Well, my Shoe Man finally showed up and put a nice new set of real shoes on me so I'm back to work. I didn't like those stupid glue-on shoes. They were dumb and ugly. I don't like ugly things. I like to look nice. I have a pretty bridle with a pink, glittery browband and sometimes my mom puts pink sparkly hoof polish on me. I have red boots and red rhythm beads and lots of red saddle pads. So when I got those dumb black ugly glue-on shoes, I wasn't very happy. They looked stupid and felt funny. I was glad to get them off. My mom wasn't real happy but she got over it. And now I have pretty metal shoes with fashionable clips on them. I like the way they make a clop-clop sound when I walk.
Since I got them, my mom and I have been riding the trails more and more. I love it! It's so much fun out there. My mom says I've become a Trail Warrior. That's a good thing judging by the way she says it. She likes the fact that I don't mind going out on the trails alone with her. I guess some horses get fussy when they go alone. That's pretty stupid if you ask me. I like it. I'm not alone anyway; I'm with my mom and I love being with her. Plus there's so much to see and we get to trot and canter and it smells really good out there.
There's a big long hill that leads up to where the trails start and my mom lets me trot or canter up it. I like to go a little faster up the hills because it's easier that way and it feels good. My mom pretty much lets me pick my pace which is very nice of her and I'm good about it. If she doesn't want me to run, I just walk nicely but if she doesn't care, I start going and she leans forward and grabs some mane and off I go. I think she likes it as much as I do.
When you get to the top, there's a sign with a picture of a Mountain Lion on it.
Sparky says that Mountain Lions eat horses and that you have to be very careful about them. He says they hide a lot and that's why horses should be wary of things like plastic bags or ponds because there might be a Mountain Lion hiding in them. I've never seen a Mountain Lion but he saw one once when he was out on the trails with my mom. He said it crossed the trail right in front of them but he wasn't going to stop or turn around because he was headed home and he wanted his dinner so they can't be that bad. Anyway, my mom wouldn't let a Mountain Lion eat me. And even if there was one on the trail, there are lots of people walking or leading Dogs and people and Dogs are lots slower than me so I think they'd get eaten first. Then the Mountain Lion wouldn't have any room for me.
It's really pretty out on the trail. One day, my mom and I rode out to the Hayfields. That's what she called it. It was a place where the trail ran through open fields instead of woods. It was pretty and looked like a nice place for a gallop but there were a lot of people walking so my mom said it would be rude to gallop past them all. We rode around then took a different trail home and that one had some nice hills and flat places where she let me trot and canter. So that was good. Whenever you go up a hill, you usually have to go down one not long after. My mom says hills are good exercise and I think she's probably right. You have to work harder going up them and you have to going down them too. You'd think going down would be easy but sometimes it's hard to keep your balance and footing, especially when you have a person on your back. I'm good at it now and my mom even lets me trot down hills sometimes as long as they're not too steep.
I've never seen a Mountain Lion on the trail but I have seen Deer. I like Deer. I've always wanted to get close enough to one to sniff it but they never stand still long enough. They're so pretty! And they're kind of like horses. They eat grass and hay, and they have four legs like we do. But some of them have sticks poking out of their heads which is very odd. I thought they must have got tangled in a tree but Sparky says they grow them and use them to protect themselves. I don't think I'd like that. I'd probably bash them on everything.
Anyway, we had Deer that would come in our Pasture and I got to see them a lot. Sometimes they'd have babies. The babies are very cute. They're kind of like baby horses because they can't stand up very well at first and have really long legs. They bounce around with their moms and their tails flap back and forth just like baby horses' tails do. I liked to watch them. Some of them had spots which made them look even cuter. But every time I tried to get a closer look, all the Deer would just bound away. You can't get very close to them. Here's a picture of one my mom and I saw on the trail. It was the kind with sticks on its head.
A couple of days ago, we went for a trail ride with Dooley and his mom. That was exciting! I hadn't been able to do anything with Dooley since we moved to this dumb place except for eat a bucket and ride in the dressage arena a little bit. I knew we were going trail riding because my mom was only carrying one stick. When we do dressage, she carries two sticks. That way, she has one on either side of me so if she needs to tap me with one, she doesn't have to switch hands. But when we go out on the trail, she only carries one because she just uses it to flick the flies off my ears and belly.
I was happy and I set off at my usual fast walk with Dooley hustling to keep up. We rode down by the Pony Arena and I thought we were going to go in it and I was a little disappointed but we went right past it and down a little lane that led to a Road. It was a paved Road. I've seen those before. There was one at our old barn, the one before the barn with the big Pasture. Sometimes we'd ride down the little road that led out of the barn area and down to the paved Road. Lots of cars go on paved Roads and you have to be careful because they go pretty fast. I'm not scared of course because I have my mom with me and she wouldn't let me get bonked by a car but they are more dangerous.
This one didn't have any cars on it though except for one which went by just before we reached it. We rode along it a little way and my mom and Dooley's mom kept talking about a trail and then my mom asked me to go through some grass and brush by the side of the Road and it brought us to a little trail so that must have been what they were looking for.
Well, I was ready to go then. I know what a trail means. It means fun! I was still leading the way and I got going in my big walk and off we went. The trail led along a fence on one side and that Road on the other. At one point, it went over a kind of deep ditch and it turned to wood there. It was kind of funny. The wood trail went over the ditch and on either side there was a little fence. I guess that was to keep horses from falling off into the ditch. I just clomped across it and my hoofs sounded funny and hollow but I didn't care because when you're on a trail, you just go where the trail takes you. My mom called to Dooley's mom that it was the first time I went across a Bridge so I guess that's what a wood trail is called but I've been on wood things before. At our old barn, we had a wood thing that I liked to walk across and it moved up and down when you walked across it. My mom called it a teeter-totter. So I don't see why a dumb old Bridge is so special.
It was a very nice trail. It went around some little curves and up hills and along the Pasture fence. I trotted up some of the hills but after a while my mom asked me to walk because we were with Dooley and his mom and it wasn't Manners to just go fast. There were some houses on one side and one of them had a loud machine outside that my mom said was a Generator. I stopped for a minute and looked at it but she asked me to go on so I did. I'm not afraid of noises. It went right through one of the Vineyards too and up to the top of a hill. Vineyards are where people grow grapes which are a kind of fruit that I don't like. They grow on pretty bushes though.
Then a Deer jumped out of the bushes at the side of the trail and ran away. Me and Dooley weren't afraid of that either. We're used to Deer. But it made it more interesting and I like that. By this time, the trail had moved from sort of open, brushy country to nice woods with tall, thick trees. It curved in and out around the trees and you had to be careful not to knock your mom's legs on them because the trail was pretty narrow. I kept walking along in my nice fast trail walk but I never knocked my mom's legs on anything.
All of a sudden, the trail connected with another trail and I knew where we were. We had wound around and come out on one of the trails that starts at the opposite side of the ranch than where we'd started. That was fun. We rode along that trail which is pretty flat and my mom said we'd walk so we could cool off because we'd done quite a lot of trotting. I would have liked to trot because it's a nice wide flat place but she said no so I didn't.
When we came down from the trails, we could see the Pond below us so we knew we were almost home. I like the Pond. Sometimes there are Ducks in it.
So that's what I've been doing. I like being a Dressage Horse and a Trail Horse. Both are fun and I'm getting better and better at them.
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