Riding with Judy

I went riding with my wife today on some very open and easy trails in the high desert. It was a gorgeous day and we had a fine ride for a couple of hours. But more importantly, my wife Judy felt confident and comfortable on her horse (actually my daughter's horse) Turk.

Shortly after we were married, more than 30 years ago, Judy used to ride with me regularly, and she was pretty bold and a decent rider, even though she has told me she was often scared by the horse I had then or horses we borrowed from friends.

After kids came along, she gradually spent less and less time in the saddle, and when she did, it was on our old Arabian mare, Hannah, who doesn't really like me but does like Judy. Hannah always took care of her, but Judy was really more passenger than pilot, allowing Hannah to just follow whatever other horse or horses were on the ride.

But Hannah's 24 years old now, and has had some founder problems. She's not very sound for a ride of any length.

However, Turk, my daughter's 7-year-old gelding, is becoming a very solid trail horse. He was my pack horse on our wilderness trips, and he's actually more careful than my big gray gelding on difficult trails.

Last week a friend who used to give me jumping lessons agreed to give Judy some lessons on Turk, just to make her feel more comfortable and in control. She enjoyed it a lot, learned a lot and felt far more confident in the saddle. Plus, Turk was very good.

So she wanted to go out on today to see how she and Turk did on the trail instead of in the arena. Both did very well. Turk was obedient and steady. A little spook occurred when a jackrabbit jumped out from under the sagebrush beside him, and our great dane, Bo, took off in hot pursuit. But he only sidestepped a bit, and Judy handled it without a problem.

I'm glad, because there are some trail rides I plan to do over the coming year related to some historical research I'm doing, and Judy would like to join us, if she feels comfortable enough.

Plus since the kids are all grown up and moved out, it's just nice to have one more thing we enjoy doing together.

Wilderness excursion

My friend and I recently returned from a three-day trip to the Holy Cross Wilderness area near Eagle Colorado. It's a gorgeous area, but the trails we chose turned out to be extremely difficult -- lots of slick rock, deep, rutted trails with very jagged rocks in them, and muddy bogs. And most of it was very steep. We spent almost as much time leading our horses, and allowing the pack horses to just follow on their own, as riding. And when we were riding, it was very cautiously, letting the horses pick their way as carefully as possible.
Still, all went well. No serious injuries to horse or human, except one badly sprained ankle on my part.
Also, I brought home an uninvited guest -- Giardia.
It hit a few days after we got back and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Finally went to the doctor and got some medicine that knocked it out. But I lost about 10 pounds in a week through dehydration and being unable to eat much of anything.

I'm not sure how it happened, because we took both Iodine pills and a water filter to treat all of the water we drank. But something obviously was not enough.

But I'm back to feeling human again. I think we'll look for another location for our backcountry horse trip next summer. One where the trails are quite so rough and both riders and horses can enjoy themselves a little more.