Saturday I had planned to ride with 2 friends and we were going to explore an area about 15 miles away for me. I went to hook up the trailer, looked back and realized I had a flat. Then I realized I had a flat last weekend and never fixed it! Ugghh! I immediately came in and called the tire repair place, but there was no answer. They were closed for the holiday weekend. Double ugghh! So I called my friends and told them I wouldn't be able to make it. One of them was depending on me to pick her up, so I asked her if she wanted to come here and ride one of my extra horses, which she did later on in the afternoon! It wasn't going to be so disappointing anyways.
We rode the road for about a mile and a half until we hit a two-track. I haven't been back in there for about 2 years, so it was interesting to see the growth! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Corky had a couple of new "obstacles" to overcome. There are alot of puddles back there and the first one we came to was very shiny, like there was some type of oil in it, and then it kind of streamed awhile. Cork and I weren't on bigger side, so I wanted him to cross it. The stream was about 3 inches wide, so he could have stepped over it, but, boy, did the shiny part get him. He just couldn't figure it out and wanted to jump it, which I wasn't going to let him do since it was so small. He finally got over it and relaxed. We continued on and eventually came across a side track which goes into a swamp, but someone has been bulldozing piles of dirt and debris up so you can almost get to the other side of the swamp. I had to take that just to see how far we could get because I'm still looking for a loop through that darn swamp! We couldn't go far before I felt it was probably too wet, so we turned around and we went up and down the small hills, but on the last one Corky jumped from hill to hill. It caught me off guard, but it was so funny! He thought he was cool and I wasn't sure what he was. After that we turned around and headed back. Amazingly we were gone about 3 hours.
Sunday I gimped my trailer about 10 miles away (the one tire is just losing air slowly), and met up with Denise in the afternoon with Bear. It is so awesome to be in the woods and everything be green and hearing the birds singing. It was less than a month ago we had a freak snowstorm, much like upper elevations of New York had this weekend!
Corky seemed to be more alert of stuff on the ground and actually jumped once and Denise and I couldn't figure out what he saw, but on the way home I remembered the "shiny water" from the day before and I think he just was on his toes and the shadows on the ground from the trees was making him look more.
And today I met up with another friend who lives about 5 miles away and we rode in the School Forest trails. On our way to the trails Jan mentioned something about a pond at the bottom of the hill and I didn't remember any pond. I had only been down there once for a memorial service for a fellow trail rider, but didn't remember any pond. So after we got done putzing around the trails we rode down there. I definitely forgot how beautiful it was, especially after a long winter.
There's the remains of an old building and I wondered what that used to be. If memory serves me right this was someone's farm and either the school bought it or it was donated to the school, so maybe that's why we call it the School Farm ski trail.
And then as we headed back to the trailer I spied these lilac bushes, but they're not the traditional lavendar. I love this color!
And I almost forgot! Corky hasn't been real difficult, but started this weekend testing me catching him and getting in the trailer. Denise suggested I teach him to get in the trailer on his own. So today I started that and he understood within a couple of minutes what I wanted. We've only accomplished his front feet in and then I have to go in beside him, but if his two front feet are in, he'll go all the way without stopping and being stubborn. Yay!
I hope all of your weekends, whether it was a holiday for you or not, was a good one!
Janeen and Corky
I am so glad you had fun getting out with Denise and your other friends! Thanks for taking us along. Your pictures are beautiful!
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