Around the Block

Today Cierra and I just rode from the house. That meant riding along the sides of the paved roads as there is still too much snow in the woods to go out on the trails. Marie is shedding like crazy now. We didn't originally plan a very long ride so Cierra just jumped on Tinkerbell bareback. But, as we headed down Dead River Rd. I mentioned that if we went "around the block" it would be around 7 miles. It's along some busy road but all of it has good dirt shoulder to ride on. Cierra said she wanted to do it, even though she was riding bareback. So, we decided to do it. We rode out to the end of Dead River Rd. and turned right up the Litchfield Rd. We did a little bit of trotting along here with the good shoulder but I took pity on Cierra as she was riding bareback. It started to snow before we came to the overpass. There wasn't a lot of traffic but we did have a few large vehicles pass us. A logging truck and a car trailer. But, our wonderful mares are not at all bothered by this stuff. We crossed the highway overpass with no problems. Neither horse minds crossing the overpass at all. When we got to Rt. 197, we turned right and rode the short distance to the middle school and cut through there out to the Academy Rd. and went over the interstate again on another overpass.  Somewhere around the Alpaca farm, Cierra got off to walk a bit and stretch her legs. When I saw a good snowbank I could use for mounting, I asked Cierra if we could trade horses so I could ride Tinkerbell for a little bit and she agreed. Near the end of the Academy Rd. we had a large dog come out at us barking like crazy. I debated jumping off as I know if Tinkerbell did anything with me riding bareback, I'd likely come off. I asked her to stop and she did and I did not feel her tense up at all over the dog so I just sat quiet. The dog did come right up behind Tinkerbell and close enough to sniff her back legs but she stood quiet and relaxed. The dogs owner came out and got the dog immediately and was very apologetic. Again, our wonderful girls took good care of us. At the end of the road, Cierra and I switched back to our own horses and rode the rest of the way home. Even though the whole ride was along the paved roads, it was nice to get out for a decent ride. Not super long but longer than we've done in a while at a little over 8 miles.