Back to Back Adventures on the Katy Trail

Whew, so much horse time over the last week! I am loving it. Spring is finally here to stay (I hope!), and with that comes a lot of time spent outdoors cleaning up around the proprety and planting and all that jazz -- I'll probably catch you up on that later this week (cause we did A LOT OF PLANTING this weekend), but since this is first and foremost a horse blog, let's talk about the horse time!

Thursday night, I looked at the weather forecast and it was BEAAAAAAAUTIFUL and I got a bad case of spring fever. So I texted my friend and asked if I could borrow her kid for a trail ride Friday afternoon if I could get a few hours off work -- schools were out for Good Friday, and we kept talking about hauling out together but hadn't manage to match schedules yet. Her mom works with DH in a no service/no cell phone sort of job so I wanted to secure permission beforehand, just in case ;) I had to wait until Friday morning to confirm with my boss and then text kiddo, and as expected, she was game!

Oh hey, blogger randomly cooperated and inserted photos in the right order?

Favorite kiddo snap-chatting her friends from the parking lot lol. 

Since I wanted to return the tiny human (ha, she's as tall as I am and going to leave me in the dust very soon lol) at a reasonable hour, and also her horse doesn't have a TON of trail experience, I opted to haul to the Katy. It's close, easy, and convenient (if a little boring). 

Both the horses were rock stars -- I was interested to see how Ruby was since she's been relatively shitty on our "home trails" the last few times I've taken her out, but she was foot perfect today. Minus the three minutes she spent snorting at a rock that fell off the bluffs onto the trail that the other horse didn't even bat an eyelash at, haha. 

It's literally just miles of this. Flat. Boring. Quiet. It's a good starter trail though.  

Oh hey, my favorite bridge!

We did about 6 miles in 2 hours, with some nice bouts of trotting and cantering! 

"Frandz?" 
"Okay fine I guess"
lol

She was getting a little sore so she wanted to sit on something softer for a minute, haha. 

LONGBOI out and about doing longboi things.

Need to have the trailer acid washed again, it's getting dingy. Sigh. It's always something!

It was a whirlwind trip but such a fun excursion with some much-needed sunshine and laughter and slow miles. Saturday was equally as lovely, but devoted to farm chores and spring maintenance, as was Sunday morning, but I did convince DH to sneak away for another short ride Sunday afternoon. 

Spoiler alert, I roached manes before we went. It was 80 degrees and I did not feel like dealing with the hair. I also need to get a better photo of my new stirrups -- I picked them up in January and haven't been able to ride with them much (I've done a lot of bareback riding this spring lol). They're MDCs with the click top so you can adjust the angle, and they have engraved sides with a pretty pink stone! I'm sort of obsessed. 

A little different view than the photos from Friday's ride, haha #shorthairdontcare

I wanted a lowkey excursion to see how Trigger was feeling, since this was his first ride out since #hoofgate. Even though he usually tolerates the very fine gravel on the Katy without issue, we went ahead and used his hoof boots just to be extra safe. He practically knocked me down trying to climb on the trailer at the house and then was raring to go once we arrived (which for him means offering up his western jog instead of plodding along like a half dead packer). 

Me: excited to be out!
DH: tolerating my enthusiasm, haha

Yes I know it's weird he rides in shorts, but he is a grown up who dresses himself so I remind myself it's not my problem. 

Stopping for snackies. 

We roached Trigger too (mostly because DH slacked on the mane care all winter and he had DISGUSTING dreadlocks) and it does not really do his neck any favors lol. But he also had a shocking amount of hair and would get really sweaty on trail rides in the summer, so I think this will be much cooler for him!

These signs make me giggle. 

We only did about 1.5 hours/4 miles, pretty much exclusively at the walk, because I didn't want to overtax Trigger. But he was just as peppy when we returned to the trailer, and he didn't take an off step. I'll probably continue to baby that hoof a bit and keep him in boots any time we go out, but it's nice to know that he's feeling good and mostly recovered from his gaping hoof hole :) I'll feel better when the resected area grows all the way out and the hoof looks "normal" again, but clearly he feels great regardless of my feelings on the matter, haha.