Not a “section” section (640 acres, a square mile)\u00a0 but the north half of the West Grass, from Center Walk to the treeline along the north fence, bordered on the east by the dry woods and on the west by the creek woods.\u00a0 A much warmer afternoon, with a SW breeze, clear blue sky, bright sun…didn’t get started until almost 3 and were back by 3:30.\u00a0\u00a0 We had a few moments of “I don’t want to go any farther, Tigger’s calling me” and a few more later of “I don’t WANT to whoa! I want to hurry home!!” both handled without excessive drama and some small tight circles.\u00a0\u00a0 (Some horses–Molly, for instance–use wheeling and spinning as part of their resistance; for those, small tight circles may not be the best correction.\u00a0 But for a horse that doesn’t offer them, they’re often a good way to end an “I won’t go” or “I won’t stop” resistance, because they force the horse to think about its own balance.\u00a0 Rags isn’t hard to redirect, though if he wants to keep going through a Whoa on the way home, it may take multiple circles with a change of direction in the middle.\u00a0 The bit I’m using with Rags, a moderate simple snaffle with full cheekpieces that cannot be pulled into the mouth, is ideal for the “small tight circle” correction…there’s pressure on only one rein a a time, and the full cheekpiece will not go into his mouth even if he gapes.\u00a0 I think this kind of bit is called a “fulmer” in the UK.)<\/p>\n
I mounted from a mounting block this time, not the rock.\u00a0 Positioned Rags near the barn lot fence,\u00a0 with the mounting block on his left side.\u00a0 R- stood in front of him, and I got on with a brief hold-and-push for steadying on the top pipe of that fence, which is at five feet.\u00a0 Worked very well and will work better as I get better.\u00a0 No wallowing.\u00a0\u00a0 Made a couple of loops in the north horse lot to be sure he wasn’t all wired, as Tigger was when I did ground work with him.\u00a0 Then out the gate into the Near Meadow, a couple more loops (short loops) and then across the Old Ditch, left on the mowed trail there, right onto the trail up to the Dry Woods SW corner, and left (west )on Center Walk.\u00a0 Tigger let out a good long call and Rags stopped and we had our first little disagreement, but he went on down Center Walk toward the Creek Woods.\u00a0 We passed the opening to the right of the Diagonal trail and kept on until we were almost at the Entrance Meadow, where Center Walk crosses the N\/S trail just east of the Creek Woods.<\/p>\n
Rags was briefly in the Entrance Meadow a little over a year ago, so he had seen the entire Center Walk trail before.\u00a0 This time we turned right, north, toward the same line of trees he saw up close the day we rode the Diagonal Trail both ways from and to Center Walk.\u00a0 But he had not ever been on the north end of the east Creek Woods trail.\u00a0 Ears wiggled, and I could feel some tension.\u00a0 I had been singing to him, a simple little tune and verses sung to the rhythm of his walk, so I started that again and felt him relax a little until the trail veered off a little…but then we got high enough he could really see where we were going…”Oh…I’ve been *there* before. Sure…”\u00a0 And from that point, he felt relaxed and happy to finish that trail and arrive at the wider mowed area where several trails meet. \u00a0 I had thought about which way to bring him back–by the Diagonal, or straight east to the Dry Woods on one of three trails…not, at this time, the one along the north fence (it would feel confined and is less safe because one side is a many-stranded barbed wire perimeter fence (used to be cattle across it.\u00a0 Not a place to have a horse panic about something.)\u00a0 I chose the trail just to the field side of the fencerow trees and bushes.\u00a0 It winds around some of the growth and in a few places there are trees or clumps of brush on the field side.\u00a0 We had recently trimmed it to make room for a horse and rider (as opposed to a lone person on foot.)\u00a0 It’s a safe place to find out if a horse will go willingly through a narrow gap, because the narrow bit is very short.\u00a0 Rags made nothing of those places<\/p>\n
Somewhat to my surprise, Rags needed no extra reassurance or encouragement to start up that way…he may have recognized the Dry Woods edge (he’d been on that before, heading home from his first trek into the Dry Woods and Fox and up to the View Corner.)\u00a0\u00a0 There’s a shorter route, farther out in the grass, that runs straight, but I know I want to ride this edge trail (and the inside fence-checking one) later.\u00a0\u00a0 It climbs not quite steadily, because the west field was also terraced at one time, so there are berm ends to climb and runoff channels (not very deep) to come back down into.\u00a0 As it’s winter, and most of the trees and brush (live oaks excepted) are leafless, it’s easy to see the field north of ours all the way to the highway there and beyond.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s also longer than Center Walk because the Dry Woods form a rhombus that slants toward the west from its side along the north fence.\u00a0 Rags looked at traffic, and the brush we passed, but didn’t slow down or stop.\u00a0 At the top end, I turned him onto the mowed trail west of the Dry Woods and he perked up with his “Oh–we’re going home now?\u00a0 Cool!!” walk.<\/p>\n
When we came to the “front” corner,\u00a0 where Center Walk takes off to the right and extends along the front of the Dry Woods to the left, he made a move toward the trail we’d come up by.\u00a0 I turned him onto the front trail but wanted him to stop.\u00a0 “NOOOooooo stop!” he replied with stiff neck, gaping mouth, and…when I started to make a tight circle, he backed up, and backed up again.\u00a0\u00a0 It took a minute to straight this out, but eventually he stood still long enough, and quiet enough, reins loose, to earn a little extra reward.\u00a0 Then\u00a0 across the front of the Dry Woods, down the east Dry Woods trail to the Near Meadow, back up into the north horse lot, and I dismounted, but had to use R-‘s shoulder to brace on while getting my leg back over the horse.<\/p>\n
If I can get Rags to stand still next to the horse lot fence, so I can use that top pipe to brace on, I will be able to get on (with the mounting block) and off (no mounting block needed) without R- having to be there.\u00a0 That’s one goal.\u00a0 The next is being able to mount from one of the mounting blocks I’d pre-positioned around the place, and finally from the ground.\u00a0 At that point I’ll be able to ride out to Fox or Owl or Cloud, dismount, give Rags a drink in a bucket, work on the wildlife waterer as needed, and mount again to ride back.\u00a0 Get off anywhere I want to and get back on…what a concept.\u00a0\u00a0 Today, everything about the ride was an advance on where Rags and I were before so it gets 5\/5 stars and I’m almost as happy with myself as with him.\u00a0\u00a0 R- is going to widen the mowed path from Center Walk south to the area near Cloud Pavilion and the south fence trails…that area has serious tallgrass on each side of a narrow mowed path, and I don’t want Rags to encounter anything too spooky yet.\u00a0 He was upset when a cat came out of the tall grass when I rode him down to Cloud back a few rides. (However, today something moved in the brush beside us when we were headed north and he stiffened but didn’t shy.\u00a0 Good pony!)<\/p>\n
Soon we should be able to do the whole of the West Grass in one ride, or the whole of the East Grass, and then start him learning sections of the place across the creek, and the route through the creek woods, between the south fence and the Entrance Meadow…and eventually get the old trail across the creek and out the creek woods on that side, into the grasses there and around the upper end\u00a0 of the gully system.\u00a0 I see no reason to try to cut across the gully as we’re hoping it will eventually heal all the way.\u00a0 We’ve managed to stop the headward erosion there now.\u00a0 (Grass is a wonderful thing.\u00a0 The native prairie grasses we’ve put in have made a huge difference. )\u00a0\u00a0 Riding my own horse on our land, actually covering distance, is just a whale of a lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not a “section” section (640 acres, a square mile)\u00a0 but the north half of the West Grass, from Center Walk to the treeline along the north fence, bordered on the east by the dry woods and on the west by the creek woods.\u00a0 A much warmer afternoon, with a SW breeze, clear blue sky, bright 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":[48],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses","tag-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117"}],"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=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}