November Trails

Screaming wind gusts at the lake today, but gorgeous perfect weather otherwise and no one else on the trails. A well paced 15 miles and back home in no time, I do like the light coming earlier but it sure seems wrong that it's now 4:30 pm and nearly sunset..anyway. 

Scrappy does so wonderfully alone and I experimented with my tack a bit, figuring out to strap spare boots on the back of my saddle out of my way with no flopping. After watching it for a while, and ruminating on the partial self correcting value of it, I removed my rein clips so they weren't swinging wildly off the bitless bridle rings and smacking Scrappy in the face, attaching the reins directly the rings without the scissor clip. It took a lot of the swing out of the reins and Scrappy stopped raising his head in avoidance of it. I ride with pretty loose reins, obviously, as Scrappy prefers, so find myself still dialing in the tack for optimum slow paced, loose reined bitless comfort, haha. 

 4 happy feet and 4 solid boots

 Maintained that 5-6 mph moving average, had a good long trot up to the top of the dam after a quick tour of the gorgeous footing and colors of the horse camp loop.I am still in awe that my horse does a collected 8 mph canter on a loose rein, of his own accord. It's all just so smooth and efficient, it boggles my mind after riding careening space cadets for so long. (There were a few careening space cadets previous to Blaze and Desire, pre blogging..)

 Ahh, autumn

 Slurpslurp

Gorgeous weather for riding. We sorely need rain to come soon and last a long time, as the local cashier gloomily stated, but I can't help but get out there and revel in this gorgeous season!