Beach Ride and Luke Falls in Love

For once, the weather forecasters were right, today was a LOVELY day! It was going to be a perfect beach day! Low tide was 3:00 pm. Barbara was going to meet me at Popham Beach and would ride my mare, Marie. Another friend, Mary Ann, was also meeting us there with her lovely mare, Suri. I worked at Upper Pond Stable this morning, then went home and had time to make lunch and relax for a while. At 1:45 pm. I headed outside, hooked up the trailer, then loaded Marie onto the trailer. I went back to get Luke. He had come up to the upper gate by Fred's work shop. I headed over to get him but as he was not able to see Marie from that gate, had turned around and headed back towards the barn. I called him and he turned back around and came to me. It was just at this moment that I got a phone call. I was holding Luke halter and he kept trying to stick his head in it. If Marie was going somewhere, he wanted to be with her.

I got off the phone and put Luke's halter on him much to his relief, loaded him up and was on my way. Barbara pulled into the parking lot right behind me. Mary Ann was already there. It was and absolutely lovely day. Warm and sunny with no wind at all. It didn't take us long to get ready and we were soon on the beach. We rode just a little way out towards the rocks then headed left towards the fort. The ocean was on our right and a long deep tidal pool was on our left. The ocean and the tidal pool came together a ways down the beach. It looked like we could cross this back to bare sand if we stayed right were the waves were breaking. Luke had been in the lead but when he realized we were surrounded by water, he dropped back and let trusty ole' Marie lead the way. Barbara was able to keep Marie in the waves where it was most shallow. Luke and Suri were a bit more worried and were trying to move away from the waves. At first that was fine as the tidal pool wasn't too deep. As it got deeper though, we pushed Luke and Suri into the waves and they did go. We got to a point where the waves were rougher. Marie headed in but Suri sidestepped into the tidal pool which dropped right off into deeper water. She only got in about belly deep so not a big deal but it was at this point we could no longer see the sand through the serf so were not sure how deep it was even there so we decided to turn around and go back  and circle the tidal pool to the main beach. Suri, Luke and Marie were all very good about the whole thing.

 There is a spot along the main beach that is not very wide and there are a few homes quite close to the water. They have had a big problem with beach erosion the past few years and they are trying to save the homes by stabilizing the bank with large rocks. They were working on this today and there was a huge excavator on the top of the bank moving the boulders around and dropping the boulders down the bank. We had to ride quite close to this. I didn't think it would bother Marie and I was right. I didn't know what Luke would think of it. He didn't  even bat an eye at it. He was more concerned about not getting to close to the waves. He decided he'd rather risk a boulder on his head than the mule eating moving water. Suri was a little worried about the excavator and work going on but tucked up to Luke and Marie and was a good girl and we were able to ride through with no problems.

We circled the tidal pool and rode down to the point doing a nice trot along this stretch of beach. Then went around the point and rode to the fort. Down by the Fort there was a family there with some kids and an exchange student from the Czech Republic. They made a big fuss over the horses and Luke and took lots of pictures.

We then rode back towards the parking lot doing another nice long trot and I got in a lovely cantering stretch with Luke. He was doing his lovely slow lope. As we approached the beach access, we saw another rider there. As we got closer, Barbara and I realized it was a woman we'd met that last time we were at the beach. She was just walking with her husband that time. This time she'd brought her horse. Her husband was with her on foot as well as another friend who was taking pictures. The woman taking picture turned out to be someone that lived near Barbara. Luke fell instantly in love with the riders mare. It was a lovely, pure black Morgan. He wanted to check her out BAD. I didn't let him approach the mare as she was a little bit nervous. We parted ways and rode out to the rocks. We didn't climb on the rocks but did get Barbara to lead us out into the waves again and rode around some big rocks. Luke was not happy about going into the waves but he was so much better than he's previously been. He didn't lock up his jaw and stayed nice and soft and went without too much fuss. When we walked out of the waves though, he power walked away and was very tense. I think he just wanted to put some distance between him and the waves. He'd used up his full dose of mule courage for the day. Silly boy. We rode quite a way down the beach to the right of the parking area and got in another nice trot, then played around doing some circles and figure 8's. Suri stumbled and when down on her knees when we were trotting. Mary Ann was tossed up onto Suri's neck but impressed us with her good riding and she and Suri managed to save it. As we were riding towards the beach access path, Luke could see the other rider on her mare and he was on full alert and walking about 100 mph! He behaved and never broke out of the walk but he was so excited over this mare. And when we came up to them, he wanted to follow her, perfectly willing to leave Marie! It was the funniest thing. Love at first sight for sure! Good thing Marie is not a jealous woman!

We just had the most wonderful ride! No one brought a camera so all I had was my sorry old phone to record the moment.