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Sunday, April 30, 2017

Boring

A warm day
Harbinger of warmer days
To come.

Took a ride on Nevel
Almost lost my seat
When he pulled a silly fete!

Logs
Hewn and stacked
An orange cone
Alerts the passersby

Nevel cautious
Stiff and alert
Had every sign
That he was ready
To bolt
Head back to trailer
Be just fine

I stayed on
He made it through
To the woods
Thwarted by fallen trees galore.
We returned
Felt like I'd ridden
All day
But
It was not a mile
Or many more
It was only two :(

But Major's mom
Had inspired me
So now the trailer
Is neat and clean
Too!

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

April Sunday...or What Goes Up Must Come Down

I almost sold Nevel's Duett Saddle a few months ago, but decided to try it one more time.
IT FIT PERFECTLY!

So now we have three saddles for Nevel
Tucker Plantation for when he is really fat
DUETT for when he is medium fat to really fat
Sommer Endurance (Persee's saddle) for when he is thinner.

I decided to make it to Folsom Lake on this outing.  The trails were drier and in better condition although not perfect.  Nevel was relaxed and very well behaved...except when I ask him to stand still for picture taking-
along the road to the Sterling Pointe staging area.

Lupine amongst the Vine.


A blurred view of the Lake
The Flowers were awesome...Lupines, poppies and other various yellow and orange glories.
I had forgotten how DOWNHILL the trail to the lake is....argha...Nevel hates the downhill as do I!
But we found some level or slightly rolling going up to Long Bar and onward.

On the way back he took off at an 8 mph trot...it would have been great if we could have kept it up, but too many obstacles of either low branches, low spots with deep muck or more down hill.
So the rest we walked at about 3.8mph.

We head down the Lomida Road trail and came upon a Real estate agents metal A frame sign stuck on out rubberized culvert crossing.  Nevel stopped and eyed it...I thought...hhmmmm maybe we should go out in the road and around it...I turned around, but then thought again and made a BIG MISTAKE....urged Nevel past it.  He seriously checked it out and started walking past it...but just then his big fat fluffy tail took hold of that sign and crashed it into his hind legs.  He went STRAIGHT UP while I went STRAIGHT Down...or at least I think I did...cuz I had my eyes closed.

I went SPLAT on the Road while hanging on to his reins and hearing his steel shoes clanking around on the pavement.
Amazingly there were no cars coming either way and I only had a very small area on my left hip that even hurt!  WOW...
Only thing I can figure is that he pulled his head up as I dangled from his reins, plus I had at least a liter of water left in my back water pack and I am sure it cushioned my fall!
From their I decided to walk about a mile home to the trailer...

I'm not happy about this in his pasture!  Another accident waiting to happen!  Must speak to T about it.

Nevel enjoyed having his saddle off and munching on grass and other things...I think the ladybug ended up in Nevels Stomach!


Maybe that is why he is such a LOVE BUG!




Nevel was fine and dandy by the end of our adventure....I think

Hangin' With Nevel

Rain, Rain and more RAIN!
REALLY?  and the only days I had free were filled with Rain or Family obligations!  : (

Finally we succeeded in capturing a week end day that contained some sun.
Nevel is notorious for having ill saddle fit.  He is SO round...even when he is thin.
Thus I decided to try out Persee's saddle on him.

The stirrups did not come with the saddle...they are light weight new design of endurance stirrup.

It turns out they clanked with every trotting step...ugh.
They are bulky despite their light weight and I don't like the looks of them.

Then I searched for a girth.  It so happens then when I trailered Persee to the trainer that all of my tack JUMPED off their hooks and hid themselves in a jumbled mess on the floor of the trailer.
I have never had that occur when trailering before...but then again it was a different trailer with different hooks and such.

It took too long to figure out a girth to fit ...first too long, then too short.  So I went with the long one.

I also know now that my stirrups are on the wrong way and the "Toe" should be facing the saddle, not away from it!  arghh.

Regardless,  I managed to get all of the tack straightened out and mounted up.  Nevel was "fresh" and took off at a nice trot up the lane to the big wood.
He happily splashed through the creek without attempting to jump it.  From there on out a huge muddy mess of a trail rose before us.  It a was muck sucking shoe slurping mess! Finally we rounded the curve and found some decent trail stretching out ahead of us for a short trot.
The Grass was emerald green and a few flowers blooming.  We attempted numerous trails only to find more MUCK, slick areas, newly created ravines with running water seeping up out of the ground and gazillions of little creeks and downed trees....no fun riding here!
We tried the meadow too...even more mess.  Finally we looped around and headed home...back to the shoe sucking muck.
We were just a short distance from the the creek when Nevel slipped in the muck and made a loud sucking noise has he drug his feet up out of it.  At the same time, to his right rear an animal crashed through the brush and he BOLTED! I hung on for dear life for what seemed an eternity.
But maybe it was only a couple hundred feet or less!  ha ha....I was just glad to be alive at that point as Nevel then tried to jump the creek and bolt for home!  BAD NEVEL!
Back home he dissed the saddle even though it fit him pretty well!

Nevs would just rather eat!

Playing Catch Up

7 Weeks Already?
7 weeks ago I made an attempt to get Perseus on the Trailer to go visit a Trainer.
He wasn't interested in going on.

All of the other boarders were gone due to looming nasty weather on the horizon.

I made a huge mistake of trying to get him on by myself with a lunge line fed through the tie ring and back out the trailer so I could tug and encourage him from behind at the same time.

He went willingly up to the trailer, but wouldn't budge on to it...Then he reared up and pulled back, ended up on top of my rubber trash can aka feed barrel and was quite shook up and stuck all at once.
He untangled himself from the barrel while I climbed back on the trailer and released the line from its stuck place.

In the meantime the weather changed from partly sunny to clouds, rain, sleet, snow and back to rain again.  YIKES!  That happened 3 times...and we didn't make any headway so I called the Trainer who said she would come on over and help load him.

Just moments after the trainer arrived, T drove up the lane and helped encourage him on the trailer from behind while the Trainer coaxed from inside.  T Finally lifted one of his feet up and placed it on
the trailer!








More encouraging and he managed a second foot!
Finally he was ON!  And T yells...SHUT THE DOOR! SHUT THE DOOR!

But instead the Trainer says...LETS DO IT AGAIN!   : )