I was able to get out for a really nice ride on Sunday with a few friends, we met up at Victoria Tract of the tree farm in Arlington, I had not been there in many years. The trails are pretty nice, I am sure Derek would like them, although it is a lot of up/down and this time of year it gets a little slick so I was riding "Bambi on Ice" is what it felt like :) Red has these big clunky feet which are a little long right now, he tends to get a little lazy so he was a bit trippy at times and then on the slicker trails, his legs are just all over the place. It makes for a less than peaceful ride for myself, I keep thinking he will eventually figure out how to walk a trail, but I'm starting to really wonder. I'm not ready to give up yet, but I would say it is the main frustration I have with him as a trail horse.
Here we are with Hwy 9 & Lk McMurray down below us. Great view of the lake and area. I am always amazed and it puts into perspective the area we live in, that we literally live in the foothills of the mountains and just how much undeveloped beautiful land there is around us. We need some trails in them there trees!
This is the monument you ride to at Victoria. Sometimes on a sunny day, you can see the sun reflecting off of this from I5 around Mt Vernon area.
So what direction is it ladies????
Overlooking Mt Vernon and the bay from the monument.
The good news is that I cannot see a limp or stiffness in Edgar, so I need to get on him for a minute so I can determine if I feel that he is "off" since I cant see it. Hunting season started this past Saturday for duck/goose, so Derek spent both days out while Edgar stayed home from trailriding to continue to recover. Saturday morning Derek took the boat out, went to the Snohomish River and I get a call around 10am asking if I would bring him a couple spark plugs and a wrench.. apparently the boat motor would not start and with the new spark plugs, it still did not start so Saturday was a waste for hunting. As we pulled the boat out of the water, a big flock of geese flew right over the top of us honking away.. it was comical! :)
Saturday night we hosted a horse club social "South of the Border Taco Night" and it was a great time.. we ate yummy tacos, chips/dips and I even made a cactus looking cake.. turned out pretty cute if you ask me! I think there were 12 of us, we decided to play a little mexican train as well.. I always forget how much I enjoy playing that game. 
Ellie & I started our obedience last night. I was so embarrased though, I had written in my calendar 7:15pm (in Snohomish) thinking that the class actually started at 7:30 and that I wrote it down as 15 minutes earlier so I would get there a little early/on time. I show up at 7:25, 10 minutes late! Whooops ;)
Ellie was GREAT!! She sat at my side in a chair as we listened for 20 minutes, meanwhile other dogs were barking or trying to wander etc. There are only 4 dogs total, but probably better that way as the room is not very big to work in. I can imagine the chaos of adding a few more dogs. The thing I like is that they do not use treat rewards, it is all verbal praise. Ellie did growl under her breath a bit, her timid behavior kicking in, but I was proud of her. Even after she warmed up a bit to the other dogs being around her, she did nip at one.. The environment is not designed to have the dogs getting to know one another, so not sure how that will help her overcome her timidness if she doesnt get to interact. My hope is that the more she just gets out and about, the better she will accept new dogs and situations.
We worked on a few things and I have my homework to do with her for atleast 30 minutes per day, the more distractions the better so we might just have to start really getting her out and about. The main thing she needs to build is confidence so that she will walk out front or beside me instead of behind me. I am really excited though, I think she is going to pick up on these things quickly and although my opinion might be biased, I think she was the best dog there! :) The other dogs are a german shephard, a cocker spaniel and a dachsund.. all girls. Next week I will be ontime!
I did finish my sewing project although I had to limp my machine along. Looking forward to getting a new one in the near future and as much as I'd love to wait til Chirstmas and maybe get one as a gift, I have christmas projects I want to make, so it seems I will have to buy one sooner than later.
Oh Sunday, what a crazy day that was! So I mentioned I went riding in Arlington, well on my way home I was a few minutes from home when Toni called me. She lives in Spokane and has a horse over in Arlington on lease. Long story short, the girl leasing him is done with him and wants Toni to take him back. The girl refuses to pay to ship the horse back to Spokane and tells Toni she has 15 days to come get him or he will be taken to auction! Toni calls me and asks if I will go pick up the horse and deliver him to another friend of Toni's who will keep him at her place for a couple days until he can be moved back to Spokane. So I pull in my driveway at 4pm, drop off Red real quick and then head back out to Arlington.
Earlier in the day at about 3pm, I get a call from Wendy (who I feed for) and she wanted to know how to get to Lords Hill, so I gave her directions. Well as I am driving home at 6pm from moving that horse for Toni, I send Wendy a text asking how her ride went (yeah I broke the law). At 6:30pm I am pulling in my driveway and Wendy calls me, she is bawling! Oh shit.... Well her draft horse that someone else was riding, fell off one of the bridges at Lords Hill and was stuck in the mud bog there. I dont know what time that had happened, I didnt get a lot of details while on the phone with her. Derek pulled in the drive about 15 minutes after me, from being gone hunting all day. We go in the house and I try to reach Wendy, we wanted to go up and help. I felt just sick and terrible about the whole thing. Wendy would text every now and then, told me they had plenty of help. Then they were needing an escavator to dig him out, fire dept was bringing tractors to help pull. She was pretty distraught, I dont blame her. We decided we wanted to go be there for her, so we drove up there, but the horse parking lot was empty and the main parking lot was closed/locked. I dont know where the vehicles were parked, I have no idea how the fire truck got in, but I didnt want to bother her and get details on where they were located since it was her first time ever at the park. She finally text me at about 9:30, indicating that they just got Thor out of the mud and he was in the trailer on his way to Pilchuck.
What a scary situation for Wendy, I told her when she is ready I would take her up to Lords Hill and show her just how nice the park can be. The bridges I am fairly certain she was crossing and got stuck at, is an area horses dont even need to go anymore, she didnt realize the path she was headed down was just going to lead her to another parking lot. Thor is okay though, he is back home as of yesterday and her other horse Jake is good too. Poor Wendy, I know she was up late with Thor Sunday night, he stayed at Pilchuck overnight and Wendy had a business trip planned for Monday morning, she was on a plane by 7:15am! She sent me a text as she loaded the plane, she had arranged transportation of her horses to get back home for Monday and needed me to start feeding yesterday afternoon. She was going to cancel her trip, but Thor was doing great and recovering just fine and she knew he was in good hands while she is out of town. I am feeding through Thursday morning this week. When I went out yesterday, Thor looks great! Not a speck of dirt on him and you'd never have known that 24 hours earlier he was stuck in a bog.
The adventures never end! Oh and I did get an email back from the trainer that came out a month ago and looked at Oakley. I was curious as to why they didnt like him when they seemed so eager to come out. I could go into long detail on the BS she said, but basically here's the rundown. They are barn snobs who cannot appreciate that a pastured horse sometimes has nicks on them from other horses and she's not a top of the line trainer like Shannon to fully understand the movement of a great horse! Shannon has major companies sending her free things, wanting to sponsor her on the professional barrel circuit. Shannon trains and sells horse worth more than my vehicles. She tried to get me to second guess my decision to have him with Shannon and boasted about her own abilities. I did not take it personally, I thanked her for her opinion, told her the thing about the horse world is we all have different oinions and that's okay. Told her I stand behind Shannon 100%, good luck to her client in finding the right horse. Since this lady is local and I am assuming trains and gives lessons to 4H kids, I didnt want to burn any bridges or be uncivil although she opened the door for me to go that direction for sure. I am better than that and the horse world is a small one.. speaking of that, another thing. So when I pull in the driveway of the place to pick up Toni's horse, I didnt know the girl leasing him but I did know her friend very well. Lisa from back in the 4H days with Carrie! Lisa and I had just become FB friends a few days earlier and then out of nowhere I run into her at random when picking up the horse.. Small Small World!!
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