Then there’s Willow, N’s fine boned, major blonde of an Arabian mare. She’s a lovely sprite of a thing but a bit of a space case–though also known for very business-like, strong performances at actual rides.

With my shadow, all 3 of us are in the pic

 Then there’s Desire, and we all know what she looks like. She falls in between, certainly built more stout than Willow but nowhere near Launi’s height or mass. She was *very* business-like this morning, leading the way and tackling Sycamore Hill with her usual steady dog-trot. She really is getting good at hills, after not having the wind for it at all when I started riding her last fall. The giant hill in the Wildlife area we’ve been riding is a doozy for conditioning, N and Willow are going to trailer over to have a go at it soon.

We braved the Lakeland end of the trails today, a spot I haven’t parked at since my truck was broken into there over a year ago. The trail head is down a few narrows roads and through a sketchy neighborhood, so leaving your vehicle out there for hours isn’t ideal. D still rides there quite often and on her assurance that there was a regular Monday hiker/visitor there in the a.m. to keep an eye on the vehicles, N and I joined her at our favorite end of the trails.

Fall is in the air, the weather is perfect, can we ride all day??

Here comes the brigade

Willow star gazing

Desire and Willow are in mare-love. Here they are commiserating at the top of Sycamore Hill

After a few miles D had some old Easyboots disintegrate on Launi’s hinds so she branched off and headed back for the Hill and the trailers, while N and I continued up the dam and to the Visitor Center, a nice turning around point as it’s always shady and there’s a sparkling clean water trough there. A friendly couple taking a break from their hike asked about the hoof boots and then took a photo of us with my camera. Miraculously, it was in focus and we all look pretty good!

16.5 miles, my highest mileage in the Renegades to date, and didn’t have a single issue. Last night I replaced a few straps and tightened the cables on both hind boots as I had just been using them as they came and my studies suggested they needed tweaking for an ideal fit. They stay on great anyway but if I never have to screw with a boot again I’ll be happy, so I wanted to give them every opportunity to perform correctly.The boots stayed on great today, they were filthy and covered in stickers at the end but all stayed put, no rubs, and came clean with a high power dose of hose. Happy redhead!

80 lb Lax mix, Tady, is hidden behind a big melon!

This six-toed cat, Paws to you, has been with my husband since before I met him. He is a very talkative, opinionated sort. 

Some dogs play with sticks. Our dog, Catahoula mix, Jay, collects firewood:

The pomegranates are starting to blush

One of our sunflowers, looking down on me

As of today I am at 900.5 miles (including training and endurance rides, mind you)– ridden since the 2012 AERC ride season season started December 1st, 2011. I’ve been participating in the Big Bad Blogger’s Distance Race, and by entering my rides on that blog each time, I’ve been able to track my cumulative miles ridden on Desire, Blaze, and Chief. Not many of the original entries in the Blog Race have stuck with adding their miles in, but as with my feelings in endurance, my competition is myself and I am proud to have ridden farther and longer on more horses than I ever have before. By the way, 500 of those miles were conditioning miles on Desire! She’s a tough old bird 😉

Here’s my mileage page, if anyone is curious and doesn’t want to scroll through: http://bigbadbloggerdistanceride.blogspot.com/2011/07/aurora-at-red-headed-endurance.html#comment-form

As for the hill, C and Sonny met Desire and I at the nearby Wildlife Area and tackled the big hill. Both horses did really well and there was a pleasant breeze to take the edge off of the heat. 

C and Sonny at the lovely natural water crossing

Off to the County Fair this evening..carnie games and fried dough and all that! Last year I had a cool glittery green t-shirt with “Blaze 21” and a horse shoe on the back made at one of those air brushing shirt booths…I might have to get a cool glittery blue/wine shirt with “Desire” on it this time…

Blaze and Joey meet the Donkey

Rocking the pink and hearts

 So much to look at and listen to

Green grass by the creek, yes please!

Joey’s first water time, let’s see what he does..

..not much! He marched right in and started drinking. Good boy, Joey.

Let’s go deeper!

 This is fun!

 On the ride home Blaze had his Barn Walk on, about twice the speed of his Leaving Barn Walk, and Joey was getting tired. I hate to ever slow Blaze at a brisk walk as it so rarely happens, but Joey would only walk so fast and my arm only stretched so far. Still, we managed, and here is a plum tuckered Joey and a itchy as usual Blaze:

Ponying makes riding alone much more interesting and Joey is proving himself to be quite a sensible boy!

“Ah shit, when the redhead shows up I gotta WORK”

Just so you know, when I met J she rode western with leather tack, cowboy/work boots, jeans, and no helmet. Do you think Redheaded Endurance rubbed off a little??? LOVE YA, J!

Imitating a horse, I think?

Up the hill we go

A coyote was stalking a baby deer who was lying in the shade of  a tree, across the valley. We rode right through the middle of nature’s drama

 Chief channeling his Arab side–pretty ears!

Sedona loves the water–she will veer off the trail to head for it. Still learning to drink but loves to wade!

 Imitating..well, probably a horse again..

 Up and away! I didn’t touch the reins on the way home, Chief just turbo-walked his little butt right across the creek, up the hill, and to the trailer! Fooooodddddd

 Trailer in sight, ears up!

Renegade Clumsy test results? I did indeed have a boot twist today, and a boot come off. Here’s why: Chief is transitioning to barefoot after years of being shod in the front. His front hooves aren’t in great shape right now, in fact they are kind of a hot mess. He has had one trim cycle with my trimmer, D, but it’s going to take months for him to grow out healthy, barefoot hooves. There is some significant chipping on his fronts and he has a nasty hoof wall crack/flare that I almost couldn’t get a boot over today. My rasp wasn’t in my boot bucket as I thought so I had to fit a technically too-big size 1 over the cracked hoof, and a size 0, which actually fit, onto his other front hoof. The boot twist and loss came, predictably, on the size 1 boot, which ideally would have been a 0. I was still pretty impressed with the boots, we rode 10 hilly miles with multiple water crossings and the only boot loss came while charging up a steep hill after water, so pretty much the hardest situation for boot retention.

J’s mare Sedona has been getting rubs from the Easyboot Epic gaiters, we corrected most of that today with copious amounts of baby powder on the gaiters and slicking down her legs. But seeing me slide on and Velcro the Renegades after powdering, slicking, banging, levering, strapping, locking, and finally pinning on her own front boots–well let’s just say there might be a Dragon Fire Red order being placed in the near future. 😉 Speaking of, I passed on my snazzy red breast collar, the first endurance breast collar I ever bought (7 years ago) to Sedona. It’s still in great shape and looks great with the red and blue she already has.

Just about a month until Chief and Sedona’s endurance debut at Chamberlain Creek!

 Something else rather important, and interesting, I forgot to mention about Desire’s performance in the Renegades. Where in Easyboots she has always forged, sometimes constantly, clock clock clock clock, so bad we rasped and gave the boots a roll to try to help the break over, as we’ve worked on her break over of course…well anyway in the Renegades, she forges *rarely,* in fact only occasionally uphill. A Renegade friend mentioned noticing that the Easyboot gaiter affected her horses break over and action, which came to mind when I noticed this in Desire. Interesting.