LOT of the day.  Poor gals need to get into shape!  We trotted a couple times, but mostly just walking up and down the hills.  We got back to the trailer, I did more measurements for Arya's rump rug I'm custom ordering, and we let the ponies graze for a little bit on the very short grass before we loaded up and headed home.

Sunday, we headed to the Maston Trailhead.  This is a GREAT place to ride, especially in winter.  It's kind of in a banana belt, getting a bit less snow than other areas, plus the soil is really sandy, so it seems to dry out faster than most other places in the area even after it snows and melts.  Similar to Henderson, it had a couple moist spots, but unlike Henderson, they were never slippery, just...damp.  So that was even nicer.  And while there are a few "rock garden" areas, they almost always have enough clear areas of the trail that the horses can easily avoid the rocks.  Of the nine miles we rode, there were only a few linear feet of trail with unavoidable rocks.  Such nice winter riding, especially for those of us who have our horses barefoot for the winter but usually wear shoes.

Anyway, it was SUCH a gorgeous day, with bluebird skies, that the entirety of Central Oregon seemed to be at Maston.  The car lot was so full that mountain bikers were parking in the horse trailer area, and there were already a lot of horse trailers there, too.  But our group (four trailers, six riders, seven horses) found spots to park and unloaded and tacked up.

Arya, waiting patiently for the rest of the party to mount up

Shawna, about to mount up on Touche, Lianne was already up on Rascal

There's no overlap in the horse trailers shown in those two photos above, so you can see how busy it was.  Surprisingly, we didn't see many other people out there.  We heard voices that I THINK we horseback riders, but we never got a good look at them because they were so far away, and we saw some bicycles and a couple hikers on foot.  But considering how many people were clearly in the area, I was surprised we didn't see more.  But then, there's a pretty good network of trails that criss-cross each other, and the bike trails are separate from the horse/hiker trails, so it's a testament to the trail designing that we didn't see many people.

You can ALMOST see everyone in this photo.  Back to front, you can see my shadow and Arya's ears at the bottom of the photo, then Nathan on Dalai, then Shar on Flash.  In front of her were Wendy on Melody, ponying her new-to-trails pony, Darling (can't really see the pony, but she was stinkin' cute!), then Lianne (in purple) on Rascal, and at the very front, Shawn on Touche.  Quite a group, so we stuck to a walk to keep it saner with that many horses, including a green pony.

At some point, Wendy realized the pony was getting tired, plus she had to pick her daughter up from a party, so they headed back to the trailers, while we kept going, now just a party of five horses and riders, still a decent-sized group.

We tried posing for photos.  This is the only one that got all the critters in it.  Noelle and Arya have just their ears representing, though.  ;-)  Love the mountain views we kept getting glimpses of throughout the day!

A couple miles from the end of the ride, Arya was getting obnoxious about putting her head down to eat, so I un-holstered the whip and whapped her with it once.  She got better about not trying to eat; in fact, I don't think she tried any more after that.  However, she kept plodding along the trail with her head down nearly to ground level.  It was kind of weird.  I worried she'd try dropping down to the ground again (she was clearly very itchy, and kept trying to rub her head on her leg), but she seemed to be moving along well enough to keep up with the others, just with her head down the whole time.  However, when we got back to the trailer, I untacked her as quickly as I good and led her back to the mounting-up area, where there was a wide area of nice soft dirt, as nice as any arena.  I didn't have to ask her twice, she didn't even try to sneak off to the edges of the dirt to snatch a bite of grass, she sniffed the dirt then immediately dropped down and rolled.  And rolled.  And rolled.  She flipped over a couple times and thoroughly rubbed her head around in the dirt and on her leg a few times.  She was in total heaven.  Poor girl is just starting to shed (mostly on her face, not on the rest of her), and it was so warm that she'd been sweating all day.  (In fact, when we got home, she had lots of white crusty areas where the salt had dried.)  So yeah, I'm pretty sure all that hang-dog walking was because she wished she could roll, but at least she was a good girl and DIDN'T drop down.

Anyway, it was an absolutely gorgeous couple of days.  We put in 16 miles over two days, definitely a maximum for Nathan (so far!), and the most mileage I've done in a while as well.  Poor Shar had ridden 15+ miles on Friday as well, so she was really hurting by the end of the day, especially since a lot of those miles were spent walking (not so much bumping for your bum, but a LOT of sitting on the saddle plus a lot of the same motions, instead of switching it up, is still hard on a person, and the horse too).  Flash's back was getting a bit sore after the third straight day of riding, but Shar's about to have the saddle fit perfected by the original saddle maker.  Arya didn't seem sore at all after her two days and 16 miles, so that's good.  Hope it stays that way as we start increasing the mileage and speed.

Indoor Riding

Okay, so first I just have to mention a little training thing I dealt with the other day.  I'd gone out to Shar's house to take a look at her new saddle with her, and R needed to put a new large bale of hay into the pasture, so I locked up two of the horses into a little paddock and pulled Arya out just to spend a little non-riding time with her.  I tied her up for a bit, while we looked at the saddle. then untied her, picked her feet, and brushed her a bit.  She was moving around a TON in the barn.  She's been in there before, but not a lot, and there were lots of things for her to be curious about, so she kept moving.  She'd get weirded out by the floor mats and start pawing at them, etc.

So after I was done grooming her, I decided to work on standing still.  Shar had Flash back inside the barn, so we stood just outside.  I set Arya up, told her to "stay" and stepped back a couple feet from her, then pretended like I wasn't paying any attention to her, but watched her out of the corner of my eye, waiting for her to move just ONE foot, so I could scold her and put her back where I started, and so on.  She stood stock still for close to FIVE minutes, with me just waiting for her to move so I could teach her how to stand still.  Sheesh!  She couldn't stop moving a few minutes prior, but as soon as I decided to make a lesson out of it, she held perfectly still.  She finally did move a couple times, and I put her back, etc.  Doubt it'll stick much.

Anyway, we had decided to try riding indoors this weekend, in anticipation of the weather not being good enough to want to trail ride, and hoping that the weather WOULD be good enough to trailer (roads not icy).  It turns out the weather actually was quite nice, though cool, but we stuck with our plans to ride indoors anyway.  My friend Julie has a huge indoor arena, plus some good outdoor riding on the property, so I snagged Nathan from his dad's since he hadn't been riding in a while, and we hauled Dalai, Flash, and Arya out there.

We took our time tacking up, as both saddles Shar was using on her horses were new to her and new to the horses, so there were adjustments to be made.  But I had brought my impression pad (basically a plastic pouch filled with colored clay, though a little more technical than that, but you put it between the horse and the saddle while you ride for a bit, then look for thin spots in the clay to check saddle fit), so it was going to basically be a tack-fitting session, with various changes of tack on the horses.

I started out with the impression pad under both the saddle and pad I've been using for a while.  Even when doing 10-mile rides, she's never shown a sign of being sore, so I wanted to check what the impression pad showed with my regular setup and then with a different pad.  And since I was assessing the pad, I had to put the impression pad between the saddle pad and the horse.  It's a vinyl-y plastic, so riding a horse with summer coat for very long probably wouldn't be pleasant for the horse, but I rode Arya for 10-15 minutes per session, and she has a THICK coat of hair, so she didn't sweat a bit.

We warmed up walking for a bit, then alternated trotting and walking for a while.  Heaven forbid that girl trot for more than half a circle at a time.  Ha!  I swear I remember her being a bit gate-sour (i.e. gravitating toward the gate in hopes of being done and leaving the arena) the last time we rode at Julie's, but this time, on one of our first passes past the gate, a black cat was lurking there.  Arya's seen cats around the property at Shar's, but she was very suspicious of this black cat (she must be superstitious--note to self not to ask her to walk under any ladders), and every time we went past the gate after that, she shied away from the gate.

She was fine on our first couple passes past the (closed) roll-up door at one end of the arena, but it must've made a noise one time we passed it, plus I heard woodpeckers outside at some point, with the sound coming from roughly that direction, so she started acting really spooky at that end.

I was SO proud of myself for NOT freaking out at her tiny spooks and shies.  Or her (non-spooky, just stubborn) head-tossing when I asked her to trot.  I mean, I didn't LOVE any of it.  But I never thought to myself "oh sh!t, I'm totally coming off) or anything, just sat deep and kept leg on and made her work through it.  The first time or two, I'd let her shy as far away from the "scary" spot, but then I started asking her to stick with it.  Shar did remind me that I need to remember to either not bother steering her head at all, or actually steer it away from the scary spot and use LEG to ask her to move toward the scary thing, but yeah.  I didn't freak out, and I asked her to work closer and closer to the scary thing.  Yay me!

Nathan also made some progress.  His first couple of passes of trotting were kind of sloppy, so Shar and I gave him some pointers, especially working on independent hands by putting one hand on the pommel of the saddle, and focusing on his posture as well, and he started posting much better almost instantly.  Yay!

So anyway, after 10 minutes or so of work, I pulled the tack off Arya and checked the impression pad.  It looked a little thin in the shoulder/wither area, which is where we've had issues with other saddles, so not surprising.  It wasn't scary thin, like it was pinching, but definitely tighter there than in the rest of the saddle, and the pad I'm using is thick memory foam, so not too surprising that when you put that under a saddle that otherwise fits pretty well, that it would have a tighter fit.  So I swapped that pad out for a thinner fleece pad (no memory foam), with the impression pad under it, and rode in that setup for a while.  It actually looked a lot better on the impression pad, so when finances allow and I find one I like (shape, color, quality), I'll probably switch.  The memory foam tends to retain heat, which will be fine for the winter, but can overheat and even cause heat rash in the summer in a hard-working horse, plus the felt underside is starting to pill, and there's only so much you can do before it just completely wears out.  But I got a good deal on it, and it's working for now, so I'm in no hurry.

So once I was done using the impression pad with my two different setups, it was Shar's turn.  She had new saddles on both horses, actually, but just tried the impression pad with Flash for now.  She was riding him in an SR (same brand I have), but hers has more English-style flaps and a couple other features a bit different.  I think she tried the impression pad with three different thicknesses of pads, and decided the medium one (my pad I'll likely be switching away from, actually) would probably be the best.  The pad she currently has with THICK inserts (inserts plus shims, actually) is a bit too much, but if she gets thinner inserts, the shell of it will work out great.

We were all pretty tired of trotting in circles by this point, so we dismounted, headed outside, and re-mounted to ride the "poop trail."  I've talked about it on here, but Julie's place used to have a cross-country jumping course, complete with pond, drop-off jumps, and large relatively immovable jumps around the property.  They take their well-composted poop (and shavings) and spread it out onto a trail that loops around and through the property.  There a multiple loops, but I think a loop all around the longest configuration is about half a mile.  With the funky weather and peppy horses and slippery footing (still snow and ice in spots, and frozen mud even if it wasn't visibly icy), we stuck to a walk, but it was good to get outside, and it wasn't actually very cold, so it turned out to be a nice little ride.  We went up a hill through a wooded-ish portion of the property, back down the hill, rode BESIDE what would normally be a drop-down jump, but instead was just a small downhill (though Shar had a BAD wreck on a cross country course and mentioned that it was rough on her to be near all these jumps--deep breaths!), back over to the area with more jumps and newer trail course type obstacles, too.  Skipped doing the gate (kind of a hassle for two of us to wait while one person tried it out) and the bridge (risk of it being slippery), but we did cross the ground poles a few times.  A set of four, and even at a pretty sedate walk, Arya managed to step OVER and not ON all four!  Woo hoo!  Maybe she's learning that walking is better than tripping.  We continued on around the property, and then Shar pointed out that we could just shortcut to the trailer, so we did.  Turned out to be a little muddy there, and both Flash and Arya kind of went "eek" at the mud and tried to rush through it (Arya by plowing into Flash's butt, which luckily he doesn't mind), and Dalai didn't even care.  We got back to the trailer and untacked the ponies.  We were about to go say our goodbyes and clean up our poop, when Julie came out and asked if we wanted to take any of the horses in to see the cattle--she's got three steers and a heifer, and brought them in from their muddy pen to the arena for a bit so they could dry off.  (They've installed panels in the configuration of a cattle sorting pen at one end of their HUGE arena--you don't really miss the space for regular riding, and it comes in very handy for them to practice in, since they do sorting.)

Yes, I wanted to expose Arya to cattle in a somewhat controlled environment!  She'd heard them mooing outside the arena while we were riding, and didn't seem to mind NEARLY as much as she minded the big giant cows on the trail a couple months ago, but yes, exposure to random things (especially things we're actually likely to see while out and about) is a good thing!  So we took her back into the arena.  Poor girl had already thought she was done for the day so many times, with all the un-tacking and dismounting!  But I had one more thing to throw at her.  She looked at them, and they ignored her.  We walked closer to the pen, and her ears were forward and she was curious, but she never seemed too anxious about it.  We stood outside the pen for a bit, then Julie said it was okay to take her in.  I led her in the pen, and was trying to both encourage her forward and keep myself out of her likely path of escape if she freaked out.

Then duh, Julie and/or Shar suggested I just let her loose.  Heh.  So I took the rope off and stepped back and just let her explore.  She'd move closer and closer to a cow, and it would just stand there, then eventually move away.  She'd stop, watch it, then realize that hey, maybe she can MAKE them move by getting closer again.  Sure enough!  She isn't so cowy that she thought this was great fun or anything, but at least she hopefully won't totally freak out next time we see a bovine in or near a trail.  :-)  At one point, she was kind of looking outside the arena at their outdoor pen, and I have no idea what happened, but she totally spooked.  Clearly, she was on edge.  She bucked a couple times, but calmed down quickly and went back to checking out the cows.  At one point, it looked like she was actually going to lay down and roll, but she didn't.  But yeah, the introduction went well.  Might want to give her another session without a rider before trying to ride her in and amongst cows, but she did good.

After all that excitement, we cleaned up our poo piles, loaded up the horses, and hit the road.  Any day spent with horses is a good one, but I think we all felt like we accomplished something and had an especially good day.  :-)

Ridin' on the Ranch

Nathan and I got to ride together again, this time with Shar along too, on Flash.  We just rode out from her house, so we fetched the horses and tacked up pretty leisurely.  Shar had a new saddle she was trying, so she had adjustments to make, and mounted up first so I could help with stirrup adjustments if they were needed, and eventually we set off.  Oddly, Arya acted all weird as we left the driveway, even though there was nothing out of the ordinary that I could sense, and she hadn't batted an eye at the garage sale signs a few weeks okay.

She was a little "up" for her--perky and ready to trot at a moment's notice, and very ears-forward even when she was following other horses, but she didn't do anything naughty or ACTUALLY spooky.  Just had me on high alert along with her, just in case.

For her part, Dalai did GREAT on the stretch riding away from the house.  Shar had Nathan keep the lead rope attached, just in case, and even held it as they rode out the driveway, but soon turned the rope back over to Nathan and he was on his own, and they did great together.  I don't think she even tried to turn back toward home, but if she did, he nipped it in the bud, as she never DID actually turn toward home.

We moseyed on down the road, did a little trotting (and Shar did end up needing to adjust the stirrups on her new saddle after all), and so forth.  There was a big plastic tub along the side of the road, and Flash and Dalai both sniffed it (Arya and I were further away, and she didn't even give it the side-eye), and it was a non-event.  Then we got to the place that has turkeys.  They also have horses and random wooden structures (soon-to-be chicken coops?  they were just frames, though).  Flash didn't bat an eye at any of it.  Arya's been by the place enough not to care about the turkeys, but she was pretty sure some of the wooden structures were new, and kind of craned her neck at them as we walked by.  But Dalai heard the turkeys gobbling away and was like "Oh NO I don't!" and tried to spin around for home.

Nathan was having a hard time getting her to obey him, so Shar grabbed the rope to keep her from being able to spin around, and ponied him past the turkeys.  Once Dalai was calmer, she had Nathan practice a couple tight tuns (rein to hip, horse's head to rider's knee/foot).  We took a little singletrack trail uneventfully, and then back on the next section of gravel road, I was riding alongside Nathan and Dalai, and noticed the slack part of the rope between the saddle and halter was getting pretty long, so was trying to coach Nathan through shortening it and tying it to the horn.  He wasn't understanding what I was saying, so we both halted, and I was reaching over to get the rope, but he still had the reins in his hands as well as the rope, so I had him drop the reins onto her neck so I could grab just the rope, and she put her head down to rub it on her legs, and then the reins were up around her ears.  Oh SH*T.  Shar hopped off, and I tried to snatch the reins as she turned toward home right next to me, but missed, so I cut her off with Arya to block her path toward home, which paused her long enough for Shar to catch her.  She got the rope secured and everything, and we set off again.  Crisis averted, but sheesh!  I was kind of frustrated with Nathan for not grokking what I was trying to tell him about the rope in the first place, and kind of irritated with myself for not having him clip the breastcollar through the reins, at least, to keep them from getting up around her head.  All's well that ends well, though.

We continued on our ride, mostly moseying, occasionally trotting.  When we headed north on a pretty exposed chunk of road/trail (not much windbreak from trees), it was COLD.  There was a slight breeze we hadn't noticed when not headed directly into it and/or with better protection, and the socked-in clouds had never really burned off, and it was just COLD.  I was only wearing a sweatshirt (though with my crash vest over top, it was fine for most of the ride), so my arms were getting pretty chilly and my feet were cold throughout the ride.  I had gloves to keep my hands warm, though.  But Nathan, even WITH gloves and a fairly windproof (though not very insulated) jacket, was FROZEN.  Poor kiddo.  At one point, Shar asked whether we wanted to take the scenic route back home or the more direct route, and Nathan voted very hard for the direct route.  Shar had fingerless gloves, so her hands were cold, but she has a very well-trained horse who DIDN'T try to dart for home, so she would just rest the reins on his neck and put her hands in her pocket.  I'm not that brave!

Once we turned toward home, of course Arya picked up the pace, though she wasn't as sluggish as usual, maybe due to the cold weather.  On all the singletrack we traveled, we practiced the "stop and let the others get ahead of you" thing.  For one thing, it's good to work on leaving plenty of space between us and the horse in front of us.  For another, it's good for Arya to learn that the world doesn't end when the other horses get out ahead of us, even if they're briefly out of sight behind a tree.  And of course it's good for her to learn to stand still even as others are walking away from her.  So I'd halt, maybe ask her to back up a few steps (depending on the terrain), and then we'd stand for a few seconds.  If she stood quietly, I'd ask her to walk and we'd catch back up to the others pretty quickly.  A couple times, she was antsy to go again, NOT standing quietly, so I'd remind her with the reins and my seat that NO, we were standing still now, then release the reins and give her a chance to "make a mistake."  Eventually she stood still.  One time, though, it took a few tries and we got pretty far behind.  She apparently decided to catch up by trotting (which she NEVER does, she just walks fairly fast until we catch up) while we were going downhill and between/under some trees I would have rather not been trotting between/under.  But we survived, and I got her back to a walk without much ado.  Sheesh, though.  The ONE time she decides to trot without me asking her to!

Then we got back to the road and did some more trotting.  Arya wasn't in a huge hurry, so the others got a bit ahead of us, and THEN she decided she'd prefer to close the gap.  Something about her gait told me she wanted to canter, but I wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of her cantering, possibly galloping, etc., to catch up to the others, so I kept reminding her with the reins that we weren't going to canter.  She tossed her head a bit, and kept "asking" to canter, but was pretty good about just trotting quickly.  We got a little closer to the others, plus hit a steeper uphill section, so I went ahead and sat a little deeper and let her canter.  We did 8 or 10 strides or so.  Her gait felt coordinated (the trainer was worried about her potentially cross-firing based on a really amped-up round pen session), but it was very UP.  Her energy went a lot into the upward direction, and not as much into the forward direction as you would expect based on her exuberance.  Our top speed the entire ride was 9.9 mph, so NOT super fast, even though it sounded/felt fast at the time.  Ha!  We caught up to the others and she broke into a trot without me even asking, so that was another successful canter.  Woo!

Arya and I led most of the way back, since she'd got a pretty fast walk when she's headed home.  :-)  And she can use the experience of leading, though of course it's not as beneficial on "home turf."  Or at least you would think it wouldn't be.  On a piece of singletrack, she stopped and stared off to her right.  I have no idea what she thinks she saw, but I didn't see anything, so I let her look for a few seconds, and gathered my courage as well, and squeezed her on.  She wouldn't go, so I whapped her with the whip.  She went, but kept her eyes and ears trained to the right for quite a few strides.  Weird.  But she eventually got over it.  We passed the turkeys without incident (yes, we retraced some of our steps on the exact same stretch of road we'd headed out on), and then Arya spooked somewhat big for her (still pretty much stopping and staring, then proceeding while giving a WIDE berth to the scary thing) at some random farm machinery that had BEEN THERE when we'd passed it 90 minutes earlier.  Silly girl!  We survived passing that equipment, and she was pretty good the rest of the way home.

Our last trot session of the ride, before walking the rest of the way home for both training and sweat (at least for Arya) reasons, Arya was lagging behind the others, and in no hurry to catch up.  Then she tossed her head like I was holding her back (silly girl, I wasn't!).  She's so confused--I don't care about catching up to the others, but you better not be trying to stop me from going faster!

We walked the rest of the way home on a nice loose rein, all three horses, put the ponies away, and headed inside to warm up.  Shar made us hot cocoa and remedied the fact that neither Nathan nor I had seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Richard went and fetched pizza for all of us from town.  Wow, spoiled much?  It was a great day, and a great ride.  Poor Nathan was frozen through and through, but I think he had a good time, and he claims he isn't sore today (the day after), so clearly we need to increase the mileage.  :-)

All photos are courtesy of Shar, with the fingerless gloves.  I was too lazy to take off gloves, take phone out of pouch, take photos, put phone back, put gloves on.  Thanks, Shar!!

Riding with Kiddos!

A couple weeks ago, a co-worker of mine asked me and the other gal in the office about horseback riding lessons.  His daughter loves horses and he wondered where would be a good place to take her.  My co-worker and I named a few places, both for lessons and for just trail riding, and then I asked him how old his daughter is.  She's four.  So I told him not to bother paying for lessons quite yet, until she's a little older and bigger, but she could come out to where I board sometime and sit on my horse for a little while for free.  However, with daylight savings preventing us from doing this after work, and my next couple weekends booked up with other riding-related stuff, it didn't actually happen until this past weekend.  We arranged a day and time and I gave him directions, and we were set.

I showed up a little before he had planned to arrive, and gathered up the three potential horses--my horse, Arya, and Shar's two, Flash and Dalai Lama.  I figured the little girl would fawn over Dalai, as she's a grey (white) horse.  With my son's help, we brushed them all and picked all 12 hooves, with the horses tied up inside the pasture.  My co-worker texted to say he was running late, so Nathan and I headed into the warm house while the horses stood tied like good dude string horses.

Which is when I realized that I no longer had my glasses on me.  I'd been wearing my prescription sunglasses outside, and I was pretty sure my regular glasses were hanging from the neck of my shirt.  (Seriously, when I will LEARN?  If you haven't already read this post, it's long, but worth it.)  Ugh.  Nathan and I scoured the area around the horses first, then widened the search, and I retraced my steps everywhere I'd been, including checking in the house and the car.  No luck.  Finally, I remembered that I'd helped him with tying the knots in the rope halters, and walked out to the part of the pasture we'd caught Arya in, and sure enough, they were lying on the ground.  Unhurt, because luckily the horses had all been tied, and not wandering around.  Whew!  I'd had flashes of having to wear my sunglasses indoors and at night until I could get new glasses made.  Glad not to have that hassle!

When my co-worker arrived, he and his wife and their two kids piled out of the car (I'd invited them all).  The little girl, the horse-crazy one (he told me they plan their driving route to purposefully avoid a certain horse pasture because the daughter gets upset that she can't ride the random horse), was wearing white tights and a floofy skirt.  Ha!  Oh well, it wasn't going to be a serious ride, so if they didn't care about her clothes getting dirty, I wasn't going to insist on any specific clothing other than a helmet.  (Apparently the mom wanted a photo op with the fancy clothes, and then the girl changed for the rest of the riding time.)

First I introduced the family to the three horses, then showed the kids how to pet and brush them, and let them carefully feed a few carrots.  Then I used Flash, who is AWESOME about picking up his feet and actually HOLDING them  up for you (Arya pretends like it's the hardest thing on earth, and you have to prop her up) to show them how to pick feet.  (We'd already done it, so it was just for show and "helping.")

Then it was the moment we'd all (but especially the little girl had) been waiting for!  The kids got to pick which horse they wanted to ride.  The daughter picked Arya, and the son picked Dalai.  Kind of surprising, but whatever.  So I put the bareback pad on Arya and the dad lifted her up onto her back.  The mom got some photos really quickly before she put her helmet on (with the dad on one side and my son on the other to prevent any falling), then both kids donned helmets.

Both kids were SO thrilled to be riding.  We also did a couple brief balancing exercises at a standstill, laying back on the horse, then leaning forward, then sitting with no hands, arms out to the side.  However, it was still a good thing we had people to walk on either side of the kid on the horse, as they got a little "tipsy" a couple times.  Each kid rode Arya alone, then double, just in small circles there in the front part of the pasture.  Arya did surprisingly great.  I'm not sure it would go very well with a newbie actually riding her unassisted, and she had a funny look on her face when these small humanoid creatures were being lifted up onto her back, but when she realized they were very light and her job was very easy, she settled in and moseyed around in circles and halted and backed up exactly as asked.  Good girl, and all that groundwork definitely comes in handy!

The kids got down with some adult help, then I took the bareback pad off Arya to move it to Dalai.  The bareback pad is cheap "fleece" made out of nylon or something synthetic like that, and it created quite a static charge, and shocked Arya when I took it off, then when I tried to pat her nose reassuringly, I shocked her again.  She did NOT enjoy that, and bucked/spooked a little.  Luckily the kids were far away, and in fact didn't even see it.  Oops!

I put the pad on Dalai, and we basically repeated the process--each kid rode alone, then they both rode together.  But this time I led Dalai further into the pasture, and to a little mound on the far side, where the kids got to practice leaning forward and back when going up and down the very small hill.

When they dismounted for the last time, I took the pad off and TRIED to be careful, but it gave poor Dalai a shock, too.  When I've ridden Arya bareback (just a few times so far), I put my saddle pad under the bareback pad to try to disperse my weight a little more, and it has a real wool surface against the horse, so I hadn't had that problem before.  I'll try to keep it in mind, but apparently there's not much to do to prevent it other than using a natural-fiber pad under it.

I gave them the opportunity to say goodbye to the horse, and give her a kiss.  The little girl was (rightly!) a little nervous around such a large animal, and didn't want to give it a kiss, but she did pet her face and say goodbye.  Aww...

After a little small talk and throwing the ball for the dog, the co-worker and his family left, and Nathan and I got to set off on our ride.

Here's the thing.  Nathan is a teenager.  When I told him I'd gotten a horse, and introduced him to her, he was distinctly nonplussed.  Just "eh."  So fine, whatever.  I only have one horse anyway, so I didn't make a big deal out of it.  Well, a few weeks ago, I said something about riding, and he asked why I never take him riding anymore.  Um, well, I TOOK you riding back when I had a membership thing to a dude ranch type place and could do that.  Now that I have just one horse, it's not very possible, but I didn't think you were interested.  He said that he WOULD be interested.  Well, awesome!  And it turns out Shar now has two horses that are both rideable (by her anyway), including one that would likely be rideable for him.  So I told him I'd ask her, she said he could ride with her at the endurance ride, then that didn't work out at all, and now here we are--his first ride in a few years.  Woo hoo!  Shar couldn't go with us since she was womanning a yard sale, so it was just going to be the two of us.  That made me a LITTLE nervous (I've only even ridden with Shar and Dalai a couple times, and didn't know how she'd behave with Nathan, or of course how Arya would behave with her but leaving Flash behind), but I was mostly pretty excited about taking my kiddo out for a ride.  In anticipation of the 10-mile ride at the endurance ride, he'd made a comment about 10 miles not being that far, so I was planning to take him on a route I knew was just a little over 10 miles, to see how he felt AFTER the ride.  :-)

So anyway, we tacked up.  Shar is between saddles (for both horses, actually, which is downright inconvenient!), so we used my old western saddle on Dalai, but I'd taken the cinch and stirrups off it a while back, so had to round up all the parts and pieces to make it useable again, but that didn't take TOO long.  Got Arya tacked up, and Shar helped Nathan mount up and we adjusted the stirrups for him.  Then I mounted up, too, and we were off.

So, you know how I said Shar was having a hard sale?  She had a big neon green sign taped to her trash can at the end of her driveway to direct traffic, and I thought sure the horses would at least balk at it, if not spook.  I was wrong.  They ambled right by it as if nothing was different.

However, as we proceeded down the road in front of the pasture, I realized Nathan was having trouble with Dalai.  She would try to spin around toward home, and Nathan's instinct was to jerk on her face (luckily she's in a mild hackamore and not anything more sever), so I talked him through having wide hands and trying to prevent her turning in the first place rather than having to correct her.  And urging her forward when your first instinct is to freak out that she's moving in the wrong direction.

I realized after the first couple sessions of trying to talk him through dealing with it that this was actually really good for ME.  Reminders for what I'll need to do when Arya pulls that with me on our next solo ride, as well as distracting me and keeping me calm to help him out, and just seeing someone else having similar issues to what I've been having.  All very rewarding.  But not for Nathan (yet!).  :-)

We proceeded on down the road, and a couple times, she even darted off into people's yards, trying to head back home.  He actually did really well controlling her as best he could with his non-recent and limited riding ability.  I was really proud of him!  But he was getting increasingly frustrated.  He asked me to swap horses with him, and I considered it, but given Arya's history, I wasn't sure she'd behave any better for him.  He thought she was behaving perfectly, but she was being a little annoying, and that's with me knowing how to handle her and doing my best to PREVENT antics.  She'd probably have been worse for him, and is a good six inches higher off the ground, so if he was going to end up losing his seat and falling off (he got a little tipsy once when she darted to the left to head home once), I'd rather it be from Dalai.  Plus I've never ridden Dalai and wasn't sure how she'd do with my weight, etc.  So yeah, sorry kiddo, but you gotta stick with the one you're on.

We proceeded down the single-track trail that goes down the hill, and not only did Dalai and Nathan do great, she's much faster at navigating down hills than Arya and they quickly pulled out ahead of us.  I hollered directions ahead to Nathan so he'd know where we were headed, and of course had my eye on him, but figured if she was proceeding down the trail, to let it be.  And then they reached the gravel road and she got all twisty-turny again.  He halded it with relative aplomb, and we sauntered on down the trail.  Eventually she seemed to kind of settle in, especially with me and Arya right alongside, and we did a couple stretches of trotting.

We crossed and paved road without incident, and headed down the next gravel road.  There is a trail that parallels the road, and Nathan and Dalai were doing great on it, but Arya kept trying to eat, so I took her to the road itself.  Dalai was still giving Nathan hassles, though, and when a guy in a Jeep stopped to ask if we'd seen his dog (so therefore we stopped and stood still while talking to him), she got REALLY insistent that if she was going to move in any direction at all, it would only be toward home.  Preferably by going in reverse, but spinning when pointed away would be an option, too.  Ugh.  Eventually, I got my lead rope out of the cantle bag and snapped it onto her halter.  I put my whip away, held my reins in one hand and the rope in the other (you never want to actually tie the rope to yourself or the saddle or anything when ponying, in case the ponied horse freak out or something).  I set off with Arya, and now SHE didn't want to move.  Ugh.  So I pulled the whip out and held it in the same hand as the lead rope and tapped her to get her going.  She tried to turn.  I couldn't steer with the reins in one hand, so grabbed the right side with my right hand, which already had the rope and whip in it.  But then when Dalai resisted at all, it pulled on Arya's rein, so I had to drop that again quickly, and attempt to steer with just one hand.  Arya doesn't neck rein, so that meant "ooching" my hand along the rein to get whichever side I wanted to pull on short enough that I could make contact with just that one side.  It was a disaster.  After watching all of this and realizing we wouldn't be making much progress, Nathan volunteered to just get off and lead Dalai for a little while.  Sounded good to me, and I asked if he minded if I kept riding (hard for me to get back on without something high to get on from).  That was fine, so we set off once again, him on foot leading Dalai, and me on Arya.

We probably went about half a mile that way, including turning the corner at the far corner of our loop.  Oh, yeah, I'd long since decided that we wouldn't bother with the 10-mile trip to the river and back, and we'd just do a smaller loop instead.  So yeah, once we turned the corner, both horses got a pep in their step, and after we'd gone far enough that she probably wouldn't think turning around and bolting for home the way we'd come would be a good idea, I asked Nathan if he wanted to try getting back on again.  He did, so I held the rope while he mounted up, then I think he rode for a few minutes with me holding onto it, just to make sure she wasn't going to pull something, then we unclipped her and rode the rest of the way fairly uneventfully.

We did see a herd of deer, and the horses' ears pricked up, but they see deer all the time around the house, so no antics.  I mildly worried that if we trotted, now that we were headed toward home, Dalai wouldn't want to slow down or stop.  And sure enough, she trots rather fast compared to Arya, so she pulled away from us quickly, but Nathan slowed her, and Arya stepped up the pace a bit when asked, and it was fine.  We trotted up a long-ish hill, and poor Arya was DONE partway up and begged me to stop, but Dalai motored right up it.  Once we'd turned that corner, the worst behavior from Dalai was just some head-shaking.  Not sure how much was due to the contact Nathan was using (with a hackamore, the default should be very slack reins, and he was reluctant to give up contact after the issues he'd been having, and I can't blame him, but was trying to get him to let up just a bit, but still have very little slack to take up if he needed to), and how much was just Dalai--it's just something she does.  Even as we got closer to home (and slowed to walking only, both because it's just a good idea behavior-wise and because it was cold-ish and we didn't need to be bringing the horses home all sweaty), we walked calmly on a loose rein.  Good ponies!  Neither horse cared about the garage sale sign yet again (I totally expected at least an ear flick in that direction!), and we got home safe and sound.  Nathan slung a leg over to dismount (over the front of the saddle--weirdo!), and collapsed in a heap on the ground.  His legs were TIRED.  Even mine were a little sore from having to squeeze Arya to keep her moving when on the out-bound leg, then try to get her to keep up with Dalai on the home-bound leg.  Ha!

All's well that ends well, and Nathan still seems interested in riding.  We talked about other things he could have done/tried, and how just more riding will help Dalai respect Nathan more and not pull that stuff to begin with.  And possibly trailering elsewhere rather than riding from home the next couple times, so Nathan doesn't have to work quite as hard.  Then Shar had a great suggestion--trailer all three horses to Celena's for a group lesson, maybe including a bit of "trail" riding (on the short loop), to help Nathan build a relationship with Dalai and learn good ways to dealing with her, etc.  So yeah, hopefully that'll happen.  I'm just glad my teenage son actually WANTS to spend time with me.  How crazy is that?  :-)

Trip to Washington

My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby!  This is only the second child to be born of that generation, 14+ years after Nathan.  My dad made a cradle for Nathan before he was born that I'm finally passing down to another grandchild of my dad's.  It's a unique construction--it has two end pieces, from which the bed part of the cradle hangs and swings (more like a glider rocker than a traditional rocking chair).  Those end pieces go up tall enough to have a canopy, too.  My mom sewed a fabric canopy and quilt for the cradle, too, making it a joint effort between both my (divorced) parents, which is really special (he created the supports for the canopy, and sent her measurements--the cradle itself is a standard-sized mattress).  But of course a cradle has a limited functional life for any one child, and Nathan quickly outgrew it, and it's been through a bunch of moves (8 by my count) over the years, so I had to do a quick inventory to see whether I even still had all the pieces.  Nathan and I pulled the pieces out of the garage and put them together to see if they were all there.

Unfortunately, it was missing a couple of pieces, but luckily they were very small (pins that hold the cradle onto the arms and the arms onto the end pieces), so I was hopeful my dad would be able to replace them fairly easily.  A couple of very important pieces had also broken off over the years and many moves--the cross-pieces that held the two ends pieces together had notches cut into them that had lost the little piece from the end that actually held the two end pieces from falling apart from each other.  Kind of important, so we definitely needed to repair them.  Luckily, two of the three broken-off pieces were still present, so only one would have to be fabricated.  I e-mailed my dad to give him the heads up about the damage, and we set off for his house Friday after I got off work.

We got there at almost 10:00 p.m., so chatted for a while, then went to bed.  In the morning, after breakfast, we got the cradle out of my car to assess the damage and necessary repairs.  I went to the hardware store (and got to drive my dad's convertible with the top down, which I think was a first for me!) for dowels to create more pins while my dad and Nathan got to work on repairing the broken notches, with nails this time for extra reinforcement.  When I got back, Dad got to work on the pins, even creating a few extra in case my brother loses them over the next few years.  He re-assembled the cradle, and I took a few photos of it:

Yep, my dad flew down in his then-airplane, a twin engine plane with decent space in the back (his current plane, a Piper Cherokee, I believe, would NOT hold the cradle, I'm pretty sure!) when Nathan was a few days old.  Nathan had his first plane ride not long after his first car ride (since he was born at home; in fact, his first car ride MIGHT have been to the airport--I'm not sure!), though he fell asleep before takeoff, so it wasn't very momentous for him.

Disassembled, it's an odd assortment of pieces.

But without any tools or fasteners other than pegs that easily slide into place, it becomes this:

The sheet was still drying, and the quilt is boxed up somewhere, so the mattress is bare in this photo.  I'm sure Eric and Ying will have their own bedding of choice to use, and maybe even a different canopy if they prefer.

Later that afternoon, we went over to Eric's house.  He was hoping to host a surprise shower for his wife, with many of her friends in the area who are originally from Thailand, some of whom work at their restaurant.  But a "few" friends turned into probably over 20 people in their house all told, mostly Thai.  Someone brought a cake, someone else brought a "diaper cake," and there were balloons, decorations, and gifts (more gifts than this--the photo was taken pretty early into people arriving).

But that's pretty much where the similarity to a traditional baby shower ended.  It was co-ed, though there did end up being more women than men.  There was a bunch of Thai food, of course (and delicious, though VERY spicy), including frog legs (don't see that on the menu at too many baby showers!), but there was also sushi, grilled beef, and grilled veggies.  It was quite a feast, and I'm pretty sure no one went hungry, even me, the vegetarian amidst a bunch of meat.

Another similarity to a regular shower was that we did a few game.  However, it was a guessing game where one person held a card up above their head without looking at it, and their teammates tried to act out or holler out clues to help them guess.  The host of the game had planned on the audience who spoke two separate languages, with very few truly bilingual people in attendance.  The cards were written in both Thai and English.  Well, I'm assuming the two terms were equivalent, but as I'm not one of the bilingual people, who knows.  :-)  However, instead of the words being baby- or parenting- or even birth-related, they were just random categories like animals (which the group before us picked), household objects, food, or fruit (which us pedantic folks noted is also food, but whatever).  When our (all the English-speaking people on one team, which just happened to mean me, my dad, my brother, and my son) turn came, we figured fruit and food might be Thai-specific, as the game-maker was Thai, and picked household objects.  We actually did really well at the game, and finished all the words in our time limit, though there was one clue that was a specific (Thai) brand of toothpaste, and when my dad guessed "toothbrush" they just gave it to us.  Heh.

Then they had a tie-breaker round (i.e., they made four categories and only three teams so there was a category left over after the main game), where all teams played simultaneously.  Since the other teams were giving the clues and guessing in Thai, we couldn't cheat by eavesdropping.  Not sure whether the bilingual folks benefited from our clues, but I'm guessing not.  :-)  One of the answers was mango, and my helpers gave me the clue "sticky rice," for which I quickly guessed mango.  Then a few cards later, we got mangosteen (which I LOVE, by the way), so I think it was my brother who said, "sticky rice . . . BLANK."  Heh.  There was one fruit we'd never heard of, but luckily all the rest we had, and we won that round too.  Our prize was a gift basket full of Thai treats, mostly meat-based.  So Nathan and I took home just one basket between the two of us, even though each person was allowed to take one.

Here's a picture of the setting up of the game area (Eric has a BEAUTIFUL backyard--he's done a lot of work on it, and I should've taken more pictures).

And some video of the aftermath--the team with the fewest points had to do the chicken dance as their punishment.

It was a great party, though of course without much co-mingling between the English and Thai speakers, though I did chat with a few of the more bilingual Thai folks.  :-)  But it was a beautiful yard, with some cute kids playing in it, and some wonderful food and entertaining company.  Toward the end of the evening, Nathan got into a water fight with some (purported) adults.  He had to ride home in the pickup instead of the leather-seated convertible.  Ha!

Sunday morning, we were very lazy, and in fact Nathan, my dad, and I each played on our separate computers, rather anti-socially, I suppose.  Must be the introvert in me (and Nathan, and possibly my dad), needing to spend some time vegging after all the socializing the night before.  Anyway, soon it was time to pack up and head out, as the plan was for Dad and Nathan do go flying, and for us to leave from there, which I think we did on the last visit, too.

Nathan didn't remember much of the pre-flight walkaround procedure, so my dad had to walk him through it step by step again--it'd been about six months since the last time.  But soon enough they were ready to get on their way, and I wandered out toward the runway to take photos and video.

A few still photos as they get ready and taxi to the end of the runway:

And some video of the runup, takeoff (performed mostly by Nathan--not sure how much hands-on help he needed, or if it was just verbal guidance), and landing (performed entirely by my dad--Nathan's not quite ready for that much more critical phase of flight yet.  :-)

From there, we drove home, stopping for a quick dinner in Gresham.  We left town on Friday at 4:00, and got home Sunday night at 10:00, but packed a lot, including just vegging, into the day and a half we were in Western WA, though we didn't get to see my brother much (he's an air traffic controller with a wacky schedule that doesn't include Sat/Sun off).