Friday, October 25, 2013

Horse Camping &Trail Riding

Since getting back from Santa Fe I have gotten to do a little riding. It's that time of year where I just want to play hookie from work every day and go ride. Lately I've ridden a bunch on the good ol' riding-distance-from-the-barn trails, as well as a couple of lakes nearby. My pal Christi and I rode at lake Arcadia in Edmond and had a blast. Even though our horses both refused to walk through water (they jumped.) 
We saw tons of deer and met a nice lady who we ended up riding with. I learned from her the reason deer don't run away when they see you on a horse is that they can't smell the human scent over the horse scent. She said that is why it is illegal to hunt from horseback (I didn't know that it was.) Of course, a deer can be startled by a horse if it didn't hear you coming (yup..fallen off that way..) but all the deer we saw heard us coming and only looked up only briefly before going on about their business.

I didn't get a picture of any deer, but here's a picture of Christi taking a picture of me:


And Bryan and I went horse-camping at Bell Cow Lake in Chandler. 
I learned how to set up a proper highline and how much fun a poker ride is.
Here's Stormy modeling the awesome highline: 


Here's a great website that shows how it's done. I used ratchet straps for tree savers...but I'm going to buy heavier duty ones before the next camping trip--these were not rated for more than about 1000 lbs and Stormy could have broken them if she had really wanted to. But the worked great for tightening the rope after it stretched a little every few hours.

I LOVE horse camping. I wish I could go every weekend. There are a lot of people in the OETRA who are retired and just camp out with their horses at the trails Thursday through Sunday on a regular basis. I'm a lot jealous of them. But I'm grateful for what I have...I still find myself looking at Stormy and thinking to myself "I can't believe I actually have my own horse!" 

If I can't horse-camp as often as I'd like I can at least Pin about it:

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