Solo Flight

Chance Takes the Trail By Himself

The trail that goes to the tree farm and back along the Turnpike--the one I walked yesterday--is full of distractions. There is all the farm equipment to pass.  Then it passes along my road, where, across the street, the Local 825 Heavy Equipment Training Center makes a lot of noise. Finally, we parallel the NJ Turnpike for a good long distance. At times it's level with the traffic, then above the traffic and then below. Trucks and cars passing by a few hundred feet away make a lot of noise.

Chance has been on this trail three times with other horses at his side. Christine and I paired up on those rides. Today, Chance had his solo flight on the trail.

He was an angel.  I think he was still looking for Christine and JJ or Juan to keep him company, but he was a good boy willing going past everything. We only had one startled moment, and that was back on the part of the trail heading into the woods. A rather good sized buck leapt up out of the tall grass and bounded across the field.  Once Chance saw it was only a deer, he settled right back down after one not too dramatic sideways spook of his own.

Since the bugs didn't seem too bad, we took the woods trail home.

Now, here's the funny part. The whole trail was over 2 1/2 miles long. It took us over 45 minutes. According to my GPS, Chance's pace was about 2.8 mph on the average. That is not much different than my regular walking pace when I'm out there.

Conclusion? Riding my horse at a walk is not a faster mode of transportation than my own legs.

Now, mind you, Chance did stop a few times and sometimes he was a bit slow as he cautiously made his way past some of the stranger sights on the trail.

The rest of the day's exercise included about a half hour of barn chores and another walk for me of 40 minutes.

I am sufficiently worn out for the day.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all the greenery I picked up with my CSA farm share. This week, I have a huge head of red lettuce, a large bunch of collard greens, an onion, a head of broccoli, and three yellow squash.

Since I still have a green squash from last week to eat, I am thinking some nice squash pancakes made with the onion sound good. I tried a squash waffle  earlier, and while it was delicious, it stuck to the waffle iron and was a bit of a mess. I'll just do my pancakes in the frying pan.

Sour cream on them....yummy.