Tag: horse

Preparation for the Big Ride, and a Few Surprises Along the Trail

In the last blog, my horse Vali shared his thoughts on the Big Ride, the John Wayne Trail Ride on the old Milwaukee Road railroad bed from Thorpe to Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. Now it’s my turn. 

We did a lot to get ready for the ride.  Maybe there are people who can just throw their horses in the trailer and go, but I am not one of them.  When it comes to planning, I am a list maker.   My riding buddy Solveig says I am one of her OCD friends.  I say, if she thinks I’m OCD, she should meet my other friends!  But maybe she’s right.  That is one of the reasons I try to avoid planning things: it requires a lot of mental energy, lists on backs of envelopes, and sharpened pencils.   Nonetheless, once we were committed and signed up for the ride, there were things to be done. 

Camper Prep. 

We would definitely take my truck with my pop-up slide in camper, because it is warm.  It has a propane heater.  However, we needed to be able to dry camp for 5 nights.  I was pretty sure my current lead-acid battery system would not suffice.  So I needed a better battery system, or a back-up of some sort.  I called in my buddy Sandy to help re-do my camper with solar charging. She knows her stuff, given her experience outfitting her own camper from scratch.

First, she told me to buy a battery monitor and install it on the existing battery.  This of course required buying a new lead-acid battery, since the old one was deader than dead.  This is a skill of mine, killing batteries.  With help from my techy son, we got the new battery installed and figured out the battery monitor.  So cool!  That would have been very useful over the years to know how much power was being used, and how much power was left.  Did you know that lead-acid batteries can only be drawn down halfway without damaging them?  That apparently is how I kill them.  Anyhow, during our shake-down horse-camping trial at the local State Park, I tracked the use of the battery.  On that very warm summer night, I used a third of my available battery life.   The current system would only get us 3 nights, if we were lucky. 

Sandy then designed a solar system (the battery kind, not the planets), told me what to buy, and came to visit and work for several days to install it.  It was time consuming, but easier than I thought, especially because my job was to be the go-fer and assistant.  That is my favorite job.

Once it was done, I camped in the yard for a test run.  Everything seemed to work, but I still crossed my fingers.  On the actual trip, the battery monitor would display a drop of about 10 percent each night, and recharge during the day to 100 percent.  We had heat and water and lights and phone charge-ability—but most importantly we could run the propane fridge with electric controls each night and were able to have ice for our cocktails.  We definitely needed our cocktails. 

Trailer Prep and Supplies.

We briefly debated bringing my two-horse trailer, versus Solveig’s three-horse trailer. The three-horse was the better choice, because we could use the extra horse stall for hay storage.  Then the trailer needed maintenance, installation of high-ties, designing of plywood covers to keep the horse’s legs out of the tires and fenders while tied, and we had to figure out all the extras to carry with us.  We packed too much hay in the end, but that is better than too little.   

We had to carry enough water to go at least 24 hours.  Between us we had enough big blue jugs (5) plus some extra small ones.  We filled them and packed the trailer a few days before the trip.  Note to self: look in and wash out the jugs before filling.  One had a dead mouse in it.  Ick.  

Prior to the trip we tested Solveig’s trailer behind my truck.  Everything worked and the truck handled the weight.  Hooray!

Gear.

The rides would be long, up to 19 miles in a day.  Not only would the horses get tired and sore, so would the humans.  And we had to carry food, water, rain gear, halters, lead ropes, and minimal emergency gear with us. We experimented with seat savers and saddle bags as we trail rode over the summer.  By the time of the ride, we had all the kinks worked out.  During the pre-rides and the Big Ride, we only wrecked two of our bags.  One was fixable, one was not. 

Horse fitness.

Once Solveig and I committed to the ride in July, we knew that fitness would be key for both horses. And although Vali was a pretty predictable and mostly brave trail horse, Moyfried was young, and had not been out a lot.  We took the pair out on close to 30 trail rides and rode almost 220 miles before the Big Ride.  Not only did this get our horses fit, it improved our rider fitness, too.  One day we rode 16 miles.  We knew if we could do that, we could do 19.

We exposed our horses to bikes, people, rivers, bridges, rough trails, easy trails, paved trails.  We got them used to horse shoes, and then shoes with pads in preparation for rocks and gravel.  We rode in groups from two to six horses.  We rode with new horses and with familiar horses.  We rode across the only trestle-like bridge I could find in the area, and we went under a rural overpass. Neither horse liked trucks and cars passing above them, but we did it.  We tried to expose them to everything we could, but we could not practice tunnels.  (Later, on the actual ride, we heard that people would ride at night with flashlights to get their horses tunnel-ready.) 

Our horses practiced tieing, and standing, and being on the overhead high-ties at the trailer.

We were ready, except…

By the time we left, with all our gear, food, flasks, and cocktails packed, we thought we were as ready as we could be.  Yet, some things surprised us.

The first half mile of the first day was road-riding.  Moyfried had never been ridden on a road with cars passing.  Luckily, it was a rural area with few cars and little activity.  Also, those rural drivers knew how to pass horses slowly or not pass at all.  I wish all drivers were as careful.

The tunnels were interesting, but not as much for the dark as for the noise. Vali has always been sensitive to noise, and I led him through the first one.  We both rode the second one, but the intense dark was very disorienting, at least for me as a rider.  Even though it was a short tunnel, pointing a flashlight on the wall helped.

There was a short bridge over an irrigation return canal, like a large waterfall contained in an almost-vertical cement channel.  That was loud.  I led Vali over that.

Toward the end of the first day, we had to go under two Interstate-90 overpasses. First the east bound, then the west bound.  Both horses were worried, listening to the roar and bump of traffic over the expansion joints, and immediately after there was a wooden bridge that Moyfried thought she might need to jump.  After some tense moments, we were able to get Moy behind Vali as I led Vali across. 

Oh yeah, we walked right by a large pig farm on day two.  Our horses were fine, but they have both lived near pigs.  I figured that might have been interesting for some of the other horses, since pigs smell like carnivorous horse-eating beasts.    

The trestles and bridges over the next few days got easier and easier for our horses.  It was great to have two bonded horses, they gave each other confidence and were each brave about different things.  We often clumped up with similar-speed horses, and a few times two women with more emotional horses tucked in behind us to borrow some of our calm.  Our horses didn’t care.

All in all, Vali and Moyfried rocked the ride, mainly because we prepared them, and ourselves, ahead of time.   I always thought I wanted to do the longer 17-day ride organized by the same group.  Now I’m thinking a four-day ride is plenty.  But my camper battery would definitely handle the longer time!

Uncle Vali’s Thoughts on the Big Ride

I’ve been quiet on my blog lately, mainly because I’ve spent a lot of time getting ready for, and then finally riding, a four day, 65-mile trip on the Palouse to Cascades Trail.  The ride was organized and facilitated by the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders Association. There were so many topics to write about during this time, such as: preparation and fitness for horses and riders, gear to pack, revamping my camper to work from solar power with a lithium battery so we could dry-camp for five nights, surprises along the route, and more.  However, my horse Vali nuzzled his way into the front of the line.  He wanted to share his thoughts on the ride.  So I have passed the lap-top to Vali to write this blog.    

Uncle Vali’s* Thoughts on the Big Ride

I like travelling and seeing new places.  It makes me happy, almost as happy as having a full hay bag and a bucket of water in front of me.  My needs are simple. I like new trails, too.  It’s fun to see what’s around the next corner.  My human thinks my extreme attentiveness means I might spook (and I might, because sometimes you just have to keep your humans and herd mates safe from danger) but mostly I really like to see new things.

On this camping trip, we horses stayed on high-ties, these pole and bungie things attached to the side of the horse trailer.  I have been on a high-tie before, but never for a whole night.  It’s almost as good as a small electric fence, like my human usually puts me in during our camping trips. I can move around with the long bungie rope hanging from the pole above, and I even figured out how to lay down.  But mostly, I could easily eat, so life was good.

My buddy Moyfried, though, thought the bungie rope was a delightful plaything.  She pushed and turned and pulled and tested until it finally broke on our second night after some harmless deer walked by.  She just came over to visit me on my side of the trailer to feel safe from what she thought were carnivorous beasts, but our humans were grouchy from being forced out of their snug camper.  I’m not sure what is so special about that camper, they can’t see the stars, but they sure like to be inside all night.  They must have really good hay in there.  And I thought I smelled beer one night.  I like beer, it’s made of grain. Moyfried escaped again on the third night.  The humans were extra slow to catch her that night. I think they needed more hay to help them relax afterward. 

This trip had some long rides.  Luckily Moyfried and I are very fit.  We rode lots of trails over the summer.  Moyfried can be a little goofy, and gets worried about some things.  She is a mare after all, and a young one at that.  We geldings are much braver, although a few times on the ride even I got worried and my human got off to lead me.  I like it when she leads me through scary spots.  I can relax with the knowledge that she will be eaten by the trolls first. Seriously!  One of the river bridges had a troll walking under it.  The humans thought it might be an elk, but elk are not scary and they do not live under bridges.  It was a troll.  My human went first on that bridge and we all survived, luckily. I would be sad if my human was eaten, but I’m sure the other human would let me live at her farm.

There were so many bridges, and they can make some scary hollow sounds, and sometimes they have a metal strip in front that clangs like a bell when our shoes hit it.  It is disturbing.  I finally learned how to carefully step over that metal part.  Also, sometimes the bridges have cracks in the surface!  Those cracks and openings were scary at first, because trolls can get their fingers through the cracks and grab our hooves.  We needed to lift our hooves very high over those cracks to avoid the trolls.  But, late in the day, we would get tired and the trolls would take naps and all the bridges were fine for crossing. 

There were these new things on the ride called tunnels.  Tunnels are a dark hole in a mountain that we had to walk through.  The darkness is a little concerning, but the true horror was the echoing sounds coming out from way up ahead– like a bunch of loud horses and trolls drumming and singing. Badly. At the first tunnel I made my human go in front on foot. At the second tunnel I felt better; I didn’t see, hear, or smell danger so I let my human stay on my back.  On the last day, we started into a super-long tunnel.  The humans were saying it was an hour long at Fjord Horse speed.  An hour in Fjord time is the time it takes to eat a flake of hay in a haybag.  Oddly, they didn’t make us go all the way through that breakfast-length tunnel.   I could have done it!  But I was secretly glad that we didn’t.  I could tell my human didn’t like it.  Sometimes you have to give your humans a win. 

I don’t usually like the sound of big trucks, or rattling trailers, or far away loud noises.  But we spent a long time walking along this thing called Interstate 90.  I figured out that is where hay trucks and horse trailers go when they want to visit other far-away horses.  Once I determined that noise wasn’t coming from troll parties under bridges, I was okay with it.  It was kind of calming, like the sound of tractors mowing hay fields. 

My human thought that I would be worried when horses came up behind us, or passed us, or got out of sight during the ride.  But I wasn’t.  I had my buddy Moyfried beside me, and she had me, and we were a herd of two.  Our herd bond was strong.  Also, some of those other horses were weird.  A couple of the Arabs glared and called us “ponies” as they passed.  We are Fjord HORSES! Some of those flighty horses jigged and jogged for miles.  What a waste of energy. Don’t they know that these shoes were made for walking? Slow and steady wins the race.  We did walk pretty fast, though; our humans were surprised we had it in us.  Sometimes we walked slowly, too.   On the third day of the big ride we Fjords were in front for two whole miles!!  Of course we had started earlier than the others.  Eventually the faster sillier horses caught up and passed us.  We didn’t care, the views on that trail were stupendous!

There was a thing called a carriage pulled by two horses that our humans thought we would be scared of.  We were not, because we got to meet those horses the first morning.  They are steady and focused horses, and we respected them.  They had a job to do, and that was to pull a noisy rattling wagon with flags on the back.  We didn’t want to make their job harder by spooking when they came near.

Luckily the humans brought snacks in our saddle bags on the rides.  It’s a lot of miles to go without a snack.  You know the humans have food out when you hear that cellophane plasticky crinkling sound.  Sometimes they tried to hide the food from us, but we have good ears.  I always turn my head to get a tidbit.  Or I try to get some cookies from Moyfried’s rider.  I don’t know why they didn’t share the thing they called beef jerky.  It smelled salty.  I would have eaten it. 

Our longest ride was 19 miles (that’s more than six Fjord-hours).  I could have gone further.  But the humans were tired, so we quit.  Also, there was hay at the trailer.

At the end of our ride on day four, my owner took out this metal thing called a flask.  The humans took a drink, and then my human poured some on her palm for me to taste it.  I licked it up. And then I licked up a second taste.  They call it brandy.  I call it joyful juice, because the humans were joyful when they drank it.  It’s good, but not as good as beer.  Moyfried lifted her lip in disgust at the smell. She is too young to appreciate good joyful juice. But give me a couple more trips like this, and I’ll have her corrupted, I mean trained.

* Vali spent the 2025 riding season at my friend Solveig’s farm, where he earned his nickname, Uncle Vali, because he was an older finished horse that could be a good example to the younger horses and humans on the farm.   Turns out that he is more like the goofy uncle that is always trying to get the other horses in trouble. He starts the biting fests through the fences with the foals.  He taunts the stallion from two paddocks away and starts the galloping fence racing.  As Solveig says, he is like that uncle that loves the nieces and nephews but gets them thrown in jail during their jaunts and escapades.

[Photo credits Solveig Pedersen]

A Dude in New Mexico

In May, my local friend Cindy and I joined our Colorado friend Katy, and her friend Natalie, on our third “Katy Misadventure”.  Katy plans these trips regularly, to fun and remote locations.  If they involve horses, I try to say yes.  If they involve river rafting, I say no.  Rapids scare me. 

Katy hauled her two horses to the remote N-Bar Ranch in New Mexico, while Cindy and I rented outfitter horses, otherwise known as “dude horses”.  My horse was Poncho, a giant black part-draft horse.  He stood about 17 hands high.  That’s huge, especially given that my horse at home is short, technically a large pony.  Suddenly I was having to get on a horse whose withers (top of shoulder) was about eye level on me, instead of chest level.  And I had to lift a heavy old-style Western saddle up even higher than that to saddle him.  Though I had worked on fitness and strength over the winter, the saddle weight-lifting still tested my limits.  At first it took two of us to get the saddle set in the right spot on his back, but by the fifth day of riding, I could do it without help.

Mounting that giant horse was a challenge, but there was always a mounting block, tree stump, or a rock around to give me some extra inches.  Still, I had to lift my leg much higher than normal to reach the stirrup, and a loud grunt was required to make that final stretch to swing up, over and into the saddle. But the view from that height was amazing! 

Dismounting, on the other hand, was even more challenging than mounting, in part because I kept inadvertently putting Poncho in a slight downhill spot, so that I was making him even taller.  If I stepped down with my left foot still in the stirrup, Western style, my leg got a bit torqued and my foot would get stuck sideways in the stirrup, a very vulnerable position.  As I pushed the stirrup off my foot with my hand, I could hear every trainer I ever knew yelling, “Danger, Danger, get your foot out!!”  So instead, I started dismounting English style, where you step your right leg over the horse, pause while hanging sideways on the saddle, kick your left foot out of the stirrup, then slide or hop down gracefully.  But on that mountain of a horse, there was no grace.  It was like shinnying backwards off a cliff, when you don’t know how far away the ground is, and you hope you can find enough tree branches and roots to hang onto as you go down to prevent an out-of-control slide to the bottom.   I slid down slowly while holding the saddle, until my stretched toes finally, after what seemed like minutes, touched the ground.  Poncho always stood nicely as I figured out how to climb down without getting tangled up, and without falling on my butt.  I suspect he was laughing at my strange gymnastics.   I figure it all counted as another kind of strength training.

 A friend at home has been teaching me how to do body work on horses, where you move your fingers lightly along the horse’s body, then hold, waiting for a relaxation response by the horse.  Each day in the paddock I would practice a little on Poncho, along his neck one day, shoulder one day, spine or hips another day.  He reacted subtly, wiggling his lips or dropping his head.  On the last day I worked more around his barrel and girth area and especially focused on some white scars caused by misfitting saddles over the years.  He suddenly pawed dramatically with his giant front hooves—I jumped way back, not expecting that, and watched as he stretched down low, grunting, and bowing with his head down between his legs like a circus horse.  In my limited experience I had never seen such a dramatic reaction, such a big release.  I smiled at him and walked away.  My job there was done.   

Open photo

We had no wifi or cell signal at the ranch, so I was in withdrawal from my cell phone addiction.  Without that constant stimulus, my brain went down different paths.  On one trail ride on a very windy day Poncho and I were happily riding along at the end of the line of horses.  The wind was screaming—all you could hear was wind rushing past your ears.  I started singing.  I am not a singer, by any stretch of the word, yet I was dredging lyrics out of my memory.  First singing softly, then belting the songs out: Joy to the World, Delta Dawn, Country Roads, Bohemian Rhapsody… the riders ahead of me couldn’t hear, or could barely hear, due to the wind.  I swear Poncho loved it.  Or maybe he loved that I relaxed up there, singing in a windstorm, in rhythm with his stride.  He walked calmly along, even though we were a fair bit away from the other horses.  I think that because I had no phone to distract me, my brain started searching the depths of memories, and landed on songs that I used to know.  Another hint to step away from our phones and computers for a time.    

On the last day of riding, we had a short group ride and then the guide and I rode off on our own, straight up a hill and along a ridge.  On the top we rode through pinyon pine and alligator juniper and as we circled further along the U-shaped ridge we saw live oak.  We eventually came to a  giant, gorgeous, beautiful old-growth alligator juniper.   Right next to it was an ancient large gnarled live oak.  We were in the grove of the grandmother trees.  We named the area Alligator Ridge. 

We dismounted and took a break at the grandmother grove.  I had a drink of water from my water bottle, a reused plastic iced-tea bottle, and Poncho was very interested, bumping the bottle with his nose.  I poured some water in my hand, but he indicated I wasn’t doing it right.   I poured some into his lips.  Still not right.  Then he grabbed the neck of the bottle in his teeth, but at that point the bottle was empty. 

When we got back to the ranch, I filled the water bottle again.  I tried to pour it in his mouth; instead, he again took hold of the bottle with his teeth, tossing his head and chewing on the neck.  He looked disappointed. I am certain he expected beer.  Note to self: always pack extra beer for the horses.

No description available.

[Photo credits: Me, Cindy, and Katy.]

Another Published Article in Mary Jane’s Farm Magazine

Mary Jane’s Farm magazine once again was kind enough to publish an article of mine: Overalls Beat All, p. 29, in the June-July 2024, issue. This issue is on newsstands now. I hope you enjoy the magazine.

I can’t share that article from the current issue yet. Instead, I’ll share my last article, Feeling Her Oats, that was published in the April-May issue of Mary Jane’s Farm magazine. The theme for that “Keeping In Touch” section of the magazine was “Pony Up”.

Feeling Her Oats

The phrase “pony up” means to make good on a debt. However, as a horseperson, I focus on the word “pony.” To me, pony up means to mount up and ride. It reminds me of other sayings that started with horses, or that can apply to horses. Such as, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” This phrase originates from the fact that you can tell a horse’s age by looking at the wear on its teeth. Generally, only old horses are given away, so don’t look if you don’t want to know. Don’t ask if the gift is too good to be true. Young horses are expensive; you need to pony up substantial money for a good young horse.

Another phrase is “Don’t go against the grain.” I was taught to brush a horse with the grain of the hair, following the growth along the neck, over the back, and then dipping where the hair turns down in front of the flank. You brush with the grain because if you brush the wrong way, it may tickle the horse. And a ticklish horse may surprise you with a kick.

Paper has a grain. Paper tears and folds more easily in one direction than the other. The grain of the paper comes from the way the wood fiber was laid down when the paper was made. Wood has a grain, too. If you are carving, or even just whittling, the flakes will come off smoothly in one direction, while in the other direction, they will break off in jagged chunks. Always follow the grain of the wood with your knife, and always whittle away from you. I know this; my family usually cringes when I pick up a sharp knife. This reminds me of another saying: “A dull knife cuts worse than a sharp knife.” I have the scars to prove this.

Sand has grains. Sand grains flow with gravity, or with the wind. The tiniest grains can make a large dune. Just like the tiniest effort can make a change in the world. Rice is a grain, but in that case, you need to “separate the grain from the chaff,” or focus on the important stuff. Then there is salt: “Take that with a grain of salt.” Don’t always believe what you hear. Or better yet, don’t believe something unless it comes “straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Oats are also a grain. A horse that is “feeling its oats” is very rambunctious, as if it had sugar for breakfast and is full of energy. Sometimes, if a horse is feeling its oats, the rider gets dumped. Then the expectation is to “get back on the horse.”

I tried this recently, after an unplanned dismount. I insisted on finishing the ride because I follow through on commitments. But then I felt my injured hand swelling up inside my leather glove and the pain got worse. When I saw the lumps on my wrist, I decided that getting back on the horse was overrated. After a visit to the doctor and a diagnosis of a broken bone, I relearned another old saying: “Rest is the best medicine.”

Unfortunately, a rest for me means a rest for my horse. When I finally get back to riding again, he is likely to be feeling his oats. Hopefully, the next time I pony up, I will stay in the middle of the saddle and won’t need to revisit getting back on the horse. I am optimistic that instead, we will be calmly putting one hoof in front of the other and riding off into the sunset.

[Photo Credit pexels.com]

Growing Old is Not for the Faint of Heart…

But it’s better than the alternative. An old friend used to say that. I’m understanding it more and more.

I still find it hard to believe, but a week ago I fell off my horse and broke my arm. Again.  The left arm this time. 

It was just a spook, a quick forward move that I can usually ride. And it was just a fall onto grass, a fall I have done in my home pasture many times before. It usually hurts, but I don’t usually break.  These are new times in my life with horses.

I have gotten support, advice, and help from friends and family. The most obvious advice is never to ride bareback in the spring. Or never to ride bareback, period, since I’m old, and my balance isn’t what it once was. But I’ve also heard of other riders with injuries and falls this spring. More than one of us are spending the spring healing. It’s weirdly reassuring that I’m not alone.

The support has come in many forms.  A friend helped me haul my horses to a vet appointment this week, while I pointed and advised and told her which of my look-alike fjord horses was which.  Other friends offered any help I may need. My husband and son have been waiting on me, feeding me, and feeding the horses.  My poodle, Cookie, has been keeping me company on the couch.  The cats, however, have been indifferent and aloof.

It’s been a wakeup call, that I cant ride and play like I could when I was 16. Or 26. Or even 56. Horses have been the place where I can find my inner teenager, and just goof around. Now it’s the place where I have to find my inner cautious senior citizen. Safety before fun. The saddle is my friend.

I want to get through this healing journey quickly, but it was a displaced break, and will take time. Surgery, screws, and plates were involved.  It’s hard to live in the moment, when I want to fast forward and figure out what kind of therapy I need and start exercises to get stronger. Instead I am forced to embrace the wisdom and patience of age, and breathe through the tweaks of pain. Because it’s better than the alternative.

[photo credit pexels.com]