Awesome Saturday Part 2: Driving with my son

I was really excited to work Pam and Rachael again.  Pam has had 5 months off since I last drove her.  She got really fat and lazy spending a month and a half down with Vegas (Belgian stallion standing at the double M warhorse ranch).  She hitched up fine.  This was her first time being fitted with her new biothane harness, so it took me about 15 minutes to adjust everything and make sure things were fitting correctly.

I love Pat's place.  He has everything you need for training purposes, and also has extra wagons.  I can just haul horses over to his place, and still haul a wagon down the road.  It works really nice.  Pat and his wife are as good as gold and I am very lucky to have them as friends.  I always have a fun time when I'm over there.

We hitched up to a 16 or so foot long hay trailer.  That went well, and they stepped off with no problems.  When I asked them to stop, they showed their skills, and stood like ladies.  I tell you, having a team that will stay put when you stop is such an awesome thing!  Pat got hitched up, and we were off.

Rachael, Pam, and the boy, all ready to go

Pat backing his team away from the fence to get heading on the ride

I really love Pat's mare Dolly.  She's so pretty!

The first 20 minutes of this ride were not so nice.  Pam decided to show me how rusty she had gotten.  Every little thing she spotted made her stop, and cautiously walk.  Meanwhile Rachael is stepping out strong and ready to move that wagon down the road.  On the road we started on, semi's were hauling crepe feed to some nearby dairies.  One of the trucks was awesome and came to a complete standstill to let us pass.  Pam was an idiot, and completely froze like a deer in headlights.  It took a swift smack on the rear to snap her out of it.  This was not the same horse that pulled for christmas wagon rides last year.  ;)

At this same time, I had another problem.  when going down a hill, the tree was right on the horses heels.  Each step had them kicking the tree.  This caused one of Rachaels tugs to come off completely.  Luckily, I have a great team and I stopped and fixed it with no issues.  This made me realize that the pole on this wagon needed to be about 6 inches longer than it was.  I didn't want to continue the ride like this, so I stopped and fixed it.  I pulled the yoke ring in front of the pole bolt that is supposed to keep it from slipping off the end of the pole.  I then took the tie strap from Rachaels harness and used it to secure the yoke ring to that bolt on the pole.  This gave me 4 more inches on the pole.  This was acceptable.

After this, it was smooth sailing.  Soon Pam had returned to her element and was acting like the girl I remembered.

Then ... an awesome thing happened.  My son took interest.  I could see him watching my hands, so I started talking to him about what I was doing, and asked if he wanted to try.  He did ground drive a 3 up at my friend rogers house once a few months back, but this was on a wagon.  He took over, and after a few tips, he was on his way.  He ended up driving for 45 minutes.  He did very well.  I had to talk to the horses for him.  They didn't respond well to his voice, but once they heard me, they did just like they should.  Having him drive, let me actually stand up and take a bunch of pictures.  It was nice!

I love driving down these county roads.  Very peaceful

Pat and his awesome team

My son working on his line tension

 

Another shot of my son with the lines

 

We couldn't have asked for a better day

I had one issue arise, which I'll discuss in the Part 3 of the blog.  We ended up getting back to Pats, and we all got to relax a bit.  It was a great day, and I had a wonderful time.

The girls relaxing after a nice 3-4 hour drive