Well, let’s see…Saturday was my birthday, so it was rather odd actually getting to do something fun, like ride my pony, on my birthday versus what I typically do – school. I’ll admit, getting up at 3AM on my birthday might not be the most enjoyable idea ever, but getting up that early is actually worth it, even moreso than getting up at 4 or 4:30. If I’m up at 3, we can be out of the house by 3:30 (I’m finally getting Dad going on this idea of “pack the truck the night before and eat breakfast on the go”) and leaving the barn, ponies in tow, by 4:20, and at the trailhead by about 4:45. We’re actually ready to ride by 6, so we’re still catching about an hour of really pleasant weather before it starts really warming up.

It’s very weird being down at the San Tans that early. We’re the only ones there at that time, and it’s still pitch-black out. There was no moon this weekend, either, so it was even darker. Driving down to the park, we saw two owls! One had just swooped down to grab something on the side of the road, and the other was flying above the truck on the road leading into the park. That was so cool seeing that.

The ponies were both really good on Saturday, especially because it was super windy. It was really still about 4AM, but as the sun started coming up, the breeze picked up, and by the time we were on the trail, there was a good wind blowing. However, it felt really good because of the humidity in the air, and the ponies were feeling really good. Mimi was in Arabian Junior mode, making me really practice my “long leg, deep seat” riding.

We even took them in the Big Scary Sandwash that they hate – really deep sand and a lot of wildlife and birds that like to fly out of bushes as you go past – and it was lovely. The wind was even reaching down into the wash, so it was pleasant enough to just walk along. I took Dad to the south end of the park to show him the new construction they’re doing, putting in a secondary trailhead and a small parking lot and another stepover gate. Way to *finally* listen to us about what we need, park people.

On the way back, we saw a Very Large Rattlesnake. Actually, Mimi did. I was half-turned in the saddle, talking to Dad behind me, when she slowed down, then stopped in the middle of the wash. I turned, looked fdown, and about ten feet away was a huge rattlesnake, very softly rattling his tail, but fortunately moving away from us. She watched him Very Carefully until he disappeared into the bushes under a tree, then we continued on. He was about 5 feet long, and probably a good 4 or 5 inches in diameter, with a rather large chunk of rattles on him. Lovely.

Truthfully? I don’t mind seeing them, especially in that kind of setting – a lot of space to move, and with the snake streched out, moving away from us. But this was turning out to be quite the wildlife encounters day. And this makes two weekends in a row that we’ve seen snakes. We saw a king snake or something like it the previous Saturday.

The rest of my birthday my nice and relaxing…came home, took a short nap, my parents took me out to dinner, then I came home and watched several episodes of “Burn Notice,” my new favorite TV show, and did a little bit of writing.

The ponies got the day off Sunday, and I spent most of the day catching up on laundry.

Monday was Labor Day, aka no school for me, and the business was closed for Dad, so the ponies got out again. Beamer was very displeased with this idea…he’s gotten way too used to, “ride two days, then get the week off.” So he expressed this by being an absolute bundle of nerves, spooking at everything, refusing to move out, bucking if he was in the back and Mimi got too far ahead…*sigh*

Mimi started out slightly grumpy (I think I woke her up) but she got better, and by the time I was on her back, she was a regular handful. Forget Junior today, we were in full Arabian mode. Lots of long leg, deep seat, tigher rein. The plus side to this? She’s wonderfully collected and forward and light, ready at a second’s notice to do what I ask. The downside? She’s even more reactive, so I have to be prepared for sudden, violent sideways spooks and shies.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t really capitalize on this because Beamer was being such a pain. So we walked. A lot. My butt was numb, and knees were seizing up, and I finally got off and walked the last quarter mile in because at that point, falling off would have been more comfortable. Just about the time I think Beamer is finally commited to moving forwards instead of taking steps backwards, he pulls a stunt like this. What made it even worse was the weather was ickier yesterday – humid, with very little breeze, and hot, so walking was not what I wanted to do.

Well, he’s got all week to stew now, and maybe he’ll be better next weekend. I really hope so, and I’m not even the one that has to ride him, I just have to deal with his antics peripherally, which is annoying enough.

Good thing Man Against Horse is only a month away…I really need new Renegades.

Those that know us know that we’re people that don’t really like that much drama, especially my parents. I’m a little more dramatically inclined (the problem with doing theatre work since junior high school). The ponies are both definitely dramatic. Beamer’s personal life philosophy is, “If it’s worth reacting over, it’s worth reacting BIG over.” Mimi tends to just be very expressive, and is not one to hold back if she thinks it’s a worthy cause.

So that’s the base we’re starting with. Last weekend, we skipped riding…I’m such a bad pony mother…but it was way too bloody hot out there to ride. So the ponies started this weekend with two weeks off.

The weather sorta cooperated over the weekend. Saturday was tolerable, as the humidity was down and there was a nice breeze in the air. Mimi was quite happy to be going out…they were both turned out in the small turnout the previous night, and she came scampering over to the gate to see me. Awww, my pony wuuuuvvvvssss me. :) Beamer hid in the corner.

However, he changed his mind after he saw Mimi leaving the pasture, and he hustled over to Dad, lest he get left behind. He was still a bit reluntant heading out from the trailhead…Mr. Lazy. Mimi was, as always, more than happy to go. Y’see, there’s a reason she’s called the Go Pony.

So we’re meandering up this lovely wash, actually catching a nice breeze, which is rather unusual. Typically, this wash doesn’t get any air movement – it’s sort of narrow, high-sided and twisty. We like it, because it’s rather pretty, the sand isn’t too deep, and it’s a good place to trot. The ponies hate it because it’s high-sided, and in an area with high animal traffic. So they’re always a bit more up on this trail.

We come around a corner, and there, tangled in a greasewood bush, are bobbing Mylar Balloons of Death!!! OH NO!!! As anyone who has encountered such a thing knows, these are typically beyond most normal horses level of threshold tolerance for Scary Things. Beamer is in the lead, and he slams to a stop (fortunately we were just walking at this point), stares, then attempts to whirl around. Mimi was right on his butt, and the prospect of plowing into her was infinitely scarier than the balloons (good boy, Beamer, you’re learning…)

To compound matters, we’re sort of stuck between a high bank on one side, and a very dead, cracky, pokey tree on the other side. Beamer turns again, and tries to back away, but the tree poked him in the butt. Heh. So he’s standing there, ready to just explode…I get Mimi around his butt and get her to take a few very hesitant steps forward, just enough to get her head in front of his.

She’s doing a fantastic Arab impression – neck arched, ears pricked, eyes bulged, nostrils flaring, the Arab Snort – it was beautiful, I wish I would have had my camera. With her head in front (which means she’ll get eaten first), Beamer calms down enough for both of us to jump off safely, and I bravely march forward, dragging Mimi behind me. She’s still wary (see above Arab Impression) but as long as I’m in front on foot, she’ll be brave and face down the Balloon Monsters.

Beamer, Mr. Curious, decides that he’s not going to be left behind, and starts creeping along behind Mimi. I stop next to the balloons and start deflating and untangling them, Mimi watching very intently the whole time…she’s very curious what I’m doing, and as I start crunching them up, she has to poke her nose forward and sniff them. I get all the balloons deflated and crunched together and cram them in my pommel bag…my environmental good deed for the day is done. :) Not only did I protect other horses from the Balloons of Death, I got them out of the desert…even if the horses hadn’t spooked at them, I still would have stopped and gotten rid of them. That kind of garbage doesn’t belong in the desert.

So, as if this wasn’t enough drama…we’re on the trail back to the trailhead, and I glance down at Mimi’s face and see this bright green twig stuck to her bridle. Upon closer inspection, the “twig” turns out to be a praying mantis, clinging to the side of her headstall to hitch a ride!!! This is only the second praying mantis I’ve ever seen. My first thought is, “Great, this is the horse that hates bugs.” Second thought is, “But I don’t want to kill it, they’re good!” So, how to get a rather clingy bug off the pony’s head without crushing said bug or setting off said pony?

We stopped, and I spent a couple minutes trying to flick him off with the leather popper end of my rommel. He wasn’t impressed with my efforts, and proceeded to crawl all over Mimi’s face. And she just stood there! This is the horse that went into meltdown at Williams because there were no-see-ums buzzing around her, and now she’s letting a praying mantis crawl all over her eyes, forehead, nose, and bridle?

I was finally able to get the leather end under him and gently flick him into a bush next to the trail, and Mimi just stood there calmly the whole time. That sort of thing leads me to wonder if horses can inately tell the different between “bad” bugs – bees, mosquitoes, gnats – and “good” bugs – praying mantis (what’s the plural? manti? mantises?), ladybugs, butterflies? Because normally she’d be throwing an absolute fit, and here, she didn’t move. Amazing.

That was the end of the drama for Saturday.

Sunday was a lot ickier…humid, with not much of a breeze. We were keep the ride very short, on a loop where we could do more trotting and make our own breeze. Partway through the loop, which is actually outside the park boundaries, we have to cross the road that leads into the park. 2 lane, very little traffic except that going into the park, so not a big deal. As we’re approaching, I see two shapes bounding down the road…oh, great, more loose dogs.

Rural Queen Creek is loose dog haven…nobody puts dog-safe fencing up, so there’s always dogs running around. Mostly, they stay out of the park, but we’ve been threatened a couple times, and it always makes me a bit wary. These two appeared mostly harmless – a juvenile-looking Labrador and a Pomeranian. Still, many dogs idea of fun involves way too many teeth for my liking. So I took the offensive.

I turned Mimi right at them and starting trotting down the pavement (thank goodness for Renegades!), yelling at them. They froze, hunched down, and scattered. Headed for the trees and shrubbery to the side of the road, circled way around me, and started slinking off. Mimi and I still followed them until they took off running down the road, back towards the residential areas. Mimi was so proud of herself…she had the “Pony Stare”, the kind that makes cows wilt before her…and she was pratically strutting by the time we got back to Dad and Beamer, who were just watching the show from the side of the road.

The most impressive part was watching the Pomeranian take a flying leap off a three foot high bank into the sand wash below to get away from us.

The rest of the ride was quiet and drama free, with the exception of Beamer proving that he, too, can do a Power Trot. “Look at me go, I can extend my legs, yes I can!” When he gets motivated, he can really move. He just needs to learn discretion about when to use said power trot – ie., not on a sort of rocky, slightly downhill, twisting single track. Even if it is going back towards home. :)

And thus ends my weekend drama.

Lesson learned of last Sunday’s: our horses don’t like being left to sit for a week. Due to simply ghastly weather Saturday, we wimped out of riding…and the ponies let us know how very displeased they were with us on Snday. It was very strange weather…very monsoony and humid, but only about a high of 85* when we were out there. A light breeze, and very, very overcast. So between the slight “coolness” in the air, and a bit of a breeze, Mimi was definitely in airy-fairy mode today. She was very much “between my hands and legs”, spending more time bouncing up climbs than actually walking them. Apparently Beamer wasn’t much better, judging by the mutters of Dad that I heard behind me. They were acting like a couple of dysfunctional slinkies – speed up, slow down, go down the hill with your front feet on one track of trail, your hind feet on the other track, bounce a few times, trip, almost fall on your face…*sigh*

In other news, I finally scanned a bunch of the professional pics I have from rides, both NATRC and AERC, and I’ve slowly been trying to “recreate the past” and work up some of my old ride stories. I have a fiarly photographic memory for things like this, so I’m having relatively good success. I’ll post them as I complete them.

1) Ride early.

You seriously don’t want to ask me waht my wakeup time is on weekends. Here’s a hint: around the time the last 1/3 of Tevis riders cross the finish line…as in somewhere around 4:00. Urk. Sick and wrong when sunrise hasn’t even started yet and I’m awake. Coffee helps.

Mind you, some of my earliness comes from the necessity of having to drive 40 minutes to the barn, hitch up the trailer, load the ponies, and then drive 15 minutes to the park.

2) Ride short.

The less time you’re out in the heat, the better. Doing shorter loops helps, too…going out for a 6-7 mile loop, get a drink back at the trailer, then go for another loop.

3) Make your own breeze!

Trotting is *good* when it creates artificial air ciculation. Course, this doesn’t work too well when it’s hot and the ponies say “Trot? You must be joking. It’s too hot to be out here, let alone trot, so I will continue to plod at a snail’s pace.” *sigh*

4) You *can* sponge in the desert!

Well, you can if you have a water spigot at the trailhead that can be turned on from the saddle. Hold sponge under running water, loose sponge when pony leaps to the side to marvel at the sudden gush of water, retrieve sponge, sponge pony from ground to show that it is not the Killer Attack Sponge, but rather an instrument of comfort, remount, attempt to shuck sponge at running water, watch pony flail and leap because the sponge come Out Of Nowhere, slop barely damp sponge against neck, incite further leaping until pony realizes that This Feels Good, lather rinse repeat. *grin* Can you tell we haven’t been sponged from the saddle much? She’s actually not that overly dramatic, it just makes for an amusing story. And that was only the first tiem I tried that trick. Now, she’s an old pro.

5) Cotton. Cotton breathes.

Lightweight cotton t-shirts are good. So are long-sleeved lightweight cotton sunshirts over lightweight cotton tank tops. Now I need to invest in cotton tights, versus my nylon/lyrca numbers, even though they’ll get shredded on our Shrubberies of Doom and Steel Branches out here.

6) Camelbak.

My lifesaver. Because yes, you can go through 70 oz of water on a 10 mile training ride.

That being said, we braved te heat and monsoon humidity for a short ride today. It absolutely poured on Thursday night, so the ponies have been stalled up. Urgh.

The first sign that it really rained hard at the park was the fact that part of the entrance road to the park was now dirt road. The normally paved road had been covered over for about 1/4 mile with sand and dirt. Oh.

There was much redistribution of real estate at the park from the storm…some trails that were formerly beautiful footing had been worn down to the bedrock granite layer. And some of the shallow, super rocky washes were now 2′ deep with sand.

All of this meant a slow ride today because a) we needed to see how badly washed out some of our trails were and, in necessary, reblaze them, and b) we didn’t know how much some of them had chaged, especially the washes. They can be very unpredictable after a rain, and last week’s perfect trotting wash may now be soft snad up to their fetlocks. Also, c) the fact that saguaros most often fall after a storm, and the horses hate coming up on those suddenly. The fact that they’re moist and decaying makes them smell very dead and very bad. That and the sight of a fifty foot fall cactus laying on the ground with weird angles does funny things to horse imaginations…

All in all…nice ride…hot, humid, but there was a little breeze for most of the time, which was nice.

Still sulking about Tevis, and how all of my contingency plans to make up for not crewing at Tevis keep falling through. Grrr.

However, I’m happy to report my foot doesn’t hurt at all riding! A little sore still sometimes walking around, or if I sit and poke at certain spots I can make it hurt, but riding was perfectly fine. And I even managed a little in-hand trot-out back at the barn today. :)

A much more productive weekend this weekend, horse-wise. Beamer really had his head together this weekend, even on Saturday, which is normally his rather weebly day. Both ponies were in total ride-mode – Beamer was very bold and forward, so much that he wanted to lead the entire ride. None of us were complaining. And Mimi shocked me – instead of being in ultra-competitive mode, she was instead in “conserve and naturally rate thyself” mode, meaning she was a total push-button (well, for the pony) blast to ride. Soft, light, not pulling at all…t’was very unnatural. She must be lulling me into a false sense of security.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pics…I’m still futzing around with my saddle packs, trying to figure out how to balance minimalist with function. Always tougher in the summer when the need to carry pony water arises. However, I don’t want to carry too much stuff, I feel bad enough making the pony pack my butt around.

We got our heat conditioning in this weekend, that’s for sure. Say it all together now: “Good Tevis training!” Saturday we did the bigger loop, which is a great mix-up of trail with sand washes, trottable singletracks, some technical ups and downs and rocks, and climing – both longer and fairly short and intense. It’s one of my favorite trails in the park, as it’s very interesting and there are about half a dozen variations you can do: make it longer or shorter, run it in both directions (we usually start east, go west, then loop back around to the east in a clockwise direction), take different trails out to the back loop, take different trails back to the trailhead from the back loop…it keeps thing interesting for us and the horses.

It was warm yesterday, but I actually wasn’t feeling it until today. I did really well – over about 3-1/2 hours, I drank my entire 70oz Camelbak of water, as well as a 16oz waterbottle of a half Gatorade/half water mix…as well as remembered to take electrolyte caps and even nibble on half an energy bar. The heat kills my appetite, and when I’m hot, there’s so much that is unappealing for me to eat. Must explore options for that.

The ponies got a water break halfway through…they both drank – yay! This is the first time Beamer has actually drank on one of our training ride mid-trail breaks. He drinks brilliantly at rides and in camp, but he doesn’t see the point in standing around for a break on a little “training ride.” Well, when the weather is up around 90*, apparently he sees the point.

Today was a bit of wash, however. I think the heat caught up with all of us, as Dad reported that Beamer felt a lot more tired today. Mimi was still perky, although she was kind of miserable from some kind of bugs that were chewing on her last night…she had a good dozen lumps all over her body today, about half the size of my palm. Fortunately nothing in the saddle or girth area, but she was really itchy on them.

That, and yesterday, her ears were really itchy, too, and kind of dry and scaly inside. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but I’m not really sure what it’s all about. I’m hoping it’s not something like ear mites that will require a vet visit. However, doing some research has lead me to be more inclinded to believe that it’s just the nasty little black gnats that are biting her ears. She was a good girl and let me wipe her ears out with a dry cloth, and then put fly stuff her her.

So today’s ride was shorter, about 5 miles, although it did have a good hill climb to it. Mimi still blitzed up the hill. She’s such a crazy go-pony. Yesterday’s heat wiped me out though; I’m definitely not conditioned for it yet. Today I pretty much felt like a wet noodle, and came home and slept for a couple hours this afternoon, and am still ready to go to bed early. Wimp. Time to break out the CoolMedics vest and see how well it’s working.