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Great rides (hey, we can’t work all the time!)

We use this page as a "container" for pictures of rides where we've either had fun or happened to bring the camera along and got some fun shots. The digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 990) is small, light and tough enough to withstand the bumps. Moreover, it can be managed with a single hand — important for shots from a moving horse!

10 April 2002

On one of the first warm sunny days of this reluctant spring, we played hookey and went out for a relaxed 2-hour ride.

First around the trails in the back. The fields are mostly free of snow but it is only just leaving. Where the snow has melted today, the ground is covered with a fine cobweb-like lace which disappears when it dries up and blows away.

The woods are still quite full of snow, although it is soft and crumbly. Sometimes as the horses step on it, a whole sheet collapses — a good time to be paying attention as they usually start!

The view from a saddle is great for surveying what trees need to be thinned. Eric has marked some dead, overcrowded or badly bent trees but this time of year is good to note the maples and birches with trunk damage as they are quite wet where the sap is leaking out of breaks in the bark.

It was such a nice day, we decided to go east a bit along the Steele Line, then south on the Murray Line to scare up a huge flock — probably a thousand geese — which thrilled us with the roar of their wings (and unerved Whiskey and Drum a bit!)

We went east on the 6th Concession, then north on the Proven Line (still patchy with snow) and back home along the Steele Line. The horses seemed glad to be out — a break from standing around looking across their paddock fences and seeing the grass starting to get green!

A Drum roll if you please...

As usual, after a bit of grooming, both horses could hardly wait to get out and roll in the dirty sand.

And of course, we'd just finished grooming them. Sigh!

July 2004: Why is that message overprinted on the image here? Well, someone linked to this image without permission and as people who make our living by being paid for our creative efforts, we take copyright infringement seriously. It isn't the money -- in fact, we wouldn't have objected if the person asked. And how did we know? When an image is served, the server keeps track of the time and address served. When we check the web logs, we can see when there is an unusual amount of activity -- and trace where the image is being used without permission. /Eric

Ho hum... just sitting around in the field watching the geese...

(Actually, he's at the end of a roll!)

And after the ride, we dug out some of last year's carrots and parsnips for dinner — they're at their sweetest after the carbohydrates convert to sugar for the winter — so the lucky horses got a special treat!

All-in-all, a great afternoon.