Back from camping!

Well I'm back.  Last week I was camping with Rachel.  For my church, they had an activity where they were re-enacting the pioneer handcart company treks across the US.  Many of the adult leaders were on horseback, and two of us were asked to come along as the wranglers for the group.  It was our job to feed, water, saddle, unsaddle, and basically just care for the horses.  The adults had many things to tend to, so having us care for all horses was a must.  Since I knew we would have some downtime, I took Rachel, her harness, a singletree, and her saddle and other tack.  We camped up at the LBJ Grasslands near Decatur Texas.  It is public land and was an awesome spot for horse riding!

It was very cool to camp with Rachel.  I've never done this before.  It's a whole lot more work than camping without horses, but it was pretty dang cool.  We brought stalls for the horses since we were caring for 12 horses.  The pictures attached show a few of the pens configured and you can see Rachel in one of them.  Water was about 300 feet away and provided by means of a windmill on a well.  We basically had to dip 5 gallon buckets in a giant round water trof that the well/windmill emptied into.

I got to ride Rachel the first night there and the one picture is of me riding her.  She decided to stretch her head forward right as the picture was snapped, so she looks pretty funny.  I took the other picture from her back.

My highlight for the trip, was swimming with Rachel!  There was a pond, and even though I'd only ridden Rachel a handful of times, I was able to coax her into the water.  She had a good time splashing and playing in it.  I got her to go deep enough that she was fully swimming.  I was on her back, the water to my chest, and her nose was just above the water.  I could feel her feet a paddling for all they were worth.  I was taught that the correct way to do this, is that when the horse looses it's footing and begins swimming, you are supposed to let go of the reins and just hold on to the mane.  Then once you feel them getting their feet back under them, to swap back.  I did this a few times and it was so fun.  I was so impressed with this sweet horse of mine and very happy with her willingness to do what I asked.

Taking care of 12 horses was quite a task.  I am very tired, and wore out muscles that I didn't know I still had.  :)  I did find sometime one afternoon to do some ground driving.  I was going to drag some downed tree's around with Rachel, but then we went horse swimming instead.

Good times!  I hope to camp some more with horses!  Lots of fun.