March 3.\u00a0 Today’s ride was briefly delayed by realizing I had missed taking my meds for 2 days, so a perfect time to check BP and see how it was doing on its own.\u00a0\u00a0 Hmph. Need to be more regular taking it, was the answer.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 Tigger blocked Rags from coming to me and presented himself:\u00a0 I want to go first.\u00a0\u00a0 So he got some simple practice in hand, and sure enough Rags sneaked in behind him and wanted to nibble his tail or nip his flank.\u00a0 Having made Rags stand back while Tigger “worked” and earned a cookie, when I then released Tig and went to Rags…he declined to be caught, challenged Tigger to a chase, and off they went, heads and tails up.\u00a0 They came prancing back, snaking their heads (Tigger does that very well, with an Arabian’s supple neck; Rags…doesn’t.)\u00a0\u00a0 I caught Rags, haltered him, led him toward the barn and so Tigger of course had to come sniff his tail and his flank.\u00a0 BOYS!\u00a0 Convinced Tig to wait outside the barn while I led Rags in and closed the gate.\u00a0 Got Rags tacked up, with R’s help for tightening the girth the last hole, had no trouble mounting, and then did his “before the ride” pole exercises.\u00a0 I’d moved the poles around yesterday, though I didn’t ride.<\/p>\n
We went west along the south fenceline, passing Cloud Pavilion on the south side and turning north along the creek woods.\u00a0 Rags reminded me, with an effort to turn off the trail, that deer had jumped out there on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0 “Just deer,” I said.\u00a0 “And I haven’t seen one today.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We rode across Center Walk and up the rather crooked trail (for reasons) to the area where trails meet and turned on the one to the creek.\u00a0\u00a0 “We could go home now,” said Rags with mild resistance.\u00a0 “We’re going across and on, ” I said, encouraging boldness.\u00a0 “A new trail for you.”\u00a0\u00a0 “Oh…all right…” said Rags’ ears.\u00a0 “If I must.”\u00a0\u00a0 “You must.”<\/p>\n
Dead giant ragweed stalks from the creek west aways make a noisy and slightly prickly obstacle, but Rags quit worrying about the crackling sound soon and we were past the trail that winds around to the right, toward the gully system.\u00a0 He’d never seen this part before.\u00a0 Bigger junipers, a trail that generally rises to the west, but undulates with dips formed by water running off the fields to the north.\u00a0 Then (really visible from on top of a horse, and Rags stared)–the back of a house with a fenced yard, dog, turkeys and other farm critters.\u00a0 More big junipers to go between and around.\u00a0 Rags decided he’d better leave a marker for the way home, and dropped a pile.\u00a0\u00a0 That trail turns south before getting to the west fence, but it’s visible.\u00a0 We turned the corner and I looked at the junipers ahead…and decided to turn around, because some trimming will make it easier for me when I’m riding.\u00a0\u00a0 Rags paused to sniff and confirm that the pile on the trail a little ways on was his and not some other horse’s.\u00a0 OK…we’re going home…I could feel the eagerness in his movements…yes, yes, on the way, yes.\u00a0 “Just walk,” I reminded him.\u00a0\u00a0 “Oh.\u00a0 OK, I guess,” said Rags with a sigh.<\/p>\n
Once back on the east side of the creek, I chose the creek woods trail back to Center Walk, and then took him into the Entrance Meadow of the woods, fully mowed at this time.\u00a0 Something moved in the woods behind the meadow–Rags alerted and pointed to it with his nose and ears.\u00a0 “It’s a bird,” I said.\u00a0 “Nothing to worry about.”\u00a0 Rags took a couple more steps and stopped again, this time pointing in the same direction…and we both saw a “something”….mammal with a tail, trotting rapidly southward, into deeper cover.\u00a0 Rags was not at all sure he wanted to be that close to whatever it was.\u00a0 From the brief glimpse, between trees and branches, I think coyote, though not the biggest we’ve seen, or possibly a large fox, though it moved more like a coyote.\u00a0 We circled the little meadow, I showed Rags the woods’ inside trail to the south, but didn’t take him into it (there’s a bit more clearing to do to make it OK for horse riding)\u00a0 and we came out as we’d come in.<\/p>\n
Then onto Center Walk, heading toward the Dry Woods corner, where we trotted a ways (I posted, and boy do I need to work on that!), including trotting up and over a terrace berm without any stumbles,\u00a0 until we met a fairly new mowed path that R- had widened for me this week.\u00a0 I slowed him down and turned him into it.\u00a0 It leads from Center walk down to Cloud Pavilion, past patches of tallgrass.\u00a0\u00a0 Also a new trail for Rags, and he handled it very well, no hesitation.\u00a0 Helps that it’s out in the open, he could see Cloud Pavilion and knows where home is from there.\u00a0 We’ll take it in the opposite direction next time.\u00a0 We turned east again, rode on down to the Old Ditch, then around a corner and through the dip.\u00a0 He was glad to be close and kept breaking to trot (clearly not exhausted!)\u00a0 and wanted to rush to the dismounting area, but I explained (hands, legs, voice, seat) that we weren’t finished yet, and he had to finish up with pole work again.\u00a0 UGH he said by trying to rush, but finally consented to step neatly over the poles, and wind around between them.\u00a0 When he was calm and listening to me, we finished off.\u00a0 It all took about 30 minutes or a bit more, counting the pole work.\u00a0 For his efforts he got a handful of pellets in his dish after being untacked and “backbrushed” to help him dry off…it’s quite warm and dry today with a little breeze.\u00a0 No chance of a chill.<\/p>\n
Even though his quick walk was something I liked about him early on, it wasn’t until I really got him out on the land alone, and covering measured distances, that I realized how well he covers ground.\u00a0\u00a0 He has speeds within his natural walk, but mostly it’s quicker than a lot of horses.\u00a0\u00a0 Watching him run around with Tigger, I don’t think he’s really ready to canter\/lope with a rider…but he’s definitely ready to trot now.\u00a0 Which means starting trotting over poles within a week probably.\u00a0 Not as they’re placed now, but initially laid on the ground a distance apart that lets him trot easily through them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 3.\u00a0 Today’s ride was briefly delayed by realizing I had missed taking my meds for 2 days, so a perfect time to check BP and see how it was doing on its own.\u00a0\u00a0 Hmph. Need to be more regular taking it, was the answer.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 Tigger blocked Rags from coming to me and presented 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-1180","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\/1180"}],"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=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}