Of Epic Trail Rides & Slime Covered Tack.

Wet but happy ponies

'I wasn't done in the pool Mom..'

Again, here I am, totally MIA. Apologies! I hope in September I will become a more regular blogger again. I hope!

This week I am off work, but it is more like a workacation than vacation. The week has been chock full of work on the house. We now have very dirty hardwood flooring, some tile and best of all we are quickly closing the gap on move in time. Whoo!


The week has been pretty cruddy for barn time to say the least. With the heat warnings and the immense humidity, riding has come to a screaming halt, with the exception of trail riding! Which was utterly epic!


Paloma has started to pull on her grown up panties and is becoming a reliable, quiet trail companion.
In combination with her blossoming 'competitor' brain this is just the icing on the cake for me.
I honestly don't know what I like better. The structured perfectionism of the hunter ring (this is how my brain works), the thrill of eventing (pushing me outside my comfort zone and loving it!) or a relaxing trek across the open fields with a freeing gallop followed by a cooling dip in the pond, what a perfect ending!

The final portion of that sentence brings us to my recap of our epic trail ride yesterday. I am ecstatic to share with everyone if only just to relive it again.


Mich and I were hmming and hawing about what to do with our equine time. Monday had us crying sweat just by grooming, not counting chasing the horses about the field. Dang mares in season teasing poor Thunder man. Needless to say we gave in and called it a day.
Tuesday, another attempt to ride, found poor Paloma galloping to the gate as a desperate plea to get her out of the bugs and heat. Getting her out of the barn to ride was another challenge entirely. Now, I did get a short w/t/c in but it was very lack luster and I gave in to Paloma's final plea to just hang in the barn for awhile.
So when Thursday rolled around and a gusty wind set in, we gathered our aces and set out for a easy trail ride and a swim with the horses.

 We tacked up and headed out. Thunder gung ho and pony express ready and Paloma, having no spook in sight, say what?!
Mich and I chose to swim after the ride and patrolled the wheat and soy fields first.
Lending to my trend of making calls too early, ie spooks, we were tested with the bursting of birds mere inches from the horses noses, noisy ATV's blasting out of the tree's and gigantic plow tractors. BUT NO SPOOK!
I did tack up the right buckskin leopard mare, yes?

Thanking my stars, we headed back to the barn for a dip.
Paloma is used to walking through the water now but I wasn't sure we could get here down and off her feet to actually swim.
Mich was smart and did not wear her expensive riding boots.

After a bit of leg Paloma obliged and waded into the deeper water stopping after reaching up to her belly where she then proceeded to happily play in the water, pawing and splashing with her nose. Me, attempting to be flexible and lift my boots above waters reach.
Paloma then surprised me. Seeing how much fun Thunder was having swimming in circles, she sauntered deeper. I gave up on working on my yoga skills and admitted defeat to the waters reach. Meh. Everything will dry...
The horses having so much fun swimming even started down the channel that gets very deep.
Mich and I were too spent laughing and crying with glee noticed a bit too late that we were now coated in weeds. Yum...

Gathering our wits once more we turned the horses back to shore and emerged with bucket fulls of weeds stuck to our stirrups and tack. This is when Paloma had a little spook... granted, I couldn't stop honking with laughter so I didn't blame her.
The weeds were so long and so thick they started to slap her legs and belly with each step. Paloma tried to outrun them... right...
After I figured out how to ride again we calmly walked back to the barn to ring out our waterlogged selves and weed covered tack, yum.

Despite the weeds and slime covered boots and saddle the adventure was a complete success. I don't think I have had so much fun in my life.
To be continued I am sure!