Second Weekend in June

Another quick week while going into our long-awaited vacation! Thursday I made it to the grocer, it rained while I was there. No rain at home. We need the rain; it rains in town but not at our place.

Not as hot, either, the Moon is waxing.

I started doing laundry on Thursday night, trying to catch up on Friday, too. I went into town to buy cheese and soy yogurt (yum!) and stopped by Merhle’s place. I wanted to see where Lil Fred and Sprite were going to stay. He’s changed things around at his farm and I wanted to make sure their area would be fairly grass-free. They also will stay in the same stall but his stalls are larger than ours. They are pretty bonded now, but by the time we get back from our vacation they will be like Siamese twins!

Tom continues to work with Lil Fred and Sprite with the jumping routine. He’s added another set of jumps. This is helping Lil Fred with his form. His take offs and re-entry are much better than the frog-hop he’s been doing. Sprite always plows through the first set but clears the second. More work to do, but both are enjoying having a job.

Saturday morning we had an appointment in town to get new tires on the truck. The truck is now 7 ½ years old but has only 30,000 miles on it. Plenty of tread left but starting to dry-rot around the rims and flake off on the side walls. Not good for trailering my precious babies! It’s not the miles it’s the time spent. We then stopped by another grocery on the way back. You’d think we were starving, right?

We ate a quick lunch and loaded the boys up for a ride at another close-by park: Little Bennett. We parked in the closest trailer parking lot. Immediately we are visited by a hound dog, very friendly. She barks at our boys who are not impressed. I couldn’t tell which farm she came from; she was definitely not a stray. We heard a woman calling her, and I answered that she was ‘over here.’ I heard a car start up and thought she would come over to get her dog, she did not. She left! Eventually ‘Honey’ went home on her own.

We had a nice ride in the park, finding the new trail that was recently put in by mostly volunteers, but it is not done and ended abruptly. A hiker was on the dirt road, with a big camera/tripod assembly. He heard us talking, looking up into the woods but I don’t think he saw us. Amazing that horses can easily blend into the scenery and be overlooked. We’ve snuck up on people, too. My guys do that to me in the field. How can they be so quiet when they weigh, like, 1,000 lbs.?

We waited until he had gone around a bend some distance from us before we emerged onto the roadway. We took a partially mowed cutoff that led towards the river to water the boys, which they heartily partook, and stood chilling in the water. We didn’t even disturb the crayfish!

We meandered around the marked trails and eventually made it back to the trailer. A lovely time spent in the saddle on a beautiful June day.

We unload the boys and head out to the other town, the town that has all our tractor and equine supplies. We also purchase Electrolytes. We have some, somewhere in this place, but can’t find it and the boys need to get on the regimen before we have another episode like Memorial weekend. Let’s not repeat that, right? We choose the apple flavor variety and KC likes it, Skip, not so much. Usual outcome.

It rained, briefly, not even settling down the dust. We need more water, not theatrics like lightning and thunder and wind.

Saturday night I pulled all the ‘proof of purchase’ stickers off of the feed bags. These can be redeemed for cash, which we’ll donate to the local equine rescue group at the other end of our road. They do God’s work and have their hands full with the aftermath of other’s misfortune and the economic downturn.

I ended up with forty-two empty bags, and several hay-stretcher bags that have no stickers. He proposes that we have a small fire, shouldn’t take long. I grab the lighter and the charcoal lighter-fluid and head out to the burn pit. I also get the cardboard debris from the wash stall, plus the four boxes that the box fans came in.

Surprisingly it was not as quick as previously stated. And this fire was a hot one, with bright multi-colored flames, depending on the graphics on the bags. Allegedly printed with Soy milk, the flames were psychedelic.

While I was tending the fire, an Owl was in the tree next to the bins, hooting. Another was answering from the tree line that goes down the hill. Tom had heard it earlier this month and didn’t know what it was, screeching loudly at him during the day. Now I know. The smoke didn’t seem to bother it.

It took some time to burn all the bags and the lightning still flashing to the East. The Moon was up and the night was soft, I could hear the horses munching the flake of hay I had put out for them. The lightning bugs were flashing, too.

After the fire had burned down I visited with the big boys in their shed, watching the Moon rise, listening to them munch. Skip shares it routinely now. In the past there was only room for him but things are changing around here. He’s getting pretty mellow. Time has a way of getting away from me out there, I didn’t get back into the house until after 11:00 p.m!

I was up early anyway, feeding my little herd and the dog and cat, too. When I got back into the house he’d already had a shower and proposes we ride at the League – mostly shady if you plan your route properly with lots of watering opportunities.

We had a great ride, the boys were pooped but not over-heated. We did trail maintenance for several miles. I don’t know how riders were getting through some of these obstacles, are we the only people with clippers? KC was so tired, he just let the branches and leaves hit him on the neck and face. He was happy just to stand in the shade. Glad they had some Electrolytes in them!

Started raining, (lightning, thunder, the works), shortly after we got home. More rain than yesterday, we really need it, didn’t last long enough. When that cleared out we took everything out of the tack room in the big trailer, cleaned the saddles, Tom washed his saddle pad and both of our Weaver® mohair girths (love them!) I inventoried all the items and began accumulating items we’ll need to take and need to leave at home.

After dinner Tom mowed more, always mowing, but he lost his glasses when he ran into some branches (like on the trail!) and his glasses were completely destroyed by the mowing deck – like in a Cusinart – pureed eyewear!

Another beautiful June weekend is over, in a blink, and the count-down for our camping trip begins in earnest.