So I went out Thursday on the short version of the hill (up the hill and back down, 5.6 miles).
First, and most importantly! Normal shoes make your legs longer. I didn't really notice til we got out of the subdivision and started trotting, but my stirrups were suddenly too long. They weren't unbearably too long, but I definitely had to concentrate on streeetching my heels down to keep my feet in the stirrups. I ride pretty light in the stirrups normally, but I definitely learned that I'm crooked - the right stirrup was harder to keep in place. It was good for me but I'm moving those bad boys up where they need to be next time.
(My saddle has western cordura fenders and cordura/leather straps. I love the soft fenders, but the strap part flops all over the place, so years ago I ziptied the bottom of the fenders together. Easy enough to snap the zip ties and move the buckles, but not something I was ready to do on the trail that day.)
The shoes were very comfortable to run in. I've been trying to land toe-first anyway, so it wasn't a huge change in my running style (such as it is). I jogged on down the hill at a good clip. Somebody asked about rocks - my backyard trails are not challenging terrain. You could run them literally bare footed. They're sand with occasional jagged rocks here and there, but no gravel. I dunno how the shoes will perform on crappier footing.
I've been alternating wearing the bare shoes and normal shoes. It really is a big change on your tendons - I can feel it in my lower calves and Achilles tendons. I think I will ride in normal sneakers tomorrow and slip on the bare thingies for wandering around before and after the ride - Silver Springs is flat as a pancake with very few natural mounting blocks, and it's HARD for me to clamber back on Dixie without a tree stump or a rock or something. If I'm not going to get off and jog, I will do fine in sneakers.
Mel - yes, my feet got dirty, but my feet get horribly dirty in everything except muck boots. I hate it but I have learned to live with it. :(
On the horse front: I had been pushing Dixie to trot up the hill without paying much attention to her form, but I decided that's just teaching her bad habits and building up the wrong muscles. Thursday I made her push from behind and trot properly up the hills, instead of getting a little tired and dragging her way up. It was a lot of half-halt, "ok try this again," trot. Somehow, even though it felt really slow, it was our best time on the climb.
Tomorrow: a flat NEDA ride with a clipped, fit horse in cool weather! Hopefully it'll be 20 miles of holding her back! :D
Showing posts with label hills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hills. Show all posts
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
That's more like it!
I took Dixie out for a really lovely 10 mile ride this afternoon. Here's the Strava:
It doesn't look like the Strava shows up in google reader, so if you're interested, click on over to the actual blog to look at it. I do all my reading, right up until the point where I decide I have a meaningful comment to make, in Reader, so I thought I'd warn you too :)
This is the ride I was planning on doing last Wednesday. There's a one-mile segment that Strava is automatically tracking - the mid part of the hill climb - and it took 17:30 to slog up that damn hill Wednesday, and she flew up it in 11:30 today. That's an astronomical improvement. Still, she was dripping wet by the time we made it to the top - I think I will sponge her chest and belly tomorrow and do a bit more clipping. I'm leaving it quite long - it looks like a 3-month-old clip job - so I think she won't freeze.
At about 4 miles we'd worked our way along the top of the hill and there was a very steep long downhill stretch, so I got off and jogged down. My poor Big Leftie complained about it - I don't think I blogged it but I hit it so hard I thought I broke it earlier this month, and it's still bruised - but it felt nice to "trot" downhill on foot. And my faith was rewarded - I found a perfect tree stump (very rare!) at the bottom of the hill.
I worked mostly on keeping Dixie at a consistent speed, and I also didn't check my speed on the GPS once. My watch band is broken so it lives clipped to my saddle - it's not as easy as lifting my wrist up. I am amazed that we were rolling along at 10 mph - it felt like 7-8. She did a lot of gaiting :)
All the erratic stops were from gawking - it was a lovely weekend day and there were a ton of dirt bikes, off-road trucks, and people out target shooting. We often had to slam on the brakes and stare in utter amazement, exactly like she'd never seen a dirt bike/truck/person before.
Dixie was what my riding buddy back in Memphis would've called "spicy." Totally on, sproingy flashy gaits, gawking at everything, just a blast to ride.
You can see she was still PLENTY sweaty. Sorry for the crappy cam-phone pics; they really don't do well at high altitude.
I trimmed her feet after the ride - they look excellent if I do say so myself. I think I've got most of the false sole out and the bars look good and I've been treating her frog cracks with goo and they're opening up pretty well. And I got new gloves! Highly recommended cheap gloves! But I'll take hoof pics and do a post about them tomorrow. I might even take the REAL CAMERA so you can see her feet in the correct colors. ;)
It doesn't look like the Strava shows up in google reader, so if you're interested, click on over to the actual blog to look at it. I do all my reading, right up until the point where I decide I have a meaningful comment to make, in Reader, so I thought I'd warn you too :)
This is the ride I was planning on doing last Wednesday. There's a one-mile segment that Strava is automatically tracking - the mid part of the hill climb - and it took 17:30 to slog up that damn hill Wednesday, and she flew up it in 11:30 today. That's an astronomical improvement. Still, she was dripping wet by the time we made it to the top - I think I will sponge her chest and belly tomorrow and do a bit more clipping. I'm leaving it quite long - it looks like a 3-month-old clip job - so I think she won't freeze.
At about 4 miles we'd worked our way along the top of the hill and there was a very steep long downhill stretch, so I got off and jogged down. My poor Big Leftie complained about it - I don't think I blogged it but I hit it so hard I thought I broke it earlier this month, and it's still bruised - but it felt nice to "trot" downhill on foot. And my faith was rewarded - I found a perfect tree stump (very rare!) at the bottom of the hill.
I worked mostly on keeping Dixie at a consistent speed, and I also didn't check my speed on the GPS once. My watch band is broken so it lives clipped to my saddle - it's not as easy as lifting my wrist up. I am amazed that we were rolling along at 10 mph - it felt like 7-8. She did a lot of gaiting :)
All the erratic stops were from gawking - it was a lovely weekend day and there were a ton of dirt bikes, off-road trucks, and people out target shooting. We often had to slam on the brakes and stare in utter amazement, exactly like she'd never seen a dirt bike/truck/person before.
Dixie was what my riding buddy back in Memphis would've called "spicy." Totally on, sproingy flashy gaits, gawking at everything, just a blast to ride.
You can see she was still PLENTY sweaty. Sorry for the crappy cam-phone pics; they really don't do well at high altitude.
I trimmed her feet after the ride - they look excellent if I do say so myself. I think I've got most of the false sole out and the bars look good and I've been treating her frog cracks with goo and they're opening up pretty well. And I got new gloves! Highly recommended cheap gloves! But I'll take hoof pics and do a post about them tomorrow. I might even take the REAL CAMERA so you can see her feet in the correct colors. ;)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday hill work
I'd planned on doing a long ride Saturday, but Cersei really needed to get out for a run too so I made it a short hill day. We went up the hill behind the house and back - 5.25 miles in 58 minutes. Not bad at all for Dixie.
She was particularly squirrely at the start. Lately she's been thinking about spooking and bucking at imaginary boogies when we first start our rides, and I'd really prefer it if she doesn't properly develop her bucking instincts and muscles, so we just walked for the first half mile. By then we were on a wide hard sand road that slants uphill, so I kicked her up to a trot and pretty much kept her there most of the way up the mountain. When we got near the top she was breathing really hard, so we stopped til her HR dropped.
I passed up the chance, yet again, to get a HRM for Christmas. G offered, but... they don't work unless the girth is tight. My girth is rarely properly tight. My Garmin is too old to work with one, so I'd either need a standalone (kinda dumb) or a new Garmin to go with it, and my old Garmin works perfectly well for what I need, and I've floundered along without a HRM for two years so obviously I don't need one. It seems like a nice option, not a necessity.
So here's my ghetto HRM: If the horse is panting hard, I ask her to stop in the shade. Then I lean over and slap my hand on her left flank just ahead of the girth. If her heartbeat is really fast I let her stand. (I usually take this opportunity to tighten up the dangling girth.) When I slap my hand down there again a minute later, if it feels near 60 we go on. (I use the one-Mississippi method of checking heart rate - if it's equal to or less than once per second, she's down.)
We stopped for a bit near the summit, then headed further up. I saw a fork I'd never noticed before and we climbed one more tiny steep hill, but the trail ran over the BLM fence - literally. Various recreational users had knocked down the posts and kinda-trampled the barbed wire into the ground, and I didn't see any reason to walk my horse over that loose wire. We were at 2.86 miles: good enough.
We turned for home and I let her fly. I only asked that she stay in a nice gait - she mostly step-paced, but she racked a bit too. We took a different shorter road home, because it's way more fun to gait down. :)
After we got home I locked Cersei in the yard until she cooled down. No more puke in my house, missy!
On Thursday or Friday I had to go to Office Depot for some blank CDs. The bargain bins on the way to the checkout caught my eye, and I bought two of these for $1 each.
They're flat plastic drinking bags with pop-tops and mini carabiners. They're made in China, so I'm sure they're full of cancer and heavy metals - but I'm going to hang them on my saddlebags to squirt on my mare's neck. (No offense, Dixie, but I'm not all that worried about you getting cancer from plastic contact!) Ahhh, how I long for the days when it's hot and I need to cool her off...
She was particularly squirrely at the start. Lately she's been thinking about spooking and bucking at imaginary boogies when we first start our rides, and I'd really prefer it if she doesn't properly develop her bucking instincts and muscles, so we just walked for the first half mile. By then we were on a wide hard sand road that slants uphill, so I kicked her up to a trot and pretty much kept her there most of the way up the mountain. When we got near the top she was breathing really hard, so we stopped til her HR dropped.
I passed up the chance, yet again, to get a HRM for Christmas. G offered, but... they don't work unless the girth is tight. My girth is rarely properly tight. My Garmin is too old to work with one, so I'd either need a standalone (kinda dumb) or a new Garmin to go with it, and my old Garmin works perfectly well for what I need, and I've floundered along without a HRM for two years so obviously I don't need one. It seems like a nice option, not a necessity.
So here's my ghetto HRM: If the horse is panting hard, I ask her to stop in the shade. Then I lean over and slap my hand on her left flank just ahead of the girth. If her heartbeat is really fast I let her stand. (I usually take this opportunity to tighten up the dangling girth.) When I slap my hand down there again a minute later, if it feels near 60 we go on. (I use the one-Mississippi method of checking heart rate - if it's equal to or less than once per second, she's down.)
We stopped for a bit near the summit, then headed further up. I saw a fork I'd never noticed before and we climbed one more tiny steep hill, but the trail ran over the BLM fence - literally. Various recreational users had knocked down the posts and kinda-trampled the barbed wire into the ground, and I didn't see any reason to walk my horse over that loose wire. We were at 2.86 miles: good enough.
We turned for home and I let her fly. I only asked that she stay in a nice gait - she mostly step-paced, but she racked a bit too. We took a different shorter road home, because it's way more fun to gait down. :)
After we got home I locked Cersei in the yard until she cooled down. No more puke in my house, missy!
On Thursday or Friday I had to go to Office Depot for some blank CDs. The bargain bins on the way to the checkout caught my eye, and I bought two of these for $1 each.
They're flat plastic drinking bags with pop-tops and mini carabiners. They're made in China, so I'm sure they're full of cancer and heavy metals - but I'm going to hang them on my saddlebags to squirt on my mare's neck. (No offense, Dixie, but I'm not all that worried about you getting cancer from plastic contact!) Ahhh, how I long for the days when it's hot and I need to cool her off...
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Attack of the boot
Sunday I was way too sunburned to ride again. I did go out and braid Dixie's mane. I wanted to see how they'd last overnight. If I go to Cooley Ranch - or any ride, for that matter - I'd like to braid her mane the day before we leave, when she's still sleepy and laid back and ho-hum about everything. One day ridecamp will be ho-hum, but it's not gonna be this year.
She's mad at Sassy, the bay in the background. How dare that wicked mare stand so close to Her Highness!
I even gave her a Bam-Bam topknot. She was skeptical.
I took the topknot out and left the poor thing to her own devices.
On Monday, my husband and I took Cersei up to a beautiful lake in the Sierras - I'll post pics from that tomorrow. Tuesday I went back and the braids were still in! They looked "slept in" and wouldn't have passed at any show, but the hair was contained and off of her neck. Woohoo!
Then I took Dixie and we did some deliberate conditioning work. We did trot sets up a not-too-steep and not-too-long section of hill. I let her pace downhill, and once she actually hit a fantastic running walk. After we finished the last set and were headed back towards home, a boot attacked! It sprang off her foot and rolled in front of us, clearly coming out of another dimension to attack her. Dixie startled, bucked!!, and tried to bolt off. I hollered and pulled her up, then hopped off and led her back to the boot. She let me strap it back on and stood at a rock for me to remount, but she was hot and spooky on the way home. Poor girl.
I kept meaning to deliberately cause a boot failure in a controlled situation, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I still need to strap one loosely around her pastern and lunge her - I bet that causes another buck!
* I'm going to Vegas with my BFFs for the weekend, so I've scheduled a couple of posts for while I'm gone. Have a lovely weekend, yall!*
She's mad at Sassy, the bay in the background. How dare that wicked mare stand so close to Her Highness!
I even gave her a Bam-Bam topknot. She was skeptical.
I took the topknot out and left the poor thing to her own devices.
On Monday, my husband and I took Cersei up to a beautiful lake in the Sierras - I'll post pics from that tomorrow. Tuesday I went back and the braids were still in! They looked "slept in" and wouldn't have passed at any show, but the hair was contained and off of her neck. Woohoo!
Then I took Dixie and we did some deliberate conditioning work. We did trot sets up a not-too-steep and not-too-long section of hill. I let her pace downhill, and once she actually hit a fantastic running walk. After we finished the last set and were headed back towards home, a boot attacked! It sprang off her foot and rolled in front of us, clearly coming out of another dimension to attack her. Dixie startled, bucked!!, and tried to bolt off. I hollered and pulled her up, then hopped off and led her back to the boot. She let me strap it back on and stood at a rock for me to remount, but she was hot and spooky on the way home. Poor girl.
I kept meaning to deliberately cause a boot failure in a controlled situation, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I still need to strap one loosely around her pastern and lunge her - I bet that causes another buck!
* I'm going to Vegas with my BFFs for the weekend, so I've scheduled a couple of posts for while I'm gone. Have a lovely weekend, yall!*
Friday, March 5, 2010
More exploring
Today we went rambling back up in the hills, trying to find the trail down to Palomino Valley proper. I actually did consider printing out a sat map of the area, but I decided it'd be more fun to just wander, so that's what we did. We ended up at 9.76 miles in 2:12.
Dixie was exceptionally impatient this morning - I had to cross-tie her to get her brushed, then as soon as I got the saddle on she started pawing. That kind of distracted me from my Rain Man-like routine of tacking up, but I pretty much got everything done and got on and off we went. We climbed the normal hill toward PV and I took the turn I figured would lead us to PV. It was really beautiful out there - just a few houses, snow still on the north sides of the hills, a few rabbits. About 4 miles out from S's, we'd crossed the hills and were heading down. The road down was very steep and muddy and I suspected it wasn't the road I really wanted. Dixie slid carefully down it for a couple hundred yards, to a bend in the road. When we got there, I could see it was just miles more of the same steep muddy rocky stuff switchbacking the rest of the way down the hill - ick, no.
We turned around and headed back towards home. I headed a little ways down another turn I thought might be the right one (and I think it is!), then went up on a hill to look at the remains of someone's foolishness. On top of a small hill, with a For Sale - Owner Will Finance! sign, lies an RV, on its side. Some poor idiot drove this RV (CA tags, expired in '04) up to the top of this hill and it apparently didn't occur to him to TIE IT DOWN. So it blew over and he walked away.
Then we headed back toward home again - took another detour up a hill. Very steep, but mostly damp/dry sand. It looks like maybe it's someone's driveway, so I turned around. Yet another detour across a fairly level little road running along the ridgetops, and finally - good footing! I let Dixie canter a bit then settled her down into a nice rack. The road eventually dropped off the ridge and I turned around there and let her rip back to the main road. She does have good sense, and I've quit "yelling" at her to slow down at the rocky bits. She slows down when she's not comfortable on the footing, then speeds back up when it's better.
On the "real" gravel roads headed home, she shifted through all her gears and finally settled in to a really nice step pace, 8-9 mph, most of the way.
Remember how I said she was really wicked impatient this morning and my autistic checklist for tacking up was interrupted? Yeah, when I got home and slid off I noticed this.
Yes, the girth is so loose my whole hand and thumb comfortably fit between girth and horse. SHIT. And I rode 9 miles in the mountains like that! When we came down out of the hills it was riding a little further forward than usual, but it didn't seem to bother Dixie and we were almost home so I didn't check it.
Oh well. Glad she didn't spook!
Dixie was exceptionally impatient this morning - I had to cross-tie her to get her brushed, then as soon as I got the saddle on she started pawing. That kind of distracted me from my Rain Man-like routine of tacking up, but I pretty much got everything done and got on and off we went. We climbed the normal hill toward PV and I took the turn I figured would lead us to PV. It was really beautiful out there - just a few houses, snow still on the north sides of the hills, a few rabbits. About 4 miles out from S's, we'd crossed the hills and were heading down. The road down was very steep and muddy and I suspected it wasn't the road I really wanted. Dixie slid carefully down it for a couple hundred yards, to a bend in the road. When we got there, I could see it was just miles more of the same steep muddy rocky stuff switchbacking the rest of the way down the hill - ick, no.
We turned around and headed back towards home. I headed a little ways down another turn I thought might be the right one (and I think it is!), then went up on a hill to look at the remains of someone's foolishness. On top of a small hill, with a For Sale - Owner Will Finance! sign, lies an RV, on its side. Some poor idiot drove this RV (CA tags, expired in '04) up to the top of this hill and it apparently didn't occur to him to TIE IT DOWN. So it blew over and he walked away.
Then we headed back toward home again - took another detour up a hill. Very steep, but mostly damp/dry sand. It looks like maybe it's someone's driveway, so I turned around. Yet another detour across a fairly level little road running along the ridgetops, and finally - good footing! I let Dixie canter a bit then settled her down into a nice rack. The road eventually dropped off the ridge and I turned around there and let her rip back to the main road. She does have good sense, and I've quit "yelling" at her to slow down at the rocky bits. She slows down when she's not comfortable on the footing, then speeds back up when it's better.
On the "real" gravel roads headed home, she shifted through all her gears and finally settled in to a really nice step pace, 8-9 mph, most of the way.
Remember how I said she was really wicked impatient this morning and my autistic checklist for tacking up was interrupted? Yeah, when I got home and slid off I noticed this.
Yes, the girth is so loose my whole hand and thumb comfortably fit between girth and horse. SHIT. And I rode 9 miles in the mountains like that! When we came down out of the hills it was riding a little further forward than usual, but it didn't seem to bother Dixie and we were almost home so I didn't check it.
Oh well. Glad she didn't spook!
Monday, February 1, 2010
I'm back
Not that I went anywhere; I just quit posting for a couple days. I have tons of catchup to do on yall's blogs, but I figured I'd write this first.
Last Thursday, I did the mines with C on Mama. I took Cersei and my gun - I figured two people and two horses would keep the coyotes away, and if not I'd shoot one and then hike home to catch my horse. Fortunately, they'd eaten - we found two piles of feathers from slow moving birds. We didn't see anything and we had a nice ride.
Friday ~C and I trailered over to Hungry Valley and did a nice long ride. Usually you drive through a cattle gate and park off to the side of the open range and ride out from there - but there was a muddy hill down to a very small lake (or very large puddle) then a muddy hill up to the cattle grate, and we didn't think we could make it. As we were riding over to the cattle grate, a guy in a little 2x4 pickup barely made it through the puddle-lake and up the hill, so we made the right call. Buuut... we still had to get through the cattle grate.
There was a tiny space on the left where a horse could probably squeeze through, between a wooden post and a steel post and over a small boulder. Crysta investigated it throughly... and Diego decided it was a trap. He was totally convinced he couldn't squeeze through it. She asked if I wanted to try it, so I hopped off and confidently led Dixie straight up to it and through it... taking the wooden post with us. It got hung on her stirrup and broke off at the base - it must've been dry rotted pretty badly. Woops.
With his buddy on the other side - and the opening enlarged - Diego came through pretty quickly. ;)
We mounted up and rode pretty slowly toward the hills on the other side of the valley. The roads through the valley were pretty sloppy - that nasty sand and silt that gets slimy when it's wet. And they were wet! At one point I was riding on the left, just off the slippy road, when Dixie decided to drift over onto the road. I cued her to please turn left and get off the road, and she did that super annoying thing where she turns her HEAD left and her FEET keep going right. I was just getting ready to kick her in the ribs when wham down she went. She turned her neck and gave me this look like "WTF just happened?" and I said "You idiot, that's entirely your fault!" Then while I was trying to decide if I should hop off she scrambled back to her feet. She seemed fine, so we kept on keeping on.
Both the horses got excited when they saw the cows. Diego got all tense and spooky and Dixie's head came straight up and she got tense. I rode Dixie in tight little circles around the sagebrush til she quit worrying so badly and we proceeded on. Most of the cows wandered off when we got to the edge of their flight zone - except for the friggin longhorn who didn't want to stop licking salt! We had to ride between her and the rest of her herd! I think we were both ready to run if she got upset, but she didn't.
We rode up a hill and took pictures. Looking south:
Crysta and Diego:
Me and (dirty) Dixie:
The skeleton of a couch menaced Dixie on the way up - it was hiding behind a tree, waiting to eat her. I made her show no fear and walk calmly past it, and it didn't pounce. When we got to the top of the hill, we got off and walked down - it was a steep descent, still snowy, and pretty wet.
On the other side of the hill, we saw a bunch of junk. It made me feel at home! There's rednecks everywhere :) There was a modern art display of one new tire (on a rim), one old CRT computer display (with a bullet hole in it), and one 80s deep freeze. The horses didn't look twice at it, but Crysta and I both got kinda creeped out by the fridge. There could be a zombie, or a murder victim, or 400 lbs of rotten elk, or who knows what in that thing. We got by it as quickly as we could walk. A few yards down the hill, we passed a pile of dead TVs (with bullet holes in them). Near the bottom of the hill is apparently a popular place to shoot - there were hundreds of casings and broken clay skeet.
Once we got off the hill, it was back to untouched high valley. We decided the roads were too sloppy and wandered cross-country back to the truck. And Dixie got lost! You know how horses usually know where the trailer is? She lost it. We could see the truck and trailer, but she didn't notice it or something and kept wanting to head further north.
When we got back to the (broken) fence, Dixie did not want to go back through it. After all, it grabbed her last time - and we weren't even going to the trailer (according to her)! I let Crysta go first then managed to sweet-talk my brave girl through. I gave Dixie her post-ride apple as soon as she was through - I was very proud of her.
I thought it was a beautiful ride (scary chest freezers aside), and I'd love to go back when the trails dry up and we can move faster than a walk. We did 9.64 miles in 3:22 - sucky, I know, but that includes conquering the cattle gate both times, and only walking.
I gave her the weekend off, then did hill work today. Dixie rocks - I let her walk down hills and pushed her to trot or walk fast up hills, and she did 5.82 miles in 1:30, a 3.8 average. (That includes moseying the last half mile home very slowly and then forgetting to turn off the GPS til after I wormed her and fed her an apple. It's closer to 4 mph if I discard the last lap.) She was sweaty as all get out, but it was (relatively) warm and sunny and she recovered nicely. I let her trot down some slight inclines - I don't want to strain her legs, but I want her to start to figure out how to keep her balance at speed going downhill. So we trot down slight grades on sand. Our total elevation change was about 2500', so it was Serious Hill Work.
Today Crysta inspired me to get the myGarmin thingie set up. Here's today's ride and Hungry Valley. I spent way too much time playing with my data on there.
Last Thursday, I did the mines with C on Mama. I took Cersei and my gun - I figured two people and two horses would keep the coyotes away, and if not I'd shoot one and then hike home to catch my horse. Fortunately, they'd eaten - we found two piles of feathers from slow moving birds. We didn't see anything and we had a nice ride.
Friday ~C and I trailered over to Hungry Valley and did a nice long ride. Usually you drive through a cattle gate and park off to the side of the open range and ride out from there - but there was a muddy hill down to a very small lake (or very large puddle) then a muddy hill up to the cattle grate, and we didn't think we could make it. As we were riding over to the cattle grate, a guy in a little 2x4 pickup barely made it through the puddle-lake and up the hill, so we made the right call. Buuut... we still had to get through the cattle grate.
There was a tiny space on the left where a horse could probably squeeze through, between a wooden post and a steel post and over a small boulder. Crysta investigated it throughly... and Diego decided it was a trap. He was totally convinced he couldn't squeeze through it. She asked if I wanted to try it, so I hopped off and confidently led Dixie straight up to it and through it... taking the wooden post with us. It got hung on her stirrup and broke off at the base - it must've been dry rotted pretty badly. Woops.
With his buddy on the other side - and the opening enlarged - Diego came through pretty quickly. ;)
We mounted up and rode pretty slowly toward the hills on the other side of the valley. The roads through the valley were pretty sloppy - that nasty sand and silt that gets slimy when it's wet. And they were wet! At one point I was riding on the left, just off the slippy road, when Dixie decided to drift over onto the road. I cued her to please turn left and get off the road, and she did that super annoying thing where she turns her HEAD left and her FEET keep going right. I was just getting ready to kick her in the ribs when wham down she went. She turned her neck and gave me this look like "WTF just happened?" and I said "You idiot, that's entirely your fault!" Then while I was trying to decide if I should hop off she scrambled back to her feet. She seemed fine, so we kept on keeping on.
Both the horses got excited when they saw the cows. Diego got all tense and spooky and Dixie's head came straight up and she got tense. I rode Dixie in tight little circles around the sagebrush til she quit worrying so badly and we proceeded on. Most of the cows wandered off when we got to the edge of their flight zone - except for the friggin longhorn who didn't want to stop licking salt! We had to ride between her and the rest of her herd! I think we were both ready to run if she got upset, but she didn't.
We rode up a hill and took pictures. Looking south:
Crysta and Diego:
Me and (dirty) Dixie:
The skeleton of a couch menaced Dixie on the way up - it was hiding behind a tree, waiting to eat her. I made her show no fear and walk calmly past it, and it didn't pounce. When we got to the top of the hill, we got off and walked down - it was a steep descent, still snowy, and pretty wet.
On the other side of the hill, we saw a bunch of junk. It made me feel at home! There's rednecks everywhere :) There was a modern art display of one new tire (on a rim), one old CRT computer display (with a bullet hole in it), and one 80s deep freeze. The horses didn't look twice at it, but Crysta and I both got kinda creeped out by the fridge. There could be a zombie, or a murder victim, or 400 lbs of rotten elk, or who knows what in that thing. We got by it as quickly as we could walk. A few yards down the hill, we passed a pile of dead TVs (with bullet holes in them). Near the bottom of the hill is apparently a popular place to shoot - there were hundreds of casings and broken clay skeet.
Once we got off the hill, it was back to untouched high valley. We decided the roads were too sloppy and wandered cross-country back to the truck. And Dixie got lost! You know how horses usually know where the trailer is? She lost it. We could see the truck and trailer, but she didn't notice it or something and kept wanting to head further north.
When we got back to the (broken) fence, Dixie did not want to go back through it. After all, it grabbed her last time - and we weren't even going to the trailer (according to her)! I let Crysta go first then managed to sweet-talk my brave girl through. I gave Dixie her post-ride apple as soon as she was through - I was very proud of her.
I thought it was a beautiful ride (scary chest freezers aside), and I'd love to go back when the trails dry up and we can move faster than a walk. We did 9.64 miles in 3:22 - sucky, I know, but that includes conquering the cattle gate both times, and only walking.
I gave her the weekend off, then did hill work today. Dixie rocks - I let her walk down hills and pushed her to trot or walk fast up hills, and she did 5.82 miles in 1:30, a 3.8 average. (That includes moseying the last half mile home very slowly and then forgetting to turn off the GPS til after I wormed her and fed her an apple. It's closer to 4 mph if I discard the last lap.) She was sweaty as all get out, but it was (relatively) warm and sunny and she recovered nicely. I let her trot down some slight inclines - I don't want to strain her legs, but I want her to start to figure out how to keep her balance at speed going downhill. So we trot down slight grades on sand. Our total elevation change was about 2500', so it was Serious Hill Work.
Today Crysta inspired me to get the myGarmin thingie set up. Here's today's ride and Hungry Valley. I spent way too much time playing with my data on there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)