Spunky!

My mighty Curly steed looks very complacent standing here as I am tacking him up. I thought, my goodness, is AhD actually going to saunter along on the trail? He was an absolute doll at the hitching post, probably because I spent the better part of an hour with him beforehand, attempting to rasp down the small flares starting on his front feet. He was really quite cooperative then, too, because I needed him to put each front foot in turn on a pointy rock in the pasture to rasp them down in the front. I had a good workout; his feet are rock hard, and I am an amateur at it at best. He had his muzzle resting on me most of the time. If he moved his lips, I reminded him in a stern voice, "Don’t bite!" and he didn't. :)
AhD was cool, calm and collected at first, but once my butt was firmly in the saddle, it was like I had flipped his "ON" button. We scampered across the road and right into a patch of woods. We wound our way around trees and charged beside stone walls, working our way down the hill to the brook. We joined up on my neighbors’ gorgeous snowmobile trail, crossed the brook, and kept going. AhD was still quite saucy and full of energy. We rode several awesome woodsy trails and crisscrossed the power line. On our way home, I galloped AhD up the Running Hill, and he was so happy about me urging him on, that when we got to the top and I said, "Walk," he did a Stallion Snort. But…he walked! What a good boy! Crossing my neighbors’ field, AhD spooked and bolted when some ducks unexpectedly flew up out of a pond, but he stopped in short order with my one-rein stop. We circled the pond to chill out about the ducks and then headed for home. A lovely and exhilarating ride on my spunky Curly boy! Wish I could have taken more pictures, but it turns out Betsy is not the only one to have bad camera battery karma this week.