My birthday was earlier this week so I thought I'd celebrate
by going on a nice, relaxing trail ride.I left work a little early and the weather was perfect.Normally, my dear horsey (DH) loves the
trails but I haven't taken him out by himself on the trail at his new home (any
idea of what's to come?!).When we go
out with buddies, my normally timid horse somehow becomes Super Horse and leads
the way.When his buddies shy, he forges
ahead.Courage really is a new trait for
my horse.It's also apparently only a
trait that reveals itself when in the company of other horses.
This much anticipated birthday trail ride started out
benignly enough.We entered the wooded
trail where trees make it a little dark.DH seemed happy enough, maybe a wee-bit hesitant to enter the trail by
himself.The trail was really pleasant ,
cool, no flies, etc.We walked for
probably 20 minutes before anything at all new and potentially scary presented
itself.When we came to a small log that
was new on the path, my horse hesitated a bit.I encouraged him on with just a little tap with my leg.In the past, if he was nervous or unsure of
his surroundings, his refusals to go forward or to follow the rider could be
quite epic.So, when he so willingly
relented and went forward after demonstrating his uncertainty at the small log,
I took it as a sign of trust and a nice birthday present.
We kept walking.We
walked under low-hanging branches and by a creek.We were almost at the point in the trail
where we would exit the woods and then be on the small road leading back to the
barn.Then, almost at the point where
the wooded trail ends, the entire path was blocked by a huge fallen tree.There was absolutely no way around it.The area was heavily wooded except for the
trail, the ground was covered with leaves, and it looked like there could be
deep holes off the path.It was a
disappointment because the trail was fairly long, it was getting late, and I
didn't necessarily want to retrace the whole trail.Nonetheless, I thought it would be safest to
turn around.
So, we turned around and started retracing our path on the
trail beside the creek.That's when DH
saw the three wild turkeys in the middle of the path ahead and lost his
mind.Poor fella.It was the first time I had seen wild turkeys
and obviously the first time DH had seen them.It's a little funny for me to consider now, but was not quite so funny
at the time.DH was incredibly scared.He made his dragon sound that he makes when
he gets really, really scared.I
actually hopped off because I thought he might bolt (which he had done several
times many years ago when he got scared on a trail L).I found a quick way out of the woods and got
back to the paved road to the farm (it's in a new residential area that doesn't
have traffic yet).Well, the cherry on
top for DH was that once we exited the trail, across the road and a little ways
up the hill was a pack of about 15 wild turkey.He really thought they were out to get him and proceeded to snort and
prance around.Nonetheless, I didn't
want to walk home and figured it'd be easier to ride a bolt on the road than in
the woods, so I hopped back on.We
walked back, neither of us 100% relaxed on our "relaxing" trail ride.It was still a lot of fun and I appreciated
DH's confidence to allow me to get back on and to walk back to the barn
together.
Just a quick footnote: I went for a ride tonight and worked in the arena. After our ride we walked around the pastures which are beside the woods. We got about half way around the pasture and what do we see but a small pack of turkeys running across the small road and into the woods. I laughed out loud! My horse didn't think it was quite so funny but he held it together much better than the last time. It'll be very interesting to see how he feels about going on our next trail ride now that he has confirmation that turkey "trolls" live in the woods!
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