Archives for December 2013

To say that the trail map here isn’t complete would be the understatement of the year! While it indicates a lot of nice loops, there are countless other trails, wide open and cross-able prairies that make an infinite variety of riding. We started out following a trail I made from Google Earth, and which had a few faded blue paint spots on an occasional tree, but that was about it. The key here is that there are numerous signs indicating numbered points (though a few are missing as indicated by the map), and once you find one of those, you can determined where you are. It’s not a huge place, but there is plenty of variety, a lot more trails in the woods than you’d first imagine. Today, though, we headed along the west perimeter, down to the lake, and then east, a bit further than halfway across the park. We ran into a lone cow and her beautiful calf on the trail just after leaving the lake, and though Apollo was startled for a minute, he quickly calmed down, particularly after they left the trail and skedaddled into the brush, which, of course, Apollo took credit for : -). A little further on, we came across a much larger herd of cows, and the road we were one went straight through the middle of them, but the horses obviously remembered earlier training and went straight through them without hardly noticing, yeah! We did a lot of trotting and cantering along the open stretches. Footing was mostly sand and dirt, with just a few places where the sand got uncomfortably deep. We met another rider on the trail, a local gentleman named Wayne, who gave us some tips, and rode with us back to the campground, taking a shortcut I doubt I would have found without his help (though I know I could have found a way back, just not THAT way back. Had a nice chat along the way. One thing I’ll say for Texas, everyone we’ve met here has been very nice, very accommodating, very laid back. The only problem so far were the Texans that didn’t bother to clean up the stalls here before we arrived. Anyway, we ended up going over 10.5 miles, in perfect weather, out just about 4 hours. Horses were on their best behavior as well, with Apollo settling down very nicely from the start. After a lengthy discussion with a woman at Tractor Supply the other day (frankly, the first and only person at any Tractor Supply that seemed to know what she was talking about!), we changed the horses feed regime, cutting out the oats, having Apollo eat only hay and a small amount of Purina Enrish 32 balancer, and Clio getting mostly senior feed and some weight builder along with her hay. The results seem to be a calmer gelding, at least. We’ll see what else it does over time. Meanwhile, a great day!

Allowed ourselves to sleep in to our normal time rather then earlier, as we have just over an hour’s drive today. With stops at Tractor Supply for propane and Walmart for our usual shopping, we headed out to McCown Valley Horse Camp near Lake Whitney. We had two choices here, this place or Plowman’s Creek on the north end of the lake, but our neighbor over the weekend said she had friends who thought McCown Valley was one of the best places around, so we let that sway us, and frankly, we were glad we did! We arrived, and came to a gate, where we were greeted warmly and directed to the horse camp so we could choose our spot. This place actually has two separate areas for horses, and smaller area next to the day parking, and a much larger area with a loop of it’s own, with it’s own electric gate and keypad. There are two corral areas at each end, each with 8 stalls, 4 of which are covered, but with a corral setup where you can actually open up the inside rail so that you can make the open half into a sort of run, doubling the corral space. The loop itself is relatively huge, with a wide open area in the middle with the bathhouse and some picket posts, and the outside of the loop has most of the campsites. The north side is mostly in the trees, the rest pretty open. Just as we were arriving, three living quarters horse trailers were pulling, leaving the place empty for us. We were glad to see covered stalls again, as the weather forecast isn’t looking too stellar later in the week. Our big disappointment as that the previous occupants of the corrals didn’t bother to clean up after themselves (shame on you!), and didn’t look like they had all weekend, so my first job was having to clean the stalls out. Considering I had already done my morning mucking before we left the last place, I wasn’t too thrilled at having to do it again, particularly for other people’s horses. Usually we can count on clean corrals when we arrive, and it’s been awhile since we’ve arrived to dirty stalls, but Hubby said he only saw men driving out, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. It seems that men without female supervision often resort to their more barbaric and thoughtless tendencies. In any event, we selected a nice spot, using my new Dishpointer app on my smartphone to find where the satellites were to insure we could get a signal, then we got set up in short order. I drove back to finish our business at the main gate, paying just $9 a night with Hubby’s Golden Age Passport, including 50 amp electric and water, stalls included. Didn’t take long to get set up, and since we arrived fairly early, we were well settled in before the end of the day. Weather was perfect today, and should continue for the next couple of days, hoping to get at least three rides in while we’re here!