[knightrider]

@LoriF , we can't wait for you to get fully healed and go back to training Novia. You've done a fine job so far, and this was just a glitch in the road. We want that ride we were so looking forward to! Hope you are feeling much better.

 

[rambo99]

@LoriF glad you're healing up an feeling better. Hitting the ground sure hurts. Especially as we get older an don't bounce as good.

We have about 3 inches of snow and it's melting today. Really hasn't been that cold here. Low 20s at night mid 30s during the day. So corrals are mudd an snow mix messes. Horses are fetlock deep in the mess. Run in shelter is a mud hole also.

This is last week of firearms deer hunting Nov 21st is last day. 3 weeks of it here. Ice is doing pretty good, a few set backs but now seems on the mend again.

He's a goof ball an likes to get tearing around bucking an leaping. So strained his already injured tendon slipping in the mud, a week ago. Swelled up and had heat in it an of course sore even to touch.

Cost me more $$$$ to have vet re check it.

Fun reading about everyone's riding adventures. Happy trails to everyone!! keep those pictures coming I enjoy seeing them.

 

[lb27312]

@LoriF - glad you are better but broken ribs and a cold yikes! I bet it was the back cinch…ugh that drives me crazy on thinking back on what went wrong! I had that happen this weekend… see below.

Went camping this weekend, the predicted weather wasn't good but that didn’t happen turned out nice during the day…. mornings were cold but not too much.

First day was good, it was only Chal and Captain but lots of horses on the trail and leaving out so he was a little up. Out on the trail came a lot of new things… lots of horses standing to the side of the trail with just heads in the saddles(people off the other side of the horse with only the head showing) lots of vehicles with loud trailers on the roads…. loud jeeps on the roads. First time with a breast collar and climbing some steep hills, some that you had to ride in a steep narrow ravine… he tried to climb out, stumbled back in… he’ll learn. That was a fairly long ride for him… he did blow up once and like above looking back I could have done it different.

Second day was a short ride, very quiet as most every one had left… Captain led most of the way and did good.

A few pics from camp and trail… So Captain has 6 trail rides under his belt….

 

[farmpony84]

I don't get to post in the trail ride section often. I almost never have anyone to ride with but my husband went with me to the Shenendoahs so we did about 8 or 10 miles and found this really cool cemetery and then my son went with me to Lake Anna and rode for another 8 or 10 miles so I got two good rides in a month. I really am hoping they get the bug because I miss the trails so much. I can't ride around the house during hunting season. We are surrounded by about 200 acres of hunt club property.

 

[knightrider]

You may not get to do a lot of trail rides, but the ones you did were spectacular! Beautiful pictures!

 

[LoriF]

@LoriF , we can't wait for you to get fully healed and go back to training Novia. You've done a fine job so far, and this was just a glitch in the road. We want that ride we were so looking forward to! Hope you are feeling much better.

On the bright side. The stranger lady that walked Novia back for me did complement her and said that she has really nice ground manners. I can't laugh about it because it hurts to laugh. Give me another four weeks and I'll be back.

 

[egrogan]

Finally had nice weather AND time to ride on Sunday. We're right in the middle of rifle season, so we have to stick to the roads, but we still had a very nice 6.5 mile ride with our riding buddies.

Wearing plenty of orange and hi viz!

And bells...

We actually didn't see any hunters, but we were prepared in case we did 😉

I'm really looking forward to time off this week, with dry weather in the forecast. Hoping for a few decent rides. I'm still hoping that I can make it to 550 total miles for the year, but I'm just not sure. The weather over the next month will have a big influence.

Total 2021 miles: 483.1

 

[egrogan]

Sadly just when hunting season ended, the snow arrived and seems determined to stick around. Roads are icy and we are just puttering around the fields for now. Maybe we'll get a little warm up that will open up our options for awhile longer. Doesn't look like we're going to hit our mileage goal for the year, but we'll see what December brings...

Total 2021 miles: 490.8

 

[charrorider]

Beautiful day today. Ibn and I were out there all by ourselves.

 

[charrorider]

Another nice day. Can't waste them this late in the year. Took Chance out. It had been a while since we had gone out solo and it took him 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to settle down. After that, as good as gold. I love my Arabians. Heard today that the beavers have been active by the Gasconade River. Next ride will be in that direction.

 

[weeedlady]

Gun season has ended here and yesterday I finally got motivated to take Tucker out for just a bit. Roads are snow covered and too slippery for me to feel comfortable, so we just rode around in our "backyard" for about 1/2 hour. 2.21 miles. He was wound up and a handful as he usually is when we ride at home. Last night we got hit with a nice big snow storm. We have about 18" on the ground right now and unless I shovel I can't even open my gates to get a horse out.
I'm at 397 miles for the year right now and I am gonna set my goal at 400.

Has anyone heard anything from @phantomhorse13 ? Has she posted lately and I missed it? Hope everything is ok with her.

 

[knightrider]

Had an upsetting misadventure today. I have wondered why I have so many misadventures on the trail. Probably because I ride 2 hours every day and go far out and long. And have been doing so for 60 years.

My daughter's teen friends came out to ride this afternoon. I asked them which direction they'd like to head. My daughter wanted to go a way I hadn't planned on riding, but I went that way to please her. I don't know if I'm glad I did or sorry I did.

We got to a house decorated with tinsel and swinging things from the trees near the road. The horses didn't like going past them at all. This was "their" road and it didn't ever have swinging shiny things on it. I'm sure we didn't notice the yard in the next house (the houses are quite far apart) because of dealing with snorting and spooking.

On the way home, my daughter wondered why our much-liked neighbor was lying out in his yard. This man isn't exactly a friend, but he always greets us riders and has a word or two with us. He sold my neighbor his horse trailer. He had a dandy two wheeled horse cart that he couldn't sell, so he gave it to @4horses. He sold his set of panels to our riding friend for $100, when each panel was worth $70. He's a generous and kind man that we interact with regularly.

When we rode up to the gate, it didn't look good at all. I dismounted, handed the reins to my daughter, and went to see if I could help him. On close inspection, he looked very dead. I told my daughter to call 911--she had a phone--I'm so old fashioned, I still often don't carry a phone--no pockets.

The 911 operator asked if he lived alone. I knew he had lived alone, but didn't know if someone had moved in. They asked me to check at the house and see if I could rouse anyone. No one answered my knock, the door was unlocked, so I went a little way in, calling to see if I could get anyone to answer. The man's little fluffy white dog came to snarl and growl at me, so I didn't go in any further. He has a dachshund too, but I didn't see that dog.

I asked my daughter's friend to call her daddy to come wait with us. I felt so creeped out waiting for the ambulance. My daughter wanted me to feel for a pulse or try to revive the man, but I wouldn't do it. Part of it was reading too many mysteries. I didn't want my fingerprints on a dead person. Part of it was that I was 99 44/100% certain he couldn't be revived. He looked pretty bad.

Finally, the emergency vehicle arrived and confirmed that he was dead. They began by covering the body, and we headed home on the horses. The sheriff stopped us about halfway home and asked us some questions, which we answered, and then put the horses away.

This incident bothered me much more than it did the girls. I think because I had a relationship with this kind man, much more than the girls did. I had been to his house several times, we often chatted. I had his phone number. Partly because the girls are young and death doesn't affect young people as much as people who are closer to death ourselves. Partly because I made them wait on the other side of the gate, a good ways from the man lying in his large yard. I think of him living alone, having a heart attack or stroke, and falling, dying alone. I am so sad for the situation. I also am so very tired of people dying. We have lost so many people in the last year and a half.

Ever since I was a teenager, I have worried about finding a body on the trail. My riding friend and I came very close to finding a murdered woman on a trail where we rode every Saturday morning, but fortunately for me, we rode right past the body, not knowing it was there, and someone else found it about an hour after we rode through that area.

When I was a teenager, I was riding in a very deserted secluded area of gravel pits. A car passed me with a man and a woman in the car. I thought it was odd because the road didn't go anywhere, except where they dug up the gravel, and there were no houses anywhere near there. About an hour later, the car passed me going the other way, but only the man was in the car. I always wondered what happened to the woman. Chilling.

If anyone else wants to share a misadventure, I would like to read about it. I wish this had not happened to me.

 

[weeedlady]

@knightrider I wish it hadn't happened to you either. I'm sorry you had to be the one to find your friend (even if he wasn't a really close friend).

 

[carshon]

@knightrider I am so sorry this happened to you. I also see this as a blessing that someone did find him before he laid there too long and that there will be closure for his family. I have never come upon someone on the trail but in HS my friends and I found a woman along the side of the road. The victim of a hit and run. We stopped to help and then were treated like we were the ones that hit her. My friends car was gone over we were questioned multiple times - it was scary!

 

[egrogan]

@knightrider , so very sorry for that difficult experience. My aunt passed away alone in her apartment earlier this year, and her daughter found her there a few days later after no one had heard from her. It was a terrible situation. I agree with @carshon that it's some solace that you did find him.

 

[charrorider]

Sorry if this isn't the right place. But I think you will understand the emotional attachment. This is Moro. He is a week short of being 33 years and 8 months old. I have had him since he was 3 years and 3 days old. I don't know how may miles we have put on the trails together before I retired him. But I can tell you that I used to have an old stock trailer that was probably 6' high (?). I used to ride Moro into the trailer. He's 15 hands tall. We were both a lot younger, then.

 

[knightrider]

@redbadger , did you ever get your beach ride? I was thinking of you this week when I took my daughter and her friend to the beach for 3 days. I was so looking forward to reading about your beach ride. Did I miss it?

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I took my daughter and her friend to Princess Place for some camping and rides on the beach. My daughter's friend is graduating college and moving to Virginia. She's been riding with us for 10 years, since she was 11 years old. The day I met the family, her mom told me that her daughter lived for the one week in the summer when she got to go to horse camp with the Girl Scouts. The minute her wonderful week was over, she began dreaming of next year when she could ride horses again for a whole week. The saddest thing was that the lessons were really ho-hum, in my opinion, walking around a ring, a little trotting, no adventures of any kind, maybe a half hour trail ride at the end of the week. I said we would just have to fix that, and began having her come out to ride every Saturday for 10 years. We went on trailered-off trail rides, camping, swimming the horses, working with green horses, and had more adventures than I can count. I used to call this young person "Every Mother's Dream" because she is such a lovely person--good student, kind, generous, hard working, thoughtful, sensible

.

So, sadly, we are losing her to life, and we will miss her terribly. My daughter happened to mention that she would like to go on a beach ride, as I do twice a year, but she didn't want to tag along with a bunch of adults. So, I decided to make this beach ride happen for these two sweet young ladies.

We had such a super fun camping trip. The weather was predicted to be mild days and pleasant nights, perfect for camping. Unfortunately, although no rain was predicted, we got rain both nights. Fortunately, the rain was at night, and fortunately, the girls' tent did not leak! (It was new, yay for new tents! All our old tents leak badly). We also had much warmer and sunnier days than predicted, but we enjoyed them.

Chorro, my daughter's friend's ride of choice, had never been to the beach before, but he handled it like a trooper. We also spent one of the days exploring the fun trails at Princess Place. My rides were only an hour morning and evening, but I was happy to give the two girls a memorable experience.

Heading out for a picnic ride at Princess Place.

My turn to ride. I chose Windy, though I love Chorro best. Windy is very fun and gives me glass smooth running walk on the beach . . . and fun canters.

 

[redbadger]

@knightrider - not yet, maybe not till Spring. Winter is beautiful on the cape but windy and can get very cold. Hopefully someone wants to book one.

Also hopeful: traditionally the barn has participated in the nearest city's St Patrick's day parade, which was cancelled the last 2 years due to covid. hopefully it'll happen next year and we'll get to ride in that.

 

[weeedlady]

@knightrider thank you for sharing those beautiful pictures of your camp trip, How kind of you to make that young girl's dreams happen! Looks like your camping trip was a blast.

I'm pretty much grounded by deep crunchy snow and icy roads for right now. I need less than 4 more miles by the end of the year to hit 400. I sure hope I can squeeze that in. 400 would be a nice round number and a good goal for us.

@redbadger Hope you get your beach ride. I intend to ride to our beach again next year- It was great fun and now that I know the way it won't take us as long to get there!

 

[TrainedByMares]

So, sadly, we are losing her to life, and we will miss her terribly

You have both been enriched by the experience! Think of it as a gain! Hat's off to you for having such a big heart! Your beach horse ride pictures are inspiring, what a absolutely wonderful experience that must be.