Archives for October 2013

Even though they close most of the trails here at the drop of any significant rainfall, there is an all-weather trail that goes all the way around the lake, about 12 miles, with a couple of other short connectors as well that have crushed gravel dust footing. The morning started out clear and beautiful, with some clouds moving in from the west, but we decided to take a quick ride on a loop of just under 4 miles near the north horse camp just to try out our new bitless bridles to see how the horses reacted to them. We threw them in the trailer (well, they jumped in by themselves, actually : -) and went up to the north Day Use area, and saddled them up. I decided to put boots on Apollo, which, unfortunately, meant I had to do a quick hoof trim, but we were soon on our way. They responded to the hackamores brilliantly! Actually they seemed to respond better than with a bit! We’ve only been using a light snaffle anyway, but I had gotten the impression that maybe part of Apollo’s problem when shifting up to a canter may have been too much pressure from the bit (even though I do my best to try to remember to give him as much rein as possible, I don’t always have enough time to do it before he starts to rodeo on my, and of course, when he jumps I tend to pull up on him anyway, my survivor instinct!), he seemed much more relaxed today. Although he jumped on me a tiny bit the first time we went into a canter, I think that was more out of habit than need. In any event, we did a LOT of trotting and cantering today, partly to get them used to the new bridle, partly because it was such a short ride anyway, and partly because we could see the rain moving in fast and didn’t want to get caught out in it. The horses didn’t seem to mind a bit, they were quite happy to trot and canter almost the whole way! We timed it perfectly, just getting the horses in the trailer and the tack put away when the rain arrived. Rather than head back to camp just to let them stand in the rain, we decided to run our errands and let them come along, so we headed up to Ft. Dodge. With stops at Boomgars for feed, then a trip to the north end of town to JRG Livestock and Pet Supply for some other feed Boomgars didn’t have, then back to Walmart (Subway first, we were starving by then), some quick shopping, then back to camp. We heard on the radio that the Black Hills, where we were just a couple of weeks ago, had had over 40 inches of snow!! Brrrrr! It is supposed to get a little cooler here, but only in the low 40’s, maybe 39, but not snow! Fortunately, it’ due to warm up here again next week, we’ve already decided to stay through Thursday, then move down to Honey Creek in Missouri for a week. We have a job the following week, so we’ll be heading out to a pre-arranged stable on that Friday. Meanwhile, we got everyone settled in and had a nice evening, now that the rain had cleared through!

Lots of rainstorms overnight, lightning and thunder, too, so I didn’t get much sleep (though Hubby has no trouble sleeping through anything, lucky man!). The horses were well protected in the woods, happy to say. Spent the day on the computer and reading, I borrowed a Kindle book from Hubby and my time is almost up, so I have to get it done. Didn’t rain as much as we thought it would today, actually had clear skies by mid afternoon. The maple trees here have gone from a touch of gold to almost completely gold in the time we’ve been here already, yet temps have been really reasonable. Supposed to get colder over the weekend, though. I seem to remember that was always the complaint back in my 9 to 5 days, it was always nice during the week and got crummy over the weekend. Glad we don’t suffer from that problem any more!

Woke up to find my package from Valley Vet on the picnic table outside the door, never heard them come by, but they evidently got the message I left yesterday on their answering machine telling them what site we were in. Thank you!! Ordered two new hay bags and two poly rope bitless bridles. One of the hay bags had ripped, and the horses were having great fun ripping it more, so new ones were needed. The bitless bridles were something we had been talking about for some time, but hadn’t gotten around to it. We saw some in the catalog for less than $20, and though we’d at least give them a try before we considered spending a lot more on an experiment. Though we had hoped to ride today, Hubby’s back just wouldn’t allow it, and we figured we needed the last of the nice weather to do the repairs on the RV, having received the parts on Monday. So we replaced the slide awning fabric that was ruined by the tunnel in the Black Hills, as well as the end cap and the motor cover on the big awning, which took us a couple of hours, but all worked very well. In fact, I think we improved the slide awning, it had been a bit slack before, but we were able to tighten it up a bit. Hubby’s back barely survived, and I had to do the motor cover myself, but that’s what teamwork is about! We finished up by supper time, and settled down for the evening, anticipating rain that was on its way.

Because of weather forecasts that don’t look promising for the next few days, we decided to take advantage of nice weather today and go for our first ride. I plotted out a route that was supposed to be about 6 miles, but lately I’ve begun to think my Google Earth maps are just not quite accurate. We looped around toward the north, under a bridge and across a fabulous variety of terrain, from open fields to narrow woods trails winding through forest, up and down some pretty serious inclines, several creeks crossings (one was quite deep, though we skirted around the edge instead so we wouldn’t be swimming-I heard later that it’s about belly deep) and generally a beautiful ride. Stopped once at a ranger station to see if a package from Valley Vet had arrived yet (I had ordered it over the weekend, but the UPS tracking trace said it was supposed to arrive today!), but the office was closed. The ride ended up being 10 miles, though, so by the end, Hubby’s back was hurting him and he wasn’t enjoying himself the last hour or so. Too much going down steep descents. We got the horses settled in, Hubby took some Tylenol, and we settled in for dinner and TV for the night.

We had ordered replacement parts for the damage done to the awnings back in the Black Hills, and they were sent out last week from our dealer in Florida, but the arrival wasn’t scheduled until today. Since our drive today is fairly short, we decided to wait for UPS, since we were told the truck usually arrives around noon or 12:30. After breakfast and packing up, we drove out to the entrance to the park and waited, and waited, and waited, until finally, at 1:20, UPS arrived. Now we were a bit behind schedule, but the trip was uneventful (fortunately), though the route my GPS took me put us right through the middle of Fort Dodge, so it was slower than we had hoped. A stop a Walmart and the Subway inside was all we really needed, then we headed out to the campground less than 30 minutes away. There are two horse campgrounds at Brushy Creek, North and South. I had determined from Google Earth and other maps that the South Campground would have the most benefits, both in proximity to the most amount of trails and openness for a satellite signal. Fortunately, there is a good cell phone signal here as well. The first loop was mostly shaded, lots of trees and very pretty, but the farthest loop was mostly open, with one long half of a loop up against a row of trees. They have the dreaded hitching posts here, but many are hidden in the woods, providing opportunities for a highline, and after some reconnoitering, we decided Site #55 would work the best. Many of the sites here are full hookups, including sewer, but we settled for an electric site with a water spigot just one site away. Off-season rates just $14/night! Very reasonable. Great cell phone signal, too, internet is nice and fast. Got everyone settled in, water in the RV and one of the rain barrels, highline up, animals fed, and in our recliners at just about dark, which is getting earlier now that Fall has arrived!