New Trails and the Keeper of the Secret Garden

My friend/niece Kara and I had a fantastic ride today on Al and my favorite boy Ah-D. We started off by riding to the BRAND NEW TRAIL Kara’s husband Jason created out back on their acreage. It’s awesome, lined by beautiful stone walls and of course leafy green trees. One small section is an extremely steep little hill. Ah-D and I showed Kara and Al how to negotiate it, but Kara decided – next time - since Al was a little trippy today. We came out way down on the power line, and we decided to ride to Back Street the long way. Kara was very excited to be riding the power line. She thought it was so beautiful. The wild flowers were very pretty. I lost the trail at one point (heavy juniper cover and then cattails…hmmm…I didn’t feel safe) , so we took to the woods to find the HUGE oak tree I discovered earlier this year. We posed for pictures and admired this majestic creation. We don’t often see trees this big in Maine. We meandered through the woods a bit, crossed a dried up stream bed and headed back out to the powerline before heading up Back Street. As we passed the home of Rod and were admiring his flowers, I spied him in the garage and started a conversation. We had a great chat, and I was glad Kara was there to also tell him how much his Secret Garden in the woods is enjoyed. He invited us to ride through his back yard anytime to pick up a network of trails that lead to his Garden, and we decided _YES! – we would take him up on it. He mentioned how much his mom Betty loved horses, so we stopped and Betty was thrilled to see horses in her back yard. I rode AhD right up to their back porch so that Betty could pet him. I felt GREAT to be able to give this wonderful neighbor of ours an experience to remember.

Back in the woods, the deer flies were absolutely ferocious, but we made it through to the Secret Garden with only a few chunks of flesh missing. Out on the road, Kara loved Ah-D’s gaiting and said, “That is so cool! Wouldn’t it be fun to have a video of that?” so I handed her my camera. Like I said before, what a fantastic way to spend two hours of my day! I love my Curly! I was thinking as we rode along what a good boy he is. He never gave me one lick of trouble the whole ride, and he seemed as glad to be out as I was! He is a curly gem