What Not To Do

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A few posts ago I mentioned I would tell you about a ridiculous attempt at navigating on my own in the woods. I know I have mentioned I am not technically savvy. That facet of who I am figures prominently in this story. Last summer, on one of the hottest days of the year, I saddled Lilly up for a trail ride. No one was around and so I headed out with Lilly and Bill's black lab. I didn't know the woods yet and I was a little fearful I'd get lost. I may not have any techinical wizardry within me, but I must have a little Hansel and Gretel in there because I decided to use a bag of marshmallows as my compass. I figured the marshmallows would keep it simple: Go for several paces, drop a marshmallow. Go for several paces, drop a marshmallow. And so I'd have trail!


You can see here how glowing the marshmallow is. I knew I'd have no trouble seeing them on the trail to get back home.




See how easily you can see them on the ground?


I am sure I do not need to tell you that this idea was the dumbest of the dumb. Out on the trail I had dropped perhaps 8 marshmallows before I realized the dog was eating them off the ground as quickly as I was dropping them!


Here she is, Sally, the marshmallow-gobbling dog. My commands to her to leave the marshmallows alone were useless. She devoured each one with relish. Hah! (But have you ever smelled a fresh marshmallow? They do smell delicious.)



I had to resort to spearing them on trees. Kind of like this!



Only it proved extremely difficult to get Lilly to sidepass over to a tree so I could put a marshmallow on it! It was taking ten minutes to get into a position where I could drop the reins, grab a marshmallow and poke it on a twig. I could tell Lilly had no idea why I wanted her to sidepass into all these trees. She'd move over wiggley-style and stay just out of reach of the tree branch. I 'd be twisted in the saddle and grabbing at air, the marshmallow in my hand melting in the heat into a gooey, sticky blob of yuck!

And here's when it got even more infuriating: When Lilly finally turned her head around to see what I was doing, she spied the gooey marshmallow I was finagling, sniffed it, and then proceded to eat it up right before my eyes!


No marshmallow was safe after that!



Marshmallow-eating brumby


That's when I had to abandon my marshmallow dropping strategy. Any sensible person would have. (And we all know any truly sensible person would not have even considered that strategy to begin with!) I was hot and sticky and had spent an hour going nowhere!


I should have just taken this!



And some yummy protein snacks. Like this one!




Here's my quote of the day:

The horse through all its trials has preserved the sweetness of paradise in its blood. - Johannes Jensen

3 comments:

juliette said...

Sally is adorable eating the marshmallows - what a great adventure, Gretel! But Lilly eating marshmallows!! Oh No!! I think I hear Charlton Heston yelling "Soylent Green is people" in the background!

Anonymous said...

Very funny - I don't know if my Lily likes marshmallows!

Paint Girl said...

You are too funny! I would never have thought of using Marshmallows to make a trail home! What's even funnier, is I wouldn't have thought of the dog eating them either! That is a very cute story! Loved it!

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