Click the link: treadlightly.org/responsible-horse/recreation

   Trying to teach my Granddaughter safe, and responsible behavior on the trail has it's challenges at times. Twelve year old girls seem to have no concept of the dangers of equine ownership. My next priority is teaching her safety on the trail. No matter where we travel.

Hay shortage in Texas...

   Findly we have enough hay to make it til' the next season. Early June we put up enough for two horses. Since we added the other horse, we had to get some more. We picked up another forty bales last weekend from Tractor Supply. I think the number is around 150 bales total, plus two round bales so far. We may pick up 3 or 4 more to set out this winter. Since the winters in Texas aren't that harsh, we may get by without them.
  
   I've been checking out local resources and hay has nearly doubled in some cases since we intially picked up our first batch. We payed $6 a bale for Tifton 85 in June. Last weekend, we payed $8.25 a bale. This weekend it's almost doubled. I don't know what some folks are going to do about feeding there animals. Ron had a gut feeling it may be a bad year, so he didn't waste any time putting up enough to feed our livestock.

  

Real endurance riding...

Living in the city makes it harder these days to ride safely. Cars whizzing by, the lack of respect for pedestrians, much less riders on their horses. People making a big deal out of you crossing an intersection. Hell, I had a lady come out of her house a year back. She picked up a sign of sorts, carrying it along with her as we were riding on the median across from her house. She yelled across at us. "do you speak english?" Now my Grandaughter was accompanying me along the way on her own horse. Replying to the woman, "yup, I speak english. What kind of question is that?" She began telling us, that our mexican friends were always using her pasture as a short cut. I'm not Hispanic! lol But, we do live in an area where the population is probably 70% Hispanic. Do I care? Nope! They're people too. But, she obviously didn't mind sharing her unsolicited opinion.
Now personally, from my street experiences, while horseback riding, 'people are crazy! and some folks have no respect for, public or private property,' no matter what ethnic origin they come from. How ever, I understood her concern. She certainly wasn't aware, I do respect folks property and I to, don't want horses on our manicured yard. And it was, after all her property, and she didn't want the horses crossing it. But the way she was wagging that sign around made me think, she might, wave it in the horses faces and cause a unwanted or needed incident. Ranting on that we need to tell our other rider friends, "stay off my property" was a little bizarre, since in my mine, we had nothing to do with any of it. As we were crossing towards where our cut off was, she got closer with that sign. My horse particularly, was getting nervous at her presence. High stepping with her head in the air, and my Grandaughters horse was side-stepping the other direction in the street. I finally had to get mouthy and tell the lady, "you better take your unhappy ass back-up to your house or I was going to be unpleasant in the end. Still continuing to follow us, her nasty behavior and disgusting mouth, we just ignored her til' we passed her property. Well, I almost never! The things we had to endure just to ride down the road these days.