While feeding the horses this morning I got into a chat with the group that had been camping next to the covered stalls, and in particular, a woman named Nancy who also has a Paso Fino. She invited me to ride with her, but I told her I’d have to see how Hubby was feeling this morning, in case he felt up to riding. Generous Hubby said, by all means, take a ride with another Paso Fino person and see what happens, so that’s what I did. Flash was calm for about the first half mile, then after that he started getting really fussy, jumping and pulling, at times he literally was cantering in place! Not sure what got into him, except maybe he wanted to move out more, but Nancy was working on teaching her horse to just walk quietly, so I didn’t want to interfere with that. There were a couple of times I let him run, though, but evidently not enough, because he kept prancing almost all the rest of the time. What a workout! Flash worked up quite a sweat, too! We were out for nearly two hours, so it was a good workout for everyone. Nancy was pleased her horse stayed calm through Flash’s histrionics, even bumping into her a couple of times. Crazy horse, don’t know what got into him, he was perfect last week! Anyway, got him put away, then spent the rest of the afternoon dialyzing Hubby before settling in for the evening.

Spent the weekend volunteering at the Skymont Endurance Ride, my third year there as a volunteer. Fortunately, there were no injuries, no trips to the hospital, no lost horses, and only one rider was temporarily lost the entire weekend, so it was a great success! As always, Lola kept everyone in the vet check area entertained for the duration. The senior vet, Otis, who’s a funny curmudgeon of a guy, but who has a reputation for being a bit tough at times (though I haven’t seen that much!), says Lola is the best behaved dog in camp, and is the only dog he’ll let stay in the vet check area. I always make sure she’s leashed up when the horses are coming through, but once it’s clear, out comes the chucker, out goes Lola, and everyone is amused by the leaping and jumping and running out to the pond that she does. The vet check area had a big pond in it this year because we’ve had so much rain this year, so the vet check area was move a bit to higher ground, though the trot-out areas were kind of rough. Anyway, it was a great event, I once again was asked to help emcee the awards ceremony. Yesterday, I decided to take Flash for a ride to see how he would do in the woods for a longer duration, so I trailered him up and ran him down to Skymont about 9:30. Most folks were either gone or about to leave when I got there, except the organizers who were doing some clean-up. Flash was pretty anxious about all the activity, there were still a few horses being walked around, and he was all excited and whinnying about that. I managed to get him saddled, but he was still too distracted, so I ran him around in circles for a bit, trying to settle him down. He finally did, so I climbed on and off we went down the purple trail. Wendy, the woman who tags the trails, had told me purple was probably the nicest trail with the least amount of rocks, and as I’ve discovered that my Cavallo #2 boots are probably too big for Flash, even without a recent trim, I wanted the least amount of rocks for him. We passed Wendy on the trail shortly after leaving camp, and headed out the supposedly 11.7 mile trail (though my GPS recorded 10.3, so I’m not sure). Flash was pulling and pulling, and I had a hard time keeping him down to just a medium gait, he wanted to go faster all the time. I thought he would eventually settle down, but he never really did! It was medium or fast gait the whole way, with the occasional breakout into a canter. We were in constant motion, I couldn’t get him to wait to save my life! I’m thinking maybe I’m going to have to put a curb bit on him, the snaffle just wasn’t enough to keep him from pulling my arms out of their sockets. When we cantered past the eleven mile marker without a single slow-down the entire trip, I really started seeing how great this horse would be in an endurance race. I honestly don’t know if he was loving it or hating it, I only know he went like gangbusters the entire trip! We left camp at 10:18 and arrived back at 12:45, a lot earlier than I had expected. Clearly, though, with some conditioning, he would be perfect for this kind of competition. Of course, judging by the way I felt when I climbed down, I’m going to need as much or more conditioning than he is! Lola certainly enjoyed herself, she had a faster trip than usual, which always makes her happy. By the time we reached camp, most of the stragglers had moved out, and it took no time at all to load Flash back into the trailer and come home. I heard Apollo whinnying when we were at the gate at the end of the driveway, and Flash and Apollo nuzzled once he got back in the paddock. I let them into the pasture, washed out the back of the trailer, put some stuff away, and came in exhausted! Once I cooled down, I started to try to dialyze Hubby, but wasn’t able to get a good arterial connection, so we ended up abandoning it for the day. Hate to do that, but I was just not able to succeed, and after three attempts at sticking him, it was clear I just wasn’t up for it today. Better luck tomorrow, hopefully! Whew, what a day!

This summer has been such a blur, and because it didn’t really have any travel or horse camping in it, I just stopped doing my Horse Camping diary. So sorry!! But in between trips to Vanderbilt in Nashville to get treatments, surgery, training and doctor’s appointments accomplished, the summer seemed to fly by! I tried to ride our new horse Flash at least once a week, with just a few weeks missed, and he’s been coming along beautifully. When we started, he was so jumpy, and needed constant contact with the bit just to keep him from running away with me. Eventually I got him so calm that now, for the most part, he can be ridden with a nice loose rein, at least until he’s asked to kick it up a notch, in which case he gets a bit hard to settle down afterward, but even that’s greatly improved. I think he’s just about ready for Hubby as soon as he’s strong enough, fingers crossed! Today, though, I thought it was time that I see what kind of condition Apollo is in after his summer off, so I decided to saddled him up and see how he did. Much to my surprise, Flash started whinnying for him as soon as I took him out of the paddock, and Apollo even whinnied back a few times. I was a little surprised, because Apollo still nips at Flash for no apparent reason, and lately I’ve seen Flash kick back in Apollo’s directions a few times, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen him make contact (though I suspect Apollo has done so to him, sorry to say). Anyway, the whinnying got more frenzied as we headed up the driveway, but once Apollo was out of sight and hearing, it settled down a bit, though every few hundred yards, Apollo would whinny again, even when we were miles away! Apollo did great, though his walk was uncharacteristically slow, but we trotted and even cantered, too, a nice controlled canter with no jigging, thank goodness! It was a nice two hour ride, and ended with more whinnying when we got within reach. So happy he did so well, and I’m hoping that absence will make the heart grow fonder, and Apollo will be a little less hard on Flash. After a whole summer together, you’d have thought they would have learned to get along better! They stand together a lot, and Apollo really only gets aggressive when there’s food or humans around, the rest of the time they seem to stand nearby each other. I guess the herding instinct trumps their personal feelings! Since he did so well, and I really want to progress the plot here, I suggested to Hubby that if he was feeling strong enough tomorrow, I thought both horses were ready for a ride together. I think Flash would be calmer for Hubby riding on terrain that he’s gotten to know well rather than wait to get into woodland trails he doesn’t know (which always make him jumpy), and I’m hoping that after all the whinnying sessions, these two might behave okay on the trail together (well, road for now.) Hubby said he was up for the idea, if he felt strong enough in the morning. It would be his first ride in 17 months! I hope it works out!!

The day started out busy, as usual, despite being a Sunday, too much work to do! After our usual Sunday blueberry pancake breakfast, I washed the small horse trailer, which SO needed it, while Hubby rode around mowing the yard. That took us both a couple of hours. After that we had a small lunch, then I saddled up Flash. Since we’re not doing dialysis today, I wanted to take Flash out for several hours, ideally on some trails, and my neighbor had cut about a mile or so through their property and had graciously agreed to let me take Flash out there to see what he would do on a trail. We headed out the driveway and down the road, and this time, he had very little problem with the yellow and black signs, but shortly after that, he started to get real antsy about something. He didn’t want to walk on the road, and kept backing up into the grass along the edge. It’s almost like yesterday he was so overwhelmed he became a robot under my guidance, and today, he was just relaxed enough to start seeing all the LITTLE things that were out to get him! It took a lot to get him to listen today, but eventually we carried on after some patient schooling. We arrived at my neighbors (just under two miles away) and headed out onto their trails. They had essentially bush-hogged a trail around their perimeter, plus added a few spokes in the circle to get back to the house. Flash got overwhelmed again pretty quickly. Seriously, this horse doesn’t know how to pass a tree without nearly panicking! Such a trail novice! Anyway, we carried on, and he was walking very fast, and gaiting whenever he could get away with it, and we went up and down grades and through the woods with his head up, his ears pricked and his eyes wide open, just waiting to be gobbled up by some horse-eating thing he was sure was around every corner! We arrived at a nice stop by a lake, but I couldn’t get him to stand still no matter what I did. We finally moved on, down a hill to a small area that was a little boggy, and he acted like he’d never been in mud at all before (maybe he hasn’t!), but we managed to get through that okay. Every time we got close to the house I would turn him around and look for another trail, just to keep up the pressure a bit. After more than an hour, he had worked up such a sweat I figured it was time to give him a rest. We stopped to talk with the neighbor for a few minutes, and when he started prancing again, I just made him go in a small circle 4 or 5 times, then when I let him off, he FINALLY agreed to stand still for a few minutes! Progress! The ride home was much more sedate, he actually put his head down and I was able to give him a loose rein for more than half the trip home, a great improvement over yesterday, thank goodness. It was a great ride, but it took a lot of energy on both our parts. I was pretty tired by the time we got home! I rinsed Flash off, and of course, the first thing he did afterward was roll in the dirt. Silly horses! Anyway, fed them, fed Lola, fed Hubby, and watched a little TV before going to bed. Another early morning tomorrow!

Got up early and managed to get the LQ horse trailer and my truck washed before I finally got Hubby out of bed. He suffered a bit from low blood pressure today, with a few dizzy spells, though he woke up feeling a lot better, Obviously, his arm still hurts from the surgery, and he’s taken a couple of oxycodone, but he doesn’t like the way it reacts with him, so he switched over to acetaminophen last night and this morning. Spent some time trying out various aluminum polishes to see what would work on the trailer, and nothing really completely made the streaks of oxidation go away, so I have to keep looking. He didn’t feel well enough to do much, so we started his dialysis just after 1:00, so we were done at a reasonable hour. I hadn’t work with Flash this morning, but I had made some bread that I wanted to take down to my neighbor who gave me eggs, and decided to ride Flash there. It was a bit of a risk to take him on the road after only one short ride in the round pen, but I decided it was worth the risk. After all, I have to make him bombproof for Hubby as soon as possible! I got him saddled up and headed up the driveway. He was a bit antsy, with his head and ears way up, but behaving himself for the most part. After going through the gate and heading down the road, I got about 100 yards when he decided there was something out there that was going to eat him, probably the orange and black sign that indicated a culvert, and refused to go any further. I spent about 20-25 minutes zigzagging him up and down the road in an effort to get him over it, and FINALLY he did. He was actually trembling in fear! It’s obvious to me that this horse has never been ridden outside of an arena or a pasture, he is so unaccustomed to ANYTHING outside of that, poor thing! We rode the rest of our way to my neighbors, about 1 ½ miles away, without incident, other than the occasional excitement when he saw a downed log by the side of the road, which he practically went off the opposite sides of the road to get away from. I tied him up when we got there, and he pranced around pretty much all the time while I chatted with my neighbors, who graciously admired him. Once we got caught up on all the neighborhood gossip, I remounted and headed back home. About halfway back, Flash’s head FINALLY relaxed, and I was able to give him a nice loose rein for most of the rest of the way home. Mission accomplished! Flash learned several lessons today, and I can’t wait to move on to the next lesson or two! Got back at dusk, got everyone settled in for the night, fixed dinner and had a relaxing evening, satisfied with a very good and productive day!