Feast or Famine

 

~Susan and Ah-D in Maine~ 

 

 

Seems like it has been Feast or Famine lately with my time to ride, and this past weekend it was FEAST!  I was able to ride Ah-D four days in a row, and I had company to ride with one three of those days.  Our truck is in the shop, so I didn't have the option of trailering out, but I am so incredibly blessed with places to ride around my place that it mattered not one whit. (well...when we get the bill for the truck it will matter....)

Thursday's ride was a solo ride.  I wanted to show off a couple of things to you; Ah-D's  new halter/bridle headstall and part of my flower garden.  I tried in vain to adjust the headstall to fit with his Mylar combo bit, but the hackamore part of the bit interferes with the halter portion of the headstall.  Drat!  So I fitted it with a curb bit I had laying around.  Ah-D hated it, so I changed it out for a snaffle.

  

Hiding the peonies



As far as the flower garden goes, I realized afterwards that we were hiding the peonies, which bloomed with abandon this spring.  But, damn, is my Curly handsome, or what?

Friday evening I rode with my 11 year old neighbor Megan.  She looks so gosh darn cute on Allie, with her freckled face beaming.  What a pair they make! We rode until dusk, and when we untacked at the hitching post, I asked her if she wanted to ride bareback.  Helloooo, of course she did, so off we went on our ponies.  We took the closest trail which has not been mowed and is full of tall grass.  Of course my horses were STARVING HALF TO DEATH (kind of like Linus, eh Donna?) and kept snatching at the tall grass. We practiced walking and trotting.  Megan came off, and then she had the challenge of trying to figure out how to get back on.  She chose the fence rather than to use my leg as a ladder.  It was a great learning experience for her, especially since it drove home to her that you must hold on to your pony's reins or he may decide to head home without you.  Ah-D and I headed him off at the pass and brought him back.  That evening was so full of giggles!

Saturday's ride with Kate was fabulous!  We covered a lot of ground in Hebron, including a trip over to Sanatorium Hill.  The  wild roses were blooming near the top of the hill, and riding down the path with fragrant white blooms brushing us on either side was an amazing experience. We took turns posing in the field with the view behind us.

We also took the Mineral Drive trail, with it's nice cantering places where the trails are lined with pine spills.

We rode down a stream near the Sandpit.

We rested the horses in a spot loaded with clover, timothy and wildflowers and took pictures of the butterflies.

When I arrived home six hours later, my husband was weed-wacking in the heat.  After I took care of my horse, I guiltily scurried into the house and made a delicious salad for his lunch and banged out the housework.  Even though his first growl was, " You were gone forever!" he calmed down quickly.  I think it might have had a lot to do with an important invention called air conditioning. That afternoon, I went over to his late mom's house and painted for five hours, which also earned me a lot of brownie points.  By the way, if anyone is looking to move to Norway, Maine and live in an amazingly crafted (and freshly painted!) house where you can look out upon this field and watch your horses graze, I know just the place!

This is a picture that Ah-D took.  He spooked at a turkey just as I snapped the camera.  Nice picture of his saddlebag, eh?

 

 

Sunday morning, my plan was to ride early with both Megan and Kate, but thunderstorms put a kibosh to that.  Megan helped me clean and organize my tack room instead, and when the skies cleared a couple of hours later, we fetched the horses from the pasture and hit the road.  The humidity was oppressive, the black flies were ferocious, and the woods were soaking wet, so we kept to the road.  Since Megan has never ridden with anyone except me, we decided to head to Kate's to meet her and Jax.  We had a really nice ride and even stayed quite dry and un-bug bitten! Jax was happy to see us, but made no bones about making sure that Allie and Ah-D knew that he was the boss on his own turf.  At my house, Jax is boss over Ah-D, Ah-D is boss over Allie, and Allie is boss over Jax.  What a triangle!

heading back



 

Zoe-Zoe palling around with Ah-D