Cross Country

Now, I know what you are thinking when I say xc...this was our own fandangled xc course. After working in the area all week and failing the flying changes, I decided that a good long hack was in order. Olly loves to just hack out and see new things. I made sure I grabbed my crop as we left because we were gonna jump everything we could. And we did! There are sooooo many neat things this post has that just remids me of a xc course. Now, mind you it isn't in a wonderfully manacured grass field...it is usually along side the road with grass-ish footing, but it is great practice for us. I am in the process now of compling thoughts and ideas with Tif to build a make-shift xc course somewhere on the stable grounds. I have to work fast. I just found out that my NEW friend will be leaving in September. Why me!!?? I will be back to riding alone again. Until that time comes, I will be taking advantage the riding companion.
There is alot of space on or near the stable grounds that would totally hold some good sturdy jumps.

This open field would be great. It is a bit small, but it would work.

We just have to find, and I do mean find, the materials to make them with.

I took along my Garmin today to see how far some of these trails are.

Olly has approved the Garmin...

...and the pitch fork...

...and the sugar cubes.

There are plenty of training areas that we are allowed to ride in, that is as long as no one is training. I guess, really, the only places that we are not allowed to ride are the common areas, such as the PX, Commissary and housing. WIN!
Last time we went into one of the training areas We got eaten by flys, I called them deer flys, but come to find out they are biting flys...big shocker there. They weren't so bad this time, but dang, it was rough. We just increased our slow walk to a good impulsive walk and it helped. As we peek through the trees on the other side of our "trail" I see this wall that is built over a couldron. First jump of the night sited!

It was MAYBE a 2ft drop

It took a few times with the crop to "convince" Olly to go down it, but he made it. I did have Tif video it, but some how my POS camera didn't work. I did, however, get her going up and down it. So, just act like her paint is a BigRedHorse...lol.

We cantered along the golf course and checked out a few logs that might be jump worthy...and then we came to my split rail fence. You know I had to jump that. Olly went right over. He never minded the cars or the distraction of the other horse. He is getting so confident with jumping. We continued on along Taylor Rd (or street??). They have along side of the road these huge burm looking things. It is nothing but up-down-up-down hills. Awesome for building horsey-muscles. Can't wait to do some trotting sets along there. As we were starting to round the corner to head back to the barn, a soldier walks out from a training site. He was trying to take a picture of us with out getting caught. Tif looks at me and with a creeped out whisper says "...uhhhh that guy just took a pic of us." Knowing he was caught he yells..." You guys just made my day. I ahve been out here since Monday and we are doing NOTHING! I took a picutre, is that ok?" What are we suppose to say "no? Give me your phone so I can delete it?" He ended up being a (from what I can tell in 5 minutes) a decent soldier who was just bored out of his goard. We moved on to the last leg of the trip, along side the river. There we found a few more jumps to tackle, before calling it a night. This split rail was a bit smaller, but looked way scarier. Good...the scarier the better. Again, no video of me, but I did get Tif. I promise that here soon I will get Olly and I jumping all these things.

We had almost made it home and another person stopped us. She insisted that we bring the horses over so she could pet them, which instantly irritated me...buuuuut I was nice and we walked over. She told us that her horses were lucky because she was an equine massage therapist. What? My horse isn't lucky? Please woman. Now, I know...this is someone I should have on my side, but I found her just plain irritating and she didn't seem as knowledgeable as you would want and EMT to be. Either way, she was on vay-cay and I would never have to see her again. As we turned to leave I saw another fence. This was the highest, I think...and we cleared it. I am thinking nothing was over 2'9". I will be taking my tape measure out tonight to check them all ;) I just gotta know. I didn't get a pic of these jumps, I was too busy having fun. I will try to remember to get a pic of them here soon.

Yesterday, while dinking around the barn, I decided I would take some pictures and give y'all a tour. Here they are:

Empty Stalls

More empty stalls and the walk way to the back barn

Tack Room

My two (shhhh) tack 'stalls'

One of the run-out paddocks

The 'back' barn. Olly is on the end ;)

Olly's stall

The rest of the barn...isn't it so tidy...lol

That is a Marine chopper, they fly over ALL the time.