My husband and I had a blast this evening carving our home grown pumpkins! My husband carved the 80 lb-er and I settled for a 30 lb-er. There were ridiculous dog costumes involved…

 Finally, finally, I am trail riding Desire. To be fair currently its “dirt road” riding, not technically trail, but its still great to be out covering some ground on her! She will have been here a year in January and this week have been my first tons-of-fun excursions riding her off the property without the filly. Yesterday morning we did about 5 miles to the top of the ridge and back and this morning we went nearly 8 miles on the other dirt road that runs just east of our property. Desire is such a BLAST to ride. She effortlessly travels faster than Blaze ever can–even in a hurry–and the few times I had a straightaway to let her really *trot* she was flying and wasn’t even at her biggest extension. Boy I bet she could really rip at a gallop! There are some fun car-free straightaways at the local Wildlife Area I might have to go try that out on.

I’m quite happy with her attitude so far. She has gotten spooked a couple of times but each time froze and looked around then continued when she was comfortable. The neighbor’s baby goats who run through the woods bbaaaaing when you go by (and always terrify Blaze) gave her pause as did a chainsawing project happening just off the road farther along but she reacted with a cool head and even her physical startles weren’t beyond reason or difficult to sit. I’m happy about this since she is much more alert and reactive to ride than Blaze and I had some concern what her attitude would be out on the trail, but she is really just a fun, forward, alert mare who seems quite happy to be going down the trail. She had no clue what direction home was a couple of times and we had to have a little talk over who knew the way better but with time I’m sure she’ll figure it out. The first half mile or so after leaving home she was very determinedly hugging the extreme left side of the road and looking west towards home and the yelling filly but her feet were still moving forward and I got her attention back with some effort.

All 4 Easyboot Gloves have stayed on for both our admittedly short rides. Even so I consider that a victory since her hooves are still transitioning and I’m basically clueless. I’ve noticed that her right hind kicks her right front consistently walking up hill, which is interesting and seems to be one sided and only at the walk. She trots nicely in the boots without interference or problem.

Chilly autumn morning rides are my favorite!

 

My mom is in town visiting and we had a giant escapade adventure to the “city” yesterday for shopping galore. We didn’t get home until about 9 last night which is way late for us country folk to be out and about so we are just relaxing around the place today. I decided to take Desire for a spin this morning and roped my mom into playing photographer. It was SUCH a gorgeous cool fall morning, I love riding in the sun and not sweating like a beast! It was my first ride on Desire since weaning Sheza and she was about 100 times more attentive and cooperative to ride today. Her milk has dried up and she is definitely in single working horse mode, no more mama brain at all. She has lost her big baby belly as well since I separated Sheza and was a lot more agile and able to trot and canter than she has been yet. It was a really fun ride and we got some great photos!

Unfortunately I couldn’t get my camera to capture the true purple of it but oh well. Sheza’s blanket, on the other, looks like the part of the movie Tommy Boy where Chris Farley plays “fat guy in a little coat” Maybe not everyone can call up this movie reference in their minds but its a favorite film of my brother and I and its all I could think of when I saw Sheza in her blanket:

 So though we had a very nice desensitizing lesson and progressed from wild eyed panic at the sight and shhing sound of the blanket to wearing said blanket in about 4 minutes, it doesn’t fit her at ALL. I’ll be mailing it back for…a pony size or something? They don’t make the foal blankets any bigger. Kind of annoying but oh well.

Last but not least into the cross ties for grooming was Mr. Blaze, who is keeping himself and the mini Napoleon quite slim and trim with his endless mini herding fun. Since I introduced slivers of the awesome locally grown alfalfa I scored recently into meal times Blaze has changed his push-over tune and is now herding and cutting and terrorizing the mini horse to his heart’s content, just as long as the mini stays away from HIS alfalfa all is well. Actually not really, I’ve noticed Blaze randomly running the mini up and down the hill when no hay is around either. They are together in our biggest pasture that has the arena inside and they run laps down the hill, around the arena, and back up. The mini actually looks good from losing a few pounds due to this exercise and Blaze hasn’t turned back into a hippo which is nice since he has been off work for almost a month now. Can’t wait for that saddle to turn up and get him back on the trail–he clearly has energy to burn!

It finally happened, after months of hemming and hawing (and thinking about it since this time last year) I ordered a Specialized saddle! Earlier this week I put a deposit on a Eurolight model so I can do a trial and make sure its just what I want. I rode in them in Utah last November but haven’t since and since its such a big price tag I figured I better be darn sure it was just the thing for me and my horse herd first! If it works out and I buy the Eurolight model I am totally getting all the little perks, an extra seat, some woolly fenders for riding in shorts…hey, if I’m going to do it I might as well DO IT right? I’ve never owned a new saddle before, in fact I’ve only owned and used two saddles regularly in my whole life. The first was a beautiful little handmade leather English saddle that was given to me by a friend of the family when I was a freshman in high school (prior to that I was either riding lesson horses as a kid in Maine or riding the neighbor’s fat Arab bareback when I arrived in CA at 10). When I got the saddle my mom, granny, and I had just flown back from spending two amazing weeks in Ireland. My granny, who went to college in Ireland and had been traveling there regularly for years, set up this amazing trip from Dublin around to Connemara and then all the way back to Dublin. And what did we do along the way on this drive? RIDE RIDE RIDE. Well I did, my granny and my mom mostly went off sight seeing and tea drinking. Though my mom did join me for one memorable group ride when we were all mounted on Connemara ponies and there was a galloping incident:

Anyhoo. It was the trip of a lifetime. And I’m scheming on when it can happen again. Returning to my main storyline, lost somewhere back before Ireland, on our way home from the airport we stopped to see family friends and the lady of the household offered me her father’s handmade English saddle. Apparently he had been an old time rancher and for some inexplicable reason rode English! Or had an English saddle, anyway. It was a really light, beautiful saddle and I took it home and used it on the gorgeous buckskin Appendix mare I somehow talked my parent’s into buying for me a few months later (credit to the step-dad there, mom didn’t want to spoil me! Huzzah for spoiling, re: horses anyway). Speaking of that buckskin, she was the most gorgeous creature. Phew. Miss her nutty self. I should write about her on here someday. I have trouble sticking to the point, don’t I? After selling the Appendix mare senior year to head off to college in Oregon I next used the little English saddle on the awesome little QH/Welsh pony mare I bought off my best friend for $100. 2 or 3 more years of use after that and then I bought my big panel saddle used from a friend and used that on MANY horses up until my issues with it and Blaze’s back this summer. So now I am embarking on the new saddle journey. I’ve always preferred used, broken-in things but its pretty thrilling to be expecting a shiny new saddle in the mail. I really hope it works out! There are a couple of different Specialized models I like so it’ll happen one way or the other.

My mom is *hopefully* coming to visit this weekend and if she does there will be some wine and memories of Ireland aired.