Riding Before the Rain

Well, my plan had originally been to ride with my friend Vicki in Hartford today. But, the weather forecast was so dismal that I decided not to go and figured I just would not ride today. I got home from working at Upper Pond stable a little before 10 am. I puttered around the barn for a while, then went in and did some house work. I was sitting having a cup of coffee at 1:00 and still no rain. I decided I was going to go for it and see if I could sneak a ride in before the rain came. I wanted to check the mileage of the loop I often ride behind my house so I'd take my GPS and check. I got Luke and tacked him up quickly. I mounted up and tried to get the GPS going. And I tried to get the GPS going, and I tried again and again, while Luke is wandering slowing away from my house onto the trail munching happily on all the greenery. After much grumbling and a whole lot of button pushing, I decided I was not going to get it working so I put it away and Luke and I got down to the business of riding. I decided that since today I would not be riding a lot of miles as I did not want to get too far from the house in case it started to rain, I'd pick up the pace and make it a fast ride. Well, as fast as the trails would safely allow.

Luke was eager to go today. And he's such a good boy to ride alone. He doesn't fuss at all about leaving the farm. Even when I'm distracted with trying to get a GPS working. We kept up as steady a trot as we could and Luke quickly got into the spirit of the kind of ride I wanted to do today and gave up making a lot of effort to eat along the way. He could not resist any greenery that was right in front of his face of course but he kept up the pace and stayed on the trail without any effort on my part. I only had to push him going by the alpaca farm. We did a little bit of cantering on the way home and arrived back at the farm just as it was starting to sprinkle. Good timing. We did the loop in 1 hr. and it was such a fun ride.