Sunday, December 18, 2011

Horsing Around

Shorty, after our ride.
Day one of my holiday was glorious and exciting; After breakfast, I went up to Kelly Canyon to go horsebacking! The day was sunny, clear and cold. The snow sparkled on the ground like a Christmas miracle. Meet my steed, Shorty (abbreviated from Short Arrow) shown right and below. Usually I ride Jessie, but she's getting older and so we changed things up a bit. Gary rode my favorite mule, Pal.







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While Gary got out the tack, I took a little bit of time to get to know Shorty, so that we could both enjoy a more relaxed ride.  Although staring into a horse's eyes isn't really my way (and I don't imagine that a horse would find that soothing), I do find them beautiful and soulful, so I snuck in a picture of Shorty's eye; doesn't he have beautiful eyelashes?


Gary, riding Pal.
Our other sturdy companion was Lucky, the Welsh Corgi who ran behind the horses on his short little legs (letting the horses break the snow first) the whole ride!

While we were out, we saw a family of four Moose.  I got one photo from far away, but as we drew nearer, Pal and Shorty spooked, and Gary and I spent our time getting the horses calmed down.  Neither of us lost our seat, thankfully, but we both got a nice shot of adrenaline! 

I hope I get to ride at least one more time before I leave for home, but I think I'm going to try some quiet snowshoeing to the same location first, to see if I can get a little closer to the Moose for better photos.  Don't worry, though, I'm not ignorant to how dangerous Moose can be; I'll be careful!


Lucky; a dog in search of legs.

A far away shot of three moose (there's one in the trees to the left)

2 comments:

Jenni said...

Catching up on your blog, my friend. Oh, what an amazing ride this was! Thank you for sharing your morning with us. I hope your trip is restful and that you get a closer (but not too much closer) look at the moose.

Victoria said...

Wow! How wonderful! Sounds beautiful and soul invigorating!!