Riding Weekend Part 1: Trails

This weekend Maddy came down to visit from Rhode Island (yay!) and boy did we have fun. The weather was perfect and sunny, which was a good thing because I had a lot of outdoorsy things planned. First item of business: a relaxing trail ride.

Maddy rode Colby and quickly discovered what a cool horse he is, seconding my desire to steal him away when I eventually move with Charlie.

Charlie was nervous when he first encountered water on the trail (in several places rain water was draining off the mountain, nothing deep but the trail was mushy and water was running over it), but once I got off and walked him through he realized it was no big deal and happily marched through every "stream" we encountered on the way home.

Yeah, real scary

I did have a slight panicky moment when I realized I dropped my phone along the trail, especially because a lot of the path was covered with new undergrowth. Luckily I knew I had GPS-ed our location not more than 1/2 a mile before I realized it was gone so we just retraced our steps and sure enough it was sitting next to the log that we jumped. Charlie almost stepped right on it, but he didn't, and it ended up being just fine. Phew!

Pretty view of the barn on our way home

Maddy took Charlie for a spin when we got back

After our ride I took Maddy to Lapp Valley Farm, my favorite ice cream place, for some authentic Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish/Mennonite) homemade ice cream and waffle cones. Seriously it's the best you'll ever have in your life. Of course, as a working farm, it also has lots of cows so we spent some time visiting both with the newborns and a few of the bigger girls. One decided to get a little too friendly with me when I knelt down for a photo op. Can't believe Maddy got that on camera, and no it's not Photoshopped!

Itty bitty baby

Of course we then came home to watch the Belmont and were just as bummed out as everyone else about the lack of a Triple Crown this year (and embarrassed for California Chrome's owner's outburst. Yikes). I don't usually bet but I had money on Chrome, Ride on Curlin' (who I thought would win) and Commanding Curve as a boxed trifecta and was totally wrong, obviously, but so were a lot of people. Looking back, it's kind of funny I chose all "C" names....Charlie on the brain?

We also fit in time to watch "Wild Horse, Wild Ride", the documentary about the 100 day mustang challenge. It was really interesting to watch everyone's varied training styles and approaches, and really inspired me to try some new things with Charlie and when training other horses. It's good to feel inspired.