I WENT FOR A TRAIL RIDE TODAY!Okay, I also went last Saturday, but didn't bother to write about it, but I've had a cup of strong coffee and two fake Hostess Cupcakes, so I'm wired enough to make a report!
Last Saturday wasn't THAT dramatic, so that's also why I didn't bother to write it up. Biggest excitement, other than FINALLY being able to ride the horse in a straight line for more than 100 feet at a time without having to turn a corner, was the constant attacks of the KILLER MOURNING DOVES that kept popping out of the underbrush just as Coos and I approached, causing the horse to do something unexpected and annoying, especially the first time which was along the roadside. He jumped and did a 90 degree spin INto the lane of traffic...thankfully the nearest oncoming traffic was a good quarter mile up the road yet, but still.
The damned Mourning Doves kept popping out of the trees for the entire ride, we went down the quiet residential street that's about half a mile from the barn...it would have been quiet except for the Mourning Doves! The horse developed a bad case of the Lazies and pulled his petulant teenager act... "I don't WANna go!" but thankfully I had both spurs and whip...and also thankfully (because of the dove attacks) my good deep-seated trail saddle with the breast collar, so no tack slippage, and no separating my butt from the saddle seat!
We only went a mile or so down the street, because after that, it's not maintained by the county plows, and was blocked with a couple of feet of snow. Just as well, for the first day out.
Yep, that's the snow on the ground in Northern Michigan on March 29, 2008 in the pic. Sickening, isn't it?
TODAY, however, it got up to 64 GLORIOUS degrees, blue sky, nice brisk wind from the south, the snow in the fields has all but disappeared, to be replaced with huge shallow lakes full of squawking seagulls!! You pull up to the barn parking lot and it sounds like Mystic Seaport, all the gull racket! What'll be fun when it dries out a bit it so to go riding into those flocks of gulls and watching them all fly off en mass, heh heh. Stupid smelly things.
Quzqo was in a good mood...too good of a mood. Since there was a riding lesson going on in the indoor arena, I decided "eh, I don't need to lunge him". I remembered the last time I thought that and went off on a trail ride; he bolted off with me, I fell off, and ended up in the ER with severe back pain that bothers me to this day 3 years later. But I figured hey, I'll have a Kimberwicke, not a big fat snaffle, and I have a proper trail saddle this time, not a treeless! O-kay, Sue...so say you.
Had to LOL...the lesson was being given on Leo, the fat obnoxious red roan QH that my niece wanted to lease late last year, and every time you cued him to trot, he'd buck! That poor kid getting the lesson, you could see she was scared to DEATH, but the gal giving the lesson kept encouraging her to ride out the bucks (HA, hardly a buck, Leo's so out of shape he just sort of kicked up one leg towards the front), and after a while she did get a nice trot out of him!
So, got Quzqo tacked up, and this time I hung his rhythm beads/bear bells around his neck...I bet if I'd had them last week, it would have shooed the Mourning Doves off before we got near them...wasn't taking any chances this time! Coos is SO good about taking the bit now, I'm SO happy about that! Don't have to stand on a chair, don't have to tie his head down (I was reading on FHOTD about some Darwin Award-Winner who had trouble bridling her horse, so she tied the lead rope AROUND HER WAIST...the horse spooked and bolted, dragging her around the farm. She died). Was able to get on Coos w/o incident outside (I keep him distracted with a peppermint...it takes him a while to get it up over the bit, so he's busy thinking about that and not turning his butt aside or walking off or whatever), and off we went!
The spooking began almost immediately, OHMYGOD there's a SNOWBANK! Spook! YAAAAH, a PUDDLE! OHMYGOD! Nyyyaaaaaagh! a CAR! OHMYGOD! JigJigJig WHAAAAA OHMYGOD another SNOWBANK!!!! AAAAGH! Horse Trailers!!! Spook jigjigjig NoNoNoNoNOOOOO not going near the snowbank! Not near the snowbank that's by the TRAILER! OHMYGOD! The Road The Road must get to the road Nyaaaaaagh it's near a puddle which is near a snowbank which is near the trailer!!!
Thankfully we got across the road to the shoulder and he settled down, because there were no snowbanks, puddles, trailers, buildings, cars, Corgis, or anything for a few yards. We came near a swampy woodsy area where they'd cut down a tree, and there were light-colored wood chips on the ground...we got by that with just a hairy eyeball and a little bit of side-stepping...then he froze....and started to spin back the way we came. Oh, no you don't, especially since I could hear a car coming up behind us. (I had a Hunter Orange sweatshirt rolled & tied to the cantle of my saddle, so visibility isn't an issue). He was tensed up and ready to explode, staring at something in the woods...I thought it was a bird maybe, or a squirrel...finally I saw what had him so terrified. There was a blackened dead stalk of a weed, bobbing in the breeze! I believe my exact quote to him was "For crap's sake, horse!" and popped him in the butt with the crop, which distracted him from the Killer Bobbing Weed and he scurried past it!!
Much to my surprise, he started jigging down the shoulder...Quzqo RARELY jigs...RARELY! I could see we were faced with a few more mailboxes, a couple of snowbanks, some paved driveways, so we broke State law and crossed over to the other side and made our way the remaining 50 yards or so to the intersection. It was a wider shoulder, with only a large, friendly empty hay field with nothing scarifying whatsoever!
Today we headed West instead of East on that road, which is a sparsely-populated dirt road (as opposed to the more built-up, and paved road we were on last week). Since Mr. Coos was in a jiggy mood, I didn't have to ask twice for a trot, and I made him trot all the way up the hill...which is a lonnnngggggg gradual incline, maybe 3/8 of a mile. He did it too, and if he's too busy trotting, he doesn't have time to spook or slow down to pitch a hissy fit.
We did slow down at the top, as it's a blind hill and I couldn't see what, if anything, might be approaching. The snow was still melting up there, and about that time the wind blew across the hilltop and caused the water in the puddles to ripple...and TWINKLE in the Sunlight! OHMYGOD! Mr. Quzqo got himself another pop with the crop & some more trotting for that foolish little spook-fit over light sparkles!! Gotta draw the line somewhere! He can spook if there's a mountain lion attacking us, but not light glitters!
The woods are still full of snow, a couple of feet it looked like, so we didn't take our usual route through the woods, so that meant more road riding. But the road we took after the dirt one has nice wide shoulders, with great clay/fine crushed stone footing, not unlike some show arenas I've seen, so Coos got a good trotting workout..and he was into it, man, he was a trottin' fool!!! I guess he had Spring Fever as well...I'm not used to this...Tezluesque behavior!
We met a pair of young teen boys walking along the road, Coos didn't care one bit, I greeted them and they just got out of the way w/o saying a word. Okay, fine, whatever. Yeah, I figured if they made a reach for the reins I'd just get Coos to do a turn on the forehand and smash into them with his butt! Lucky for them I didn't have to do that, HA!
And further West down another dirt road, the one with some of the scariest redneck white trash hovels I can remember...I've GOT to take pix one of these times, they are amazing, especially the one that's a small travel trailer with an entire ramshackle house added on to it...that one is particularly spectacular! Got Quzqo trotting again (to get past the scary hovels), once past there we had to slow down and get to the side as a rattly pick-up full of rednecks went clattering by. I was wondering where they thought they were going, because the county stopped plowing that road at the end as well, and I doubt the snow's gone from the woods up ahead! Yep, they stopped & sat there for a while, probably wondering if the truck could make it through the snow. Go for it guys, I dare ya!
Since I had about 3/8 mile or so between them and me, I got Coos into a canter, our first outdoor cantering since last November!!! He took right off and kept on going, it was GLORIOUS!!!! I love his canter, it's so balanced and CONTROLLED!!! Actually FUN! It's hard to realize just how traumatized Tezlu made me about cantering, LOL...I'd always have to calculate at least 1/8 mile of "slowing down" distance where I'd have to wrestle him down from the hand gallop or full gallop our "cantering" usually turned into. With Quzqo I had to occasionally give him a leg squeeze to urge him on, because he'd start slowing. We made it almost to where the truck was when they backed up, turned around & came back...guess they didn't want to try, HA! We got to where the road turned into a two-track into the woods...yep, that snow was pretty deep. And slushy, so Coos got out of going in there this time. Maybe next weekend though...
We cantered back down the road, he was faster because he knew we were heading HOME! Trotted past the redneck hovels, and trotted back down the side of the road. Fat Boy was puffin', and sweating, but still full of GoGoGo!
As we turned back onto the dirt road, I saw a white pick-up pulling a utility trailer coming towards us. The road was all slush and puddles, and the truck was kicking up a lot of water, so I backtracked and got down into an empty field beside the road...didn't want to be on the road next to that when it came splashing by! Ha, who was it but my farrier! He gave me a puzzled look, I gave him a grin and a wave, and when he'd pulled away, we went back on the road. Course another pick-up HAD to come down the road, we were past most the slush, but I got to the far side as far as I could (big snowbank there), the truck comes by and SPLASH a puddle! Coos about JUMPED out of his skin but thankfully spooked in place. I had a feeling he was going to do that!
We did a little more cantering back down that road & trotted up the blind hill (well, halfway, he pooped out), Coos started his "drifting towards the barn", except he drifted right into a fallen branch on the side of the road and spooked himself over it! I can't remember a time he'd been such a basket case!! I'm sure the wind had something to do with it, and the fact he hadn't been ridden since Tuesday, heh heh (and hadn't been lunged).
Almost to the intersection to the road to the barn, when another bunch of rednecks were just NOW deciding to start up this old utility/crane truck they had stored in their yard all winter! They had the crane sticking out over the road, and the rear tires were stuck in the mud! So here's this big, rumbly, diesely belching thing half-hidden by trees, with a big crane waggling around overhead! Plus SNOWBANKS (OHMYGOD!) and PUDDLES (OHMYGOD!) on the other side of the road. We stopped a few yards away and waited and watched...I figured if they got it moving, they'd just drive it AWAY and then we could continue. To his credit, Quzqo backed up like a champ (probably because he wanted to get AWAY from that thing). Well, the rednecks got it sunk to the hubs in mud, so another genius got in the cab and raised the crane waaaay up in the air, then started collapsing it back towards the cab, and started running it into tree branches (not on purpose). After some loud discussions, they turned the engine OFF, and Coos and I made a break for it. Oh, he was side-passing nicely past that truck, and was a lovely jittery jumble of coiled watchspring dynamite by the time we reached the intersection!
He neatly spooked to the left, and we found ourselves at long last on the homeward stretch! I got him trotting, and he FLEW like a roadster! WheeeHOOO, if it wasn't for the constant worry of the asshats on the road who didn't bother to pull into the other lane to avoid us, plus the wind, plus the glittery puddles, plus the seagulls screeching, it would have been kinda fun!
Well, we made it back to the barn, he side-danced his way up the driveway around all the scary runnels of snowmelt water, we made it past the horse trailers, and the cars, and the SNOWBANKS (OHMYGOD!) and down to the barn!
The riding lesson was over, everyone had survived. LOL, Coos was a sweaty bugger, serves him right! But he was rewarded with peppermints and brushing & his monkey leaving him alone in his stall with hay and fresh sawdust (that he immediately peed in).
Don't know if it was the Motrin, or the fact we didn't do much walking, but my ankle didn't bother me TOO much today! It was killing me last weekend, but that was mostly walking. Good to know!
Tomorrow the vet comes to do mass vaccinations and Coggins Tests, which means I have to be there by 8 a.m. BLEAH! The weather's going to be just as gorgeous; I had contemplated hitching him up to the cart and taking him for a drive, but after today's performance...I don't think so!
Hm, aren't I a talkative one...the wonders of a good strong cuppa coffee and ersatz Hostess Cupcakes from Save-A-Lot!
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