Late Day Bradbury Ride

I wanted to ride today but had originally planned to do some other things. I contacted Amy as she and Tracy had planned to go riding at the beach. Well, their plan changed as Amy didn't think she was going to have her truck today. But, it turned out she did have her truck to use. We sent texts messages back and forth multiple times, "do you want to ride", " Well, maybe". "Where could we go?" and so it went for a while. It was also a cold day (high temp was about 38 degrees) and mostly overcast so not a very inviting day for riding. After much hemming and hawing, we finally decided we would ride. At first we discussed riding at the Kennebec Highlands but neither of us know the trails there or how the footing would be with the bit of snow we've had. We finally agreed on riding at Bradbury Mt. in Pownal and that she would pick me and Marie up at Exit 43 truck stop in Richmond. By the time we got to Bradbury and ready to ride, it was just a little after 2:00 pm. I wanted to take a loop I'd done recently with Susie and Wanda but wasn't sure I'd remember the way and get us back before dark. Amy decided to trust me so off we went. Amy's daughter Sierra was riding their new Arab mule MissFire and Sierra's friend Brooke was riding Amy's mule Annabelle. 

We headed right up to the summit first. There were a lot of people on the trails today. Many hikers a few bikers and even one man on a unicycle.The trails are pretty rough. Not overly hard for a mountain bike but I can't imagine doing them on a unicycle. When riding within the park boundaries, if your horses poop on the trail, you have to kick the poop off the trail. Marie never pooped once in the park. MissFire and Annabelle each pooped once. Amy's Washburn pooped like 8 times. Amy got a good work out with dismounting doing the poop kicking dance and mounting again. Much to my relief I did remember the loop trail I wanted to do and got us back to the trailer just in time. I'll admit I was a little naggy throughout the ride whenever we stopped for anything worried we not make it back before dark but they all forgave me as they didn't want to be riding in the dark either. We had a really fun ride and I'm glad we went.

Walking Marie across checking to see if it was slippery with the snow on the bridge. 

There wasn't much snow in the woods except for this one section along the side of a hill. 

Mare Tongues and Sand dollars

Cierra and I made plans to go riding at Popham beach today. The weather report was for temps only in the 30's  so we knew it would be a cold day but we decided to brave it and go anyway. Low tide was 11:30 (ish) AM. so we planned to leave my house by 9:30 AM. I worked last night and got home at 7:45. I went out to feed the horses as soon as I got home and Cierra arrived just as I was heading back in to the house. Her mom had brought me a mint hot chocolate from D&D sweet woman that she is. Cierra headed out to the barn and cleaned out stalls while I had a quick breakfast. It was indeed cold out and we knew we might be crazy going to the beach today but we were still determined to go. Cierra has only had Tinkerbell to the beach once and that was last year. It was a short night time moon light ride and Cierra had never asked Tinkerbell to go into the water. Cierra was excited about seeing how Tinkerbell would do today.

We loaded the girls into the trailer and headed out. Once there we were delighted to find it was definitely warmer than it had been at my house. It was a sunny day and a very comfortable temperature at the beach. Tinkerbell and Marie were very quiet and relaxed while being tacked up. I led the way down to the beach and Tinkerbell stayed relaxed. Tink only got a little excited when she saw another horse down on the beach. But, she quickly settled down again. In a very short time, we were riding in the waves. Tink was wonderful about it and very brave. She is such a good horse. We went straight out from the beach access and rode that point and played on the rocks. The went to the right of the access and rode quite a way in that direction. The sand was great today and the beach was very wide everywhere. We did some nice long trots on this side of the beach. There were a lot of sand dollars on the beach today. I don't often see them at Popham so I stopped and picked a few up. We then headed down to the fort. We did a very nice long relaxed canter along this stretch of the beach. I was so pleased with Marie's stamina and energy level. After all, she is 23 but she was feeling good today. We rode around the fort and then on the way back we did another long canter but really let the girls stretch their legs. We rode part way back out to the rocks to let the girls cool down slowly. It was a great ride.

Short Fall Ride

I spent Friday and Saturday doing work around the barn. And today I did a lot of work also. Cierra and Pam showed up just in time to help me with my biggest project of moving fence panels to enlarge Tinkerbell's paddock. We finished in time for Cierra and I to go out of a ride from the house. It was lovely today and I'm so glad we got out. We did some loops behind my house and then to finish the ride we went to the top of Ledge Hill Rd and back. We had a race to the top of the big hill. Marie took off strong but Cierra and Tink were able to edge ahead of us just coming to the top. 

Putting on a boot that was lost in the race

Our beautiful girls

Thistle, my new goat

Relaxing after the ride