Lurkers, Morons, and Leading Lessons

Only got about 9 miles today due to a lurker. I drove out to Lakeland to ride, which is the problem. Lakeland is waaayyy down little back roads and then finally down a dirt road to nowhere. So if you park out there alone, you are on your own. And so is your vehicle while you are off trotting merrily down the trail. I always worry a little when I go and take my wallet with me in my saddle bag. Today I was about 1/4 mile from the trailer and a sketchy looking guy in street clothes came flying down the other branch of the road (the branches meet in the parking lot) on a dirt bike, looking over his shoulder. Furtively I say! Dirt bike aren't allowed in the area but mostly this guy just wasn't dressed for recreational riding. He was dressed like a sketchy fool coming to scope out my lonely truck! I turned Blaze around trotted back, then went full paranoid by hiding in the bushes and scoping the parking lot. He apparently needed to use the porter potty.....? Bike was leaned against it. I parked Blaze and I next to my truck and made myself look busy on the cell phone. The guy came out, took one look at me, jumped on his bike and hauled ass out of there! Now he could just not want to be reported for dirt biking back there but he sure seemed like he was a little more surprised to see me than that.
Anyhoo I couldn't get comfortable being out riding while my truck was there alone (not that there is that much to steal inside it, but I have a serious problem with people violating my personal property). And I just bought rice bran, beet pulp, and momma D's grain. Come on, those are hot items. So I jammed up Sycamore hill, meandered down the other side (I swear if Blaze watched WHERE he was going as much as he tried to watch what is behind him..well..it would nice!), and pulled a U at the road intersection and went back, but along the flat road and through the tunnel. My plastic water bottle crinkling inside the tunnel made Blaze jump out from under himself like something was grabbing his feet! Too funny, he really rarely spooks at anything (though eyeballs each and every rock while trotting by). There is a nice wide open half mile stretch that we hand-galloped along.
On the drive home came the morons. There is new road construction out by Lake Oroville and its a big long stretch of it with a big intersection and side roads as well. Well the flaggers were total morons and almost caused a wreck by starting to wave the rig in front of me through while a fire truck with lights flashing, but no siren, came barreling over the crest of the ridge and down the road behind us. Um, standing facing up the hill seeing a fire engine roar down towards you, yet you wave traffic onto the one lane road??? Go back to flagger class. Then the guy at the turn I was taking was standing in the middle of the turn waving us on straight. I pointed at the turn (my signal was on) and he stared at me then got the picture and got out of the middle of the road. Le sigh. People are bad enough drivers without throwing crap flaggers into the mix. I was glad to get home safely!
As for leading lessons, we brought D & Sheza out this morning for turn out. I put a lead rope on the filly's halter for the first time, and was leading her with that and pressure on her hindquarters. She fought me quite a bit at first when she felt the steady light pressure on the lead rope. But after ten minutes or so of one step, freak out, one step, freak out, we walked quite nicely to the paddock and into the gate. She had a moment where she sort of gave in and started mouthing and sniffing me, like her blind instincts clicked off and her brain kicked in. That's when we started making leading progress across the yard. This afternoon I called to her three different times and she whinnied at me and came towards the fence!