Riding in My Sleep

Well, I had planned to ride yesterday with Leesa, Linda and Lori. Leesa was going to pick me up as my trailer is still in the repair shop. But, when I got home from work Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning (as I get out of work at midnight) I quickly cleaned the barn, went in and had a quick bite to eat and then went to bed. HA! Sleep was NOT happening. I tossed and turned, then got up around 2:30 am and decided to go out and watch the Perseids meteor shower. It was a clean night so might as well get something out of my sleeplessness. I went out onto the back with the dogs. I didn't have to wait long to see some action. I saw 3 or 4 and then finally got a bit creeped out being outside in the dark alone. Especially since my dog Bubba kept rushing to the edge of the woods barking like a fool. Possibly he saved me from being abducted by a Bigfoot.....I'm guessing not...we'll never know. I went in and went back to bed. I tossed and turned, tossed and turned. I gave up again around 4:00 am and went back out on the back deck as Perseids was supposed to be most active towards dawn and that was true. Fred got home around 5:30 am and I had breakfast with him. NOW I was getting tired! UGH. I had to work in the afternoon so I ended up sending a message to Leesa that I would not be able to ride. I went to bed around 7:30 am and was finally tired enough to sleep. That evening, Leesa sent me a message that she would come ride with me on Friday if I wanted. So, we firmed up plans for a ride this morning.

I ended up getting out of work early at 9:30 pm. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up a few groceries and picked up a bottle of wine, as a sleep aid. I WAS going to sleep one way or another. I took care of the animals, had a quick supper, a glass wine and......... I was wide awake. I had another glass of wine...... I was even more wide awake. I went to bed and tossed and turned. I got up, turned on some music to help turn off my brain, hopefully. I tossed and turned. No sleep was happening. AAAAARRRGGGHHH. I gave up, got up and went to work on some braiding projects and at least got some work done. Again, around 7:30 I was suddenly tired. Great. So, I did get a one hour power nap before having to get up and get ready to ride. I didn't care, I was not going to miss another ride.

Leesa arrived a little early. I was cleaning the barn so got Lily and tacked her up. She was a bit fidgety but not bad. I changed her bit today to one that has short shanks. She is too sensitive for a long shank bit. I like that she is soft and I don't want to ruin that. As usual, I took a few circles around the mounting block before she stood for me to mount. I am going to have to take some time to work on this when I am not heading out for a ride. I started out in the lead but not far down the trail, Lily stopped and gave me some attitude about going down the trail. Nothing serious, just stopped and would not move forward and was giving me some head shaking and pinning her ears. I finally popped her a good one with my romel reins. Lily bucked up once but moved off down the trail. Leesa took the lead on Billy Bob. Lily tested me for a while by just not paying attention, trying to wander back and forth along the trail to eat leaves and such. I had to get after her a few times. Then worried her tack was bothering her. But, after a while, she came to the conclusion we were not going home and she settled out and was a very good girl. So good I decided that tack was not an issue, but rather just new to riding testing of limits. We did the alpaca farm loop. That loop has a lot of good footing so we were able to do some nice trotting. The deer fly were bad when we first started out but then thinned out for most of the ride so it was a really nice ride. I didn't take my phone and forgot my camera was in my pommel bag so didn't get a single picture. Leesa's Billy Bob was wonderful and led most of the ride. He handled the steep stream crossing like a pro. The loop is right around 6 miles.