Borrowing Ponies

 Max may have been out for two weeks with an abscess, but we have crammed in some serious adventures this month anyway. Max is back in full swing now so I am once again behind on blogging. It's a good problem to have. 

Meanwhile, Hannah let me borrow all her ponies. 

We had a big ride at Ringwood two weekends ago which will have its own post. 

Plus we've been driving Usidore. Hannah was cart shopping which led to a non-horsey adventure on a random Tuesday. We found a killer deal on another cart which we hope to test drive this afternoon. 

All of this is to say that things have been super busy around here! I'm going to save some time and space by dumping some of the shorter rides into one post.

Nothing to see here.

Riding for Tacos
(Usidore)
October 5th
Deer Path Park
3.36 miles, 1h46m

Usidore asks for some of my burrito.

The trouble with this time of year is the lack of daylight. Mostly this doesn't bother me. I enjoy riding at night. Finding places that allow this, on the other hand, can be a real PITA.

Mike recently suggested that we could park trailers at the Bloys Farm lot to access Deer Path Park and surrounding trails without having to worry about the 6:30pm cutoff time. (More on that in a moment...)

Hannah and I did our maiden voyage out of the "new" lot after work one day. We found that we had the whole place to ourselves. 

With it being almost dinner time, it only made sense to ride for tacos, so that's exactly what we did. We tied the horses outside Agave in the usual spot. This forever makes me giggle, though nobody else seems to care. I ordered my favorite California burrito, saving half for Mike. 

Hannah was smart and got bags for our to-go food. This made carrying our loot more manageable, though still hilarious. We stopped near the farm museum to eat our food with a more scenic backdrop before heading back to the trailers. 

It was a short ride, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Any ride that involves tacos is a good ride.

A bag full of hot food in my lap. Yum!

I will always take photos of the horses next to the parking sign.

Usidore holds my food for me.

Merlin enjoyed the birria tacos.

Paranormal Adventures in High Bridge
(Falcon)
October 7th
Columbia Trail
7.55 miles, 2h20m

Falcon looked nice in my blue tack.

The Columbia Trail continues to be a regular spot for night riding. On this night, we took Falcon and Usidore so Merlin could have a day off. It was my first time riding the famous movie horse. He is a total sweetheart and was a very good egg for our ride.

The ride was mostly uneventful and not conducive to photo-taking since it was dark out. 

We saw a lot of foot traffic that night. There are certain people who frequent the trail at the same time we do. We call them the "regulars". They include the man who told us we have the best behaved horses he's ever met, and the guy who rides his e-bike high as a kite, eats Chinese food on the trail, and extols the virtues of horses even after we've ridden out of hearing range. 

It is no surprise to run into people and animals on trail, but this ride took an odd twist towards the end. We found ourselves alone on the trail when the horses started looking expectantly over their shoulders. We kept expecting to get passed by someone, but nobody ever came. 

Then we each heard what could only be described as heavy, slow-running footsteps very close by. I flipped a light on and we saw nothing. With goosebumps on our arms, we took off at a trot to head toward town.  

We later noted that we had Usidore and a black horse in blue tack when we first saw the HorseMan of Hell Mountain, and that we had Usidore and a black horse in blue tack here too. This, of course, led to some wild theories about a mimic who thinks I'm riding a black, horse-shaped shapeshifter. 

What can I say? It is spooky season...

Sunset at Schick
(Mulberry)
October 8th
Schick Reserve
6.44 miles, 2h8m

The next evening's ride featured nothing spooky at all.

The only one of Hannah's riding horses that I hadn't sat on yet was Mulberry, and I got to check her off the list. As a full-blooded Percheron, she's bigger than anything I've ridden recently. She's also a total sweetheart (and Mike's favorite). 

We headed over to the Schick Reserve which has somehow evaded me despite being local and lovely. 

We didn't see a single soul while we were out there and got to enjoy an absolutely glorious sunset over rolling green fields. There was nothing exciting to report, though there was one mucky stream crossing and a short stretch full of many thorns.

Mulberry has a very comfortable trot that is so smooth I didn't even have to post. I also got her to canter, which was a special treat. 

This turned into a night ride as well.

I made a note that this would be a good alternative to Baldpate for riding with Bonnie. I've been on the search for a new dog-friendly trail riding option since I moved to Hannah's so this was an excellent find. 

No berries were consumed in the making of this photo.

This time Hannah rode Falcon.

Handsome boy!

I do love an old bank barn.

Unlikely Encounters of the Balloon Kind
(Usidore)
October 15th
Deer Path Park
3.62 miles, 58m

On today's episode of How Do The Horses Get So Quiet?

Hannah and I tried to do a nice, normal, quiet ride at the local park. As we pulled into the parking lot, we spotted what we first thought was a kidnapper van, but which later turned out to be a balloon chase vehicle.

We exited the truck to hear the roar of the burners low overhead. It took merely a moment to realize the hot air balloon was about to touch down in the park!

Cue us basically mounting the horses at a run! We knew we had a limited window to get that between the ears shot! 

I know a lot of local farms don't like the balloons getting too low over their pastures (or, god forbid, landing in them!) but Hannah and I just saw an opportunity for some exposure training. I was very sad I wasn't on Max for this one!

The horses handled everything really well and we enjoyed watching the balloon crew get the balloon down and put away. Hot air ballooning must be objectively cooler than horseback riding because nobody even acknowledged our presence! 

We went on to have a short, but lovely ride. We were being mindful of the park closing at 7pm and got back to the trailers at 6:45 only to find a park ranger shining his flashlight into the truck windows. Turns out they had just changed the park hours to 6:30pm. 

We had flung our lead ropes on the ground and left the trailer door ajar in our haste to beat the balloon to the landing spot. The poor ranger was so relieved we weren't dead that he didn't even chastise us for being late. 

We joked that the horses thought the humans were taking the balloon down like lions take down a gazelle. There were definitely some mild concerns, as visible through the ear flick in this photo.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

This year took a bit of an unplanned detour, but it is so fun to have a built-in adventure buddy at the barn. Having spare ponies to play with has been a bonus! Falcon, Mulberry, and Usidore did a great job filling in for Max during his hiatus. I am very grateful to Hannah for sharing them with me.