Today both Barbara and I had things to do so we decided to ride right from my house instead of trailering out. Fred, Madison and I went down first thing in the morning to see my dad. He looked so much better today. He was awake when we arrived and looked rested and like himself. It was such a relief to see him feeling better. He will be in the hospital a few more days.
Barbara and I headed out just after 11:00 am. I decided to try riding to the Litchfield Fairgrounds. The trail had been blocked quite a few years ago but I'd noticed this winter the snowmobiles had been going through so figured the trail had been cleared. We headed out and after a while, I realized I had taken a wrong trail. It was ok though, we were going in the right direction. We would just have to ride a little bit on tar road to get the trail I was looking for. Louie was in the lead today and was going very nicely. We easily found the trail to the fairgrounds. The start of it was lovely. But, we came to a snowmobile bridge that was not safe for a horse to cross. It was over a swampy area and we could not go down around the bridge. Off a little side trail was a second older bridge. I dismounted and walked down to look this bridge over. I was leaning slightly to the left but was wide, had good support under it and very thick slab planks as decking. It was solid. But, the approach onto the bridge was not good and the spacing between some of the planks was too far apart to be safe. DARN!!!! There was not way to get around on the left side of the bridge but the right side looked possible. the stream was narrow enough here for me to easily hop over. It was muddy looking on both sides but was holding me up fine. I know they equines wouldn't like it but thought they could cross. I tied up Louie and had Barbara lead Marie to the stream. I was on the other side and had her hand me Marie's reins. I encouraged Marie from the front and Barbara encouraged from behind. Marie did NOT like the look of it but after a few minutes, she made the leap. And I was quickly wishing she hadn't. When she hit the far side the mud did not hold up 1000 lbs of leaping horse and she sunk in pretty far with her back legs. She kept moving though and managed to scramble out but it was scary for a moment. Once out I looked her over and she seemed to be fine.
Now we had one equine on each side and I did not want to ask Marie to cross back over. I was pretty sure I'd have a very had time trying to get Louie to cross and didn't really want to anyway. What to do....... I started looking around and noticed there were some solid planks laying around I gathered them up and laid they over the gaps in the planks on the bridge. When that looked pretty good, there was just the problem of the approach onto the bridge. This was made up of boards that were spaced far to wide for mule feet and I could not do anything about it. So, I decided to see if I could lead Louie up along the side of the bridge and get him to jump up on over the side. It was not too high to be unsafe at about 2 feet if he was willing. So, I untied him, led him up along the side, hopped up myself. He hopped up behind me without a second thought and walking nice and easy across the bridge! GOOD MULE!
The rest of the trail was fine. A few muddy spots but nothing that was too bad. I took a few wrong turns but always got back to the right trail. Thankfully Barbara is such a good sport and is always up for an adventure. It was sprinkling very lightly on an off while we rode but that was all it did. We did not want to go back home the same way as we did not want to cross the bridge again. So, we rode home by way of the Black Crow Bakery and then back onto the trails from Rt. 197. Louie was wonderful today but when Marie passed me one time at the trot, I had a brief repeat of yesterday's lack of whoa. Apparently he is getting a little competitive with the faster speeds I've been riding and he want's to stay in the lead. I'll have to work on this and nip it in the bud. I love that Louie is turning out to be forward and eager to go but it's got to stay under control. We had a great ride.
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