Saturday, March 12, 2016

Chrome Ride 116 - 100 Ride Challenge Ride 2 - New Boots

 It finally stopped raining!  First time in four days!!  So of course I had to ride hehe.  I also had to try out my new boots.  These are Mountain Horse paddock boots that were a gift.  I'm so excited to have boots that actually fit!!  My Ariat paddock boots that I've had for over ten years are two sizes too small because I had to have them when I started dressage lessons and it's all that was available locally.  Those boots HURT!!!  The new ones are really nice, but they rub right now because I haven't broken them in yet (and I have notoriously sensitive feet).  I will definitely tell you how I like them later on when I've worn them in and used them a lot more.  For now I just love that my toes aren't squished painfully!  They are a little narrow, but that's common for me.  It's hard to find shoes and boots that are big enough and wide enough for my huge feet.

Aren't they nice??  Nicest boots I've ever owned. :D


So as soon as I got off work I changed clothes and ran out to the pasture to get Chrome.  He was nasty!!  With four days of rain, what do you expect though?


It took me forever to get most of the dirt off of him (thank goodness he had dried while I was at work).  It wasn't perfect, but good enough.  Here is a video if you want to see how much dirt was coming off of him.  It's short and shows how rough he likes to be groomed.  Well he was watching the horses across the road the whole time, but he does enjoy it.


 I think this was the only head  shot that didn't turn out blurry.
Hubby was using his cell phone and it was really overcast.

 Jackal always goes with me.  :D

I only rode 25 minutes.  I did a little bit of trotting, but his stifle gave out, so I stayed at a walk after that.  He is very out of shape so we're going to do walking only rides for a while.  I have a video of him doing a really, really slow trot that was actually quite comfortable bareback.  It also shows his stifle giving out at the very end as he's approaching the camera.  If you watch carefully you can see it.  He didn't break gait even when he slowed way down.  He's never done that before.  It was cool!


We stayed on the property, mostly on the driveway because everything is so muddy and soft.  He doesn't need to be in deep footing with his stifles as weak and out of shape as they are right now.


Walking rides can be really boring when you're just going up and down the driveways, but we kept it a little interesting by walking through some of the running water and sniffing a bunch of different things like trash cans, hay tarps, foil pans turned upside down on tree stumps (no clue why someone did that??), etc.  There really isn't much else to say except that I'm so happy to be back to riding!!  I also need to start exercising because I haven't seen pictures of myself in a while and didn't realize I was gaining weight.  Ugh!  I always do in the winter so I shouldn't be surprised hehe.  Here are the rest of the pictures!

 Staring at the neighbor horses.  Look at all the dirt on him!

 Still staring at the neighbors.  He's so obsessed.


We had to work on standing still when we first started, but later on (in this picture) he was happy to stand as long as I wanted.  I think the reason he was trying to walk off at first is because he thought we were going out on the road and he was excited.  Poor guy gets bored wandering around on the property.

 Sniffing the hay tarps.  He didn't eyeball them this time like he did last time.

 Approaching the water.  I wish this wasn't blurry!

 It's only a couple of inches deep, but it is running.  
This is the one we walked through until it got too muddy.
I wish these weren't blurry.


This one isn't as blurry but the white balance is off.  That's the foil pan.  No clue why it's there hehe.  I'll have to solve that mystery later.

Well that's all.  It was a fun ride, even though it was just aimless wandering around.  These walking rides are important to get him safely back in shape though.  Let's hope the weather stays clear so I can keep riding!!  They are saying more rain.... yikes!  If it doesn't stop soon we are going to be in bad shape.  Have you guys heard about the flooding in the south??  Several places have declared a state of emergency.  Five people have been killed in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.  Two vehicles fell forty feet when a road caved in and twenty inches of rain fell in twenty four hours in Pensacola!  That's more than what falls during some hurricanes!  There was twenty four inches of rain near Monroe, Louisiana.  It's awful.  Luckily it didn't hit us quite as hard, but we did get a lot of rain, roads were flooded and schools were closed!  I can't remember the last time it rained so many days straight nonstop.  Please keep all of the people that were hit hard by this flooding in your thoughts and prayers.  I hope they don't get more heavy rain like some places were saying they might.

14 comments:

  1. Nice boots! I wasn't aware of all the rain and flooding. I'm glad you got to ride.

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    1. Thank you! I didn't realize how much I missed riding. I'm so much happier now that I'm getting outside and spending time with my sweet boy. :D Yeah the flooding has been pretty bad. I'm so thankful it missed us for the most part. I forgot to mention in the post I wasn't at all nervous today when I rode!! It was probably partly having hubby there to talk to, but also just getting that "first" ride of the season out of the way helped the most.

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  2. I'm glad you were able to ride again. That trot looks so comfortable! I hope his stifle improves soon.

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    1. Thank you! It will. He just needs exercise. It always gets bad when he spends days on end standing in the barn at the hay bale (of his own free choice) because of all the rain. I was considering riding in the rain the other day, but decided that if he is standing under the barn then he must not want to be in it so I wasn't going to force him to. :)

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  3. Those boots look really nice. Looks like he was such a brave boy!! Glad you got to ride again. Sending good weather vibes your way.

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  4. Let us know about the boots. I like the Doc Martens look (from the top). When I saw you outside in just a shirt, I got really really cold. You people who go outside without bundling up, where is this planet you live on that's apparently closer to the sun? I'm sitting in my kitchen wearing a coat: ( Thanks for the "dusting Chrome" video. I could almost taste that dirt. When he gets lighter, the mud's gonna not blend in so well with his hair (*evil laugh*). He is staying dark longer than most. Baasha was that color at age 4. Here's a link for you: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=2e87c4b4-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5&gas=quic%20silver (Wish I had some for Mag's tail! The Oster variety isn't as effective.)

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    1. Lol!! It's been in the seventies all week. One day next week is going to be in the eighties. That's Fahrenheit. I've been wearing short sleeves off and on all winter. It's been very mild all winter. I never once wore my heavy coat.

      Thanks for the link! I'm going to need that soon. I love that he's taken so long to go gray but I think it's going quicker the lighter he gets. :-)

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  5. I love Mountain Horse boots, they look really nice on you! Glad you are back :)

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    1. I've never had anything from Mountain Horse so I was very excited!! I love them so far. I just can't wait for them to be broken in hehe. I'm so glad to be back! Thank you for sticking with me. :D

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  6. We've been getting a lot of rain up north, but I haven't been complaining because I know what so many others have been going through. I can't imagine so much rain that schools have been closing. I'm glad to see you riding--I think the 100 Ride Challenge was just what you needed. Once you are done with it, you won't want to stop!

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    1. That's exactly what I'm hoping!! It makes me sad because I was doing so well in 2014 and even riding in the winter which is a big deal for me and I would have kept going, but then I fell off. That completely threw me off track!! So hopefully we can get back into it and not have anymore falls and I can stay on track for this year and the years to come. :D

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