Bloggers: Pictures or it didn't happen

I'm not a huge blogger yet, but I still try certain things on this blog. One saying I've noticed among the blog set is "Pictures or it didn't happen!" probably thanks to all the distance between us. However, my best blogger friend, Becky from Blog of Becky, recently moved to St. Helens, reducing the distance between us from a 2.5 hour flight to a 30 minute drive. It was, as Tristan pointed out, inevitable that we would go riding together. 

He was right.

I hooked her up with my endurance mentor and horse junkie enabler, Brenda, and off we went. Thankfully Brenda took it easy on us city girls; I hadn't ridden in a month, and although Becky went riding with Aarene a few days before, she wasn't a saddle regular. Instead of the brutal thoroughly enjoyable training rides I usually do with Brenda, spending most of the ride at the trot, we did roughly 13 miles in absolutely beautiful weather above the Mollala River at the walk. Mostly the horses were displeased with the to them excruciatingly slow pace. They are, all three, endurance horses, and most endurance horses trot the 30, 50, and 100 miles races. Walking is really not their natural gait.

 It was a training ride lite, but it did show me that my regular walks with Kaeden have paid off: I wasn't dying or sore the day after. I could have kept going, no problem. Also my lower leg was a bit stiller, but I did have to keep correcting my slanting problem- I lean heavily to my right, throwing off everyone's balance. 

But I finally got my fix: Seeing horse ears at the bottom of my pictures. In this case, I was able to reconnect with one of Brenda's projects, ultimate dork horse Huck. He's got a nerve condition that causes a  head throwing twitch when sunlight hits him right, so he gets to wear a goofy fly mask all the time. He's shown up at a few endurance rides with his get up on, and done well. 

The ride was beautiful, and the perfect stress relief for both us horse addicts: Becky got time away from her kids, and I got time away from the hundred little details of moving. We bushwhacked by the beaver ponds and Becky grazed on salmon berries and we talked like three women who'd known each other forever. 

Brenda let Becky ride her current prize mount, McCurdy Plantation Horse and Prime Mare Bonnie. Bonnie is all mare. She knows her job and she hates anything that keeps her from it, like grooming and slow humans.  Case in point: This was Bonnie, getting tacked up at the trail head:

This is Bonnie a short time later, doing her job:

Becky is in love. See that grin? Matching these two up also might pay off: Brenda has been riding endurance long enough to know pretty much everybody, and she mentioned a rider in Becky's neck of the woods who may be looking for a butt in the saddle to condition his Tennessee Walkers. After years of horselessness and only riding once every few months, life is looking a lot more full of horse dirt under Becky's nails. 

As much as I'm looking forward to this move, I'm really frustrated that I'm loosing out on this riding opportunity and these friends. 

But hopefully we'll meet up at future endurance rides. After all, it's only the middle of the season and there are rides practically every weekend between now and October! Becky is heading up to Renegade this week, and Brenda is heading to the Bandit ride the weekend after we move, and as of now Mr. Huck does not have a rider. 

But the move is pushing all these other thoughts out of my mind for now. This weekend coming up will be a delicately managed balance of the to-do list, something I haven't mastered or even really managed well yet. We have to get the Uhaul packed with (hopefully) everything we've acquired through Craigslist and dedicated garage sale hunting, get our utilities turned on, get a PO box (because for some reason our duplex doesn't get mail delivered), get our keys, unload and figure out where everything goes, clean all the dishes, and everything. Brenda was telling me on the ride to basically "Just do it and don't over think it" which is fine, except this is a huge move for us that's been a long time coming and a lot is riding on it. We have to prove that Tristan and I can function on our own in the adult world and basically be adults and raise Kaeden. 

One step at a time, don't over think it. Right? Right. At least I have this to remember when I'm overthinking and over stressing it: