November 1

Day one of NaBloPoMo 07

Halloween

Halloween afternoon was beautiful, sunny, and warm, if somewhat windy. The Sugar Maples still wore their golden and scarlet coats of leaves, this is late for such color in lower Michigan. It was a day to go for a trail ride instead of taking an equitation lesson in the large indoor arena. On days when we ride outside I ride an old palomino quarter horse pony. Cricket is a steady reliable trail horse who takes care of himself and his rider. It also helps if he and you are both paying attention to your surroundings. Cricket has been laid up for a little over two weeks with an old "sports" injury that acts up occasionally. It "acted up" when we were on a trial ride last month and in the end I was walking us both, limping, back to the barn. Yesterday he was sound of "knee" but crabby. Oh yes it is getting to be winter - if not cold yet the days are shorter and that is how horses tell the seasons; when to shed or grow a winter coat, and with Cricket when to put on his crabby winter demeanor - when you have to be much more aware of what he is doing with his great big teeth as you move around him, fortunately with more bulky sleeves. My trainer rode the six year old mare that I ride for indoor lessons. She is still green and somewhat unsure of herself on a trail ride. She will willingly lead until she becomes nervous and then she wants her old reliable friend Cricket to lead. We had a very pleasant ride, but both horses found the day a bit spooky. Image shied as we came out of a line of pines into a field we often refer too as the "spooky field". But just barely beyond steady old Cricket spooked also, refusing to go on through the hedgerow and into the big open field. He and I had a minor argument about it before he finally went along, ears pricked sharply forward and with a nervous gait. He even found the familiar woodlot a place he did not want to go which required another "discussion" to urge him forward. A couple of other such nervous episodes added up to not quite the usual for Cricket.

Someone once told me that on Halloween the veil between this life and the next is very thin. If that is true I expect horses might be sensitive to such a phenomenon. Maybe that is what we experienced on that Halloween ride. Or maybe Cricket just did not want to go back to work after a two week vacation, or he was still a bit sore, of which he otherwise gave no evidence. Or it was just his crabby winter self beginning to emerge. Or maybe it was just the wind.