Horses + Hubby = Joy :)

My husband, Charles had spoken with Mark over the weekend to see if he could borrow Beau to go on a trail ride with me today when he got out of work. Beau is the barn's senior trail horse. He is a Kentucky-raised Quarter Horse gelding, who is an unbelievable 21 years old. Even the vet couldn't believe he was that old-he looks like a 10-year-old. Mark takes really good care of him.

Beau in his stall. He has the cutest Quarter Horse face!

Charles and I met up at the barn (he had just gotten off of an overnight shift at the hospital-yes, he's nuts, but he insisted this was when he was most awake!), we got the horses out and started grooming & tacking up. I helped Charles with Beau's saddle, and reminded him that he needs to let me tighten the girth one more time before getting on, as Beau likes to hold his breath when you tighten the girth the first time. Charles got his bridle on without a problem - this was his first time putting on a bridle-he's new to riding, but fearless, and Beau is a good boy; he opened his mouth right up for the bit. We took the horses outside, and Charles mounted up without waiting for me. Beau tried to walk back into the barn with Charles on him! I yelled at him because I had not gotten to tighten the girth before he got on, plus I wanted to hold Beau for him, because he has a bad habit of trying to wander off as soon as your foot is in the stirrup (the barn manager inside and she gets nervous/annoyed when people let their horses do silly things, like walk right into a barn with a low roof with a rider on...). Oh well. I tightened the girth for him, and got on Lily.

Charles, ready to go, on Beau

We had a really good time.

Lily balked only once leaving the barn area, and then just marched all the way down the driveway with no further coaxing. The landscaping business next door had a giant truck and an excavator, uprooting and loading some of the trees on the front of their property. They took up most of the street. We stood with the horses in the middle of the street in front of the barn sign and considered, for a moment, going by. Lily and Beau both shook their heads at the same time, and both tried to turn back for home at the same time. "Let's just go down to the field for a bit" I told Charles. We turned the horses around and headed the opposite direction.

There is a giant field at the other end of the street. It is strictly for equine use, and has the best footing on the whole street; it's the only place that never floods, and my #1 choice for riding when the park feels too far or I'm bored with arena work. Parks & Recreation maintains it-the grass is always beautiful, and never gets too tall. At the far corner of the field, there is a small passageway that connects with the next street over, from which you can also reach the park. Charles wanted to try going through there (this was all an adventure for him-he had been to the field before to take pictures of me riding but had not ridden through himself), but there were a couple of palm fronds in front of the entrance to the passageway (Lily does NOT like palm fronds in areas she is unfamiliar with). I got her past them, but there was a ditch in the middle of the path, and it was flooded from yesterday's rain. I had gone through there one time on my previous Quarter horse, and we had not been able to find the way. We decided to ride around the field instead and see if the landscaping people were done. We did large circles on the way back so the horses wouldn't think that they could just go straight back out the field.

The landscaping people were still there. We brought the horses to a stop just past the entrance to our barn. It is too easy for me to see things the way horses see them-the excavator was waving a palm above the truck bed, trying to get it in the exact right position. I knew that to them, this looked like some giant dinosaur with tentacles on its head, and there wasn't enough room on the street to be able to get a safe distance away from the truck in case the horses did spook. I told Charles we should dismount and just lead them past. Both of them were all eyes and ears looking at the truck and excavator. The workmen were nice enough to stop what they were doing while we went through. A guy with a weed wacker was on the other side, and a horse in a paddock on the side of the street was going crazy bucking and running around. Yup, big commotion, but our guys just followed us quietly. We got the horses just past the Section of Terror, and had them stand so we could get back on. I could still see the whites of Lily's eyes but she was a good girl while I was mounting up.

We entered the park through powerlines, and trotted them all the way down. Beau really likes Lily, and will trot right along next to her. We then looped around and headed into the main trails. They were dark and the footing was muddy. Lily became a little jittery, and started shaking her head. When I looked at her face as she turned it to the side, it was covered in mosquitoes. Horrified, I reached forward to wipe them off and accidentally scared her-she jumped. "Oh, I'm sorry!" That took care of the mosquitoes temporarily, so it worked. I had her move on; there was a short straight part of the trail that I had always wanted to show Charles-I used to canter down that path on other horses because it was long, straight and smooth. It went straight through the trees, next to a small canal that fills with water during the rainy season. It is a beautiful path, like something out of Avatar, with the green light filtering through the trees and dappling the trail. Halfway down the trail, however, there was a part of a tree trunk half hidden by the ferns. It looked like a dark blob lying in wait to attack. Lily would not get near it; I had Charles go past it on Beau first. She did the one-eye-&-ear-cock at the trunk, which made me laugh, but continued behind Beau. That's when I realized how BAD the mosquitoes were! They were all over Lily's body, and I could see a cloud of them following behind Beau. It made my skin crawl; I hate mosquitoes (this is the result of living for 18 years on an island were mosquitoes can transmit hemorrhagic dengue). I still get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it now! We made it out of the forest and out onto the side of the road. I had Lily trot to get rid of any other mosquitoes that might still be on her; Charles followed on Beau. I took him to one of the side trails, a really pretty one in the open that loops around a grassy field with baby pine trees. Entering the field, I saw the first peacock. Lily doesn't care about them-we have 3 female peacocks that come all the way from the park down to our barn, and they like to hang out in Lily's walkout! Beau, however, is terrified of them. This one was a male, but it had already shed out his tail-the mating season is over. I still had Charles wait with Beau for a minute, and rode Lily over to the peacock. She cracks me up when it comes to birds. She will herd them like a reiner herding cattle! It's hysterical. This time was no exception. I pointed her at the peacock, and she went straight after him at a walk, staying right behind him as he ran around the trees, until he hid in the brush. That's when we saw that there was a whole flock of them!

"Peacocks? Whatever. Just keep me away from those horse-eating tree trunks!"

Lily didn't care.  I rode her straight through the flock; Charles had Beau follow behind, and he didn't even bat an eye at the peacocks, as long as Lily was okay with them. The birds flew up onto the fence as we rode by; neither one of the horses budged. This was the coolest part of the ride. I was going to take Charles through the baby pine trees, but the grass was knee-high and there were at least 6 inches of water on the ground. I'm always afraid of snakes in high grass during the summer-we would see a lot of them at my barn in Tampa when their burrows flooded after rain, and I know we have the same exact snakes down here in South FL; we turned around and followed the fence line back to the trails.

After that, we went past the Mutant Carnivorous Cows. I warned Charles that last time with Mark, Beau had tried to canter away, and had him shorten the reins. Lily's ears went up this time even before she saw their stalls. I had Charles lead the way on Beau. Beau walked right over to the cows, who were standing by the fence this time.

Lily, seeing that, actually walked up to where her feet were touching the grass, but did not go any further. I was fine with this; it was a huge progress, and she received a big pat on the neck.

We went on our way. Both horses did fantastic! We looped around one of the lakes, then, instead of heading out the main gate, we went around, over the railroad ties (there is a small toy train that goes around another of the lakes), then through 2 of the big gazebos. I had Lily canter down the grassy side of the park road. Lily is very particular about the canter. I can't cue her too hard, and I can't let her get too fast too soon or she'll have a little crowhopping fit. I think its because she gets reminded of the cowboy. So to cue her to canter, I have to think "canter" and tell her, "Lily, up!" and she'll pick up the canter. She is amazing-I don't know how she does it, but she always pick up the correct lead, too. It really is like she reads my mind.

This was her first time cantering in the park, and she did fantastic! Charles had Beau canter next to us, then we slowed as we came to the bend in the road, and turned onto the powerlines at a walk. We decided to canter the horses down the powerlines. They were both angels, despite facing the exit. And then I heard Charles yelp and I made Lily stop. We trotted back to Charles and Beau, who had come to a stop. My heart was in my throat; for a second I thought he had fallen off. But no. Apparently Beau had given a small trip, Charles had bounced on the cantle of the saddle, and he'd slammed his tailbone against the saddle. He wanted me to write on here that "Green (himself) + Old (Beau) = PIA (pain in the ass)" *lol* I've been reading Denali's mom's blog Green + Green = Black & Blue, and Charles is just fascinated with her blog title. He's made a couple of jokes referring to that title and himself (he really is a beginner-today was maybe his 7th time on a horse, but he's so fearless you forget. He actually learned to post in his first lesson with me! *Envy!*lol). It really is a pretty awesome title! I love that blog, and Denali. She has the best horse mom!

So we turned the horses around, trotted them back up the powerlines (Charles chose to walk-his butt hurt!), and then we walked them back down and out of the park, so they wouldn't get any ideas on hurrying home in the future.

The truck and excavator were gone now, so there were no issues riding back down the street home.

We hosed the horses off. I took longer with Lily because I wanted to make sure she was 100% cool before putting her away-she was a little stocked up this morning, which seems to happen if she's still warm going back in her stall. A lady called Miranda stopped by, looking for the barn manager, but she said she wanted to speak with me anyway. She had stopped by the barn 3 months ago because she was looking for a rescue horse and wanted to board him in our area. She was a very strange lady-fanatically religious, but she truly believed that if you want something enough, you can get it. I believe this 100%, but she achieves it with prayer. I achieve it with pure stubborness and the determination of a bulldozer! She drives around in a Mercedes Benz that she won at one of the Hard Rock raffles, because she wanted that car enough. It's cool that she is able to get what she wants this way, but she is also a very strange woman; she just has a weird vibe about her, but maybe it's just me-I have issues with religious fanatics. She had been to our barn twice to check it out, but had not been back since then. Today she had come to our barn specifically to request a drawing for a shirt from me. I draw-I have a bachelor's degree in art (this came before becoming a vet tech, while living in PR; I was a graphic designer for an art museum at the time), and I've already made a couple of horse portraits for people at the barn.

Watercolor I made of Beau

She took down my price list (I have a copy hanging in the barn) and said she would contact me regarding the drawing. I said this was fine. I asked her if she had found that horse she wanted to rescue. She said that there were too many; she had decided to instead just lease a horse-she could get a lot more bang for her buck that way, which is true to an extent. She was leasing and riding a dressage champion worth $100,000 in Wellington.
Eurotango & Tater Tot were turned out in the arena, both equally covered in mud and waiting to be brought in for lunch, and Charles was sweat scraping the water off Beau while he let him graze. She kind of turned her nose up at everything she was seeing and walked off. That kind of attitude drives me crazy. It is typical wealthy South Floridian attitude. I'm willing to bet the woman lives in Boca as well. I'm wondering if she'll contact me about the drawing after all. I guess we'll see.

Charles left after putting Beau away. Amazingly he was not sleepy yet, even though it was noon. I love hanging out with him at the barn; I'm always wishing he could come out more, but he is allergic to something at the barn-I think it's the dust, not the horses themselves, because when it's damp out like this he rarely starts sneezing. He always has everyone at the barn laughing with his witty sense of humor. Plus he is my best friend as well as the love of my life; being able to go riding together is one more thing we can share.
The rest of the day was brilliantly sunny & beautiful, though still hot as blue blazes. Is it November yet?