Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Search for Sasquatch

This is my one thousandth blog post. :-) Happy anniversary, blog. You're pretty fun, and thanks for bringing some new people into my life.

You might have noticed (did you?) the week-long gap in blogging. I was gone. I am back. I had fun. :-) It was time for the Search for Sasquatch, a sequel to Bears and Boulders. Heh heh. Yay for longtime readers who know what Bears and Boulders is.

First, a sentinel bird is sent out to scout the area. Sentinel bird says it's safe:

(Or, perhaps the real story is that I spent the last 5 days in the mountains east of Redding with JC and DC and my cute horse Shylah, lots of trail riding, lots of fun, and J agreed to adopt two Rosecomb chicks I accidentally hatched (long story) since she had just gotten hatchery chicks).

The sasquatch thing came up as a joke that we would be sure to see something really awesome (like a bear) because I was only bringing my munchkin camera and therefore would not be able to photograph it well. I won't even get into the rest of the story, it's one of those "you had to be there" sorts of things, but that's how the Search for Sasquatch ride came about.

This is normally something we do in the fall, but busy schedules and a few other complications made that impossible last fall, so this was a makeup ride. It was interesting to see the place at a different time of year when things were still green. The weather was decent. A little hot, but not bad. JC and I went out riding for several hours every day, and I also got to see Star Trek (loved it!) and even managed to get a little bit of work done too.

The riding was GREAT. Shylah seemed so much more sure-footed this year, and over-all very calm and confident on the trail. She's slow, yes, very slow, and takes hills even slower than slow, but I can deal with that. You just have to adapt to a different time frame with Shylah, you can't be in a hurry, she's just not a fast horse so you'd better kick back and enjoy the scenery. She's a "stop and smell eat the roses" kind of girl. She does try to graze constantly, which drives me batty, but that's another story. J was riding her "green" 3 year old Gypsy cob gelding, Aragorn. I was very impressed by how well he's doing in his training. He was a little concerned about Shylah at first, but quickly settled down and they ended up being a great match. Both slow. Yay! It's darn near impossible for me to trail ride with anyone because of the speed difference (especially the gaited breeds!). Shylah spent most of the time as the lead horse, and I have to say she seemed to enjoy that position. This was definitely the best pairing we've tried for trail riding (this is the third time we've done this), and it was so much fun. I sure wish I could do that more often. It's beautiful up there, except when it's a gazillion degrees. ;-)

Here are a bunch of photos, a virtual trail ride for you. These are from all the days, so this covers a very large amount of acreage.

There's a few rocks up there...just a few...

That's Mt. Lassen way off in the background. It was really hazy. Click on the pic to see it bigger.

That's Mt. Shasta off in the distance.

I was amazed at how well these two got along. Not that they were super chummy or anything, but Shylah didn't try to kick him and only made a grumpy face at him once (when he was backwashing and blowing his nose in the water trough as she was attempting to be a normal horse and take a drink)

(Slowly) climbing the rocky hill! This hill is her least favorite, for sure.

The view from the top of the world. Awesome.

Shylah says "grass, must eat grass, must eat..."

"can almost reach..."

How bout a closeup of that lip action. "so close! mmph, errg."

In the end, I think I can safely say a great time was had by all. I'm not sure Shylah loved the hills (in fact I'm pretty sure she didn't) but she does seem to enjoy being out and about and looking at things, she's quite the lookyloo on the trail. The chicks settled right in with their adopted brethren. We did not see a bear, or a sasquatch. Thus, the search shall continue.... :-)


Anonymous said...

Shylah is such a kick in the pants! And Aragorn doesn't look bad. This is the first time I have seen JC on a horse other than Rocket. I bet you had a blast. Ummm and as for accidentally hatching chicks? What was that all about? -BM

Anonymous said...

Hi! 'Loved the "virtual trail ride". Someday, I will have my own horse and be able to do that kind of fun stuff, too!

Liz B. said...

Congrats on the 1,000 posts!