Monday, Jan. 25. 2016 – Ride Day with the Cattle, Eventually-Percheron Smashes Corral

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Well, I set the alarm for 5:20, thinking we would have plenty of time to pack up, get to breakfast after 6:00 and be ready for the ride by 7:30-8:00, but things didn't turn out as planned. We both had a fitful night, very cold again, very bright with a full moon that made it seem like daylight, only getting a few hours off and on at best. The inside of the tent got wet from the condensation of our breathing, and dripped down the sides, making the whole side I was on wet. The air mattress didn't have enough air in it to stay full when the temps dropped. Outside the tent, frost had settled onto all our gear, which we had put into large garbage bags for protection. Brrr! Suffice to say, it was another bad night, and the cold got into Hubby's lungs even more, so now he is really short of breath, struggling to do the most basic things, like get dressed. It took us a very long time to get up and out of the tent, get breakfast (which didn't start until 6:20, further compounding our tardiness, and consisted of cold, hard-scrambled eggs, burnt bacon, and super-salty sausage-the last thing Hubby needs right now), feed the horses, and get broken down. We finally loaded our packed bags onto the horses and led them down to the circle boss's area, managed to find an overflow trailer where we could put our bags, and headed out amongst a group that was way behind our own at 8:20, twenty minutes past our muster time, so of course, they were gone already. Despite watching all the activity for the last two days, riding in such a large group was still brand new to our horses, and my comedian Apollo decided to have some fun almost immediately, so he bucked and snorted until I came off into the soft and muddy ground. I pulled off to one side and ran him around on my McCarty line for a while. At one point he slipped on the mud, and that seemed to wake him up a bit, but I continued circling him in both directions until he finally gave up, resigned to be a good horse despite himself. I climbed back up, and now, since we were so far behind, we started to jog them, and jog them, and jog them. We tried to stay off to the side of the groups as best we could, and we managed to do that everywhere except certain bottlenecks, like the tunnels under the turnpike, but they behaved themselves for the most part. Nearly two hours of jogging later, we finally caught up to our group, and the cows. By now, Apollo's head was down and he wasn't interested in being silly, and he only took one quick look at the cows when we reached them before putting his head back down. We continued to stay off to one side, but by now the horses were started to get used to the other horses, though Clio started to kick at anyone coming close to us, particularly if they came up fast, so we knew a red ribbon would have to be put on her tail at lunch. One time, though we had warned her, a girl crossed right behind us, and Clio landed one on her thigh. She kind of panicked a bit, but eventually settled down, and later had it looked at by the paramedics, it just broke the skin a bit and I'm sure there will be a big bruise. Such is life around horses, black and blue are the operative colors! We stopped for lunch in a field where the caterers had set up, and Hubby stood in line for lunch while I put a great big red bow on Clio's tail. After getting lunch, (another cold hamburger with chips) we sat around on the tarp that we had brought with us, with Hubby almost taking a nap in the nice warm sun! Eventually, lunch was over, and we headed out again, sometimes getting quite close to the cows as we got more and more comfortable in the crowd. We arrived near the next camp just after 4:00, but had to take a long loop around to put the cows away, so it was 5:00 by the time we arrived in camp, having completed what we learned would be the longest day of them all. Rumors were we had traversed 16 miles, a longer day than we had expected, and one guy even said 20 miles (GPS later confirms 16 is about right). That was definitely a longer day than we expected, and after two nights of non-sleep, we were exhausted. We managed to get our tent up next to the corrals where we put the horses, just made it in time to stand in another long line for dinner, which was again cold by the time we reached a table. Dinner was beef brisket, beans, cabbage and corn, but the portions seemed a lot smaller than yesterday, afraid this might be a trend... Decided their claims of decaf coffee were false, so we skipped the coffee altogether. I asked for hot water so I could make some Sleepytime tea, but there was none to be had! By now we were more exhausted than we can describe, running on pure adrenaline, so we headed straight for bed. Unfortunately, when we headed back to camp, there a girl was just bringing in a large black Percheron and putting him in the stall next to ours. Apparently a wagon had gotten stuck, and the Percheron was brought in while the wagon's owner tried to make arrangements to get the wagon moved. Well for some reason, this horse was not a happy camper, and he kicked and bucked and threw himself at the corral until he literally bent it!! The panel actually buckled into my horses' space, and my guys were not happy about it. I finally had no choice but to report the incident to my circle boss, and the woman in charge of the corrals. The immediate solution, unfortunately, was for me to move my horses to another row of corrals on the opposite side of the camp, so off I went with horses in hand, so tired I could barely walk. After another 30 minutes or so, they moved the Percheron to the cow pens so he could be on his own, but by then, we were in bed, so I left ours where they were, I was flat out too tired to move. Some of the other campers applauded when they took that horse away, apparently he had been restless on previous nights while in the wagon group, and had kept many campers awake. Finally back to bed, where Hubby stayed fully clothed in an effort to stay warm, the chill has really had an effect on him, making him short of breath, but so far, still functioning. Some clouds came over, so at least it wasn't quite as bright as before, we're both hoping for a better night sleep tonight, though the forecast has changed again. It was supposed to only get down to 40 degrees tonight, but it's back to low 30's again, darn it. We've rearranged the bags inside the tent so there's a bit more of a space between me and the wet walls of the tent, I'm hoping that will help as well. Good night!

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