Let's Go Berry Picking!

Sun Aug 28, 2005

BIG horseshow at the fairgrounds this weekend...we didn't go! Glad of it, too...I'm just not THAT into it. It's fun, but it's not everything. Plus the fact the horse was a filthy mess and hadn't really been ridden in days!

Instead he and I went for a trail ride! It was obvious they left him out in the pasture all night...untouched food in his stall, and he was a walking zombie-horse! (He never seems to sleep well out in the field). No complaints here, I was glad of it...didn't need to lunge him before hand!

BEAUTIFUL weather today, high in the low 70's, bright sunny sky, a good breeze to keep the flies away. And what hit me later was the fact that I was totally relaxed about the whole thing! A few weeks ago my heart would have been in my throat as we headed out, worrying he might try something. Somewhere along the way I think we have "clicked" and have finally become comfortable with each other, so that neither of us had to worry!!

Rode with the bitless bridle, which he obviously loves (compared to how he acted with the bit earlier this week)...and since we went out alone instead of with a group, I could get him into nice trotting and cantering segments without any problems (plus it seems the ladies I ride with like to WALK the whole route...no real complaints there, beats wanting to rampage like wild people, but it's hard on my butt!!). We went through the woods behind the elementary school, didn't get lost this time. Sometime in the past week and a half a strong wind came through and blew some saplings over the trail, right at horse-chest-height, so I got off and moved them, and was DEEELIGHTED that I was able to get back on FROM THE GROUND! WhooHOO (this has been a bugaboo with me for years, and now that I have a horse that's 6" shorter than the previous one, there's NO reason I shouldn't be able to do that!!). Quzqo even stood halfway still for me (he was busy defoliating a nearby maple sapling).

We even walked alongside a paved road (no traffic luckily), down a dirt road with some of the scariest poor white trash dwellings in Michigan (MAJOR scary), and then trotted and cantered down the length of the road and back again! It's nice to have a tired horse, LOL!

But the crowning achievement (in my book) came on our way back through some woods that had been logged years ago...the brambles sprang up, and at long last, this year, they bore big, fat, HUGE BLACKBERRIES! YUM! I'd been eyeing them for weeks, but didn't know how Quzqo would feel about stopping in the middle of nowhere...Tezlu used to go apeshit, and prance/dance/fuss/fidgit if I stopped to pick berries...he'd want to GoGoGoGoGO!!! But those berries were too much to resist, so we stopped, I got off, and Quzqo discovered that young blackberry leaves are edible and apparently delicous! LOL! So, while I picked berries, he picked blackberry leaves and had a grand time of it! I gave him some berries which he promptly spat out (Tezlu loved blackberries...who knew!), LOL! If I was bent down picking particularly large berries from the inner/under branches of the brambles, I'd feel this big slobbery muzzle press against my back or shoulders, like "what ARE you doing down there?" But at no time did he fuss or spook or do one single naughty thing! I ended up with about a PINT of blackberries (yeah, I brought a padded container to carry them back in), and an Angel Horse to boot!

He got a full-blown bath for his trouble when we got back (with soap and everything!), and gets to spend a relaxing and safe night in his comfy stall. See if he has any more energy tomorrow!

Yeah, I think I'll keep that horse!