Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

Better :) Not that it could've been much worse...

So today Cayman just went hacking. Was a little sticky @ first, but no rearing. N actually went *forward* on the hack -- AND figured out how to navigate terrain (our babysitter today was way more adventurous than the other ones have been -- but C kept up :) Through mud, straight up a freakin moutain, over/through/around fallen trees (XC in its original form!), down a thankfully less steep hill, over a stream (admittedly he's done that one several times now), through a ditch (yes he went in it rather than over but it's all good), basically everything you can think of on a trail we hit today. N was absolutely perfect weather for it, so that helps :)

So I have to admit, while I don't particularly like doing late-night, some nights it's not so bad Temp about 10 deg -- cool enuff to be crisp but not so cold to make you cringe when you step outside. There's something about being outside alone, in the country, under a really bright moon w/ a sky of endless stars, the only sounds being the horses nickering, the odd coyote howl in the distance, and the crinkle of the leaves under the hay-cart tires... Was kinda nice. Certainly beats working late at the office!

2 comments:

Hey!?? How's your squoze (that would be the past tense of 'squashed') foot?
Sound like "not broken" (whew!) or straight up-down and intermittent bushwhacking wouldn't have been possible.
Do you (the horses and riders on this property) literally wander into the woods anywhere at random? or are there multitudes of vaguely semi-cleared pathways meandering hither and yon which a person can ramble around on without placing horse and rider accidently in a precarious situation?

 

Hey Barb,

Foot's ok -- nothing broken, just bruised. I rode in paddock boots so to avoid trying to fit into my field boots, and avoided climbing fences for toady, but otherwise all good.

There are sort of three levels of trails on the property (discounting the XC course where you can go anywhere). The first trails - which Cayman's been mostly sticking to till today - are wide and flattened enough that a truck/tractor/gaitor/etc can go through -- some of these are gravel, others grass, and there are basically 3 of them running parallel at different altitudes (they all end @ the XC course). They twist and turn but very gently and while there are hills (it IS a mountain) they're not brutal.

The 2nd level has still obviously been cleared but not wide enough for vehicles. These connect the various big trails and sometimes can be quite steep. They're also, at the moment, covered in leaves so I don't *always* know where they actually go! These twist a little but seem to be mostly to get from one trail to the other.

The 3rd level is basically bushwacking -- may or may not have been a trail there @ some point in history, enuff space to squeze a horse through the trees if you're creative. I wouldn't do these alone cause I mostly can't discern what's 'trail' and what's not :) These were the more interesting parts of yesterday's ride :) *Very* twisty. Very fun :) Good for the whole 'teach your horse to think' thing -- "ooohhhhh shit; this isn't good, you figure it out!" hahaha

 

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