When I posted last I’d just cracked myself in the head with the post pounder. Vince left for work the next day, and I was recovering just fine. Dizzy and headaches but nothing too serious. Since the holiday swap, instead of having pretty even paychecks, he gets one for 12 days and 1 for 2 – talk about a budgeting nightmare!! At least where I’m concerned! So we get our bills paid with the big check, and the small one pays the jeep, gets him home and gives me grocery/hay money for the 2 weeks until the big check….only this time, something was messed up in the payroll department and he only got paid for one day – so enough to pay the jeep and get him home……but no grocery/hay money for me! YIKES! He has been trying to straighten that out – but as of yet, still no check – at least he gets paid in a couple days!!
So, with the pay mess, and my dizziness/headaches it was a L O N G vacation for me with the kids. On Wednesday or Thursday, I took Louie for a nice ride – our first real “road ride” and things went fabulously! My anxiety/fear didn’t get the better of us and I was very hopeful for a fantastic summer with him. On Saturday, Louie and I set off for a quick loop over near the Lodge. The wind was blowing and I wasn’t sure how it would go but we headed out anyway. Things were going FANTASTICALLY, the wind was blowing the trash at the house on top of the hill that the car drove thru last summer, and other then a little snort, he couldn’t have cared. There were LOTS of cars that passed and his “goosiness” from the first road ride was gone. He seemed alert, happy, forward and eager to get out there and GO SOMEWHERE and so was I! We got passed the scary guardrail and the culvert that pours water, passed the dam and pumphouse and headed down the camp road. I took him to the water to see if he wanted a drink or to splash….he was afraid of his reflection LOL so we proceeded down the trail and I figured I’d tackle the water another day. We got about 2/3rds of the way down the camp road when a rooster crowed and our great ride when to hell in a handbasket!!
He was NOT going to go any further. I tried circling, I tried backing. I even tried just letting him stand there a minute or two and THAT didn’t work. So I went with plan B – go back the way we’d come and take the main road into the lodge, explore those trails and then head back this camp road so he was approaching it from another angle and maybe would be better…..except when we got to the end of the road, his head came up, his pace picked up and he stopped listening to me. I circled him once and got him to stop. We stood for a minute and then I asked him to go to the right towards the lodge. He spun a circle and we almost fell over. (keep in mind I’m still dizzy anyway!) I got him stopped and asked him to go back down the camp road, he spun a tight circle and tried to rip the reins from my hand and I decided I couldn’t fight him – not there and then, I didn’t feel safe. Once we started towards home he was very forward but not trying to jerk me out of the saddle anymore so I thought “ok just something to work on” – until we met a car, there were kids yelling and running on our right, a car and a truck in front of us and the steep bank and pumphouse on our left…..talk about terrifying for me! I’m on a horse that will NOT stop not even for a minute, he’s dancing side to side, there are cars coming and I can’t get him stopped so I can get down, I can’t get out of the road……I had these images going thru my head of all the bad things that could happen…..I pulled tighter on the left rein, kicked my feet out of the stirrups and bailed. The cars weren’t going to give me a single second to get him under control and sped past and he was so wound up that he was walking on me and dragging me towards home. By the time we got home I was so wound up it wasn’t funny – I yelled at Tosh and Dan and my kids and just wanted to scream.
On Sunday, I decided it was a good idea to take Buddy out for our first real trail ride BUT he’s never been on the road and that’s not something I wanted to tackle alone so I loaded him up and took him to the Wildlands. He loaded like the champ that he is, was a bit fidgety until we got going but nothing serious. When we got there, there was only one other car in the parking lot so parking was a snap, I got parked, unloaded him and walked him around a minute to try to get a handle on his “mood”. He was alert but not nervous so we went to the trailer and I tied him and set to tacking him up (I’d brushed him before we left the house) – he was great for being in a new place and our first trip out together and he was ALONE! I got him all tacked and we walked around the gate to find a place to get on. At the rock I wanted to use to get on he was being blowy and snorty and I admittedly got a little nervous and decided to walk for a minute. We headed off down the road and I found a stump that was easily accessible and safe for him to go completely around. Now mounting is my bad spot, we all know this by now. It took me a minute, but I got up there and off we went. He was very very forward but responsive to me and other than whinny a steady stream, he was great! We stayed on the main road as I’d forgotten the map that I’d printed off and had forgotten to check the box at the gate to see if there were any in there. There was one spot on the trail where the wind was blowing a tree just right that he was convinced there might be a pony eating monster, but other than stopping dead in his tracks he had NO real spook. I just kept talking to him and he relaxed and on we went. When we were getting towards the point where I was thinking we’d turn around, we came upon some HUGE, and I mean HORRIFYINGLY HUGE PONY EATING MONSTERS!! LOL At least Buddy thought so! In reality, they were two decent sized boulders that mark either side of a branch road…..I didn’t have the heart to tell Buddy as he was side stepping and snorting to the far right of the road that there was an even bigger boulder just inside the tree line!! That time it took a little convincing but he finally walked forward. He was so busy worrying about the monsters though, he never noticed when we walked over a bridge! We got to the far side and turned around. Stood still a few minutes and then started our climb home. When we got back to the gate, I got off and walked him to the trailer to untack. He was a sweat covered mess but he still had plenty of energy. I called my mom to let her know I was still alive and would be heading home soon, and took him for a small walk to see if he wanted to roll. He didn’t, so we walked back to the trailer and he hopped right on and we came home. It was a great day – and we both had a blast!!
**I started this blog TWO WEEKS ago and just finished typing it now…..sorry about that cause now I’m going to do another one that will probably be long too!!
1 comments:
That's great!
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