Out on the Buggy Trail

We Ride

It was warm and muggy, but my endurance friend from across the way convinced me to ride out with her. She'd taken a tumble from her young horse the other day and bruised as she was, she really wanted to get into the saddle for a ride. I think company was important to her as well.

We met at around 8 AM.  I was five minutes later than I meant to be because on the way out, a certain Chance decided to spook at a new tree branch sticking out of the woods. Someone had sawed off some of the branches so maybe it was sticking out across the dirt road. Anyhow, Chance thought it was some kind of "attack tree."

Now, mind you, this is the same trail horse that had nonchalantly watched three deer leap across the trail in front of us just tree minutes before.

I would have ridden out the spook and spin, but right behind me was another big tree that does stick out into the little narrow go around into the cornfield. And it has a rather ugly branch precariously positioned right at rider head/neck level.  Since Chance's spin spook threatened to carry us back past that branch, I opted to dismount, lead him up to the "attack tree" and then remount later from a fallen tree in the woods.  With me in the lead, the "attack tree" suddenly became a "so what?" tree.

I led him on a bit further to the next woods road where there was a nice sized fallen tree to climb on so I could remount since I am no longer really able to mount from the ground.

Back in the saddle, I rode him to the meeting place and a bit beyond because Christine was a little late herself.

Chance was absolutely delighted to see JJ, his trail buddy.  We rode around the farm along the dirt road by the Turnpike, through the tree farm, and completed the circle in about 45 minutes or so.  When Christine agreed with me that it was enough for the day, we parted ways. JJ headed willingly towards his barn, while Chance balked at heading home.

He didn't want to go back, so it took a bit of persuasion to get his feet moving.

About the bugs? Chance was wearing the new riding flysheet from Horseware/Amigo that I got at Rick's tent sale. It worked well except that the bugs were so bad they still managed to find the few places the flysheet and flymask did not cover.  And in some places, the 747 mosquitoes still managed to bite through the mesh.

All in all, Chance was pretty good about the insect assault, but he was fussy and I was frustrated with the whole thing as a few of them even bit me.

With all the rain we've had and are still having, the biting critters are breeding in force.  My barn area is not too bad with the flies, but the mosquitoes are  really having a good season. There's no way to dry up the water and wet places they breed in, so every puddle and drop of water is a perfect nursery.

Today it's cool so I will go out to ride Tucker for a bit. Afterwards, he can go stand back in his stall with the fan blowing on him to keep the bitey bugs out.

Meanwhile, I am now treating Toby's eye with two medications. I drove down to the NorthStar vet clinic yesterday to pick up some Terramycin ointment to use in addition to the medication the eye vet left here. It seems most of the suppliers are out of Terramycin for some reason, so the vets are having trouble getting it.  NorthStar, where the eye vet works, had a tube, so I got it--for a dear price. I only say that because I found lots of tubes listed on EBay for tons less.

Now, the EBay stuff is made by Pfizer,  the US manufacturer, but most of them seem to have labeling in foreign languages--Turkish for one. A lot of the tubes were being sold out of Asia but there were a number of  US sellers as well.  I ordered some, just to have it.

Gee, maybe I can sell a tube or so to my vets....for the dear price.