Go the Distance

So yesterday I was thinking about where I can get in some good long distance trail riding. We have a few places around here, but now that deer season is starting I am not so sure that I want to be riding around on an animal that could be mistaken for dinner to a hunter. I remembered that down the road from me, maybe a mile or so, there was a Boy Scouts "farm" or what ever you want to call it. I knew there would be no hunting there because of the kids. Now if I could only get permission. It looked like there was no one there.

I go to get Olly saddled and I notice that his fetlocks were a bit swollen. Freaked I tried to call Stacy, my first go to. I thought about texting a picture but I shortly remembered iphones don't get picture texts. You really need to look into another phone Stacy! Anyway, it looked like it was just from stocking up. It didn't really feel like tissue swelling it felt like a fluid edema. I called Terri, my instructor, to run my idea past her. She agreed and told me to ride him for 10 minues and re-evaluate.

Before

A bit nervous I climbed on and started towards the Boy Scouts of America. Whatta ya know, 10 minutes is exactly how long it took me to get down there, at a walk of course. I rechecked the fet's and sure enough the swelling was gone. Whew!! Legs and feet make me so nervous. You never know what is going to happen. It could be something as huge as a cross country course or as little as a twist in the paddock.

After

After getting back on and feeling more at ease with the fetlock thing, we are walking down a paved drive and we come to a pond. I really wasn't paying attention to the pond because I was looking at this HUGE open field that would be great for galloping sets. All of a sudden Olly excutes a not too shabby roll-back and takes off running at a high rate of speed. At the other end of the pond I hear a goose honking. I make him turn around and face his fears, after all is a goose really classified as a fear? He sticks it out and moves on.

See the culprit?

We move on down the road and in the distance there is a generator. Good someone to talk to about riding on the land. I walk up and he shuts the generator off and says "What are you doing here?" Ok, strike one, so I ask am I allowed to have animals here. He says "Yeah, that's not the problem, who are you?" After talking and being a polite as I could be, he agreed to let me ride any of the land as long as it was after 1700, no weekends and if I didn't "tear up the place." WTF???? Seriously? What can a horse and I possible "tear up?" Anyway I promised to behave and told him I would let him know when I was accessing the land so he would think I was half way responsible. He also told me a route that I can take from behind my house all they way to there so I didn't have to walk the road. Super! A well maintained path for the riding? Awesome.


We make our way around the paths to another open field. It was gorgeous. All I could think of is galloping away with my GPS. Olly must have been thinking the same thing minus the GPS, he was pulling my arms off. We CANTER a bit, which might have been a bad idea, since he didn't want to stop...


...but he did. And I don't mean like a gradual trot to a walk. I mean a freaking halt! Why? Maybe because two deer jumped out and he almost shit himself. See that is one problem with Hawaii. No wildlife, my horse has never seen a deer, racoon, possom or squirril to name just a few. He stood so still it would have seemed he wasn't even breathing. He was actually trying to figure out what they were. I could feel his heartbeat through my chaps. After what seemed like minutes, he started in their direction (the deer stopped and were looking at this huge animal too). He wanted to run, I think he was really curious and not afraid. Either way, not doing a roll-back and running WAS an improvement.


After relaxing from the deer I looked up and realized that the sun was setting and I had better get home. I only had about 20 minutes of daylight left and it was at least a 15 minute ride.


It is truely pretty out here in Va and I hope to see more of it. Olly and I are progressing exponetially which would have never happened in Hawaii, I am sad to say. I really do miss it there (the people and the land) but Olly and I are better here in horsey-land.