Just call me the horse whisperer

This morning Adam, who boards his horses here, decided to get his two horses up so he could haul them someplace to ride.  It was a lovely morning, and although he's working most Saturdays lately, he was off today.  
I looked out the window and saw him approach the horses several times.  He'd get to within a few yards and they'd take off running.  
They're getting lots of grass now, so the feed bucket he was carrying didn't hold much appeal.  
The poor guy was out there for well over an hour, and he never got close to the horses.  My grandson was here watching with me, and I told him, "If he'd just go home, I could get those horses up for him."  
Finally Adam gave up.  He and the grandson stood in front of the barn talking.  Adam was about ready to shoot some horses, he was SO frustrated.  
I saw the two guys chatting and decided to try my hand at catching Tude and Sassy.  Thinking the horses would follow a feed can to the barn, I got some dairy feed and walked out to them.  They didn't run from me, and they each ate the handful of feed I held out to them.  But they didn't follow me to the barn.  This wasn't their first rodeo.  
I came to the house, got rid of the feed can, and picked up a rope, which I tucked under my shirt out of sight.  I walked back to the horses.  I sat on the ground, then stretched out and laid down a few feet from the horses.  I was hoping they'd be curious and come on over, but that didn't happen.  
So I got up and walked over to Tude (from the side, because horses don't like to be approached from the front.  They also prefer that you not look directly at them as you approach.)  I rubbed Tude's neck a few times, slowly got the rope out from under my shirt, and looped it around his neck.  I led him to the barn, with my grandson and Adam both laughing and shaking their heads.   
I learned these lessons from Blue.  When I first got him, if he saw me approaching with a halter, rope, or bridle, he would run.  I had this book, "A Good Horse is Never a Bad Color", and I'd take a lawn chair out to Blue's pen and read the book.  If I sat there long enough, he'd come over to me and put his head right in my lap.  I'd have a lead rope with me, and I'd rub his neck with the rope so he'd see it as something other than an enemy.  People don't spend enough time just "being" with their horses.  We really bonded.  
Of course, part of the reason Tude let me put the rope around his neck might have been that he knew he wouldn't have to carry me on his back all day.  I've never ridden him.    

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours

Sassy was originally purchased as a horse for Adam's wife.  He'd ride Tude and the wife would ride Sassy.  Eventually Adam got rid of the wife, but kept the horse.  If he leaves for a few days  of riding, he takes both horses and takes turns riding them.  Sassy, a half-Arabian, gives him the most comfortable ride of the two.  Tude, however, is his first and favorite.  
The two horses are best buddies.  If they happen to get separated, they'll whinny and run the fence until they're back together.  They do things for one another, as best friends do.  For instance:

Yep.  They'll simultaneously scratch one another's itches.  

Weeds in the fencerow

The neighbors' horses have a habit of leaning over the barbed-wire fence and eating on our side of the fence.  This is the nature of horses; they all do it, whether well-fed or starving.  Barbed wire doesn't deter them in the least.  They'll push the fence down as far as possible and stretch out their neck as far as they can reach, eating all the grass they can get.  If a barb happens to rip their skin open, they don't even let on that they feel pain.  
Last summer, to keep our fence from being totally torn down, we put an electric wire along it in a place where the horses would get a shock whether they reached over or through the three strands of barbed wire.  All it took was one shock apiece and they stopped.  
Late in summer the weeds overtook the electric fence, shorting it out.  Cliff figured the horses wouldn't know the difference, and they didn't, at first.  Eventually, though, they tried it again and found out it wasn't going to hurt them.  
I told Cliff yesterday that we'd better get the electric fence working again.  

The trouble is, those dead weeds will all have to be taken out or they'll short out the fence, just like last summer.  After Cliff went to work, I went out and started taking care of the weeds.  It's tiring work, let me tell you.  

On the neighbor's side of the fence no grass grows, only weeds.  I do believe they feed their horses though; in fact, from the looks of them, they overfeed them.

This is one of them, last time he got out and ended up in our yard.  Again.  

Here's what the pasture on our side of the fence looks like.  Plenty of grass. 

You can see how far the horses have reached over and cropped the grass on our side.  I'd say about three feet.  
The aggravating thing about this is that the neighbors take no responsibility.  They won't help with the fence.  If we had to put new fence up, we'd have all the labor and expense.  Let's face it, they won't even fix their fence well enough to keep their horses at home; they're sure not worried about this fence.    
And you have to wonder why they keep the horses; they never ride them.  
Oh well, such is life in Dogpatch.  
I got about a tenth of the weeds pulled and stomped down today; I'll do more tomorrow.

Don't you wish you had neighbors like this?

Cliff and I were watching "The Closer" on DVR after dinner a while ago, when Cliff said, "Uh-oh, the horses are out and running through your garden."
My first thought was that he meant the horses that are boarded here, but I might have known better.
Last year we actually had to put up electric fence around OUR garden to keep the neighbor's horses out of it, because they get out so often.  It's been better this year, so we didn't put up electric fence; we just hoped for the best.
Today wasn't the first time they've been out this year, but it's the first time since spring; back then, there wasn't a lot of damage that could be done to the garden.
It occurred to me that this was material for a blog post, so I went out with my camera.  I was going out anyway, because I wanted to keep the horses away from my corn; every time they ran through, they grabbed a cornstalk.  (Click on the pictures to make them larger, as usual.)

Here they come, right toward my garden.  When I waved my hands and yelled, that diverted them to the end of the garden away from the corn.

See 'em, dodging around to the right?

Now they're heading for my front yard.  In case anybody wonders, these are Tennessee Walkers that nobody rides; one can't even BE ridden; the other is a ride-at-your-own-risk sort of steed.  They managed several trips around the yard during this little escapade. The following ten-second video will give you some idea.

After a half-hour of chasing and several trips through the garden, the two oldest neighbor kids managed to catch the horses and lead them home.  But I would almost bet that now that these horses have had this much fun, they'll probably be here on a daily basis.  That's how it was last year.  

Silly horses

This morning, Cliff and I got the electric fence put up to keep the horses out of the lush grass that would have eventually led to founder.  We did this in the mud, by the way.  That two inches of rain left quite a mess out there.  At least the electric fence posts were easy to drive in the ground.  


I predicted to Cliff that Snickers, the next-door neighbor's twenty-one-year-old mare, would take off running and break through the electric fence; we watched the horses for a few minutes after turning them out, and although there was some running and cutting up, they all came to a halt at the new fence-line.  


But ten minutes later, a horse did run through it:  Not Snickers, but Sassy.  Somehow the other two horses knew something had happened to frighten her, and they ran through the gate back into the lot; Sassy was afraid to go back where she had just gotten shocked, but she stood at the big gate, which was closed, until Cliff let her in with her pals.   Then he fixed the fence.


I noticed six hours later that they were all still in the big lot.  There really isn't much to eat there; they've got it cropped to the ground.  Evidently they were afraid to go back out.  So I got a can with a little sweet feed in it and stepped through their walk-through gate.  Tude and Snickers hesitantly followed me, but Sassy did not.  No way.  She wasn't going out there to get hurt again.  

A while ago I looked out to see Snickers and Tude grazing happily in the electric-fenced-off area.  Where was Sassy?  

Right up there in the safety of the big lot by herself.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

I was going to do an entry

Honestly, this weather (rain and cold weather every weekend) doesn't contribute to my mood; and when my mood is glum, it's hard to come up with a blog post.
However, I will report to my readers some things I've learned about gardening in the last couple of years.

I guess I could blame Cliff for this mistake, since it was his idea.  But I thought it was a good one and went along with it.  There's this area between the sidewalk and the rock-covered area in front of our house that Cliff thought would be an excellent place to plant strawberries.
Wrong.  The strawberries have sent runners up onto the rocks.  They need a lot more room than this space allows them.  I'll move some of the plants to the garden area this year, and destroy the rest so I can plant flowers there.
Another lesson I inadvertently learned was this:  Don't plant butternut squash plants near your strawberry bed.  The strawberries in the garden were in the right location; unfortunately, those rampant squash vines almost killed them all.
Strawberry lesson #3, which my daddy told me about years ago, but I thought I could do better:  Don't waste your time on ever-bearing or day-neutral strawberries.  Sure, they'll bear throughout the summer; but you'll be lucky to get a bowlful at one picking.  

This is what my garden area looked like yesterday before I tilled part of it and planted some things.  Just so you know.
I posted a video to Youtube this morning that could have been great:  Adam, who has two horses pastured here, was going to load them up and take them for their yearly vaccinations.  His horses are glad to see him most of the time, but when he brings the trailer, they are always afraid they're going to be put to work.  So they run from him.
Unfortunately, the video is not really that clear.  Also, another warning:  if you don't like bluegrass music, turn your sound off.  With that said, if you are not faint of heart and have a good imagination, feel free to watch a video of hard-to-catch horses.  
Oh, and the buckskin horse in the background?  That's our next-door neighbor's mare; she is pastured on our property, but she's in a different pen.  She enjoyed the chase as much as the other horses.  One more thing:  the dog joining in the chase is not mine; he's Adam's dog.

Bovine family ties

I love you, Son.

I love you too, Mom.

We're changing the way things are done around here, regarding feeding the cows and horses.  

Adam's two horses have put on weight, far too much weight.  This could lead to health issues.  In the past we've gotten by just fine letting the horses eat at will from a big round bale of hay.  For some reason, perhaps their ages, it isn't working any more.  They're getting too much to eat.  

For the past month or so, I've been turning them out twice a day for two hours at a time to eat from their big bale of hay.  I don't think they've either one lost an ounce, and it's getting harder to get them to come back to the lot when the two hours are up.  I give them a tiny taste of sweet feed (about one cup each) to lure them back, but I think they're waking up to the fact that they're going to get locked away from the hay; they're more reluctant to come to me all the time.  

Cows' needs are different.  Ideally, they need all the hay they can get.  Cows don't founder on hay.  

So yesterday Cliff did some re-arranging.  

He put a big bale in the little cow-lot; the cows can enter and leave that pen, but the horses can't.  

He then placed a big bale in front of the barn across the fence from the horses, and we're going to try peeling hay off that a couple of times a day to feed them.  I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it will work; it sounds like a messy situation.  

We're trying to decide how to deal with this situation next winter.  Normally Adam's pasture rent goes up when we start feeding hay, and back down when the grass can be grazed.  

We may stop raising the pasture rent in winter and let him buy his own hay and store it in our barn.  He can tell me how much he wants the horses to have, and I'll feed them accordingly.  He'd have control that way.  He's never complained, by the way, about his horses getting fat or the way we've handled them; I just want to prevent problems.  

It's always something when you have animals, isn't it?  Rather like children.  

If you noticed that my weight ticker on the sidebar hasn't changed, it's because my weight hasn't changed.  At least I'm not gaining.
  

It's still no heat wave, but Sadie's been soaking up sunshine for over two hours this morning; I guess she's waiting on me and Cliff to go for our walk.

Snowy morning update

Cliff's awake; he asked, "How much snow did we get?"

I told him there's no way of knowing, since the wind has blown some places totally bare and piled up drifts in others. I don't imagine we got more than two inches.

Before he woke up, I put my coveralls and boots on again and went outside. I took water to thaw the gate-latch. Then I pondered the situation for a while.

Bonnie will usually follow a can of feed anywhere: Did I dare let her out the front door of the barn, which would mean letting her free into the whole wide world, and try coaxing her into the front door of the horse stall so she'd at least be inside with her calf?

That meant getting her out the door on the right, through a snowdrift, and into the sliding door on the left. Without letting her moose of a calf out.

I had success with this project. When Cliff is fully awake, dressed, and caffeined up (another hour, probably), he'll figure out how to free them from their confinement.

This picture, by the way, illustrates why Bonnie can't use the open-face shed. Although the horses tolerate her and her calf pretty well, they're not about to share this small space with cattle. Once we get the sliding barn door open, we'll leave it ajar so Bonnie and Sir Loin can go inside out of this awful wind.

The lost is found!

This is so strange! I have a folder on my desktop called "Pictures for blog". When I got home yesterday, I moved this picture from my camera card and placed it in that folder.

If I double-click on the folder to look at the pictures in it, this one doesn't show. However, when I decided to import some pictures from that folder to Iphoto, it showed up and I was able to move it.

I know, this is Greek to most of my readers. But just imagine my confusion: first it's not there, then it is. Evidently I need to put all my pictures in Iphoto first, without bypassing it. Whew. I'm glad I learned that before losing some pictures that are really valuable to me!

So now you get to see Cliff getting his flu shot.

Some of you wondered what the horses are looking at in my new header: Sunday morning Cliff's sister's husband and our son-in-law went to the pasture to do some target-shooting. The horses saw them moving around back there in the distance and stood riveted to the spot, not taking their eyes off them the whole time they were back there. I missed out on the best picture: they were all three standing in a row side by side, ears forward and alert; but by the time I got out there, the moment was lost and the picture on the header is all I got.

My tiller problem may be solved

Cliff's St. Louis sister reads my blog, and she read about my problem of having no garden tiller. So yesterday her husband called and said he happens to have a rototiller at their farm (a few miles from here) that we are welcome to use. It hasn't been fired up in a few years, so it will probably take some effort on Cliff's part to get it running; but he has a talent for that sort of thing. I'd still like to get Rena's Troybilt tiller back in business, though.

We're having high temperatures in the 90's, so I'm off to pick cherries while Cliff is sleeping, before it gets too hot.

About my "herd-bound" horses: Yes, it makes sense that the horses hang around up here to be near Blue. But out in the pasture, the cows don't mingle with the horses; but they won't leave the lot either. Cliff has even fixed it so that they can come and go at all times, even when the horses are shut in. But do they leave? No. This morning I lured them out with some sweet feed, pouring it on the ground. Next time I looked outside, there they were, back in the little lot.

Somebody just shoot me.

Wordless Wednesday: horses sunbathing

For more Wordless Wednesday entries, go HERE.

If you're buying a horse...

I found this list over at Astoria Oregon Rust. If you've ever been horse-shopping, you'll relate:

Here are some texts that make me see red flags:

Great trail horse = Knows how to go left, right and straight.
Some Parelli training= Inexperienced trainer who watches entirely too much RFD-TV and the horse is confused.
Finished horse less than $4,000=Owner has no idea of what finished means.
Barefoot=Owner fell for the Strasser Cult and the horse has had hoof abscesses.
Broodmare=Hasn’t been ridden for years or ever.
Excellent Ground Manners=Has no manners under saddle.
Easy Keeper= Will eat everything in sight and is probably aggressive at feeding time.
Beautiful=A hand full. There are always problems with the beautiful horses.
Beautiful Summer Coat=Looks like it has Cushings Disease the rest of the year.
Professionally trained for 30 days=Let me know when it’s had 90 days or take 2k off the price.
Loves working in arena=Horse is spooky outdoors.
Loves outdoor riding=Horse is spooky indoors.
Get up and go=Horse never stands still.
Lead Mare=Will attempt to kick your other horses to death.
Curious and smart=Escape artist.
Young for her age=Should include a shovel in the deal.
Need tune-up=Needs overhaul.
No vices=Yeah, right…


I decided Blue would fall under "Great Trail Horse" and Libby would be "Excellent ground manners" and "some Parelli training".

animal escape artists

Those two don't even look guilty, do they? You wouldn't realize they were running around the neighborhood, terrorizing folks, at 7 A.M.

I was in the middle of my bowl of Fiber One when the doorbell sounded. Now, anytime someone shows up at my door that early, I know they won't likely be bearing good news.

It was Farmer John, from down the road, asking if I had some cows out; someone had called him saying a couple of cows were loose on my dead-end road. He'd counted his cattle and they were all there.

I heard dogs barking furiously up the highway, and common sense told me that's where my two runaways had to be. I made a quick gate check and found the problem. Cliff and I can neither one figure out how the gate behind the barn got opened in the direction it was found, but with my druggie neighbors, you never know who's been messing around. Anyhow, I thanked the good Lord that Secret is a pet, and that I recently put a halter on her. I grabbed a rope and headed in the direction of the barking dogs.

One grumpy old guy hollered, "You missing a Jersey and an Angus?"

"Yeah, only he's not an Angus."

"Boy, you got trouble," he said, shaking his head. "They're about three houses down. How'd they get out?"

All this in a tone that implied only an idiot or a criminal would let her cows get out.

The two juvenile delinquents were in a back yard driving a pen-full of dogs nuts; there was quite an audience of neighbors watching, as though they'd never seen cows on the loose.

I walked up to Secret, snapped the rope onto her halter, and led her home, with Meatloaf following at her heels. Then I went to check the horses.

Ah yes, they were in the distance, grazing. But would you believe that not two hours later, they broke into the calves' pen? Geesh. I think we now have all gates secured.

We do have liability insurance on the livestock, just because of days like this.


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Now playing: The 300 Member Dallas Christian Adult Concert Choir - When My Love To Christ Grows Weak
via FoxyTunes

Checking in from Mudville

Yesterday it warmed up and thawed considerably. So for the first time in weeks, I gave both my horses a little attention. Because of the thawing, there was absolutely no bottom to the ground; our whole place was a marsh. Rather than soak my cowboy boots with mud, I put on rubber boots and waded across the pasture after Blue. Once I got to where the horses were lounging, I decided not to ride; Cliff's sister was coming to visit with us, and it would be rather rude of me to ride off into the sunset. Besides, Libby hadn't had any attention since I brought her back home from the "trainer".

It's risky to wear rubber boots with working with horses, but I had very little choice.

That's where the horses stood as I groomed them. Only it looks a lot worse than that, live and in person.

I spent about a half-hour with each horse, and I think both animals appreciated the attention, even if they had to stand knee-deep in mud. I notice they're shedding like crazy, so spring must not be too far off.

Cliff's sister decided to spend the night with us; so today Cliff mentioned Olive Garden, and Rena said she had never been there.

"Well, we'll fix that," Cliff said.

We made a stop at Penny's to pick up some T-shirts for Cliff, went to Wal-Mart and found a grinder on clearance exactly like Cliff needed, and then browsed around Sam's Club until time for Olive Garden to open up.


We had the soup, salad, and bread sticks with an appetizer of artichoke-spinach dip.

Yum.

Cliff's sister, who's been in Wisconsin for the past fifteen years or so, is in the middle of divorce proceedings and is looking at places to live in this area.

I know, this is a pretty hum-drum entry. But at this time, life itself is pretty hum-drum. Sometimes that's a good thing.

An awesome horse video

I've had at least three people send me this video, and I appreciate the fact that they thought of me. If you can watch this without getting tears in your eyes, you're just not a horse lover. Notice there are no reins and no saddle. Watch, and be amazed.

Funny how we change

I've had several horses in the years I've been married and living in the country. The first one was a green-broke mare (she was only two, so I guess she was really just a filly) named Ginger who wasn't much to brag about: she'd shy at the rustle of a leaf, and if you asked her to step across a tiny ditch, she'd brace herself and finally jump across it as though it were the Grand Canyon. I had small children back then, so I could only ride when Cliff was home to watch the babies.

Sometime in the '70's we owned a young Foxtrotter gelding I was really fond of. But I had a job at the time, and decided I wasn't riding him enough to merit keeping him around.

I've always said that I wouldn't keep a horse around if he wasn't being ridden. I see so many "pasture ornament" horses that nobody ever messes with, and I've laughed at people who'd waste money on a horse they never ride. Upkeep on a horse is expensive, you know?

But I guess I've gotten soft in my old age. Because I've told Cliff many times that as long as we're able to keep up with this place in the country, Blue isn't going anywhere. Whether I'm able to ride or not, he has a retirement home.

Cliff has accepted that; he even knows that I want Blue to go to a blogger friend in Oklahoma, if anything happens to me and he can't keep him.

One fear I have is that we'll have to part with this place before Blue dies, because he's only thirteen years old, and many horses live into their thirties. I'm sixty-three; can we keep up with this place for twenty more years? Dear Lord, we'll be in our eighties! And why on earth do I worry about the future of a horse in this manner?

Now Libby has worked her way into my heart in the same way.

I don't know what possessed me to buy a young filly in the first place; I certainly didn't need her. I saw the ad in the Kansas City Star, saw the words "bay" and "Foxtrotter" (like Blue) and just had to go look at her and make an offer. Stupid me.

Libby's only fault is that she's young. I could have saved myself the recent money I spent trying to get her trained by simply waiting for a couple of years and doing what I've been doing, because she has always had wonderful manners and a desire to please. She's just a "kid", and her attention span is short. And I was impatient and wanted to be able to safely ride her NOW. Don't ask me why I was in such a hurry, since I have Blue to ride.

Somebody on the local Craigslist has a Jersey cow with an adopted calf for sale. I could probably work out a reasonable trade, since the lady told me in email that they wanted to sell the calf next summer so they'll have money to buy their kids a horse.

But when it came down to it, I knew I couldn't offer Libby to anyone; yesterday I stood between my two horses with a big, warm equine jaw against each cheek, hugging both their necks, and I realized I'm stuck with two animals I cannot bear to part with, even if I were never to ride Libby. How does a mother sell her children?

Yes, I guess I've gotten soft in my old age.

Libby and me

I posted these pictures in my AOL journal, but I am just so happy with how Libby is doing, I had to put them over here too. See how her ears are up and how happy she looks? She seems to feel that my being on her back is the most natural thing in the world.

The last time the grandson was on her, he had trouble getting her to go faster than a walk... she'd lay her ears back when he asked her to speed up. I'm sure she'll let me know when she's ready to go faster, but meanwhile I'm in no hurry.

She jumps around quite a bit when I tighten the girth up, but I've found if I give her a treat first, she's fine. She just needs to get used to things.

Because she's young, and not all that big, I don't ride her longer than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.

I'm so proud of her!

Of horses, dogs, and other mundane matters

When we adopted our dog, Sadie, from Wayside Waifs, they sent a bag of Science Diet dog food home with us, and it's what we've fed her ever since. It's pricey, but she loves it and seems to thrive on it. All my previous dogs made do with Purina, but after losing Mandy suddenly the way I did, I was an easy sell for anything that might be good for my dog.

The worst thing about Science Diet dog food, other than the price, is that you can't get it at Walmart or in any grocery store. When Sadie's out of dog food, it's a special side trip to Feldman's or Orscheln's or Tractor Supply. This doesn't always fit into our plans.

So I was recently in Walmart when Sadie was out of food, and decided for the first time ever to change her diet. Iams is every bit as expensive as her Science Diet, so it surely must be just as good, right? I bought a smallish bag, just to see.

I could tell she didn't eat in her usual hoggish manner, but she did eat it. Then the second day I gave it to her, she puked. And again, a few days later.

I know, some dogs puke a lot. Sadie does not.

So yesterday I bought some Science Diet for her, and put it on one side of her food dish with Iams on the other. She couldn't get enough Science Diet dog food! It's like she had been deprived for the past couple of weeks.

Lesson learned. It may just be her personal preference, but I'm sticking with Science Diet from now on.



On another note: Yesterday evening I rode Libby around in front of the barn, and then in the big lot awhile. She did great. When I led her out to the pasture to turn her loose, I hung around and petted her, since she was in no hurry to wander off. Then I hugged on Blue awhile. I started walking back toward the point, and the horses followed.


At the far side of the alfalfa field, I sat down, and Libby came over beside me as if to keep me company, nibbling small bites of grass beside me. After she wandered off, Blue came on over and lowered his head for some petting.

Horses look different when you're looking up at them, don't they?

I had forgotten how relaxing it is to spend time in the pasture with horses, simply watching. It's one of the best stress-reducers I know of.

Good times

I like the weekend I just had.

Saturday it rained all day, and except for cooking a carbohydrate-laden, old-fashioned meal, I did very little except (as I've said before) sit at the computer. But the rain was so welcome that I loved every minute of it. Our pasture is green and growing again, and there's water in the bottom of our tiny pond.

Yesterday, Sunday, I brought the filly, Libby, up to the barn. I worked on getting her to let me have her feet; she's doing much better with that. I saddled her and led each of my daughter's girls around the yard on her back. I introduced her to cars, close-up; and I clapped my hands often, because she jumped a bit the other day when a granddaughter clapped her hands while on her back.

The daughter helped me make a video of the two calves running for their dinner.

I went for a long ride through the countryside on Blue.

Yep, I like the weekend I just had.

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Now playing: The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir - So You Would Know
via FoxyTunes

As usual, I rode this morning

When I left at 5:15, it was totally dark. Someone asked me how I can ride in the dark... isn't it dangerous? Can people see me?

I do make sure to wear a white shirt so I'll show up in headlights, since my horse is a big brown blob in the dark. But the busiest road I ride alongside isn't that busy, and most every car is leaving my little town and going to work early in the morning. So I simply ride on the off side. The one exception is the mail truck, which can be counted on to come rattle-banging along between 5:45 and 6 A.M. I can usually hear a car coming quite a way off, and I have plenty of time to cross over to the other side if I think it's necessary. Oh, and on Saturday I don't encounter more that one or two cars.

Anyway, I rode to the square of my town and went south, heading toward an outer road with a long history of horse travel:


No matter when I ride this road, I don't encounter much traffic. If it were later in the day, the mailman would pass or meet me several times, and a tractor might pass by. There's one major problem on this ride, and that's a lack of brush and bushes behind which to hide when I need a potty break. See, right alongside Old Santa Fe Trail Road is a fairly busy US highway. So some sort of blind is needed. And this morning I realized I had indulged in one too many cups of coffee.


I ride the gravel road on the left; on the right is the US highway.


Luckily, Blue and I found a cornfield (much to his delight). I had to break my usual rule of never going into any farmer's field when there are crops growing, though. When you gotta go, you gotta go.




See how well hidden Blue and I were? He loves corn, so he accommodated me.

When I got us out of the corn maze, the sun was coming up over Blue's shoulder.
He's a very tall horse and I have bad knees; so I always make sure to stop where there's a bank like this. I get on the uphill side and I don't have so far to pull myself onto him.

After I got home and rinsed Blue off, I remembered that I was supposed to feed the horses that are boarded here, since Jessica and Adam are out of town for the weekend. Tude has arthritis in one leg, even though he's only eight years old. So he gets three supplements for that.

Sassy and Tude both receive electrolytes mixed in their feed. Jessica offered to let me give some to my horses, but I honestly don't feel it's necessary.

That's how I started my day. I was sweating already when I left the house, and it only got hotter. Maybe I could use some electrolytes!