But first, the part that I didn’t get any photos of… my morning ride on Lily. After my turn at feeding everyone, I let her eat a bit, then groomed and tacked up. We rode the mile down the road. The first half mile was done at a walk to warm up. Then a trot over a small bridge. First challenge was a farmer up in a tree in his orchard with a chain saw. It was the biggest spook Lily has done in a while, but she did settle down after we exchanged “Good Morning!” Ah, just a person with a noisy thing, not a horse eating monster set to jump down on her.
When we go down to the big bridge over the Willamette, Lily wasn’t too keen on crossing, so I got down and led her. Years ago, we crossed this same bridge, when it was being widened from one to two lanes. That time, she didn’t blink an eye! Despite the compressor running in the middle of the bridge and he HUGE backhoe working down below, complete with extremely sqeaky tank type treads. We will get there again! I have to remember that it’s been a long time since we have done this sort of thing together.
On the way back to the barn, we had a nice short canter, some long trot and a good walk to cool out. It was nice to get Lily into a sweat once again! When I pulled her saddle, it was cool enough that steam rose from her back. I threw a cooler on and let her finish her breakfast, while I turned out the other horses. I think that I might baby her too much sometimes. She is tougher than I think. After I dismounted, I realized that I need to get tougher. I haven’t ridden that long in a while and my legs felt like rubber. But it was so worth it!!
Vin has never lived in a stall before, so this will be a new experience for him. It will be interesting to see how quickly he becomes a stall baby. Paisano certainly took to it easily. It used to be hard to get him to step out when it was wet outside. The end of a long and productive day! Tomorrow morning, I’ll head out to feed again and see how he is settling in. If all goes well, he will be turned out with the 8 month old colt who already lives there. Now off to bed for me! If you are on Twitter and you found value in this post, please retweet. Thanks!




















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