Catching Up: Return of The Salal Man??!?!?

January 10:

Hmmm... Why does this look so familiar?!

Looks mighty suspicious...

After breaking into the clearing and getting past the loose and scattered salal, we worked our way down to the creek. Riding past the lake was fun, but it was cold and TrailridinRN and I were looking for a short ride. Mercy really wanted to go in the water at the creek, so I let her. Big mistake.

She went in quite deep and pawed and pawed.

Even Star got int the near freezing water and splashed around while Mercy dove her head in and snorkeled around for a while. And resumed pawing...

Of course, that didn't stay fun forever... her splashes grew increasingly larger and eventually she was spraying water up onto me! My right leg got completely soaked up to and past my knee! not to mention the saddle, cinches, and reins were completely covered in now freezing water.

Needless to say, we wasted no time getting home. I was chilled to the bone and still needed to clean stalls. Thanks Mercy...

January 13:

I had a few hours to spare and a break in the weather so I saddled up Mercy and ponied Starlett out to the creek for another short ride. Little did I know when we headed out that we would *almost* have an encounter with a wild animal!

I knew something was up as we approached the creek because Mercy was on full alert. Something was up ahead. She kept stopping and sniffing the air. A few words of encouragement was all it took to get her moving again. The next time she stopped I looked down. Oh... I see...

We were following an elk! We never got to see it because we took the turn it didn't. Mercy needed a little convincing, with the help of my boot, to let go of the scent and follow my lead, down the new trail. Once she believed me that we weren't going to follow the elk, we were good.

January 16:

TrailridinRN finally bought new new stirrups for her saddle. The super thin medal stirrups that came with the saddle just weren't doing it for us any more. They provided little foot and leg support and had no weight to them. using money from Christmas, she bought a pair of Crates stirrups that matched the saddle. Now it was time to give them a test run!

We rode out to the trails in the woods and guess what!? We found more proof... of the Salal Men!

They had obviously been out there recently and had left bundles of salal everywhere.

These neat little bundles of salal were no doubt headed to local nurseries for Valentine's day floral arrangements. I'm just glad we didn't actually meet the salal collectors this year; just they're left over bundles. *HUGE sigh*

'Til next year salal man... 'til next year...