A Spooky Stomp Around the Neighborhood

Desire really marches through life, putting her hooves down like she means it, grabbing ground and just generally getting 'er done. Unless she is spooking sideways, or backwards--or eating. Kitted out in all 4 Renegade boots she is particularly loud, especially on the few miles of pavement I covered today getting in an 11 mile ride from home. 

She kinda has big head at this  angle but it's a *pretty* big head, so there! 

 I tried out my new very blue Just Chaps half chaps from The Distance Depot on this ride and they were great. I wasn't really aware until I was half chap shopping but apparently I have short calves; I have tried a few pairs since my Terrain chaps died, only to discover the new pairs were all too tall and skinny. The Just Chaps are very light, it was getting into the 80s by the end of our ride and they didn't hold unreasonable heat, as they shouldn't since they are essentially 3/4 colored mesh. I think technically you would say they are too short for me, as they are maybe an inch below the actual bend in my knee, but then I am used to things being too long, so my perspective may be skewed. They sit comfortably on my legs, anyway, and didn't rub anywhere or unzip. There are pretty secure straps at the top and bottom to prevent unzipping, actually. Overall I'm happy with these chaps so far!

 Cruising out

 I've been working outside on the property a lot in the last week which uses different muscles than my usual riding and gym muscles, so not even a mile into the ride I could feel how stiff I felt in the saddle and hopped off to stretch out and walk for about a mile. Desire has a great big walk on her and (mostly) doesn't spook when I'm on foot and I felt much better back in the saddle after warming myself up, too.

As for the ride itself, what can I say, there was a lot to spook at out there! I realize now that I usually ride Blaze on this neighborhood ride, and there's a reason for it. There are about 2 miles of pavement involved in the ride (not fun to spook about on), as well as countless barking dogs, most of them large and in Guard mode, not all of them contained. Today was really bad for that actually, aside from the endless barking contained dogs, a spot that usually has one loose dog today had 4 loose Pitbulls that came charging out past their gate, across the road at us and stopped within inches of Desire's heels as I roared at them and circled around to chase them if necessary  They did it on the way out and back, of course, but fortunately were deterred by myself and the owners screaming at them. I'm riding all roads, pavement or dirt, so there is of course traffic, including four wheelers and dirtbikes. Blaze is generally quite unimpressed by most of it, except donkeys and baby animals, but hey we all have our Thing(s). He will walk or stand quietly wherever I want when a vehicle passes, while today Desire danced around and swung her butt out into the road if I stopped or grew a foot and pranced sideways when I let her just walk with the car coming. Basically our 11 miles around the neighborhood is a lot of walking and a lot to look at, with relatively few safe places to move out and blow off steam. A well suited 11 miles for Blaze, not Desire!

 Between spooking, a handful of sustained trots, and clapping her Renny's down like a percussionist, there was grazing. As much grass/weeds as she could conceivably stuff into her mouth at once, generally! No boot issues on our spazzing about, just a spunky mare who was still chewing, pulling and jitterbugging as we headed up the hill for home.

I tore apart my saddle and washed the breastcollar and saddle packs, as well as the usual girth, splint boots, boots, and pad. I even oiled my saddle as it was getting rather sweat crusted and stiff in spots. Kind of funny, we had some electrical and well pump issues earlier in the week and when I was cleaning up my tack today the hose suddenly died like it did the other day when the pump went. My denial today was instantaneous. No, it can't be, the pump is fine, that didn't just happen. I finished hanging up and organizing things, made sure Desire was fly sprayed and enthroned with groceries, and only then went to investigate, my heart in my throat. Fortunately it was just the big storage tank filling taking the water pressure, Phew! Home ownership is rarely boring and the little water scare really only made me more grateful to hop in the hot shower and shed the horse, sweat, and sunscreen afterwards!

While we didn't have the best ride ever it's always good to spend a beautiful cool morning in the saddle and I'm quite pleased with my half chaps! I plan to spend my Saturday afternoon in the shade of the big oak tree with my dogs and a good book. Hope you are all enjoying your weekends too!

You Can Leave Your Hat on--and one sneaker and your iPod

If you ask Desire, the trails we ride are dark and full of terrors. Just look:

There are weird stumps, and a giant tower with circling fighting/flirting hawks, and there is water over there AND..

There may be grass here but there are also skitterings in the bushes and roaring water I'm staring at..

 Fine I won't complain on this one, that is a decent mouthful for the road

 Really, A road..a culvert..flowing water..cars rushing by..you have to be kidding! Who makes this stuff up.

Pavement, pillars, construction, road crossing..

There isn't photo evidence of the zooming mountain biker coming down the backside of Sycamore Hill behind us..

view climbing Sycamore Hill

The biker was actually quite polite and I told him I'd put her off the trail and he could pass. I was already walking so I turned her to face the bike and parked her just off the admittedly narrow trail. He went by slowly and she danced in place and snorted like she was going to squirrel over top of me to get away, but didn't. So call it a win?

Then there's the Sprinkler. The sad thing is, the Sprinkler already caught us in the morning, on the way out from the trailer. It barely goosed Desire and she sort of surged forward but it didn't unseat me and I went on my merry spooky way. I'm still trying to convince myself that the first Sprinkler was at a lower house and by the time I came back theirs had gone off and a house higher up the path had turned one on. Because I honestly thought I was past The Sprinkler, or I never would have picked up a trot up the hill past the last of the houses on the way back. But I did it. I picked up a nice brisk uphill trot, smiled at the surge of power from Desire--and then felt that power melt away from beneath me as my body automatically scrambled for any way to stay on--legs, arms, whatever--but No, there was no sitting this. The Sprinkler arced out of nowhere, 10 feet in front of us, and Desire simply slammed on the brakes and popped it into reverse for a good 20 feet in one movement, backing down over the side of the drop off and stopping abruptly to graze nonchalantly. I must have curled to protect my right side--read ankle--because while my right sneaker popped off and went flying, I hit and skidded on my left forearm and well down my left hip and thigh. The red dirt and scrapes on my arm told the story, but I was mostly concerned with collecting my shoe, my fortunately unscathed iPod (listening to NPR in one earbud, like a gangster), and my smug horse. She tried to spook up on me as we walked past the Sprinkler but I snarled at her and remounted. As we trotted off the Sprinkler turned off, so either my swearing or my body hitting the ground attracted attention from someone, or maybe a timer did it. It's hard to see up in the little yards and shaded view-hugging houses, so I'll just pretend no one saw it go down.

I haven't come off of a horse since shattering my right ankle 3 1/2 years ago, so I think I had a bit of a euphoric adrenaline rush going to be back up in the saddle immediately, unbroken, laughing and swearing in equal parts. I checked her papers just now to be sure and Yep--Desire turns 17 years old this summer and still is one nervy little wackadoo sometimes. Just goes to show some horses are themselves for life! She has seen a lot of world and a lot of trail in various states, had some good endurance experience, and I honestly don't think you could school her out of her Spazzy inclinations. Fortunately she's also a fun mare, forward and Git R Done in the best ways, and a natural endurance horse in behaviors.

But really, why drink when you can eat..

 Chastised mare, done at the trough 

We cruised a nice 13 miles including the Hill in about 3 hours, and Desire was a stinky, foamy, sweaty, nasty mess afterward. She drank and ate well as usual, but never peed. I've actually remembered to pack my sponge lately and cleaned her up a little at the trailer but the flies were CRAZY and my dirty scratched arm was stinging so I loaded her up and got out of there. I stopped at the feed store on the way home and grabbed fly spray and a bag of Elk Grove pellets; I usually get it in barrels but need to get mine and refill them, so a 50 lb sack of Sunshine mix it was. At home Desire got a Quench and joint supplement dosed pellet mash, lots of fly spray, a fly mask, and a pile of hay. Such queenly treatment, so many extra groceries, it must be worth the constant near death experiences to her after all, or so we hope!

Moments like these make the spooky ones worth it! 

Housework and Horse"work"

I have been struggling with creativity on my post titles lately; I keep trying to use "tails" and "tales" in some clever way for a post title, which in itself should tell you just how impaired my creativity is at the moment. Fortunately said impairment is thus far limited to typing, as we've been quite creative on the home front lately. This past week we installed a new hardwood floor in the kitchen:

We also*finally* cleaned out and redid the long planter box running along the side of the porch that has mostly been a weeds/large dog hangout station since we bought the place. It is now currently full of lovely rich dirt and will soon play host to whatever shade-loving plants we decide upon. We are also in mid-repair on the corner of the lawn next to the planter bed where a single small plastic pond liner had been sitting, now turned into 3 small ponds with a waterfall effect, soon to have a retaining wall and and some landscaping in to complete it:

Working on the home base is always a good thing, but so is riding horses! Yesterday morning Desire and I headed to the lake to meet N and Willow. 

My dignified mare..

 Where we live in the foothills, only about 20 minutes haul from the lake, we often have different weather than down in the valley. I had heard about fires burning a few hours north but up at our house there was no visible sign of the fires. At the trail head the sky was mostly blue, but looking out through the tress over the lake: Smoke!

 N said the smoke was pretty bad where she lived; it's scary that it's barely May and it's already so dry, with fires, heat, and wind already making headlines. I'll freely admit I'm not adjusting all that well to getting stuff done in the near 90 degree temps. The forecast calls for a 20 degree drop and a chance of showers in the next few days though, just enough to really confuse everyone's systems!

Yay, Willow is arriving!

 Peeking Willow and N's awesome new tights

 Out on the trail the sky started out blue but smoke was obscuring the foothills looking out over the lake. Not good! Still the trails were beautiful as always..

 The spillway is really flowing! 

 Desire was *starving* this whole ride and could barely be bothered to walk or trot for the trying to eat

 Yes I am bribing her with a carrot to get anything besides listening-to-spillway-roar-behind-us ears--semi successfully, I might add

 Neither of the mares drank until we climbed back up to the visitor center but was only about 11 miles in 3 hours, so not an unreasonable span. Still there was a lot of sweaty, foamy, stinky grey mare to go around!

Desire is still shedding out the very last of her winter goat disguise and the combination of shedding hair, sweat, sunscreen, fly spray, dirt, etc we were both covered in...well. Most of the time I am okay with being grungy especially when dressed and prepped for the occasion but there are still moments that it's all a bit much. Also, the flies are particularly bad all of a sudden and Desire has already started getting little sores on her back and belly from the bug bites. Apparently it's time to up everything to full summer heat and bug protocol! But wait it's going to rain in 3 days..

Ah, Northern California :)

 Moving the hay net in the trailer manger uncovered this contribution from our chickens. Omelette anyone?