The most ridiculous trail ride… EVER.

Ollie is still (worryingly) a little stiff in his hind end. I’m hoping that he is just foot sore, and that when the farrier comes next week to put shoes on him (for the first time ever! I’m really curious to see what happens) he’ll start to feel better? But then, This is a horse we are talking about. And it’s never simple with these animals is it? Anyways, since he was stiff, I didn’t want to do anything to hardcore. But a nice walk trail ride with 3 minutes of trot for Tanta’s rehab program sounded great! So off Brianna and I went! The first interesting thing that happened was a big dump truck zoomed passed. But lucky, both of our horses are used to cars/trucks and nothing came of it except a couple snorts. Next. We turned off the road with the big truck and onto the small one that leads to the beginning of the trail, so we walked down the new road, and past a (in Tanta’s mind) VERY scary rock. at the end of the road I could see someone I knew walking a horse in hand. Both Ollie and Tanta clearly saw this horse, so I figured they wouldn’t spook. Lol. Famous last words. Once we got closer- directly across the road from them- my horse JUMPED into to air, then landed with his front feet… in the ditch. He proceeded to jump back out of the ditch, almost leaving me in it. It was kinda funny actually. We moved on, and nothing very weird happened for awhile. The horses were a little crazy, but It was a given considering how windy it was out.

Then, we reached the end of the trail and got to another road. I love this one road, it is generally quiet. and there is two big hills and they are perfecto for galloping up! The timing worked out great and Brianna’s alarm went off saying it was time for 1 minute of trot! So we got to trot up one hill, then we went down it, and at the base of the hill… is an old rusty truck that  hasn’t been used in 30+ years. That both Tanta and Ollie have seen SO MANY TIMES. But, guess what? Of course Tanta (who was leading) saw it and spooked all the way across the road, almost falling down the ravine on the other side. Luckily B managed to get her under control in time.  And, we proceeded. Theeeeeeen, when we could literally SEE our driveway, we were that close, a large truck turned around the bent behind us and spook Ollie like crazy. He, (surprise?) once again, JUMPED INTO THE DARN DITCH. What on earth horse? And then he and Tanta Proceeded to gallop down the road with me and Brianna hanging on.(maybe 40 feet? The bolting didn’t go on for thhhaaaaatt long… but?!?) I honestly have no idea why. Ollie has NEVER. Spooked at a car in the whole 3 years I’ve had him. And neither Brianna nor I have known Tanta to do something like that either. So… what the?!? I won’t take him out on the road if he acted like this, and he never has. Also, how come I ended up in a ditch TWICE in one ride? Ollie’s never showed any interest in jumping into ditches before today!

Total score.

ditch: 2

Maren: 0

 

The Rat is BACK.

I didn’t mention this before, but about a week ago I saw a rat in our barn. It was a cute rat, but still a rat. So it clearly had to go. When I got back in to the house (after I’d seen rat for the first time) I at once explained how HUGE he was. Nobody believed me. The next day however, he had showed up again, and Brianna saw him! And validated that he was huge. Luckily we didn’t see him for a bit, and I’d thought maybe he had moved. NOPE. Thinking back on it, the nights we hadn’t seen rat were the nights we fed the horses while it was still light out, but tonight we fed more at 8ish… so it was dark out. And guess what? We saw Mr Rat. Not once. Not twice. Not even three times. We saw him FOUR TIMES. And we were only outside for 20-30 minutes?! Ahhh. So annoying. I really didn’t want to have to deal with a rat problem. It’s funny though, when you think of a “rat problem” you think someone has rats nesting in tack/feed rooms, maybe chewing naughty things. But do you pictures one big fat rat? because that’s what we have… so far, Rat isn’t chewing anything naughty, he’s not doing anything problematic that I know of, but he still clearly needs to go. 

Sorry about the picture quality. My phone takes bad photos in the dark.

lets do a full rat profile here, because it sounds kinda weirdly fun.

MEET THE RAT:

name: Scabbers, AKA Petter Pettigrew. (hahahahaha, I couldn’t resist.)

hight: Approximately 1 hand high.

colour: Brown.

Petter has been known to run around the barn at night, generally being cute and not showing signs of trouble. Yet. He likes to hang out in front of Tanta’s stall, and at the front on the aisle. He’s a remarkably calm rat, and is unafraid of humans for the most part.

 

 My sister and I are going to try and find our live trap tomorrow, I’m not 100% sure what we plan on doing with Petter once we catch him… Brianna wants to keep him as a pet, I don’t. (although he is actually super adorable.) know anyone who wants a big pet rat? I suppose we will take him up to the logging roads and let him go up there? Ollie will be sad, he was looking forward to having a pet rat.🐀 

 

 

Can’t they play with the toys we buy them? Not break all the haybags?