Sunday, June 14, 2020 – Fabulous Ride Today!

 

Hey Darlin'!
Well, when I got up this morning, there was some rain going on, just a little sprinkle, it didn't wake me (I LOVE my earplugs!), but when I took those out I heard the sounds of people starting to pack up, YAY! (Sorry...NOT!) I did my usual chores and was having a pretty quiet day. First I took some pictures of the aluminum panel that's starting to bulge and sent it to Harmar for advice (I had emailed him late yesterday and surprisingly, he responded immediately). After that, I trimmed Apollo's front hooves, I figured maybe the boots wouldn't come off so much if they fit a little better. Then I decided to use your saddle for Apollo, since I was having trouble taking off that stirrup accessory, you know the one that turns it 180 degrees so it's facing forward? The bolt on that thing keeps rubbing my ankle and annoying me, so I decided to change to your saddle, which, even though it has the same thing, doesn't seem to rub me, go figure. Anyway, once I did that, then I spent a few minutes trying harder to get the stirrup thing of MY saddle, and finally managed. It doesn't matter, it will make a good guest saddle. I hadn't really thought about going to ride today, but the clouds went away and it turned into a beautiful day, and Apollo seemed bored standing around, so I saddled him up and headed out. I had to make a few adjustments to the stirrups to get the right length, but finally managed it. What a gorgeous day! Mid-70's, a few puffy clouds, just perfect! I decided to take about a 5-mile loop and we headed out. Fortunately, this trail had hardly any gravel once we got away from camp, so he was a lot more comfortable. We took the Blue trail toward a place called Tree Lane, which was all road-width, then hung a right onto the Three Hills trail, which was a perfect single track, very little mud except one spot right at the bottom of a creek where he lost a shoe, but it fell into the creek and washed itself off. It was a wonderful ridge line trail, and indeed, there were three hills you had to go up and down, but in between there were beautiful vistas, and most of it wasn't too steep, or had great switch-backs to help. A few trees were down, but nothing impassable. Of course, Apollo's getting to be so slow the five miles took us a lot longer than usual. Down to just over 2 mph these days, old slowpoke! I concede part of it might be his feet still hurt a little, but we only had about a quarter of a mile of gravel near the end, so I really think he's just out of shape, though he's starting to get back into shape now! Flash is still favoring his left hind leg, and it's only been a week tomorrow since he started limping, so I'm just going to keep resting it until it's completely healed, I don't want to re-injure it by riding him too soon. Anyway, got back to camp, which was considerably quieter than when I left, gave Apollo a bath, then put them both on anchors so they could graze awhile. They're right outside the screen room so I can keep a close watch, the nicest setup since I've been on the road this season. Finally settled down for the evening, won't be long till I'm off to shower and bed! Good night, Sweetie! Love you!

Speak Your Mind

*