Young Horse Stuff~

Foxglove in Full Bloom~

You know how it is...  you have a great ride on a youngster, then you take them out again & things are not as good?  Well...  I decided to get in a short ride from home & check things out in our backyard.  Overgrown!  That's how things were!  If I don't do some clearing - we won't be getting through in another couple weeks.  What clearing I'd done last season - which was a lot, still hadn't kept up with all the growth! 

We made it out to the power lines, the perfect time to enjoy all the color from the Foxglove.  Years ago, it grew all along the trails through the woods, that since have been bulldozed.  Now - it's coming back in the few places that haven't been disturbed.  Heading back - by a trail that we used to call our running hill.   Going down it - rather than up.  Besides being covered with brush, what was left of the trail had a small river of water running down the middle, that had washed a deep v-shaped grove.  Those are hard to navigate - I'd seen them before at Capitol Forest - made by the bicyclists who ride there.  Farah wasn't doing bad, just some slipping - as she tried to avoid the running water.  We came up on a very deep hole & decided to dismount & guide her past it.  That done, I went to re-mount & that's when she decided to make a sharp left & leap - UP the hillside!  I was left hanging from the stirrup, still with the rein in my hand as she tried to plunge through the brush dragging me along.  I managed to get her pulled up after barely missing a tree trunk.  She was barrel deep in Salmonberry & standing over two large partly rotted cedar stumps.  Did I cuss her out?  Oh YES!  I sure did.  She knew for sure that she had been Very Bad!  :-)  

I forged a way back down to the trail - told her to STAND on fear of death & re-mounted.  Now - we will be Standing for Every mount - standing Firm!  :-)