Wandering, Only Slightly Lost

Czech has been out on trails with me twice. His first run he shocked me with how well behaved he was then we sort of went downhill after that. In the company of other horses he jigs and creates an overall tension that stirs up the horses nearby until we're all kind of miserable.

It came to a head at the spring Hunter Pace when I finally decided to save my own neck and walk him on foot, back.

Not willing to give up on our adventures, I booked a friend to ride with me at the battlefields this morning to try him again. Unfortunately she had to cancel early this morning and the mad scramble I did at 7:30 am to recruit any other willing warm body with a horse, failed. Little did I know that was going to be the best thing that could have happened today.

The kids were at school and I was already dressed to ride with my trailer packed and hooked up. What the heck, I'll just take him out there myself. Worst case, I'll tack up and ride him a little in the field by the trailer parking and we'll call it a day.

Heading down the road, it started to rain. Then it started to pour. I began to wonder if it was a second sign that I was making a mistake taking him out today.

Through the thick fog as we pulled in, I thought I saw ghosts. For a full minute I sat trying to make my eyes decide if what I could see in the mist was real or not. Horses weren't out here. Ever.

Then a ranger pulled up and asked me to hold off unloading until they could catch these lost ponies. Czech banged away at the trailer as he watched the grays running around escaping their pursuers until finally one was roped and the others fell in line behind.

By the time he came off the trailer, Czech was fit to be tied. He called and called to the horses that he had seen taken away, after awhile they didn't call back and he resigned himself to the saddling process. Once on his back, he stepped off like the ground was too hot to leave one foot down at any one time for too long. It occurred to me that both my map and my phone (I was doing regular check-ins with a friend to stay safe and a ranger knew I was out here) were connected to my saddle, so rule #1 was clearly : Stay on the horse at all times.

Up the hill and across the road, we immediately hit a problem. There were landscaping timbers set in the hillside as exaggerated steps to hold in erosion from use. Czech snorted and blew and danced, before we just jumped it and went on.

Within the first mile I was able to drop my hand back to the buckle on my reins and let him use his head any way he needed to, to find his path underneath the covering of leaves.

It wasn't long before it was complete silence when you took away the crunchy footsteps and easy breathing Czech made. I admit I spent a little time wondering what would happen when this silence was broken by a bird or squirrel underfoot, the woods have a way of taking away those worries and just making everything okay though.

I began to hear the steady roar of something approaching from far away in the trees. It was getting louder as it got closer, Czech seemed bothered by it too until the noise hit us as a downpour.

We quickly figured out that the rain would sting your face and your eyes the faster you went through it, instead we paired up as drowned rats moving forward before the clouds parted and made a perfectly overcast day.

A few places I asked Czech to go ahead and stretch out and he did, well. No need for leaning into the bit or feeling like he was being chased, with just us out there he relaxed into the fun of it with easy steering and gait changes. An hour in I wondered why I had never done this before, Czech was perfection.

We did get lost, twice actually, that was the only time Czech was visibly annoyed. Once I'd reach a point where it was obvious I missed a turn and needed to go back, he'd shake his head in protest at my navigation skills.

As the woods opened up to the huge meadows surrounding the visitor's center, we would be tested. The path goes down a bank, through a creek that runs underneath a road bridge. Under the bridge, you cross the water and hear cars overhead, before coming back up a bank and back out to another open meadow.

I asked him to go down the bank and he spied a black culvert. Once he stopped running the opposite way, I pointed him at downside of the bank and we tried again. Fifteen tries in, he decided we were taking the plunge into the rainwater laden creek and getting the hell out of there quick. It's pretty amazing how calm and confident you can be on a scared horse when you have no choice but to convince them to do it.

Back into Czech's favorite woods we spotted our third herd of deer. He'd handled the deer, standing or running, like old friends. I took a chance to get a picture of a few.

Turkey, however, Czech was pretty sure were psycho chickens and not to be trusted. While I could get within fifteen feet of deer, Czech wasn't able to maintain a walk if wild turkey were 30 yards in the distance.

Hours and miles in, nothing but the company of my horse, Czech's ear flicked left to show me the most beautiful buck I've ever seen in person. He wasn't nearly as trusting as the does we'd been near earlier and was off in a flash of white tail before I could snap his picture.

While there are obvious safety precautions and good reasons to ride with friends or in a group, I have to say that this girl (and her horse) will be out alone again very soon. If you haven't found your peace in the woods, you won't find it anywhere. Daydreaming about today will hold me through until the next time.

“A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genie who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.”  Emerson