Two short rides

Thursday - another short arena ride, though I almost chickened out because it was so hot.  With the new girth, Ruby tends to settle into a steady trot after half a circle or so.  She's not collected but it's nice that she doesn't feel like she could fall on her face at any moment.  We only rode for 15 minutes but it was enough that we were both drenched.

Unenthused before our ride on Thursday

Before I tell about Friday's ride, I should probably describe the roads around the barn.  The barn itself is on a dead-end, one-lane, 15 mph road.  There are wide, flat shoulders on both sides of this road.  The barn road meets a 25 mph, two-lane road shaped like a long rectangle.  One of the rectangle's short sides is a very busy, 45 mph road.  The corners of the other short side are very sharp, blind corners.  The entire rectangle is 2.5 miles long.  On this road, there are sometimes wide shoulders, sometimes deep ditches beside the road. 

Friday - it felt much cooler than usual so I drove to the barn with designs to talk Heather into going on a trail ride with me.  Unfortunately, she was already done with her barn chores before I made it out.   Instead of hauling Ruby, I decided to ride in the arenas and down the road a bit.  We rode in the small arena for 15 minutes or so, then went to the larger arena.  We rarely ride in this arena, and Ruby is more prone to pull back towards the gate for this reason.  When I got a straight, steady trot away from the gate in both directions, we headed off property.  I lead her for the first part of the ride, partially because there were several pieces of road maintenance equipment parked on the barn road, partially because we were going to go by a yard that had a loose dog last time.  The dog was no where to be seen today so I mounted up after the first corner.  Ruby was loose and swingy, relaxed but still alert.  I spotted a pile of tires on our left but she was unconcerned about them.  We trotted a bit on this short side, until Ruby tripped in the tall grass on the shoulder.  I originally planned to ride her all the way to the busy road, but things didn't quite go as planned.  About half way down the long side, I heard a dog bark.  With a sigh of relief, I realized that this dog was behind a fence, so Ruby and I kept going.  Then I noticed that the gate to the dog's yard was wide open. This dog was not behaving aggressively (not charging or biting the fence, he wouldn't even look at us if we were looking at him) but I decided not to tempt fate and we turned around.

Pretty orange grove we rode by

The ride back to the barn was calm and easy (love my mare!).  I let her graze for 5 minutes or so after we left the dog property behind; she acted like she could happily stay there all day.  When we were close to our turn-off for the barn, I heard a truck speeding around the blind corner behind us.  Luckily we were in a spot where we could get off the road and Ruby took me seriously when I asked her to move it.  The driver slowed down after seeing us, which was nicer than you can usually expect around here, but it still irked me a bit.  Anyway, we had a really great ride.  I have no idea if the yard with the dog usually has the gate open or if it was a fluke, but I'll probably be finding out soon.

PS.  Google Maps now shows trails and property lines!  VERY helpful for those looking for new trails.