Set the alarm so that we could get out at a decent hour (these short days require it!) though several things delayed us and it was 12:30 by the time we hit the trail. Clio's back foot seems to be fine, but we wrapped it up just in case. We headed out the #3 trail east, with boots on, thank goodness, because it soon became clear that the trail was mostly rocks, roots and muddy ruts. The terrain was nice, and the grades moderate, the forest mostly evergreens with some deciduous trees. Usually in a pine forest there are roots, but their inconvenience is generally offset by a nice pine-needle covered dirt trail, but here that is not the case. Rocks, rocks everywhere, though not quite as dense on the trail as the one we took last week in Robbers Cave. On the good side, the trails were well marked, using painted blazes, good signage, even the occasional "You are Here" placard on important intersections, so fortunately it's difficult to get lost. Of course, we always strive to achieve the difficult, and we did, in fact, miss a turn, but the cross country climb was almost a trail, certainly one that had been traveled by many horses previously, and had a lot less rocks on it, so it was actually easier than the trail itself. It wasn't long before we ran back into the right trail (my GPS kept us going in the right direction), and we arrived back at camp by 3:00. Apollo was his usual brilliant self, though I could tell he was getting frustrated with the footing after awhile, and Clio's leg was none the worse for the wear, fortunately, no damage done. Shortly after getting back, we disconnected the horse trailer from the van and I ran back into Heavener to pick up some groceries, as well as oats and wormer for the horses. Clio still doesn't seem to be putting on as much weight as we'd like, we can only think it's because the last wormer didn't do the job completely, so I got the strong stuff, and we gave that to the horses when I got back. Oddly, we found a bunch of ticks on her (and a few on Apollo), which I've never seen before. Usually ticks don't seem to bother the horses, but she had quite a few on her, though they looked like they were in the later stages of their life cycle. We took them all off and smashed them with a rock, so that was that. Settled down for the evening after putting their winter blankets on, though tonight we didn't put them in the trailer like we had the last two nights, because it was only supposed to be getting down to the low 40's, a good 20 degrees above the last two nights. Warming up for the weekened, all the way into the upper 70's!
Set the alarm so that we could get out at a decent hour (these short days require it!) though several things delayed us and it was 12:30 by the time we hit the trail. Clio's back foot seems to be fine, but we wrapped it up just in case. We headed out the #3 trail east, with boots on, thank goodness, because it soon became clear that the trail was mostly rocks, roots and muddy ruts. The terrain was nice, and the grades moderate, the forest mostly evergreens with some deciduous trees. Usually in a pine forest there are roots, but their inconvenience is generally offset by a nice pine-needle covered dirt trail, but here that is not the case. Rocks, rocks everywhere, though not quite as dense on the trail as the one we took last week in Robbers Cave. On the good side, the trails were well marked, using painted blazes, good signage, even the occasional "You are Here" placard on important intersections, so fortunately it's difficult to get lost. Of course, we always strive to achieve the difficult, and we did, in fact, miss a turn, but the cross country climb was almost a trail, certainly one that had been traveled by many horses previously, and had a lot less rocks on it, so it was actually easier than the trail itself. It wasn't long before we ran back into the right trail (my GPS kept us going in the right direction), and we arrived back at camp by 3:00. Apollo was his usual brilliant self, though I could tell he was getting frustrated with the footing after awhile, and Clio's leg was none the worse for the wear, fortunately, no damage done. Shortly after getting back, we disconnected the horse trailer from the van and I ran back into Heavener to pick up some groceries, as well as oats and wormer for the horses. Clio still doesn't seem to be putting on as much weight as we'd like, we can only think it's because the last wormer didn't do the job completely, so I got the strong stuff, and we gave that to the horses when I got back. Oddly, we found a bunch of ticks on her (and a few on Apollo), which I've never seen before. Usually ticks don't seem to bother the horses, but she had quite a few on her, though they looked like they were in the later stages of their life cycle. We took them all off and smashed them with a rock, so that was that. Settled down for the evening after putting their winter blankets on, though tonight we didn't put them in the trailer like we had the last two nights, because it was only supposed to be getting down to the low 40's, a good 20 degrees above the last two nights. Warming up for the weekened, all the way into the upper 70's!
No comments:
Post a Comment