{"id":1063,"date":"2021-12-30T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T18:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2021-12-30T12:00:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T18:00:30","slug":"back-in-the-saddle-ride-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/12\/30\/back-in-the-saddle-ride-six\/","title":{"rendered":"Back in the Saddle, Ride Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today wasn’t foggy at dawn, both cooler and crisper.\u00a0 I’m expecting a business-related delivery today, so wanted to ride early.\u00a0 As always, getting ready took longer than expected but I was finally up on Rags.\u00a0\u00a0 Slightly more difficulty mounting, probably the result of my day off yesterday feeling icky and a slight remaining internal wobble.\u00a0 However, I rode without any problems.\u00a0\u00a0 It was the first ride of the second week, and so we went 20 minutes, not 15.\u00a0\u00a0 Down the near meadow, crossing the old ditch\u00a0 as a ditch (dip and rise) then up the west trail to the Dry Woods’ SW corner, and turn onto Center Walk, with the expanse of the West Grass (quite different from the East Grass)\u00a0 on both sides, and a few scattered trees or clumps.\u00a0 Lots of tallgrass–Indiangrass, Little Bluestem, a few clumps of Big Bluestem that we planted.\u00a0 The Little Blue has migrated upslope from where we first found it (with some help from me, stripping the seeds in the fall and tossing them into a south or west wind.\u00a0\u00a0 The upper slopes of the West Grass, nearer the north fence and the dry woods, range from shortgrass (higher, on thinner soil) like curly mesquite, purple three-awn, Texas grama, through the improved pasture grasses planted by the farmer who leased it when we moved here (King Ranch Bluestem, Silky Bluestem, both African in origin) down to the now spreading tallgrasses.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 Little bluestem (brown) stripes on either side of King Ranch Bluestem and Silky Bluestem (pale)\u00a0 This picture is from weeks ago; Little Blue is now copper-colored.\u00a0\u00a0 Rags regarded copper grass higher than his knees as something to reach out for.\u00a0 He will be allowed to graze some of the native grasses (it’s good for them as long as they’re not grazed down too low)\u00a0 once he’s in serious work.<\/p>\n

I rode him down to the “crossroads” where the trail that runs along the front of the creek woods crosses Center Walk, turned him around in the intersection, and rode back up to the Dry Woods, across the front of it, then down the east main trail into the Near Meadow.\u00a0 A very pleasant walk for me, and he was more energetic headed home than going out (typical of a horse that’s not kept stalled…he isn’t bored and restless from being stuck in a stall hours every day.\u00a0\u00a0 He’ll do another 20 minutes tomorrow, weather permitting (some Weather is forecast), then 25 Saturday, skip Sunday (unless it’s perfect weather but Monday or Tuesday’s predicted to be too cold or stormy, which it’s not right now.)\u00a0 The ride after Saturday’s will be 25-30 minutes, and the final ride of the week will be 30.\u00a0\u00a0 If he continues to handle that progression well, then next Wednesday is planned for 35, Thursday for 35, Friday for 40, Saturday 40, then Monday and Tuesday following Sunday off will\u00a0 both last 45 minutes.\u00a0 By then he will have carried me, or been led (for the trickiest trails, that take him right beside the perimeter fences, mostly barbed wire) except the rockiest, for which he’ll wait until he’s got hoof boots.\u00a0 When he’s up to an hour of being ridden, I’ll start showing him the trails west of the creek, eventually all the way to Owl Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Ideally, his “trail” work won’t take him exactly the same route two days in a row, even when he’s doing a daily round of fence checking and wildlife water checking.\u00a0 Variety is good for horses’ brains, as it is for ours.\u00a0 The same trail changes with the seasons and weather, too, which is fun.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 Trail between Fox Pavilion and N. Fence, part rocky<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 N. Fence Trail between DryWoods and creek, nearly all soil<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 N. Fence Trail top of dry woods, very rocky<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 Creek Woods outside trail, grass\/dirt<\/p>\n

A few examples of the trails.\u00a0 Views from them (walking or riding) vary as well.\u00a0 From the North Fence trail up on top of the rise, you can often see out to the north part of that property and a busy road….until the thickets of roughleaf dogwood, cedar elm, etc. close in.\u00a0 There are views south across the West Grass to Cloud Pavilion in the breaks of the inner fencerow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today wasn’t foggy at dawn, both cooler and crisper.\u00a0 I’m expecting a business-related delivery today, so wanted to ride early.\u00a0 As always, getting ready took longer than expected but I was finally up on Rags.\u00a0\u00a0 Slightly more difficulty mounting, probably the result of my day off yesterday feeling icky and a slight remaining internal wobble.\u00a0 Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,48,16],"tags":[52,49,17],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80-acres","category-horses","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-80acres","tag-horses","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}