We have been having absolutely glorious riding weather! Today my friend Joanie picked me up at 9:15 am and we headed over to Winthrop to ride the Mt. Pisgah trail. My hourse Marie left this morning on an overnight trip to Mt. Blue with Linda and her cousin Nancy so Luke was feeling sorry for himself being left behind as was VERY happy to see his halter this morning. (And Marie just got back yesterday from an overnight trip with Susie and David to NH! She's one busy girl this year) We parked at the fire station as usual. It didn't take long to get tacked up and headed down the road. I've purchased a new girth for Luke. The first one I bought rubbed a little bit of hair off on my last longer ride. No sore, just some rubbed off hair. I've used it all season with no trouble so I'm not sure why it rubbed the last ride. But, I don't want to take a chances with Luke's first CTR coming up so I purchased a new girth that I think will lay better on him. Today would be a good test.
Early in the ride we follow an old woods road out to a dirt road. The end of the woods road runs along side of a pasture where there are some cows. Well, when we got there today, the electric fence had been moved over right across the old road! ACK! There was one cow out in the pasture watching us with great interest when we came up the trail. The brush is pretty heavy along the side of the old road and there is a stone wall along it so I wasn't sure if we could get through. I got off to walk it first to make sure it would be safe and promptly found myself in a mess of burdock! And I must say they stick very well to riding tights. Joanie stayed mounted and was holding Luke. I walked up through, trampling down the burdock as best I could and decided we could get through. Just as I was coming back, still trying to trample down the burdock and busily pulling them off my tights, the cow, which turned out to not be a "cow" but rather a bull, suddenly decided to trot on up to the fence to check us out. He looked to have friendly intent.... actually, he was looking at Frannie like he thought she was kind of cute and was mooing at her. Well, Frannie was NOT impressed and started to dance and spin. Luke stood but his reins started to get wrapped around him and around Joanie and around Frannie. Joanie tried hard to keep her and both equines sorted out but had to drop Luke's reins to keep from truly getting dangerously wrapped up in them. To give Luke credit, he was not overly worried about the cow, and only slightly concerned about why Frannie was upset, but then when he saw me rush forward.... well, he figured if I was going to run, there really must be something dangerous and he turned with "that" look in his eyes. So, I immediately stopped and just started walking quietly like nothing at all was wrong, though every fiber in my body wanted to jump at him to snatch the reins. When I slowed down, Luke stood his ground and let me catch him. GOOD MULE! Joanie dismounted and we led Frannie and Luke through to the road. There were two more bulls on the other side of the road tied to a tree close to the road. Frannie didn't like the looks of them either. Luke didn't really care. We led them past the bulls, did a check to get all the burrs off our tack, mule, horse and riding tights! We then mounted up and went on our way.
The rest of the ride went without incident. We kept an eye out for the Renegade boots that Joanie lost on our ride here a few months ago but didn't find either of them. Frannie was full of energy today and led for most of the ride. We rode up Mt. Pisgah to the fire tower road and down that to the paved road and rode the paved road back to the trailer. Both Frannie and Luke were perfect and we had a great ride!
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