It was a good weekend

Saturday morning Ranae and I went out and did some long-trotting, and loping. It was well into the 90's here. There's a feedlot about two miles away and we rode by that. On the back side we got ourselves trapped between a calf raising operation and an irrigation canal. It was pretty narrow and the guys working in the calf area were making some strange noises. They had this flame thing going on. Anyway, it was pretty scary and the horses weren't having any of it and were working each other up. Since the irrigation canal posed the greatest danger and Ranae was getting a bit frustrated (Dusty had walked by it before, but wasn't going now), I just hopped off and led Jessie through the area. She stayed calm and Dusty followed.

Then we had some little successes on the other side moving through some farm equipment and more penned cows who, by the way, would jump up and come running towards us as we walked by. The ride was just under 10 miles.

Sunday we went out to the river. The girls were meeting up with some friends to ride. I tagged along to use the arena. It's not really a public arena, but it was early and no one was there so we worked a little more than 30 minutes. My GPS said we had gone 2.5 miles. We did some follow the fence, side-passing, serpentine and, of course, some more loping. Jessie was a bit out of sorts because all her friends had left so I did my best to keep her busy.

Then we trotted off down the trail. She was on high alert looking for her friends and again, I just kept her working. There's a bridge crossing we were working on. She had gotten on but didn't want to cross and a truck came up behind us. I backed off and when the truck went over the bridge I put her in follow mode and she went right across. (All that following bikes and stuff paid off or she is just really a follower)

We found another area that had a circular trail about 100 yards long and I worked on doing that at a trot. We probably went around the thing six times in each direction before I got her to make the turns without a fight. A real sweat producer for both of us.

Then we headed back and found some railroad ties on the ground where we worked at finding our way through those. There was an "L"-shaped structure and we backed through that in both directions. (We need more work with that) Then headed back to the stable.

This morning the ferrier came for her trim. Ranae is giving me the afternoon off for my birthday. Jessie's feet will likely be tender, so I think I'll ride Dusty. I haven't done that in awhile. Although now the clouds are moving in and they say there might be some thunderstorms...