Ride 20: Reverse Circumnavigation of the East Grass: No Deer, No Drama

It was a day of seconds and one first, but we’ll take it in order.   A day of perfect weather for a ride, whether long or short (this was short, under a half hour, more like 20 minutes, but somewhat strenuous for the rider.)    Rags is improving steadily at accepting both halter and bridle and I am improving slowly at being more deft and less clumsy at offering them, and at fitting his ears into the bridle.   For the second time I was able to mount “almost correctly” (still using the top pipe of the barn lot fence for balance, but swung my right leg over much more easily.)  Adjusted the offside (right) stirrup easily, and off we went, as R- walked slowly to the gate out to the north horse lot.  I took Rags over one of the raised walking poles, which he negotiated without a problem.  In the north pasture, we did a little leg yield this way and that, made a circle or two, while R- walked across to the gate out to the Near Meadow.

Once we were out in the wide, wide world (a phrase from my favorite book as a small child, “The Poky Little Puppy”) I took him west across the Near Meadow to the grass dip crossing of the Old Ditch, then back east on the mowed area just north of the ditch…and then a left turn onto the trail up to the Dry Woods at the SE corner.  On that trail, he want to jog-trot, so I encouraged him, and we trotted maybe 30 yards;  I posted some and sat the trot some.  I find it hard to post to a very quick and short-strided trot (his, so far) but he didn’t seem to mind which I was doing.   Going up to the Dry Woods at a walk is up-slope, with a couple of berms on the main slope angle.  He moved right along.   When we turned (slight angle, because of the angle of the rhombus that is the Dry Woods shape) onto the east trail, he was tense again, so I talked to him, praising him for going on and not acting twitchy (didn’t phrase it like that.)  I didn’t hear anything and evidently he didn’t either, because we came out of that trail into the burn scar (now well-dotted with wildflower rosettes waiting for both rain and March)  and he stopped.

I had started giving him a treat somewhere about the half point of a ride  (but not where he picks, not in the same place each time)  and yesterday he had his treat about where he stopped today.  I nudged him on, and he went without fussing; I wanted to get him closer to the highway.   He ate his cookie near the highway gate and as we walked south fairly close to the fence, and then we turned aside to head for the same gentle crossing of the upper Old Ditch we’d used before.  Headed home on the trail beside the ditch, but then (to use up some time–the East Grass is smaller than the West Grass, in part because that SE corner of the original rectangle now belongs to someone else, about five acres worth, I’m guessing.)   We made two big circles into the grass between the property fence and the old ditch, and then came back to the ditch to enter the upper end of the Near Meadow.  Then when we passed the #3 gabion, we went down the line of trees in the old ditch to the west end, looping back along the edge of the picnic grove and back to the upper end by a route he hadn’t been on, between a couple of intentional shelter thickets, then back down the middle to the west end of the Near Meadow, a 3-tree weave, and finally back up to where R was waiting.  Into the north horse lot, this time all the way down to loop around the “rose circle” and back up to stop.

I had a hard time dismounting–couldn’t at first even using R-‘s shoulder for balance and leverage, but finally, something clicked in the synapses, and my right leg and hip got it together.  For the first time in years, I swung that leg over the saddle and Rags’ back just like a normal rider would.    All the way in one swing.   I still don’t know exactly which muscles do what…it’s not the same as the mounting swing (sideways, up, and forward) because it’s backward and up and  in toward the hip once it’s over.  After the first several failed attempts to manage even the clumsy struggle I’ve had, I was surprised with it suddenly worked like it was supposed to.   (At the moment the hip is muttering ‘You will pay for that, you know’ and I’m ignoring it.)    Now that I’ve done it once (and the mounting leg-swing twice)  I’m sure I can do it again with practice and eventually without needing any extra support.

Rags has lost some of his flab and acquired some additional muscle in shoulder, hindquarter, and gaskins, all of which are firmer than they were and in some cases enlarged.   This is good.  I’m going to add about a small serving of pellets to his ration, which he will get on completion of a ride from here on.   He ate it happily today.   Tigger was Not Pleased, though somewhat mollified when he got a cookie instead.  “Two, please?”   “You could start being more cooperative with me, let me groom you, trim up your mane again…”   “Just give me the other cookie.  It’s in your other hand.”