Mule Eating Snow Fence

We had a lovely day today for riding. My friend Tracy came over with her lovely mule, Ellie Mae. I picked up Cierra and she rode Marie. We rode from my house as my truck was other wise occupied by my husband who was picking up a dune buggy. Cierra and I had Buckshot and Marie tied to my trailer when Tracy arrived. Ellie Mae gave out a good bray and Buckshot was instantly entranced! I don't know what she said but Buckshot knew there was a long eared babe on the property and he danced around and pawed for a few minutes. He then settled down like a good boy though. 

I wanted to make a long loop and one of the best ones starts out with a bit or riding on the road. We headed out down Dead River Rd. for .7 mile. Buckshot was in power walk mode and quickly put some distance between us and the others. Ellie Mae and Marie were agreed on not using any more energy than necessary. We then took a left onto Starbird Corner Rd. The first part of this is dirt and we trotted along on some of this. The road then turns to tar for the next mile. Then we turned left onto a multi-use trail. This trail comes out in the West's field on the Lewis Hill Rd. We crossed Lewis Hill and continued on multi use trail by the pipe line. At the start of this trail, there was some bright orange snow fencing across it. It was laying down on the ground and there was a gap in it just wide enough so the horse and mules would walk through without actually stepping on it. I was in the lead and Buckshot did not like the look of this fencing and went on high alert. I urged him forward and he arched his neck and started creeping forward snorting the whole time. He had just gotten up to the fence and nearly had his nose on it when he stepped on a stick with a back foot and it broke with a LOUD snap! Buckshot nearly had a heart attack! The timing could not have been better. He did a little dance in place and then did a quickly backed up blowing like a freight train! It was the funniest thing. And one of the things I'm coming to love about this big spotted boy is that even when scared, he doesn't blow up and do dangerous things. And I was able to get him to go by the fencing in the lead. 

I took that trail from there that goes to one of my favorite spots that we cross the East Cathance Stream. We stopped there to take some pictures. I came home by the standard Tarr's Mill trail. We did a short canter on the trail where they have been cutting lumber. I got after Buckshot because he was hopping up in back and I thought he was trying to buck. Poor boy was falsely accused, one of his easyboots had come off his hoof and was flopping around his pastern and he was just trying not to trip over it. At the last hill on the trail, I told Cierra to gallop Marie up it ahead of us. Buckshot can be a little herd bound about Marie and I want to work on getting him to deal with her getting ahead of us. He did NOT like Marie galloping off AT ALL. But, he handled it well enough. His head came up and he did some prancing. He didn't pull on me though and I was able to hold him. We all got home safe, sound and with big smiles on our faces.