November 2009

Roo Gets a Training Ride - Magnolia-Cronin
Fall Showed Up
Fall Chooklets
Well That's Something You Don't See Every Day...
Larimer Trail
Whirlwind Tour of Cronin/Magnolia
Desert Gold

Roo Gets a Training Ride - Magnolia-Cronin
Tuesday 3rd

Despite a short flurry of busy-ness, today there was no work so I had an unexpected day of enforced vacation. Chili, Roop and I went down to Magnolia and took the Connector trail over to Cronin and did some "proper" work. Chili hadn't been doing great during the hot summer so she hadn't been coming out with us (well, that and the fact that I've been riding Uno who wasn't ready to deal with her yet), but she managed the seven miles very well - much of it at a fair clip. I was glad the creeks were running again, so she could lie in them when we got there.

Roop got asked to trot uphill for some distance which he seemed to do quite cheerfully. It was only when we turned to go back towards Magnolia that I realised this was because he'd forgotten we'd parked there (Magnolia) and was eager to return to the usual trailer parking place at Cronin. Turning away resulted in slug-like behaviour and me doing a lot of peddling (we all worked hard). He was doing quite a bit of toe-dragging as well, but I couldn't tell if that was reluctance to move forward (what with us going in the wrong direction, n' all) or if his back is out of whack again.

We even tried some asked-for cantering with the intention of doing cardiac work and learning how to cue for both leads (the first time I specifically asked for the canter, he had no clue what I wanted. Suffice to say that up until now we haven't done a lot of cantering - at least not on purpose). The first attempt was very short-lived when he flipped his right rear Glove at the first push-off step. I can only assume the gaiter was fastened too loosely (the same problem I had twice on Sunday with that particular boot coming off very easily, but then staying on for Dead Truck Hill once it'd been retightened).

Sadly, he also gained a nice fat rub on his front pastern from the gaiter - but when I took it off, there appeared to be a lump of crud in it so hopefully that's what caused it.

All in all, a strange ride with some encouraging forwardness, followed by a lack of it. I came home wondering why it was that both my active-pones need towing out on the trail. But also recognising that this trait meant that neither of them beats me up being racy idiots whenever we go out. You can't have it both ways, Luce.

Pics from the Connector Trail, showing South Fork American River, a small trail-side nest,
Clark Mtn, and the golden hills of the ranchland behind our house (about five miles away as the crow flies):

Fall Showed Up
Friday 6th

This time of year makes me out of sorts - the low sun tells the European in me to put on more clothes, which is pure trickery as it continues with the toastiness of late summer and I end up baking. As we drive to work in the morning, I've been watching the leaves in the woods and the trees are definitely doing their thing, ignoring the fact that it's still t-shirt weather.

I'm torn between admiring the natural life-cycle while suffering from the uneasy sensation that things are going to get bleak in the next few months. Living in California unquestionably helps - our weather seldom veers into the drears for very long - but you can't convince the subconscious part of me that spent 28 years living in Europe.

Add the current goings-on at work*, the middle part of me doesn't feel so good right now so I opted to go back on the Prozac. Hopefully I'll even out again and back away from the teetering on the edge feeling.

* I understand nobody died, I've still got a great job - and that's part of it, nobody died and I've still got a great job, so I shouldn't feel this way. Time to go back on medication. The high was fun while it lasted.

	Fall Chooklets They arrived! This morning when I went down to feed I thought I heard faint peeping and sure enough there were three new fluffies in the bucket in the hay shed. There is one pale Tiny Rooster-a-like and two "who knows what they're going to be" darker ones. The closest thing they look like are golden sebrights, but since we don't have a gold sebright rooster, this isn't very likely. The last thing I want them to be is related to Evil Rooster (silver sebright) and have his sunny temperament.


This evening, pft and I made some hasty repairs to the chook crêche and the family were moved in. Just as well, as far as I can tell, the mother hen hasn't left the nest since they hatched, so I hand-fed her and we dribbled some water within reach. Oh. And as predicted, the "decoy" egg (an old egg placed in the nest to encourage laying in the same place) was one of the three that hatched. There's still one egg left in there, but I doubt it'll do anything now. How do they all time themselves to appear at the same time, when they are laid at different times? Magic!

Other Bits and Bobs

Guy Fawkes Night came and went without even a sparkler to be had. Add that one to the relatively short list of "Things I Miss" (others include chocolate, villages, bread, humour, architecture, and Devon).
The pones all got wormed today and I'm pleased to report that they were all relatively well behaved. The one I thought would be the worst (Fergus) turned out to be the best, while the one I thought would be on the "better" list (Uno), wasn't.
The oak trees are bombarding the back deck with acorns. I don't remember ever hearing this many dropping at such regular intervals. What's up with that?
The quilting table is up and running again with only minimal mistakes-requiring-unpicking. Stand by for quilting results.
Spending time this week researching a possible second dog, I discovered just what a good dog my existing one is. Yay, Chili! (the second dog idea was nixed when I realised that being at work five days a week would mean no shelter/rescue would want to hand one over, and a puppy wouldn't work owing to the lack of supervision and the small bladder problem. <sigh>)
Fall must be here, I started wearing my mud boots today, even if there isn't really any real mud to speak of. Give it time, Lucy, give it time.

Well That's Something You Don't See Every Day...
Wednesday 11th

This morning on the way to work as we started down the canyon there was a police car (with lights) squeezed on to the very side of the road with a couple of other cars and some people standing around.

At first I thought maybe someone had driven off the road and fallen into the ditch but as we went past, I glanced back and there was a large dead bear right by the side of the road. I assume someone must have hit and killed it. :( A different kind of road kill, that's for sure.

Larimer Trail
Sunday 15th

When I started trail riding with Ann in 1998, one of the first places she took me an' Provo was the Larimer trail. This trail follows an old flume so is mostly level but cut into the side of the steep canyon that drops down into the Middle Fork of the American River. As we rode along Ann made comments like "Look, you can see tiny rafters down there in the river". Unfortunately, at that point Provo was insecure enough that he was having a melt-down if Ann's horse, Amtal, got further than 3' ahead of him or pushed through one of the many overgrown scotch broom bushes, causing him to be slightly obscured. As a result, I didn't spend much time looking at the "tiny rafters", instead maintained my death-grip on the horse and tried not to fall off. At the time, all I remember was the trail was very narrow, was very overgrown (we had to jump a log to get through), and had a very steep drop-off to the river.

Fast-forward eleven years and I'd heard the trail was clear so Leslie and I went exploring. Setting off from the Bus Stop at the bottom of Sliger Mine, we rode along to Green Gate before picking up the Larimer Trail. I was curious to see how accurate my memory was.

The trail to Green Gate:

The trail was beautifully cleared, thanks to a local endurance couple who live just off it, and we were able to trot for miles without interruption, which round here is unusual. And even though I was in way better shape riding the trail this time, interestingly it was much as I remembered (except for not being overgrown and not riding a horse filled with angst) - especially the part where there was a sheer drop down to the river:

There is an old mine right on the trail, where they've built rock-walls to stop you falling off the side:

Ann kindly met us at the fire station to give us some people water and the pones some carrots:

Sunday 22nd
Whirlwind Tour of Cronin/Magnolia

Leslie, Pamela and I did a whirlwind tour of Cronin/Magnolia. Uno did the whole thing totally barefoot and was very sound <pleased>. He was a bit flighty when in the back (OK, so I whined when we were in the back because he was very skittery, but he got better). We met some mtn bikes and he acted like he'd never seen them before, which was a bit disconcerting, but the nice bike rider fed him some LMF and so they "weren't so bad".

Thursday 26th-Monday 30th
Desert Gold

Day 1 was a 55 - and it GPSed as 53 miles.

Leslie and I managed to ride the first ten miles together before Eagle started to beat up on Leslie too much, so she dropped me off with Gary Fend and Brenda Benkly and zoomed on ahead - din't take long before they'd vanished at a "medium" (for Eagle <g>) trot.

Roo did excellent for the first 35 miles and I was really happy with him - he got his mojo back. He's been a bit uninspired since I started riding him again after Tevis and I was a lil' worried that his flatness was here to stay, but he was having fun, racing with Gary's Zin at 11 mph coming in towards the end of the first loop and going strong. He was happy and showed no signs of being tired.

On the second 20 mile loop, it went a bit wrong. The vet check was back in camp and Gary and Brenda didn't wait the few minutes for me after the hour hold (I pulsed in a little after them - but Roo was at 56! woo!!!!). I went rushing off on the loop ("rushing" being a relative term when you're peddling a recalcitrant horse out of camp) to try and catch them, only to realise after about half a mile that I'd neglected to go to the out-timer, so we had to turn around and go back (which Roo thought was exactly what we were supposed to be doing), putting us behind all the people who *had* been behind us - so now we were *really* all alone.

Roo *putzed* big time, managing a 5.5 mph trot when I was peddling. Then we did about a mile or so at 9 mph trot when he recognised the trail from the morning, before we turned off and he deflated again.

It began to rain and the wind started and he got slower and slower and it was pretty miserable. Finally after ten miles some other riders caught us - hurray! (this is why he'd been dogging it - he heard them long before I did). Unfortunately, those riders turned out to be really unpleasant riding companions and I was stuck with them in a howling rainstorm on top of a naked ridgeline for about two hours. <gnash>.

Finally I didn't stop at a water trough (we were so sodden, I couldn't see that he'd want to drink) and I beat Roo to get past them and peddled hard enough to manage to keep ahead long enough to get away - although they caught us again when there was a trail marking problem and they began to complain again. <grrrr>

I finally gave up and walked in the last couple of hours with Dave Rabe and his riding partner - pretty trail, winding and twisty through yellow rock and manzanita. Roo did so good and was still quite cheerful and willing to go (so long as he had a buddy) and wasn't remotely tired. But it was dark by the time we were done and I was pretty sodden and f*cked off with the whole situation.

Roo's front gaiters had rubbed his pasterns pretty badly, even though he was wearing his ankle wraps, so I was going to need to glue boots on him if I was going to ride him on Day 3. Plus I felt a bit like Uno had been totally neglected, so opted to go to the beach on Day 2 , regroup, and ride Uno on Day 3 instead.

The trail on Day 3 was more or less a repeat of Day 1, which was a bit dull but turned out to be good since I knew what was coming so I could concentrate on the horse instead of worrying about trail markings.

I was really looking forward to riding Uno, but was also quite nervous since I wasn't going to have a riding buddy for him. I figured he'd be OK on the wide open stretches, but would get nervous and skittery on the tight singletrack. I just hoped he wouldn't dump me, because that wouldn't do either of our psyches any good.

We left camp on our own (Roo shrieking after us) and Uno did a big spook at the ATV next to the number taker which wasn't a very auspicious start. He was gawping around and looking very wide-eyed but once I got him going, he felt smooth and strong and steady. We trotted and caught a rider... then another... then another and he was doing just fabulous - keeping it together and acting like a grown-up... until a really fast horse came past and I didn't let him follow. And then - look - there were so other horses across the canyon. And then Barbara White came around the corner behind him. And then ACK, he was leaping sideways and twirling and generally losing it. So we stopped. Let a couple of horses past and then popped in behind the next one and trotted back along the trail.

And then he was fine. :)

The other rider turned out to be the young girl who's riding KS Rubin, the shagya stallion, and she politely asked if I minded if they rode with us for a bit. YES!! PLEASE!!!

So Uno had a buddy and they got on very well. Rubin is a lot like Roo, temperamentally and speed-wise, so we spent a very pleasant day trotting along and chit-chatting and enjoying the warm sunshine. Rubin was way better behaved than every other horse I met out there.

Uno continued to trot strongly for the whole 35 miles, but apparently didn't feel the need to drink. By 17 miles I was a little worried; by 20 miles I was starting to really loiter by each trough to persuade him to stop gawping at other horses and mtn bikes and drink; by 25 miles I took off his bridle in an effort ot make him stop scratching on the trough and drink. At 30 mile he took a tiny sip. Yay. And of course he ate nothing (being too busy gawping at other horses and mtn bikes). I figured he'd have lousy vet scores at lunch. But no, he got all As for everything. The only thing I can think is that he spent the previous two days standing at the trailer, filling up his hind gut with hay and water and was using that reservoir. At the end, he was still A on hydration (and never tanked up at all - still sipping slightly), but did have the decency to have a B on guts. See? There is a reason for having a fat horse :)

Hopefully he'll get better at looking after himself, as this is going to bite him when we start doing warm rides. With luck, he'll just do cold ones while he's learning.

At about 32 miles, a rider came up behind us, startled him and he shot forward and started doing a really fast circus trot that there was no way I could ride. When I got him stopped, I discovered the reason for the circus trot (ultra-high- stepping) was that he'd flipped around one of his front boots. Unfortunately, he ripped all the stitching out of the gaiter in the process, so that boot was no good. I pulled both front boots off and we did the last 3 miles barefoot.

I do have two other 1.5 Gloves, but unfortunately had left them at home for pft and Fergus, so I was trying to figure out if I should buy a brand new boot from Henry Griffin - worrying in case he only had wimpy toe ones, or ride the second 15 miles barefoot (which I probably could have, the footing was so good), when quite by chance, as we were walking into camp, Chris Martin was there riding his horse and commented on Uno's bare feet. I explained what had happened and he loaned me a spare boot! How kind!

So Cinderella got to do his second loop (identical to the first, only shorter - dull, dull) and it was quite hot and he is super-woolly, so we putzed along with Rubin - trotting and walking and really not pushing either horse at all.

I knew there were at least four riders behind us and I knew we'd been putzing along, so I was quite amazed when MB told me we were 16th. It turned out there were 27 starters and two pulls, so we were a bit behind mid-pack. I have no idea who all the other people behind us were - I never saw them. Too strange.

Roo spent the day keeping Zin company in the Fend's second pen, while Jamie Fend rode Smoke. When we got back at the finish, Roo, now back on his spring-tie because Smoke was back, pitched such a fit that he broke the snap on his tie and went running off through camp, trailing his scary rope behind him <roll eyes>.

Uno who'd been strong all day, lay down on his spring-tie after we came in and didn't seem too interested in getting up, which scared me a little, esp. since he hadn't eaten or drunk all day (although he did both as soon as he was back in "his space" at the trailer). I suspect he just lay down to roll some of the sweat off and decided it felt pretty nice to lie there for a bit. Later in the evening, I walked him twice and he was fine and perky.

The camp had to be spotless when we left, so in total I filled about 12 trash bags with manure/dead hay over the four days we were there. <phew>. And they ate nearly two and half bales (Thursday night through Monday morning). Piglets (good, though. Roo could use some weight).

The trail was a lot of sandy dirt road, interspersed with tight, fun, twisty singletrack (lots of ducking under low branches). It wasn't the most interesting trail I've ever ridden, but was perfect for what I was doing this weekend - bringing Roop back and starting Uno on his own and there were some neat spots on it, with wild yellow sandstone hoodoos - just like a mini Bryce Canyon.

I was proud of both of my good pones. With the exception of Roo's rubbed pasterns (and stocking up quite a bit), and Uno forgetting to drink, they both did great. But mostly I was impressed at how fabulous Uno did and how strong he felt all day.