The last couple weeks have been so fun. We had a group of older men here, who were later joined by their wives, and they were a blast! They always wanted to ride, so you can imagine I was super busy tacking up horses constantly. These guys were hardcore, like go on a 4 hour ride hardcore! I gotta say, I'm used to riding for 7 hours a day, but that includes hopping on and off of different horses all day, not sitting my ass in a saddle for the entire time.
For part of their visit, the guys went on a pack trip up on the North Fork Road. They rode all day, fished, and camped. More than once, they asked me to go with, but of course, I'm not much of a camper, let alone a go without a shower for more than a day kinda girl. While they were gone, I took care of our horses, and took a couple of the guys who stayed behind on rides. These were my first solo rides without JW, and it was a little tough! I'm so used to riding drag that I almost thought I got us lost multiple times. It's pretty hard to get lost here, and when in doubt, I just let my horse pick the trail!
I've been working with Corona and Blue a lot lately. They are the two younger ones that I'm responsible for. Corona was having some attitude issues about backing up and just moving his feet I'm general. So with JW's help, I finally got him backing better and doing some awesome roll backs. He still is having some attitude issues, but over all, I'm really pleased with him. Blue is still pretty lazy, but she's flexing better and getting a little more responsive to the bit. I'm learning a lot about working with younger horses after the breaking out process, and I think it's going to help my training at home. JW keeps encouraging me to just go at training when I get home rather than going back to doing something that makes me unhappy such as going back to Islands (I hear its a shit show right now so no chance of going back there!)
Yesterday the big group left and now we have almost 2 weeks of a little peace and quiet. For me, that means tuning up all the dude horses so they are well behaved for the next group of riders. We also have a lot of new staff coming in this week because of the fire nearby. They're being hired to clear all the dry brush around. Really, there's not much danger of the fire spreading this way because of the rain we've been getting, which I'm in love with, but the owner wants it done. There probably won't be much quiet around here, but at least I'll have some one on one time with the horses.
I did something yesterday that I never thought I would be able to do... Drove the huge gooseneck stock trailer to town! It was pretty easy and I've got to say that I'm so proud of myself for doing it. We took Hewey to the vet for his possible tooth problem, and it turns out he just needed a good float, and that his canines are coming in. Hopefully now, we can get him to stop tossing his head so much. He's one that I need to ride a lot this week so I can get him behaving better for the guests.
I have a little over a month left here, and I'm not sure that I'll be ready to come home. I've completely fallen in love with living here. All I would need is my family and horses here to really be happy.
I'd love to know who is reading this! So if you could leave some comments I would love to read them!
My trailer adventure!
Pictures from a solo ride I did up on top of the mountain. This was after it rained the night before so the sky is so clear and blue.
Pictures from outside the lodge.
Running the horses in
Sounds like you really like it there. Maybe you can go again sometime. I love hearing about your adventures. The pictures are awesome.
ReplyDeleteMandy