Rides 29 and 30: Very Short and Moderately Long

Ride 29, on Wednesday, was too short to deserve a whole post to itself, but educational nonetheless.  I waited too long to start, for various reasons that only make sense at the time, not later.  It was a clear, warm, breezy day and got hotter…by the time I was tacking up, it was uncomfortably warm.  (Can I just mention again that I loathe Daylight Savings Time, which knocks me off kilter for a minimum of a month and in some years all through the summer.  Well, I just did mention it, probably not for the last time.  HATE dark mornings.  HATE feeling “behind” all day every day.)

Anyway, I finally got on Rags and we did the pole work (immaculately on his part) and started off to ride all the way to Owl Pavilion, going past Fort Cedar either coming or going, to check R-s trimming-up job.  We were partway up the west trail to the Dry Woods when Rags veered to one side and stopped and was tossing his head and not wanting to go on. I looked the tack over, starting of course with the bridle (still on, and straight)  From where I sat, I could see that the saddle pad proper seemed to have slipped off-center a little, and the riser pad (which sits on top of it and both fills in a little behind his withers and “levels” the saddle on his back) was an inch to the other side.  That would mean its channel (it has a channel for the spinal processes of a horse’s vertebrae, just as the saddle does, and it’s important that one channel sits on top of the other.  This suggested to me that the girth might have loosened, so I reached down to check and decided it was indeed looser than it should be.  So we went back–it wasn’t that far–and I was going to get off in the north horse lot, take everything off, line it up correctly again, snug up the girth and remount.

However, in the process of untacking and rearranging the pads, then saddling,  I suddenly felt “off”.  I hadn’t felt great that morning, but had been sure I could ride, and aside from the big difference in temperature from the day before, had had no problem grooming, tacking up, or mounting and riding the polework.  I argued with myself but the sense of impending sickness intensified.  So I tossed mental dice, which came down on the side of “If you felt this bad or worse when you were over on the back side, that would really not be good” and quit.  Better safe than sorry kind of thing.  Rags, of course, was perfectly cool with a 5 minute ride, but wanted the same “reward.”  He didn’t get it.  I went in the house, fell into bed, and slept for over two hours.  By then it had cooled off but was time to feed, so I fed them (somewhat late, in fact) and felt well enough that R- and I walked out to the far end to look at the trimming.  (Excellent, most of it.)   I got a close look at the thicket of “thicketing plums” that looks golden and was coming into bloom..these never make trees, just bushes up to head high.  We also saw several tree-wild plums, snowy white at first, turning pinkish as the petals fall leaving pink-stemmed stamens.  The fruit of both is red, yellow inside, and the thicketing plums are usually both bitter and sour, but wildlife strips them quickly.  I have tried making a jam from them…you can use a lot of sugar without taming the astringent bite one bit.  But the fragrance of both the tree plums and the thicketing plums is my favorite of the spring scents.

Ride 30, Thursday (today) was a demonstration of the vagaries of weather forecasting.   Until I turned off the computer last night, today was supposed to be mostly sunny and dry, with fire danger.  It dawned cloudy, foggy and we still–nearing 1 pm–have a solid cloud cover, with blustery wind from the south, so it’s technically warmer but feels cool because of the humidity and windspeed.  I knew from Tuesday that Rags wasn’t thrilled with strong winds–most horses aren’t–but that’s Texas in the spring (and often in the fall, too) …northers bring the cool winds from the N and NW, and the “backwash” of a returning S/SW/SE wind brings heat.  So…I tacked him up when R- got back from grocery shopping, got on, and started out.  Predictably, he tried to stop and turn around a few times, including where he’d indicated a problem yesterday, but equally predictably I insisted we weren’t going back.  The wind had picked up, and we could hear Tigger’s “Come back!  Don’t leave me! Come back!  Don’t let that human take you away!” calls almost the whole way around.  I could, and probably Tigger could hear even the ones that sounded very faint to me.  Rags was, like most horses, not really happy with the sounds the wind made in the grass and the way the taller grasses (Little Bluestem, Indiangrass) were rising and falling in waves.  But with urging, he kept going.

This time we weren’t heading into the wind on the way out, though–had it behind, or on one quarter, most of the way.   Rags made it clear he was listening and watching for trouble, but didn’t balk all along the North Fence Trail.   When we made the turn to the West Trail heading south, and got into the big Ashe junipers,  junipers absorbed it, taming it to just “air movement.”  What caught Rags’ attention then were all the roosters crowing like crazy to the west, on that neighbor’s land.  Rags thought perhaps we should get closer and take a look.   There’s a smallish Indiangrass meadow as the trail veers toward the crossing of the West Woods and Westbrook, and I had a clearer view of the woods proper.  The wind had strengthened even more, and the tops of the cedar elms were really rocking back and forth; the Ashe junipers at the edge were flailing their big dark-green plumes.  Remembering several standing snags with branches still on them in that stretch I decided not to go into the woods proper, and we turned onto the Fort Cedar/Gully trail instead.  It dives back into some cedars (Ashe junipers)  which cut the wind again, and we had a peaceful walk around Fort Cedar, then started back toward the North Fence Trail alongside the gully system.  No falcon today.   The trail turns across the head of the gully system (which no longer shows headward erosion, as it did when we bought the place) , angling east and north, with twisty bits before meeting the North Fence Trail a little short of the dry creek crossing.  Then it was back home by way of Diagonal, Center Walk, the West Dry Woods Trail, across the Near Meadow, and back into the horse lot.  Two or three more short trotting segments were included.  A final walk through the raised poles, and I got off with less difficulty than yesterday…and after untacking, Rags got his “more than a half hour” reward of a “wormer-size” measure of pellets (very few, but it’s something.)