Is there anything better then an afternoon wagon ride?!? I'm still grinning ear to ear.
This afternoon I decided to go visit a friend in the wagon. That friend doesn't live too far away (or so I thought).
I hitched Lily upwith no problems. And my new shaft holders are awesome! Thanks so much for the idea to use a normal horse back band deb!!! It's great and worked like a charm. Next time I'll get pics to show you what I made. The boy went with me and we had a ball.
So I had to take the long way around the block to my friends, because the sun was at an awkward angle and I didn't want to chance the sun being in peoples eyes. I live right on the interstate, so I turned and headed down the service road. Lily had no problem trotting the entire time while on the interstate.
The ride to my friends went great other than when we came upon a really unique bridge over the road. This was basically a giant grate. I tried and tried to coax Lily over it, but she refused to take a step on it. When I saw her eyeing the creek on the sides I knew I was going to have to walk her over it. So I hopped off, and led her over it with the lead rope.
My friend lives 2 1/2 miles away, and it took us at least an hour to get there. I didn't realize it would take so long. It was a nice slow relaxing ride though!
I gave Lily a short break and then we headed home. I ran out of daylight on the ride home. Let me tell ya ... riding in the dark is no fun. The boy was sitting on the hay and would tell me when cars were coming from behind. Luckily I have reflecters on the rear so that I'm noticable.
The worst part of the ride home, was that when I would ride on the shoulder for cars that were passing, I could not see what I was riding on. I had to have run over 50 plastic pop bottles. The first 20 times, Lily tried to spook, but the silver lining was that after 20 or so, she quit flinching when she heard the sound.
Luckily I have a wonderful wife, and when she saw it was really dark, she headed out and escorted me the last 10th of a mile. It as nice to have headlights from behind! Lights for the wagon are now a must.
All in all, Lily did awesome. By the time I got to my friends, Lily was doing well with vocal commands. She is still requiring quite a bit of reign to get exactly what I want, but she seems to do really well with "Ji". "Haw", not so much. :)
I LOVE having a wagon of my own. Such a fun way to spend a saturday afternoon with my son. I plan to do this more often!
LESSONS LEARNED:
As always with me, if I didn't learn something, I didn't have my eyes open.
The thing I really learned today was to make sure and really plan for how slow
the wagon is going to go. I left much later than I should have, and had to ride
in the dark because of it.
Riding in the dark is not smart, and is not SAFE! Luckily I had reflectors from
behind, but i didn't have anything from the front. That white line on the side
of the road was my friend.
Now I have a feed for how long a nice ride takes, so I won't be out like that
again. I'm going to plan a mile an hour just so I'm safe.
One other thing I learned, was that ferocious dogs, that are almost frothing at
the mouth with how serious they are about attacking, always back down when a 16
hand horse is finally up close to them. I got to watch many a mean dog lower
his tail and head and cower back to his respective driveway.
Have any of y'all ever come across a dog that actually tried to nip at your
horse?
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