Memorial Day Morning Ridge Ride

First of all happy Memorial Day to all, and thank you to all the men and women who have served and are currently serving our country. My granddad was a pilot and my brother a Navy SeaBee, and I thank them for their service as well.

I wanted to keep slowly but consistently amping up Desire's workload since her chiropractic adjustment on Monday, plus it was a beautiful breezy morning, so I saddled up the white wonder mare to ride up the ridge from our house.

A quiet moment in the cross ties for my tap dancer:

I like this once coz you can actually see a little of one of my forearm tattoos! That one says, "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle," a quote that I love, attributed to Mr. Winston Churchill.

Desire really dogged it on the ride out, she *almost* had me fooled into thinking she wasn't feeling too sprightly, but I know the ways of tricksy mares and barn sour buttheads, so I pushed her into a few working trots and otherwise we maintained a brisk walk up the 3 miles to the top of the ridge.

Cruising the mile of pavement before the steep climb...

Top of the ridge:

When we did our stop, flex both directions, and turn for home, Desire suddenly turned in PerkyPants and was all ready to barrel back down the hill she had protested all the way up minutes before. We did 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 of the trot attempt, rein back, back her uphill, go forward and repeat and repeat..sometimes she is a bit of knucklehead. Still, part of me was glad to see she was indeed feeling hale and healthy after her big chiro adjustment and getting back to work under saddle in the last few days.

Sheza protested mightily when we left since we rode up the road past her pasture, and she was waiting at the fence line when we returned:

I scrubbed Desire with warm water and my beloved gel scrubbed mitt, covered her in fly spray, resurrected her fly mask from last year, gobbed Trail-Rites Magical Ointment on the gnat bites on her belly, sprayed Vetericyn in her hooves, and then let her have a bite of grass in recompense for all the above mentioned torture:

This is how I mow my front lawn...

My Garmin Forerunner 305 mysteriously died, by the way..worked for my hike with Joey on Saturday and now just won't turn on or charge. I've been pretty brutal to it, used it hard for 2 years. Don't know how long they're supposed to last but oh well..that model is discontinued now but I did find one with the heart monitor set up too for a decent deal so I snapped it up. I really like that particular model so was glad to find it despite the discontinued status!

Riding Chief again this week in the Wheatland area and meeting N for a lake ride as well. Training session with Joey again Thursday and and and!