Sunday, May 30, 2010

Graduation Day Ride

Warning: Media heavy post (videos and slideshow)

Last week, Mom graduated with her Associate degree - most of you know that.  Probably what you didn't know, is that rather than spending the day getting all gussied up for the ceremony, we did what any good horse lover does - we went riding!

Now, normally, I'm a picture-taking freak, but for some reason, I took very few pictures of this ride.  Wait - I remember why - because Estee and I were riding point.  We have good reason to believe that a moose has moved into the area.  Why do we think so?  Because the "elk" dropping are about ten times their normal size.  And they are everywhere.  Estee is a good girl who trusts her rider.  Ida saw to that and never abused the privilege (not to say that Mom and Bill have abused the privilege, but Mustangs tend to be a little bit more self-reliant), so when Jesse and Ranger weren't too thrilled about taking point, we did.  I'm thinking that probably none of the horses have ever seen a moose up close and there will be one hell of a rodeo when they do see one, but I'm excited.  I've never seen a real-live moose.

So when we went along the trench trail, I was extra vigilant and not taking pictures.  Riding up above the trench trail (which has also been taken off of the dude trail map due to erosion) is a tricky thing, as it's a very steep slope that we walk along.  I should have taken pictures, but I didn't, I was busy being on the look-out for the moose.

With all of the late season snow and run-off, I wanted to go up to the pond and see if we could hear the frogs sing.  The frogs only sing for a couple of weeks out of the wettest seasons, so it's a real treat to hear.  If you turn up the volume really loud, you'll be able to hear the frogs going to town with their singing.  I just love it; it's such a soothing sound to me.






Sorry, the sound quality's lousy, but I was using my point-and-shoot camera rather than my Flip.

Feeling almost as contented as the ride the day before, we headed back, this time with Bill in the lead.  Unless we wanted to backtrack and ride alongside the trench trail again, we had to head home over Pinky's Wash.  I call it Pinky's Wash because way, way, way back when I was a wrangler wanna-be, one of the wranglers named Pinky took me out for a wrangler ride.  It was fabulous; we rode hard and carelessly and made it out alive.  During one portion of the ride, we went down what I would consider a "wash", not a trail.  Pinky assured me it was a trail.  There are some pictures of it in the slideshow, only we're going up the wash, not down it.  I've been down it a couple of times and it never ceases to pucker me right up.  Up is okay; down is not.

As usual, I'm having issues with Blogger's picture function, so here's yet another slideshow for your viewing pleasure.



It's almost June!  Don't forget about the High Country Rendezvous!
Click on the tab at the top of my page for information - we're going to have a blast!

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