Ride With Me in Maine

What an incredible ride I had on Didder today. His even attitude was a gift from God, perhaps bestowed on us through this marvelous little natural calming supplement that I have been giving to Didder in a handful of grain twice a day for two weeks now. Or perhaps it was fervent prayer. :)
I started off well before 1:00 with a grooming and groundwork session, and then saddled him up and led him and three of the dogs across the road and into the woods. And, I mean into the woods! No trail here; we made our own. We wound in and around trees, back and forth, heading down towards the trail and the brook. I had brought along a lead rope hitched to his training halter, but I ditched it by a stone wall after about 15 minutes of riding, because it was obviously unnecessary equipment. We came upon a snowmobile trail and meandered down another hill towards a brook. Solidly iced over, it has now blocked our way to one of my favorite trails for the rest of the winter, but I did not even care. Didder was walking calmly along, happy as a clam, not looking alertly into the woods at…anything. At one point, my joy overflowed and I thanked God out loud for my Curly’s amazing attitude.

The Girls ran about here and there, finding smell treasures for themselves and looking extraordinarily happy. Aaralyn made the mistake of hanging too long on a scent right directly in Didder’s path, and he stomped his foot at her in warning, but did not kick – good boy!

We stayed mostly at a walk, because the frozen uneven ground made trotting hazardous in many places, but Didder managed a lovely trot coming back towards the house. He got overly excited once and made the whoop-whoop noise in his gut, but a quiet and stern reprimand and three strides of walking, and he was right back to his nice even trot.
Back at the barn, we found my husband up near the roof fixing an errant piece of metal and my youngest boys tossing the lacrosse ball. Didder and I posed for a photo.
A totally satisfying ride. I can only hope my fellow RACers experienced a smidgen of the happiness I felt today.