Friday 3rd - Renegade Try Out

• Tried the boots. 
• Liked the boots. 
• Made the back ones go up some steep stuff, 
  and they stayed on, they didnt' turn. 
• Lucy smiled. 
• Roo didn't trip. 
• Then the frayed cable on one of the back ones snapped. 

End of fun :( 

At least I *know* the cable was frayed before we even started and I was thinking "hmm, that won't last too much longer"....

I was glad I noticed it beforehand instead of thinking that Roo must move in some bizarre fashion, causing the cables to snap (it happened on that same problem foot, predictably, so I'm sure I could have thought up all sorts of paranoid reasons as to why it happened <g>).

Roo knew it had snapped. We'd just run up a steep short hill and he stopped dead at the top and I wondered why and turned to pft (on boot patrol behind me) and said "boots still on?" and he said "yes... uh - no! it just fell off as I was saying that." <g>

So at least Roo knows to stop when it happens, boot flopping around his ankle.

The blue arrow shows one of the places Roo's rubbing with the Glove's gaiters. I emailed Garrett Ford about this and he's going to mail me various bits and bobs to try and remedy some of the problems I've been having.

At this point, I like both kinds of boots (well - obviously - if I can get the Gloves not to rub and to stay on the back feet). Gloves are cheaper which is a big plus - for sparesies, etc (I'm already mentally fretting about how many spare boots I'll need for Tevis and where I put them all... and how I afford them all <g>).

The Renegades seem to be stay on - although I'm not sure our five mile try out was enough to tell for sure :))    That said, I made Roo go up both sides of the short steep waterfall on the trail between NoHands and Auburn Overlook and the boots didn't move. These two inclines are notorious for making boots fly off (any kind of boot), so that was v. encouraging. 

He didn't seem to trip as much in the Renegades, but that might also be that he's now on his fourth ride in boots and knows to pick his feet up a little more. I'd be interested to try both boot styles out back to back, though, now that he's a little more used to wearing them and see if it makes any difference.

Certainly, *I* couldn't feel the difference on the trail between when he had the Renegades on the back and when he was enforceably barefoot in back after the cable snapped.

Shows the mess Roop and I made of his foot between us - he's missing a big chunk out of the back quarter, as well as that nice flap up by the coronet band.  This is partly why that one boot on that side is coming off - foot now too small.

Shows how snugly his back foot fits in the boot (this is his "slightly bigger, non-over-rasped" back foot). That's the nice thing about the cable snapping - being able to see clearly how the foot sits in the boot. Likewise, having the toes missing out of the boots was actually really helpful in showing me what the boot and foot looks/feels like when the toe is where it's supposed to be. I was actually glad the toes were missing. :)))

I'm still testing everything, but am encouraged by the results. If I can get it to work, I'll be v. happy and feel like I accomplished something by keeping him barefoot and rasped myself.

Saturday 4th - Rasping and Dremelling Uno, Fergus and Hopi('s fronts) all got rasped today and my back is very crunchy, but I feel good that I'm getting it done myself. I even managed to dremel Uno's bars without him having a freak attack - in fact after introducing the dremel to him politely, he didn't seem to care. It felt good to get two and half pones rasped "for free".

I believe this is what is termed an "easy-keeper" (he's not fat, he's big-boned)

This is the furry monster that came off one side of Uno  (which I kept having to do a double-take on, even though  it was me that put it there on the ground)

Sunday 5th - Auburn Quilt Show

Ann and I sampled the wares at the quilt show, managed not to spend too much money, and afterwards went shoe-shopping and I found a pair of replacement "winter work shoes" (my existing ones are about 12 years old... and look it...)

	Summery quilt
	Interesting things to do with bleach
	One quilt I may copy the pattern on... ...the other I just liked, even though it doesn't look great in the photo.

Easter Weekend at Montana de Oro: 

We had a fine weekend horse camping with friends down at Montana de Oro. 

Pics here.

Predictably (since I opted not to take Uno) Roo came up with a fat back leg after Day 1 (12 miles) and so I didn't ride him again. He wasn't lame that I was aware of, but the leg only deflated Wednesday, so no High Desert ride for us this weekend.  :(

We'd ridden in the deep deep sand (just walking) , which is what made me paranoid. but I don't remember him doing anything specifically weird. We were on a boardwalk at one point, which he went off the back of, but I don't think scraped anything, but could have whacked it. We rode down a trail with steps, so he could have whacked his leg on that. And he had a dink on his fetlock, so it could be that. Who knows.

They say you have to be flexible in endurance, right? so I'm working on being flexible (and quelling the paranoia). And re-planning my season. :(

I got Power Straps and pastern wraps from Garrett Ford the day before we left, so I was able to at least try the Gloves on Roo for those 12 miles. They appeared to work well - we did hills and lots of very deep sand and they seemed fine. I still want to try them out on the steep uphills where we lost them before here at home, but the Power Straps looked to be doing the trick keeping those back boots on, and the pastern wraps meant he didn't rub any further (despite being in the deep fine sand).
	pft was able to ride Fergus about 30 miles over three days, so they did great and got exactly the weekend I was planning for Roo, so at least one of us got the conditioning in.
The trails were really fun - you could either go inland, up into the mtns, which was mostly twisty singletrack with some rocks, but also some good footing, but a bunch of technical stuff thrown in - downhills and waterbars/tree roots, etc. Or you could go the other way and into the dunes and either down onto the beach, or just take all the criss-crossing trails in the dunes.  Lots of variation, but lots of loops so you could mix it up and do different stuff each time you went out. Most of the loops were about 10-12 miles long. Lots and lots of wildflowers. Even the eucalyptus were blooming. It wasn't cold, but it was cool some of the time when the breeze got up. I got pretty pink the first day, riding in the wind up on top and on the beach without realising how hot the sun was. Sunday was gorgeous - less wind. Monday the fog was sitting just off the coast, so it was a smidgin cool, but still a really nice temperature. There was a ton of grass for the pones to graze on which they really liked, although it did hinder forward motion. :)

My friend Gary Fend had booked the entire camp so it was just "us" (his family and a bunch of friends). There were 19 horses total, incl. Roo and Fergus, but there were only 18 corrals in our camp, so Fergus lived on the High Tie (although there were some big corrals that I might have been able to swap with someone and put Roo and Fergus in together if we'd really wanted to).

Fergus, as usual, did great and they had some good trust-building sessions out there (to do with wooden bridges, etc). We rode together (with Mark) the first day, and then pft rode alone Sunday and Monday.

While pft was gone on Sunday, I went out with Gary and Jamie and rode their Tevis horse, Smokey, down into the dunes and onto the beach, which was really fun. Jamie rode Annie bareback (she did a lot of barebacking on various horses over the weekend), and Gary rode Zin.

Then Monday, I went out with Terri, Micki and Mark, and Micki let me ride Chihuly, who is a 13:2 welsh/QH cross - lil' cobby pony who looked like an icelandic (Micki has pics, I think, so I'll post them if I ever get to see them). I had fun on him and it was a good preview of what Jackit's going to be like.

Biggest problem I found is your feet drag in the poison oak and when you're in those trough-trails in the dunes, your feet get squashed against the sides. :)

I have to get Jackit started!!

Wednesday 15th - Guitar

My guitar finally came into the shop in Folsom, so we dashed over there after work to pick it up. The steel strings make my wimpy non-calloused fingers whimper, but the sound is rich. Unfortunately, it's very hard to play quietly, so it reveals all my inadequacies. Practice, practice, practice.

We bought a hanger for it, so I can keep it handy instead of shutting it away in a box.

At the weekend, Micki's husband Chuck and their Belgian exchange student Simon played some most excellent guitar around the campfire. That alone was enough to get a person wanting to get better.

Roop got to repeat the Dead Truck hill last night, and alas, even the addition of Power Straps didn't keep the back boots on - they are still twisting on really steep uphills. Luckily, the new cables arrived for the borrowed Renegade boots, so they are now prepped and ready to try out again, so Tuesday, we'll probably repeat the loop again with those on and see how they fare. If that doesn't work, next stop is Epics on the back (with the back strap, they may stay on better....) we shall see.

Sunday 19th - New Baby Chook!

The silver seabright hen managed to hatch a whole single babby chooklet this morning. Excellent. And from looking at baby chick photos, it looks like Tiny Rooster is the dad.

Auburn Overlook to Poverty Bar and Back (22 Miles):

Video

	Fergus on No Hands Bridge pft and I rode from the Tevis finish line to the river crossing and back Sunday (of course we picked the hottest day of the year so far... heat training, you know...). We didn't have enough water with us, predictably, so were a bit wilted by the time we got back, but the pones did good (Roo thought standing in the river and having cold water sponged over him was a fine idea... Fergus less so). If Roo and I can get sorted out, we're going to try Tevis this year, so this was a good starter practice...
	Fergus' Incredible Shrinking Feet At DVE this year, Garrett Ford himself fitted Fergus for his EZ Boot Gloves. He was in Size 3s in the front and Size 2s in the back. Then last weekend at Montana de Oro, Fergus' front feet shrank, so we had to put the Size 2s on the front. And now his back feet have shrunk as well and the 2s are too big (on this ride, we put him in Size 2 Epics on the front and apart from having to wrestle to get them on, and having one buckle flip open, they stayed on fine). Not clear if "shrinking feet" is from more enthusiastic rasping, or from the boots getting baggy from use. Or both. Either way, Fergus' back boots tended to do this a few times throughout the 22 mile ride - not that he noticed...
	The Delights of the WST This section of trail is between the hw-49 crossing and No-Hands Bridge (we're going the wrong way on the trail at this point). During Tevsi, this part of the trail is done in pitch black....All the better so the pones can't see the Drain of Death another 50 yrds up from this point. (you can see hw-49 down below and the curve of the river - the trail carries on on the other side of the river).
	Crossing hw-49 Again, still heading backwards on the trail - here we're going down to cross hw-49 - Foresthill Bridge in the background.
	Roop at the river crossing... By the time we got here, we were quite hot and sticky, so we let the pones stand in the river a bit, then sat in the shade and let them graze while we munched a bar. Here Roo's looking at me optimistically, hoping that I might give him whatever I've got. The river in the background is where you come out after crossing during the ride (it was too cold, deep and fast flowing to cross on Sunday).
	Fergus in the river What with Fergus being quite hot, pft stripped his tack and let him splash in the river for a while. Fergus thought that was quite fine. A couple of times it looked like he might go down in there and I vaguely wondered what he'd do if his head went under, but evidently he thought the better of it. The river is relatively shallow on this side until you get about 2/3rds of the way across and then it's quite deep on the far side of the bank (where you first get in during the Ride). This spot on the WST is the closest one to where we live.
	Roop nearly starving... Here's Roop in his "gear" - yes, I do need to do something about the disappearing pad. And Ann, I love my blue sponge that you got me n' Roop for my birthday when we did Patriot 100. I think Roo needs a blue pommel bag, don't you? For this ride, Roo wore his Size 0 Gloves (complete with PowerStraps and lil' pastern wraps) on the front, and Mimi's borrowed yellow size 00 Renegades on the back. This combination seems to work well, so I am going to order him his very own yellow boots (they have to be yellow, right?). We did have one back boot failure - on the old (600 mile) cable when he spooked on a totally flat road and the boot came off and he stretched the cable. I should mention he ripped a shoe off doing the same maneuver during Patriot 100 - and the Renegade was easier and less stressful to put back on. I'm guessing the cable + lil' screw thing is getting tired and he pulled it through some when he was jumping around, standing on it. The boot with the brand new cable didn't go anywhere - even trotting up some steep stuff. Tuesday I may take him for a final spin on Dead Truck hill again to see what the Renegades do there - and then we will send Mimi's sparesie boots back to AZ.
	Trail above Poverty Bar Now we're heading in the correct (Tevis) direction on the lil' trail leading from the river crossing at Poverty Bar towards Maine Bar where the single track changes to double track. The flairs were pretty and the poison oak abundant. Roo had great difficultly on this section owing to the large number of eye-plucker downed tree stumps and suspicious looking bushes by the side of the trail. For this reason, it was important that Poor Tired Fergus went in front at all times <roll eyes>. Roo is not a leader by any stretch of the imagination.
	River Access This stretch (about halfway between Poverty Bar and hw-49 crossing) is really the only place you can take the horses down into the river (during daylight, which it isn't during Tevis at this point). To Fergus' relief (he who must drink every two miles), however there are multiple lil' creek crossings along the trail. Not sure how many of them are still flowing come Tevis-time though. Fergus (who was, of course, in front) had to run the gauntlet of the Small Canadian Geese of Death when we went to get a drink here on the way out. Closer to the road crossing, we also had to suffer many Bikinis of Death (abundant along the river road on a hot day), as well as at least one turquoise Flotation Device of Death which we tried to stay ahead of, but failed dismally when Roop's boot came off (lucky we were not being pursued by mtn lions or injuns, eh?).
	Back at hw-49 crossing Here we are again after having crossed hw-49 and starting towards No Hands Bridge. That's the Confluence of the North and Middle Forks of the American River (Foresthill Bridge in the background again) By now we were quite sad from lack of water and I'd discovered that my boobs had rubbed raw underneath from my "good trotting bra" (so much for that) (I now have attractive red stripes under them - oooh baby). But we do know we only have another 4.5 miles to go before we're finished. Useless Piece of Information: this spot in one of the only good ones on this end of the trail where you can get cell-phone coverage.
	Fergus the Downhill Horse This is the lil' incline that Fergus lost his boot on on the way out. The hill leads up to the bottom of the long, steep Training Hill, behind me (which Roop and I will be becoming intimate with in the coming months). You can't really see it from this pic but it's quite steep - which is why Fergus is pulling away from us, necessitating Roo running down the hill after him and being able to because I'm busy taking photos and not being a Responsible Rider with both hands on the reins at all times. Abundant poison oak on this section (so pretty), No Hands Bridge just around the corner, the American River below us (straight down).
	Trail Work After you cross No-Hands (I have video of that, which I'll fiddle with later and post), there used to be this rather interesting scoop of eroded trail missing from the dirt track, cordoned off by an alarming piece of orange snow fencing for the horses to roll their eyes at. I'm happy to report that they have been working diligently on the trail and mended this exciting hole with sturdy wiremesh cages filled with rocks - truly a great piece of engineering. Unfortunately, they've also left a large pile of mud covered in black plastic tarp a few hundred yards along the trail. Hopefully this will get moved before the Ride, as otherwise, there may be some horses not finishing when their riders can't get them past this suspicious-looking object.
	Nearly There... ...just another half mile to go and we're done. Around this point, I inhaled an insect and proceeded to have a coughing fit, which sort of dampened the triumphant ending to the ride - hacking up insect. But I'm pleased to report that Roo understood the concept of "Auburn Overlook = Home, must hurry back to it", and was happily trotting up some of the hills and not lagging like a slug as he did on the way out. This being one of the main purposes of the exercise, I was very pleased with him. He's spookier than he's ever been and now practically refuses to go in front lest he get eaten by some eye-plucker awaiting him alongside of the trail, but is very happy to follow along for days. So we could maybe finish Tevis. Assuming we can find someone to go in front the entire way.

Monday 20th - Zini to Katie's

Katie and her Mom Linda dropped by on the way back from the High Desert ride (which we were supposed to go to, but didn't because of Roo's fat leg that I had to be paranoid about).

They were going to take one of our pones home with them and initially thought they were going to take Hopi but wisely decided to take Zini instead - she's a better fit for what they need right now: a horse you can just pull out of the paddock and ride whenever you fancy. I really hope they enjoy her.

pft was very sad to see her go, but she'll have much more fun up there (bossing Shrimp around... or at least trying to to start with) than down here.

Thursday 23rd - Boots

Worrying about losing boots in the dark, I started daydreaming about putting those lights in the boots like lil' kids have so that when they step, it lights up. That way you'd know if your boot was on or off. I have a heck of a time trying to figure out if Roo's back boots are still there in daylight - definitely need lil' tiny glo-sticks on them.... Maybe I could break a glo stick and smear the stuff on them? Paint them with radium?

Friday 24th - Fun With Birds :(

Trying to light a fire this morning (cold and rainy), we found a blue-bird in the stove. We managed to catch it and release - whereupon it flew straight into the mouth of one of the cats :( Not exactly what we had in mind.

In the continuing spirit of Fun With Birds, I bought a bunch of baby chicks to put under the hen to supplement her single hatchling. She appeared to accept the new children and they cheerfully sheltered under her warmth. However, Saturday morning it was like Jones Town out there - dead cold chicks everywhere :(( with a lone survivor (not counting the original hatchling, who shall be named Cuckoo). :(

Renegades - Just ordered Roop's very own pair of back Renegades.

Saturday 25th - PnRs at American River

Had fun doing PnRs for the American River ride today. I discovered that if you write the 15 second pulse times on your hand, together with what 30 minutes +  the current time would be, it's much less fraught and you can relax and enjoy the process:

Sunday 26th - Michigan Bluff to Deadwood and Back

Total Ascent: 3940'
Total Descent: 3965'
Miles: 14.2
Moving Time: 3:57
Stopped: 1:16
Max Speed: 9.3 mph
Moving Average: 3.6 mph
Overall Average: 2.7 mph

pft and I had a lovely ride even if we were really late leaving - small problem losing Roo's back boots and having to turn the house and trailer upside down to find them, only to have pft remember that we'd put them in his cantle bag last weekend. <sigh>. Then we had to stuff pads and fill water bottles, etc... etc..

By the time we got over to Michigan Bluff, finished talking to Judy and Gary Hall and actually started riding, it was 4 pm. Oh well, we're only going 12 or so miles, right? we'll be back in time, easily... Not.

I'd forgotten that this is the scariest section on the whole Tevis trail and as such, you can only ride it at a crawl so it was 9 pm by the time we were done and we rode the last mile or so in pitch black, which was quite entertaining.

pft admitted that he was way out of his comfort zone, esp. given that Fergus isn't always as careful with his foot placement as you might hope. The funniest part was getting to the first creek (maybe less than a third of the way down?) and having pft say "is that it? I thought this canyon would be deeper than that..."

	Roop inspecting the clearing of manzanita at the top  just before you drop down into the canyon...
	The first part isn't so bad... ish:
...but as soon as you cross onto the Deadwood side, it gets scary fast. Here Fergus demonstrates his not-so-careful foot placement,  causing pft to feel like he might be better off on the ground.
	Kaputt Springs   Probably the most  exposed spot (eek)
	The trail is really pretty, though, if only you were brave enough to actually look at the views.

Fergus was convinced we were doing it wrong and kept wanting to turn around and go back (both directions) - although he marched into MB at the end as though he'd done nothing (this after puffing and sweating all the way up the hill rather sadly on Roo's tail).

Roo did *excellent* and I'm very pleased with him. He power-walked all the way up into MB so hopefully "on the day" he'll still be sprightly enough to do this - at least he knows what's ahead and that it isn't endless.

We had a "discussion" at the bottom by El Dorado Creek bridge. Roo didn't think he could possibly go over it without suffering death, and I was quite insistent that he could. For once, I won, and the knock-on effect was good - he was gawpy on the way home (he led back from Deadwood), but my urging was met with little resistance. So hopefully that's just a phase he was going through and Kevin's right - he had my number.

This is the fourth time I've ridden this stretch (or sixth, if you count the fact that I did it there-n-back twice - once one-way on Fausto, and once a couple of springs ago with Crysta and Sinatra) and I am getting better at it. The first two times coming down from Deadwood, I had to get off because the trail freaks me out too much.

This time, however, Roop was being such a good boy and I felt safe enough to stay on. He was really listening and would shorten up when I needed him to slow on some of the steeper, rockier down bits, so that we didn't get too far ahead of Fergus and make him scuttley. Plus I'd ask him to bend around my leg at times when he felt like he was bulging out the drop-off direction, and he'd oblige and I'd feel more secure.

One of the reasons you can't make good time on this trail

 I also practiced figuring out which sections I'd be comfy trotting and which not (remembering Crysta telling me how they trotted much of that section during the ride, and feeling totally overwhelmed by fear just walking it)(this from a person who's used to riding drop-off trails. It probably wasn't helped by Roo trying to canter down it <g>).

Mimi's borrowed Renegades are really starting to look sad in the toe and I didn't want to wear them out any further, so I opted to put the too-big Gloves on the back instead. Predictably, within a minute or so of starting up the Deadwood side of the canyon, they were coming off, so I ended up removing them completely and going barefoot in back. The trail is pretty rocky in places, but he felt great and at the end only had one chip out of the quarter where I hadn't rasped him very well (trying to keep his feet big for the boots). So I was pleased about that too. 

Fergus wore size 2 Gloves on the front, and size 2 Epics on the back. The size 2 Epics are now also too big and started to turn, such that pft had to correct one back boot at Deadwood and remove them both (in the dark) about a mile out of MB on the way home (at least the Epics didn't come off like the too-big Gloves did). Fergus has a pair of 1.5 Gloves on order - should be here in a few days. 

Riding the last part in pitch black was, er, interesting. That trail is really dark under the trees, so I was glad Roop was paying attention and could figure out where the switchbacks and turns were - I couldn't at times and had to resort to holding my arm up to avoid being whacked in the face by unseen branches (worse for poor pft in the back, up higher). Good California Loop practice. :)

In an effort to get me in better shape, I power-walked the first three miles from MB to the bottom - power-walked, since I was following Fergus and can't keep up with him at the best of times, let alone downhill. I was footsore as this was going on which wasn't encouraging and am tight today, but felt good doing it, so hopefully little by little it'll come back. The ankle whines in a pathetic way - it doesn't like socks rubbing, or seams or tights legs, so gets cranky in a wimpy way (and sometimes feels like someone stuck a pin in my ankle), but seems to be holding up pretty good. The tendons in my foot are really tight, so I need to keep stretching-stretching-stretching. 

More Chooklets

Around 9:40 found us in Foresthill, filling up with diesel and I was able to get messages on my phone - to discover that Ann had very kindly dropped by the feed store and bought us some more babby chooks. Unfortunately, she thought we'd be home way earlier, so had left them in a box in the living room, right where the cats could get at them.

We figured we'd come home to an empty box, but evidently the cats were slacking as the chooks were all present and accounted for when we got home (phew).

The lone survivor was most pleased to get new sisters and proceeded to peck upon the black dots on their heads (those must come off, surely?) and run around excitedly.

They all seem very content.

Thursday 30th - Roo's Renegades They arrived today and look very spiffy (who knew that's what  the toes are supposed to look like? <g>). Renegade undersides - 600 mile V. 15 miles I ordered a pack of extra O-rings and a couple of extra straps - so now I have four extra straps and two packs of o-rings, plus a lil' wrench-thingy. Cool. Worst luck, it's supposed to rain Fri/Sat/Sun, so how am I supposed to try them out????? <grrr> I might be able to sneak out tomorrow morning if it holds until then, but i'm not hopeful.