Ride 28: Wind, Sun, New Trail

We hit the jackpot on weather today: cool, clear, brilliant sun…and  a boisterous strong wind out of the NW.   I tacked up Rags with a few changes to the gear: shortened the bridle one hole, shortened the throatlatch one hole, and added the braided rawhide roping rein to the halter.  Most of the time it just lay on his neck and had no effect: its trigger snaps were hooked to the halter rings on each side of the halter.  The bridle was only slightly harder to fit over his ears, and he actually seemed more comfortable with its being shorter…messed with the bit less.  Mounting went well.  He’s now used to walking over raised poles to start with, and today didn’t bonk one until the next to last and the last.   We started out into the Near Meadow; he was eager to move on, and I headed down the meadow to the west exist, the grassy ditch crossing.  Trees along the ditch, and the picnic grove, partly shielded us from the wind until we came up from the ditch.  It was blowing right in our faces, and Rags thought he’d rather turn and go somewhere else.  We went up the west trail to the dry woods, then onto Center Walk, where the wind buffeted our right sides.

Rags seemed happier with the wind on the side, but we needed to get all the way up to the north, so I turned onto Diagonal.  Again Rags signaled that he thought maybe his rider should reconsider, but I insisted and we went on, then turned left for the dry creek crossing.  Traffic noise from the highway to the north was LOUD by then; he wiggled his ears and wanted reassurance that it wasn’t getting closer.  In a short distance we turned away from the fence and were on a winding path among Ashe junipers, until we got to the NW corner.  There we turned left to parallel (in a wavy, scalloped sort of way) the west property line.  R- had trimmed up that trail from “high enough for a pedestrian” to “high enough for a rider” and it was, as I’d always thought it would be, a very pleasant stretch of trail.  It feels private and special.

We emerged from that into the more open area that runs to the West Woods (Westbrook’s woods), where R- had opened a new trail so Rags would not have to walk on any rough rocks.   The trail we’d been on curved left, avoiding the main woods “shoulder,” and then curved right to head down to Westbrook and across it.  We’d put quite a lot of rock there so we could take a vehicle through.  The new trail opens inconspicuously on the right, just large enough for a horse and rider, and crosses dry Westbook in a gentle but definite dip.   Shortly before the dip, there’s a fallen tree that R- had left to make it look like a “real” trail–he’d trimmed branches back, but the trunk was slanted across, with a low end only 4-6 inches high, and the upper end quite a bit higher.  Rags stopped and stared.  I let him stare a moment and then said “You can make it; it’s just like the poles back home. Walk on,”  and nudged him, and he did.  I guided him to the low end and he stepped very carefully over it, and then went on down and across Westbrook, and powered up the rise on the other side.

We emerged into the SW meadow, where Owl Pavilion is; he’s been there once before, when Richard was there.  The SW meadow is now slowly filling in with small clumps of trees, mostly cedar elm, a few oaks.  This is part of our management plan, because development has already reduced the woods habitats in the area from when we moved here.  We followed the path R- had mowed between little thickets (great bird nest habitat) south to Owl, where Rags got a cookie, and then turned and came back.  On the way back, I turned off the trail we’d come on, to the Fort Cedar/Gully Trail, and after circling Fort Cedar we were headed back north and rode alongside the gully system.   Near the head of the gully system, a falcon flew up from one of the Ashe junipers to the north of us, and flew strongly south.  I know a couple of falcons it *wasn’t* but since I caught only a glimpse of it zooming past, I can’t be sure of the size.  Not a kestrel (too big, too dark) and not a gyrfalcon (out of range), but I’ve seen, for sure, though years ago, a merlin, and several peregrines, and one prairie falcon (the day after a storm blew through with a strong westerly wind.  This is marginal range for them, but that one was unmistakable.)  So merlin vs. peregrine, and I think it was bigger than a merlin.  Always exciting to see any falcon.  In the same area, a thicket of wild plums that looks “golden” when it blooms was just opening the flower buds.  It looks golden because the flowers there have very short petals and the yellow stamens shadow the petals.

At the head of the gully system, the Gully Trail turns back NE with some more interesting winding bits and comes out on the north trail  to the creek crossing, just a little shy of it.    Rags had been going very well, so for much of this bit–gully system to creek crossing–I dropped the bridle reins and picked up the roping rein.  The man I bought Rags from said he could be ridden in a halter and shank, but I hadn’t tried that yet.  The trail was too twisty to tempt Rags to speed up, so I wanted to find out if he would stop and turn on cues from the halter reins.  Yes.  Very reassuring to know.  I alternated which cues I was using and he responded well; I dropped the halter reins before crossing the creek, and we got back on Diagonal and alternated walk and trot up to Center Walk…crossed Center Walk to the shortcut to Cloud Pavilion, then came home on the wide mowed area where we’d practiced side pass before.  Part way down it, he wanted to stop and stare off to the right…then I spotted Tigger trotting back and forth and whinnying.  Insisted Rags had to go on, because my stomach ache was coming back.

And back we came, including a short trot partway up the New Meadow and a few things to do with poles before R- was in place.  Dismounting not as bad as last time or as good as one of the times before.  With the roaring coolish wind, Rags wasn’t wet (barely damp in  one area.)  He had covered about 2 miles (from my bike computer years ago) and done the homecoming polework in 35 minutes.  GOOD pony.  No problems with the bridle, but I think I’ll have that roping rein along and work him from the halter for a few minutes every ride for awhile.   It’s really handy to have a horse you can ride in a halter and some kind of rein.  Besides his cookies, Rags gets a very small amount of regular horse feed pellets after any ride that I think is “long enough”…about 1/8 of a pound.   Long enough includes both time and any harder work than just walking that’s included.