Forward, HO!

Ugh. It's so hard sometimes, when the weather is hot, the sun is bright and the bugs are in full force to get out and about to do all those things you know you need to do. I just hate heat. Warm, sure. But never hot. This is slated to be a HOT week.

This morning I met up with H's neighbor for a trail ride with Moon and The Black. We'd never had the opportunity to ride together before, and it was a blast. While I love trail riding period, E is a ton of fun. She's a skilled rider, so there's zero babysitting, and she has no problem trotting for long distances. Speed was a fun factor! And since The Black has such long legs and a fast trot, Mr. Moon could even canter behind him without issue. So I got to ride all three paces, exactly what makes me love a trail ride.

I'm not sure how far or how long we travelled for, but we departed while it was still cool at 9 am, and when I finally crawled back into my car after feeding the ponies, it was 12:30. So an AWESOME pony morning.

What I really loved, was that E and I got to do tons of trotting, which meant nice sweaty ponies that were breathing harder and burning calories. And building muscle. THAT is the best part of a trail ride! I felt like I was right back in my polo days, exercising horses, not just lolly-gagging around.

Unfortunately, both horses were a little foot-sore, seems that their fresh trim and the weather has made them sensitive. I made sure to apply another round of durasole on Moon's hooves to try to alleviate the problem.

Yesterday, I also got to go on a 'nose-to-tail' trail ride for my friend C's birthday. She had a lot of guests who weren't regular riders like us, so it was fun that she could bring everyone along. I of couse, being the type to not need full attention on my plodding horse Jetta, braided her mane while we rode and tucked little leaves into it too. Hey, a girl has to have fun!

I was really excited to find that my trail horse actually had a properly functioning brain under that "dum-de-dum" pack horse mentality. I was able to actually get him to "sorta" leg yield off the trail, so I spent a good deal of time making him drift left and right off the trail, just because I could!

Unfortunately, some random group of people joined us, and the ranch over mounted a little 10 year old on a rather strong willed horse named Goliath. Well, dear Goliath tried to kick my horse a couple of times, and I finally wound up in a tree when dear Jetta decided to get the heck out of the way of Goliath's hind end when it was making quick speed towards us. I couldn't fault her, and finally just passed. How irritating. One other woman was mounted on a horse in heat that kept trying to stuff her stuff into the face of every other horse, often leading to near misses. Thankfully, they sent her to the back of the line and the problem was solved.

Beyond that, I managed to get all of the wood paneling cut for the horse trailer doors, and started lacquering them today! Hopefully by Friday they'll all by finished and ready to go into the trailer! And then the doors can go back on too.

Thursday I'm making my pilgrimage to the US to pick-up all of my parcels, which means perhaps this coming Monday I can start wiring up the new lights! Yippee! I still can't believe I've stayed focused enough to actual complete this project! Not my MO (soooo ADD!).

And that's today's update! Wednesday I'm out at the barn with H2 and C, as there's potential for a part-boarding opportunity, plus watching W coach the lessons of the day. I *might* go out for a training ride on Moon tomorrow, just because he's getting tubby and I want to sweat all that weight off of him. H offered to grazing muzzle him part time for me, but I realize that the biggest issue is me not riding enough. So we'll fix this the old fashion way...

Last thing. Anyone us horse Sun Screen? Does it work? How often do you need to apply it? Mr. Moon's nose is pretty sunburned, dark and sore looking. : (  H has been awesome about putting Dermagel on it, but it's more for healing then prevention. Not sure why he's burning worse this year (okay, it's cause he can stand out and eat grass all day, instead of being stuck with his head in a big round bale!), but I really want to do something to alleviate the burning.

: ) Mmmm. So happy with pony days lately. : )