Earth Day!

 This past week was so gorgeous that I seriously thought about taking a personal day from work just to ride my brumby. I get 12 Personal Days in one year in addition to vacation time. But I decided I want to save most of my free days for summer time riding so I just went to work instead. Wouldn't you know that by the time the weekend rolled into town, it was sour and rainy outside? I should not complain--we need the rain. And then Blogger threw me a curve ball by changing up blogging procedures. Oh dear. In any case, on Saturday under a somewhat threatening sky, Christine and I headed out.

 I finally found my jingle bells for scaring away bears, but out on the trail we have to talk so loudly over the crunch of the leaves on the ground, there was no need to ring any bells. Those bears could probably hear us coming a mile away.

 You can just barely see Christine up ahead in this picture. Usually we aren't so far apart but Lilly could not decide if she wanted to eat carrots, poop or pee and so we kept stopping. And stopping. And stopping. Until all had been accomplished!

 The tree learning continues! Christine noted this tree (trunk, not the leaves)  that was very tall and looked like it had pine needles at the top...but this shingle-like bark didn't look familiar. Could a white pine look like it has been shingled?? I took this picture so I could show Bill and ask him, but then I forgot. Maybe he will read this blog and email me the answer.

 Sunday (which is today) I headed over to Bill's again. What better way to celebrate Earth Day than milling around the woods? Bill and CC had been riding horses all day, plus Bill had spent the morning doing trail maintenance. When I showed up they tacked up different horses and headed out again. Here we are up at the BP and the old Harris house (uninhabited) dropping off QTee so she can run and gobble up grass all week.

We decided to head back on the trail Bill had been working on to move all the branches off to the side. There is so much more head room now. Yesterday Christine and I were ducking at every turn to avoid the branches. Sometimes under a tangle of branches Lilly decides she is just going to run through them all. Not a good strategy! I am always worried my eyes (or hers!) are going to get gouged out. So it was really nice to have it all clear. Today I also tried using split reins. They were long enough that I didn't need to also bring a crop. That means one less crop to lose on the trail!

 CC was on Freddie who is a very beautiful red copper color. And nothing seems to spook him really. He is a good horse who on this particular day wanted to move faster than we were moving! CC is always up for this kind of challenge. She kept Freddie very gentlemanly the whole ride. I love how a good rider makes everything look oh-so-eeeeeeasy.

At this point, it was raining. Under the trees we weren't really getting that wet, but after a little more branch-moving, we cut the ride short and headed home. But even rainy rides are good rides. Especially when you get to come home to a fire in the woodstove and a bubble bath and horse magazines to read. Nicely done, Earth Day, very nicely done.