Today Loretta and I decided to go out and pick up trash on the trails between Double M Campground and High Knob Campground. I had to go to physical therapy in the morning. I hustled back after my appointment to get ready to ride. Loretta was making me a sandwich so I just had to grab a water and snack and saddle up Lily. When I went out to the barn, she was taking a nap and I had to get her up.
I quickly got her ready. I can saddle her now on my own but still have to stand on my 3 step mounting block to get the saddle on her back as it's still a bit uncomfortable for me to lift that high with my healing shoulder. Frustrating but things could be worse. It's healing, just slower than I expected. I led Lily down to Double M Camp and met Loretta there.
Today I would find out how Lily felt about carrying a big bag of clanking, clunking cans, bottles and trash. I did work with her at home one day with this and she didn't seem to care. Lily made me proud. She did not care about carrying the bag of trash at all. Even when the bag occasionally bumped off a tree and made loud crunching sounds. She didn't care at all about it bumping on her body. She just didn't react to it one bit. Loretta and I took turn picking up the trash with her grabbing tool and we'd pass off the trash to the other rider to take off the grabber and bag. It was extremely good training for teaching Lily to maneuver right where I needed her to stand and to stand still. She caught on pretty quick and was good. I've picked up trash with her one other time, we just didn't carry a bag that day.
It was a cool but very nice day. We rode right around 15 miles of trail and got 3 full bags of trash and one half full bag. We had to stop in at High Knob Camp to unload our trash before starting our trip back to Double M Camp. We had lunch at No Name tie up.
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