1st Day Alone with Her New Horse

Is this good enough for a paddock?

I think so. How long is he going to be here?

Like 2 days maybe.

Okay, and then he's gonna go in with the cows? Leslie thought he should go in pretty soon.

Pretty soon? That's in like a week.

Why don't you want to put him with the cows?

I don't know, because I don't want him to get hurt.

Right. He needs a buddy though.

We can buy another horse.

Funny, real funny.

He will not pay attention to anybody or anything except screen until he's done.

You think, you think he'll, uh, obey this electric fence?

Yeah, it's not hitting that hard because we're gonna figure out what's the problem.

That's probably not good. It probably needs to hit hard. Well, that could be why it's not powerful. It's on one grounding rod, two grounding rods. Have y'all milked yet? No. Oh my God, you gotta go. Here, fix this and then go. You gotta milk. Sorry. T-post, got it off our rebar post. Thank you, Josiah. 7.7, that'll keep them in. Lily, let's start introducing to the cows very soon. Black Friday extends. How long's Black Friday last now? 3 weeks till Monday.

All right, but that's good because I think we need to pick out our couch, and if we can save 15% on a couch, we're already gonna buy it.

Money in our pocket, might as well buy it. Good job. I'm going to the woods.

Have fun.

Okay. Or you should probably wear like something over this until you get—

First trail of the day, 11 miles.

What?

You think this is going to be it, or we're going to do another short one after? 10.9 miles, Maximally 11 miles. Y'all feeling pretty good? Everybody feeling good? Austin's been training, and you got some sort of knee brace. Yep, give me a little more confidence. All right, watch out, boys. I made sure I fed everybody a big old breakfast. I just opted for a light broth. Got to keep my edge over these youngins. Getting warmed up on the uphill. Are you going to pass me? No. Waiting on Austin. Last month he cramped and had to stop. Do you think he's cramping this time? Oh, here he comes. You hanging in there? Ah, yes, I made it! I'm on time! You got cramps? Okay, good. You just don't want to get too good or these boys won't invite you anymore.

Uh-uh, you can get good, I don't care.

How's everybody feel? Tired. We've been climbing for practically 7 miles. 7-mile trail. Does that mean we get to go down finally on the single track? Does it feel like they're gonna make it so we always going up? Yeah. How is it that we've been going up for 7 miles and we only got 4 miles left? Like the first trail we ever did. Oh, that's something. How have we climbed for 7 miles? No, some of it's down. I mean, it's mostly up, it's a little bit down. Turn right on Lower Sidehill Trail, orange, or short distance beyond where Lower Sidehill Connector Trail Hey, what goes up must come down. It's the science of it. If we're gonna end up back at the truck, we've had equal ups and downs. We've climbed a lot of double track, and now we have the single track climb just kicking our butts. We're gonna have our revolt here in a second if we don't get to some fun single track down here. This is the top up here. Here we go. Payback. Hey, you boys happy now? Okay. Uh-oh, Austin's taking the lead. Oh, John ain't going to have it. Oh, Justin ain't going to let me by. That's what I'm talking about. Woo! That's where it's at. Wow, it's near a ledge. What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong?

I'm tired of this, Grandpa.

That's too bad. Oh, we got to run it downhill, boys. Yeah! Go, go, go, go, go! You ain't first, you're last. There we go. All worth it, huh? You guys want to go left? Turn right and ride down and across Bent Creek Gap Road onto Campground Connector Trail, blue blaze. And we're back. How's everybody feel? You still like mountain biking? Where are you going? Oh, he cheated. He cut through the woods. We're trying to do every mountain bike trail in this book, so gotta hit all the trails. Don't want to do another one, or are you pooped? I don't know. Let's eat and see how you feel, guys. We got one more trip. We knocked one trail off the list. It's okay if you don't want to do it. Often you want to do it. I don't know, I might be pooped. Okay, that one knocked me out.

That was crazy.

Oh, that was a good one, wasn't it? It was a good For a workout, seemed like it was all uphill. I burned 900 calories. Is that right? Is that what your Apple Watch says? Yeah, I haven't even eaten that much today. Uh-oh, you're on a reserve. Everybody's legs are Jell-O. That moderate stuff eats us up, huh? Yeah, I don't know why the kids wanted to quit so early. I'm just warming up. You guys wanted to quit? We can go home. Yeah, he's been in that stall. I mean, that's— well, I guess he's been in the pasture. He's energetic till she rides him a little bit. Just bring back memories, Big Daddy. I haven't been around this in over— let's see, it's been over 20 years. Oh, probably— no, 25. There you go. What you doing? Come on, come on, come on. Let me pick his hooves.

Yeah, I'll just pick them after the thing.

Well, he's cooperating nice enough.

Put your hand out.

Jumped out of the way.

Good boy.

Have you rode him yet today?

Not today. I rode him yesterday and the day before that, so he needs to be exercised. Do you remember how calm he was after the ride yesterday?

Mm-hmm. You're right. Yes, just riding for Grandma and Daddy right now. What's wrong with the bit, you think?

It's just not one that he, I guess, is comfortable with. I don't, I don't quite understand it. I just am— yeah, the people who know what they're talking about are saying he doesn't like the bit.

We're borrowing this bit until we can get a bit.

We're borrowing all the tack.

A little off size.

The, the seat's a little big. We're getting a smaller saddle. The bridle works, but it's not ours, so we're gonna buy a bridle that works. Better. It doesn't work perfect for him.

How's he riding today, Lily?

Pretty good.

You getting the energy out of him? I don't know.

He wants the candy really bad.

Does he do better when he's walked? No. No?

Yeah, he won't try. He wants to move really bad.

He wants to go faster.

He wants the candy. He likes—

what's cantering?

It's just— I don't know, it's what you normally do to jump.

Cantering is— is that fast? Is that walking? What is that?

It's like, uh, slower than gallop and faster than a trot.

Okay, we don't really have a place for him to canter, do we?

We have a trail, but yeah, this ring isn't that big. Well, this soccer field's not that big, and that's the only flat place we have really that's mowed.

Sure.

Yeah, feels like she needs to canter. She got to be able to stay in this mowed area, huh?

Okay.

You know, you could mow a— you could mow a path out there. He's always gnawing on it.

Yeah, and he won't listen to me.

Oh, he won't listen to you?

He might have gotten a little calm during that ride.

He seems like it. He is much calmer, isn't he? Now we're putting him up.

I took off the saddle.

Oh, okay. How's he been liking his paddock today? You've encouraged her to go sit down with the horse. The riding a little bit earlier was a little bit stressful. She didn't have as much control as maybe we had our trainer come yesterday and help us. But the horse is just getting used to everything here. Our train— the trainer kept saying 2 or 3 times, there's broke and then there's homestead broke. So the horses got to get used to this new place and then the homestead situation. Like, it's on high alert right now. Hear that? The boys' airsoft is up on top of that ridge and it keeps looking up there. I told Lily, this is real horse experience.

It is.

You're a real cowgirl now. A real equestrian. English people aren't— English riders aren't cowgirls, are they? Are English riders cowgirls, or what are they? Equestrians?

No, they're equestrians, I believe.

All right, you're so helpful, Henry.

She is.

Another apple core.

Where'd you find it?

Uh, it's kind of over next to of the bucket. I like how he came up to you after you sat there a while. See, here's Buddy, here's best friend. You think he and Stud Muffin don't have a bromance?

No, because he is not a stallion, he's a gelding.

What do you think Honey's gonna think of him?

I don't know.

Want to intro them tomorrow? We're just gonna let him walk up there and see everybody up close, okay? See how they react to him. He would be much happier being with them than not here by himself, don't you think?

Yeah.

Let's say by Friday he needs to be with them full time, so we'll start introing him in more and more ways throughout this week. What do you think?

Maybe tomorrow we can just take him up there to see, and then maybe the day after that on— yeah, Tuesday we could put him in a paddock next to them for 2 days.

Oh, and then one day you could put them in with the sheep. Leslie said he'd be fine with the sheep because he can eat really low grass.

Maybe I'll just feed him in the morning before I take him out, and in the evening when I bring him in.

Okay, and when you put him out there with the cows, let's throw out hay too. I think he's gonna really like them. He's good, he's just gotta settle. He's just now getting used to those airsoft bullets.