Another Saturday Spring ride with a challenging obstacle

We have talked about cruising through the Chester Green for several years now, and never made the trip -- Saturday was the perfect day for it. Sunny and warm- but not too warm. Ideal trotting weather. Keri had new shoes put on during the week as she had worn her other ones down.. she was pretty happy about it. We headed over Crow Hill again. Although we travel this road quite a bit lately, it's never boring.

We enter what is called the Stone Village, where we had a wonderful ride last year, (lots of photo's of that ride on the March 23 blog of 2008) only we came at it from the other direction on that day. The Stone Village is a cluster of 30 dwellings which line either side of the street all erected by 2 brothers from 1834- 1850's all built from local granite. The quarry is located up on Trebo Road. It is our intention to find that quarry-- there is a trail somewhere that leads to it- one day we looked for it... we still need to investigate some more on horseback !

A brisk trot through the village, then we cross over the highway onto Church Street- which is a little road I rarely travel, so the sights are all new to me and also for the horses.

The red light is flashing at the railroad crossing-- the train whistle is a loud warning, as the train has to signal its arrival at every crossing with a very loud blast... this is no subdued little toot-- but a repeated lusty intense resonant blare. We are wondering how the horses are going to react- although last year we did meet up with the train on several occasions, we were never quite so close to the train as this. But after last year's up-close and personal rendezvous with the Governor's 3 helicopters landing right near us, the train should pose no problems. (If you are curious to see photo's of that ride- it's April 3rd of 2008 on my blog)

The horses stand quietly and wait with the other traffic for the Green Mountain "express" to pass. We are standing on a somewhat narrow bridge-- so if the horses do jump at the noise.. we will be in the Williams River :)

Like Willie Nelson's "Back on the Road Again"- I guess this could be our new theme song "Back on the Sidewalks Again" !! The Chester Green is a typical traditional small town "green" lined with shops and cafes - very touristy and quaint.

We did veer off for some deep snow trail riding- and like Susan mentioned in her recent blog-- although there has been considerable melting, the snow is still deep in the woods. Crisp in some places, and then all of a sudden, it's like you are walking on your peg leg that suddenly gives way... and you fall through several feet. Hard work for both horse and rider but fun too.

We came out into the pasture, got back on the road and headed for home- another superb ride, but where to go for our next adventure ?

You can read more about our trek to the Green and view more photo's on my personal blog.

Enjoy your day ! It's back to winter and long underwear here ~