The Bridge

The farrier was here this afternoon. Luke was a perfect gentlemen today while getting his new shoes. My friends Joanie and Nancy came over to ride. We decided to ride from my house. It was quite warm and humid. The black flies were out and really bugging the equines while we were grooming and tacking up. We were hoping the deer fly would not be to bad. We headed out sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. The deer fly were around but at a very tolerable level. I decided to take the trail that comes out on the South Adams Road, cross Dead River Rd and come back home by Ledge Hill Rd. On this trail is the mud hole that both my friend Susie and my farrier, Scott have badly sunk in.  There is trail around this mud spot so I was keeping my eye out for it. When we came to a questionable spot, it just didn't look quite like "the sinker" and I was unsure how I missed the go around trail. I got off Luke and walked though the spot and it wasn't bad. Hummmm, then we soon came across a pretty spot with a stream running at the bottom of a ledge.......and I suddenly realized where I was. I had taken a wrong turn and was not on the trail I planned to take. But, not a problem. We decided to continue on as the trail is very nice and goes in the general direction I wanted to go anyway. The reason I don't ride this trail anymore is it come out in someone's yard and goes down their driveway. They have a horse and are very nice people but I don't think they really care for us riding through. We didn't see anyone around when we rode through.

We crossed over Dead River and back onto the trail and out to the Huffs Mill trail-road. At this point we decided to take a left and go down the Huff's Mill trail back to Dead River. Near the end of this road there is a metal grate bridge across a stream. My horse Marie has gone over it many time. Not recently but this bridge used to be the bridge over the Dead River on Dead River Rd. at my property line. I wondered what Luke would think of this. Most equines don't like it as you can see through it and see the water running under it. Both Luke and Joanie's horse Frannie refused to cross. So, we sent Nancy over the bridge on my good old Marie. She just plunked over like, "whatever". But, that did not convince either Luke or Frannie that this was a sane thing to do. So, after a few minutes of pointless urging with no results, we had Nancy ride Marie back across to see if we could get Luke and Frannie to follow her over. Well, this did work for Frannie. She was still not impressed but she did follow Marie. Luke decided that if they were both stupid enough to walk on the bridge of death, that was their problem, he was too smart for that..... So, now both Nancy and Joanie are on one side and I have 1300 lbs of unwilling mule on the other side. I did get off him and try to lead him over but he obviously is not convinced I can make sane rational decisions concerning his well being and he was determined that at least HE was going to survive this encounter with the bridge of death. It was soon obvious that I was not going to drag him across so I told Joanie and Nancy to start riding away. So, they went up the road just a little way and stopped. This did get Luke's attention but did not concern him enough to want to step onto the bridge of death. So, I told Joanie and Nancy to ride around the corner and out of sight. Well, that did the trick, Luke stared after them for a moment like he could not believe they actually abandoned him, then he started, for the first time, to seriously consider crossing the bridge. He inched up to it and gingerly placed both front feet right on the edge. The clank of his new shoes on the metal froze him in place for a moment. When he realized that he was still alive, he started inching his back feet slowly forward. He did this until he had his back feet firmly planted right between his front feet. All four feet lined up in a row right on the edge of the bridge. With his feet in this position, he was nearly sitting down and he also had his head down as he stared through the metal grating at the stream below. At this point, I'm cracking up but at the same time praying he is not about to make a huge leap. But no, in true careful mule fashion he slowly and carefully starts to inch his front feet forward until he is finally standing in a normal position. It was at this point he decided to just do it and get it over with and he tiptoed over the bridge. He was VERY happy to see that his buddies were waiting for him just around the corner.

We then crossed Dead River Rd. again and rode up the South Adams Rd. to the trail that leads back to my house. Today we met the man who owns the land where the start of this trail is. He does have a chain across the trail but is fine with us going through with the horses. He's just trying to keep ATV's out. He was soooooo nice. We really appreciate such generosity. I don't often ride in the evening and the trail was so pretty with the way the light was coming through the trees as the sun got lower in the sky. It was a really lovely ride. Luke led the way for the entire ride other then going over the bridge. He was such a good boy. But then, he always is. We hosed Luke and Marie off before turning them out. Luke's owner, Kyle, is picking Luke up tomorrow as he is taking Luke to a Western Dressage clinic at Sable Oaks in Brunswick on Sunday. So, this evening I packed Luke's meals for his sleepover. Luke has acquired quite a fan club among my friends so we are all going to go and audit the clinic. I can't wait to see Kyle riding Luke in the clinic. Luke has such good training and Kyle is a great rider. They will be awesome! Hopefully I'll get some pictures to post.