Turkey Day
We had grand plans to get the dogs done really quick-like on Thursday morning, so that we could close up the kennel and head out for a trail ride. Plans, of course, are subject to change. Oh well, we still got them all out and fed by about 9. We'd talked about pausing to have a toast with Mimosas around 8:15 because that would be about the time we actually had 60 dogs. Three checked in that morning bringing us to 60, but Chloe was due to check out at 8:30 which would leave us at 59. However, that moment passed without so much as a notice from any of us. Oh well. Since our leasers had offered to come feed the horses and bring them in for us, it was a nice treat to walk down to the barn and most of the work be done. We quickly tacked up, and headed out.
The major deterrent to riding from our property is that our road, County Road 1, is very heavily trafficked, and the shoulders are mostly steep sided, deep ditches. Extremely unsafe for riding. We decided that we'd tackle it by hand walking the horses the 1/4 mile to the safer stretch of shoulder, which extends all the way to the ditch road. The nearest ditch to our place is Ish Ditch, and since we own shares of water from Ish reservoir, we have rights to use the ditch road. This dirt road follows the ditch through fields back to County Road 3, and we've long wished to be able to get there easily to ride. Thus our hand walking solution. And it worked great! There were hardly any cars out that early on Thanksgiving anyways, and it took us only 20 minutes total to get to the ditch road. Once there the ride turned very nice.
Dave educated us on which ditches were which. Which we have access to and which we don't. It's all such a complicated, and yet antiquated system! Half way across to County Road 3, we looked and we were directly south of our house and kennel. If only we could find a way across the three intervening properties, we could skip the main road altogether! Then we found a gate... On the way back we decided to poke around a little on the other side of that gate. This gate goes into a parcel that is slated to be divided into 9 lots, but is all still open field now. The other two properties between there and our house are our neighbors, and we already knew we could get across them if we could get there. So we trekked, and after messing about a bit being idiots, ended up finding a pretty near direct route from the ditch road right to our house! I guess now we'll have to pay more attention to the approval process for this parcel development and see if they will plan in some ability for us to continue to cross through there.
We got back in time to get the dogs out for an extra long afternoon session, and I ran to the store to pick up our ready-cooked feast. We'd already decided that there was no way we could do dogs, riding AND cook, so we settled for dogs, riding and reheating. That's ok -- the meal turned out very good.
In the evening, both of Ginger's kids and spouses came over for our second annual dessert and games evening. We waited to let the dogs out the last time until they came so that they could help... It is pretty fun to open a bunch of kennel gates and let the dogs come flying out.
Gaming was great, but by 10ish the baby and the puppy were both complaining it was time to be heading home. Frankly, I don't think any of us were arguing against the thought of getting to bed either!
The major deterrent to riding from our property is that our road, County Road 1, is very heavily trafficked, and the shoulders are mostly steep sided, deep ditches. Extremely unsafe for riding. We decided that we'd tackle it by hand walking the horses the 1/4 mile to the safer stretch of shoulder, which extends all the way to the ditch road. The nearest ditch to our place is Ish Ditch, and since we own shares of water from Ish reservoir, we have rights to use the ditch road. This dirt road follows the ditch through fields back to County Road 3, and we've long wished to be able to get there easily to ride. Thus our hand walking solution. And it worked great! There were hardly any cars out that early on Thanksgiving anyways, and it took us only 20 minutes total to get to the ditch road. Once there the ride turned very nice.
Dave educated us on which ditches were which. Which we have access to and which we don't. It's all such a complicated, and yet antiquated system! Half way across to County Road 3, we looked and we were directly south of our house and kennel. If only we could find a way across the three intervening properties, we could skip the main road altogether! Then we found a gate... On the way back we decided to poke around a little on the other side of that gate. This gate goes into a parcel that is slated to be divided into 9 lots, but is all still open field now. The other two properties between there and our house are our neighbors, and we already knew we could get across them if we could get there. So we trekked, and after messing about a bit being idiots, ended up finding a pretty near direct route from the ditch road right to our house! I guess now we'll have to pay more attention to the approval process for this parcel development and see if they will plan in some ability for us to continue to cross through there.
We got back in time to get the dogs out for an extra long afternoon session, and I ran to the store to pick up our ready-cooked feast. We'd already decided that there was no way we could do dogs, riding AND cook, so we settled for dogs, riding and reheating. That's ok -- the meal turned out very good.
In the evening, both of Ginger's kids and spouses came over for our second annual dessert and games evening. We waited to let the dogs out the last time until they came so that they could help... It is pretty fun to open a bunch of kennel gates and let the dogs come flying out.
Gaming was great, but by 10ish the baby and the puppy were both complaining it was time to be heading home. Frankly, I don't think any of us were arguing against the thought of getting to bed either!
Labels: Ranch
posted by Monica at Sun Pony |
8:45 PM
1 Comments:
(Ok just tried to leave this.. Hope it doesn't do it twice.)
A nice leasurely horseback ride, a store prepared Dinner, pie and games in the evening. What a perfect Thanksgiving! I think we will adopt your traditions!
Post a Comment
<< Home