This is rescheduled from the board meeting regularly held on January 31 annually due to board member scheduling conflicts.

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On Saturday there were three drivers, including Melissa Coolich, who has never done a distance driving competition. This course was very sandy, with lots of twists and turns through the woods. Ray and Loki tied for first with Melissa and her horse Aurora. Kay and I finished third. For the season, Kay finished first and Ray finished second for the Midwest Distance Driving Association.

I kept Kay on the local sand road while Ray took Loki out onto the longer trail. I want to limit how much time Kay spends on pavement to help ease her joints. Kay did pretty well. We had a moment at a trail intersection where I wanted to go one direction and Kay wanted to go another. She got a little obstinate, but I made her stand still, and eventually she agreed to go the direction I wanted. She and I did about 7 miles. The GPS said our top speed was 12.5 mph, which is pretty good for her. However, the GPS also said our moving average speed was 77.8 mph, so I question those results.

Ray said that Loki did quite well. He behaved well, and slowed down enough to negotiate over some branches down across the trail or were hanging low so they had to duck under them. There is an open area we call the “prairie.” Ray said there were lots of holes where some critter dug down into the ground.

Once we were done, we let Kay and Loki graze on the lawn with Gridlock and Gambler while we pulled weeds in teh garden and picked up piles of manure from the lawn. Loki must have been a bit tired, as he didn’t try chasing Gambler once. We put them all back in the pasture and things went quite peaceably. We pulled Gridlock and Gambler back out of the pasture for the night.

The “Running past the barn” picture was taken through two layers of windows in the barn so it is a bit dark. But you can see the motion in Scarlet and Jimmy as they run to catch up with Loki and Sunny. Kay was looking through the barn to watch them run.

Thursday at work was the first FDA audit at the Deming Way location, so the past two weeks were pretty hectic getting ready. We passed the audit with no findings! We are quite relieved. I drank a Diet Coke Thursday at lunch, so I was wide awake until midnight, but went to bed anyway, knowing that Friday would be busy. Friday was an official holiday at work, so we were home. The farrier came at 9:00 to put shoes on Kay and Jimmy. Ray has decided to use boots on Loki, so the farrier just had to trim Loki. We will measure Loki’s hooves so we can get the best fitting boots.

At noon, a person came to look at Sporty. She is interested in adopting him. Ray rode him first, so she could see that he wasn’t going to buck. She was able to get him moving where she wanted. She even got him to canter. She wants a quiet horse, so she was happy to see how he would just stand and chill out while we were talking.

I took a nap in the afternoon, then we took Kay and Jimmy out for a nice five mile jaunt. Our average speed was about 5.3 mph, which is a bit faster than earlier in this spring, but still a bit slow for our competitions. Both horses were cooperative. We have been practicing standing still while on the trail, since we have to do that while competing. We can get them to stand for about 60-80 seconds, which is progress.

We let Kay and Jimmy graze on the lawn while we fed the rest of the herd.

Then Ray took Scarlet out for a drive while I worked Sporty in the round pen. From the beginning, Scarlet was a bit of a stinker. She tried to refuse going past the garage. She refused to turn to the right. So Ray spent quite a bit of time making her go where he wanted to go. She was tired and sweaty by the time they got done. I am sure she wouldn’t have been so tired if she had been more cooperative.

Today we worked with all of the horses except Sunny. By working with a couple of horses at a time, it gave Sunny a chance to hang out at the hay bale. We started with Kay and Loki. We harnessed them up and did about three miles with them. It was the first time we were able to get down our driveway. The trails in the woods are still snow covered, so we stayed on the roads. We forgot the camera until we got home, but they both did pretty well. I think they were happy to get out and stretch their legs.

We then got Sporty and put a saddle on him. There is a possibility that he will be re-homed with someone who has more riding skill than us, and can give Sporty something to do. He is only 14, so he is too young to be just hanging out in our pasture looking pretty. He was a bit spooked at first by the step stool we use to get on, but he seemed to have no issues when Ray was riding him.

We took a break for lunch, and then got Scarlet and Jimmy out. I brushed Jimmy and put him back in the pasture while Ray drove Scarlet. She behave almost perfectly until the very end when she got a little obstinate about walking away from the hitching post. Ray just made her stop and stand still, then he made her walk a few steps in the direction which he wanted to go, and then he turned her back to the hitching post.

At one point, George the cat climbed up onto a window ledge in the barn and sat between the plastic on the outside, and the mesh on the inside.

Pongo supervised.

There are also a couple of pictures of blowing sand making interesting tracks in the snow.