Catching Up: Moving Logs and Trees

It was a couple of days before Valentine's, so I really wanted to stay out of the woods. The salal hunters would most likely be out there, wandering around picking salal for floral bouquets still

So Starlett, Mercedes, and I headed out toward the creek trails. There is very little salal that grows there so seeing anyone pop out from the underbrush would be very unlikely.

Little did it know at the time, but that tiny sapling on the right of the mossy log would soon be 'laid down' by Mercy's antics...

Right after taking this picture...

... Star decided to move forward to grab at a delicious looking fern, dragging Mercy forward too. Unfortunately, her lead rope got hooked around the end of that moss covered fallen log. And instead of waiting for me to fix the situation she decided to take matters into her own... er, hooves?...

She wasn't bad. she just didn't give the the pressure of the rope around the tree right away. instead of just standing still she drove forward, dragging the log with her. The log then hit the sapling and simply mowed it over! When the sapling was bending over it swapped Star and I until Mercy decided to stand still. *sigh*

I jumped off of Star and went over to help Mercy out. I actually had her help move the log back by asking her to back while I used the lead rope to pull the log back into it's original place. This released the sapling and it sprang back into place. Here's the aftermath:

You can see where the sapling rubbed the moss and lichen off the log when the log ran over it. You can also see the bark that fell off the log as the lead rope pulled taught around it.

Then, I took a closer look at the log Mercy had just pulled several feet out of it's resting place. This log is at least 30 feet long and is partially submerged in the creek! OMG! I know Mercy is strong, but wow!

After all of the exciting stuff, I jumped back on Star and we continued down the creek trail and headed home. On 'Our Trail,' I saw some more signs of winter coming to and end... and allergies.

All of that excitement sure made the girls hungry...

...so we stopped for some sweet grass.

Starlett's Barbie doll mane was looking particularly shiny this day too.

And these pictures are just a visual for their body score coming out of winter. Star's looking much better since being on the timothy. That's just the hay for her.

And Mercy's top line is looking a little stronger from a few weeks ago. Just a little, but that's OK with me. Any muscle will help her long back!

Yup, looking good on that sunny day!

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...