He rides!

While very supportive of my horse habit, my husband J rarely joins me in riding the horses. He's all for being dropped at the fishing hole while I hit the trail nearby, but doesn't often step up into the stirrup himself, so when he brought it up a few times this week and then again yesterday morning, I ran for the halters! 

Blaze is his usual steed of choice, being a small and generally agreeable fellow. Plus the Trailmaster I have fitted to him at the moment has the full sheepskin seat cover which J was all for. There was some grumbling when I brought up wearing a helmet but look, TADAH, one of the Tipperary's fit him beautifully and that was that.

The Fellas.I swear I didn't make him wear the matching green shirt, haha! More points because it's a Cache Creek Ride shirt..and really does please my matching sensibilities 

We cruised out through the neighborhood and Blaze walked out nicely for J. With J not used to saddle time and the vet scheduled in a few hours we figured we'd go a few miles and head back. I had just bought a pair of size 2s last week, since both Desire and Blaze wear size 2s and I only had one well worn pair. I congratulated myself on my planning ahead, since it meant I had four size 2s (but no spares) to slap on their fronts when J randomly wanted to ride. D is wearing the new burgundy 2s here:

Of course that meant that one of the older size 2s on Blaze promptly broke on our ride!  It was a boot I bought well used last year and have put hundreds of miles on since, and the cable just snapped, no big deal. In fact despite it breaking, I ended the ride *more* impressed with Renegades than I was before. Not having a spare size 2 but seeing how well it was still seated on his hoof, we left the toe strap-less boot on him and rode back home. It was a gravelly few miles with a steep hill and Blaze popped into a trot a few times of his own volition, but the strapless boot stayed perfectly in place, the boot shell and well seated captivator keeping it right where it needed to be. Good stuff! Time to fix boots and maybe get a few more size 2s..

J telling fish stories, even on horseback: "it was thiiissss big"

 It was fun to be out chatting with J in a different environment. Just nothing like riding :-)

We rode back into the yard just as the phone was ringing, with the vet regretfully cancelling due to a very sick baby. It was our second miss on an appointment this week, but it's the country and it happens. I'm sure she would rather be doing routine shots and blood work than dealing with emergencies or sick babies! It was nice to get the timely call too, so I knew I could clean up the horses and put them away instead of waiting and wondering. They both got baths, lots of fly spray, and headed back to clean up the last of their breakfasts, and J and I realized how warm we were, in fact how much warmer the day was in general.

 And then this happened, to pretty much all of us:

Suddenly, it was hot. The horses stood in their shady sheds, lazily swishing flies while the 2 goat girls, Maizie and Nan, were kept at their safe distance, dreaming goat-y dreams under the oaks at least thirty feet away from the Cool Kids shed area. Cats snored on dog beds and on top of my covered saddles in the tack room. Dogs snored on human furniture, and the humans weren't much more lively.

A fun hot last day of May. Hotter today. Happy June, everyone!