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[RC] April horsenews - Mike SherrellWhat men do by themselves on Sundays
Scouring the county for one more new ride, in the southwest quadrant of
Santa Rosa: alongside the railroad tracks we came upon a drunken Mexican all
by himself performing mighty soccer kicks and sprinting in place. Later, it
was a middle-Aged anglo in his little pickup parked on dead-end street
staring through razor wire-topped chain link fence at the rather trashy
creekside I was riding along. When I came back by he was reading a
newspaper.
A couple of weeks later, poking around some more looking for new nooks
and crannies to ride, Traveller and I discovered Day?s Island, on the bay
between the Petaluma River and Bel Marin Keyes. Access is damned
inconvenient, all the way at the back of the golf course at the end of
Atherton Avenue. But as a result the place bestows a great sense of
isolation, peace and quiet: oaks, Bay Laurels, grasses, spring flowers now,
reflecting water, birds, sky, bay vistas. Plus you can get several miles of
almost textbook gaiting along levee tops around the water district land,
with a bonus of desensitizing the horse to a furlong of those black plastic
lath-supported 24? high barricades that government employees seem to feel
the need to erect in the partially natural regions under their control.
Traveller is gaiting fine; holding the gait for miles. He has a slow
and a fast. I?d like to push the slow into the fast or see if I could, but
for now I hold it whever it comes so as to encourage it so he gets used to
it in the hopes of being able to call it forth when I want it. Other times
he will make me struggle to keep him out of a bumpy pace, perhaps when the
ground is harder or when he?s tireder. No horse is ever perfect, is it?
Took a post-wet-weather ride on the windey singletracks of China Camp.
The trails were in pretty good shape, although with a little more exposed
rock underfoot and some stones newly washed down from above. There was a
work crew of young people replacing a bridge on the upper trail. The leader,
a man of about my age, spotted us approaching and came down the trail
holding his hand up, ?Stop! Go back! You can?t go any further.? I looked
past him and saw that the new bridge was actually in place and intact. ?Get
out of the way or I?ll knock you down,? I said, and put my heels to
Traveller. No, I didn?t; I just twitted him for his excessive officiousness
and turned around.
For the first time I noticed, on the point at the west end of the park,
to the left of the old fishing village of China Camp, the little beach, one
of those precious little miniatures that characterize Marin county. Noticed
it, and took a nap on it.
The China Camp trails have lots and lots of things to shy at, bikes,
runners, hikers, bridges, benches, God and horses only know whatall. Along
Shoreline Trail on the return, a clutch of second responders blocking the
trail were loading a guy, a boomer, of my own generation, onto a stretcher
and maneuvering it down the hillside to an ambulance. After I finished
rubbernecking, a half mile further along we came across a ranger leading a
horse with a newish-looking saddle, the type with the little vestigial horn.
He said it belonged to ?the gentleman leaving the park in the ambulance,?
and that he?d found it grazing a little ways back up the trail from where
they found the guy.
On a short outing to exercise Margareta a bit, Jean and I went back and
forth along a creek-canal in the SE Laguna plain a couple of times. In the
tall grass along the top of the bank we came upon the first Canada geese
nest I?ve ever seen. It had seven eggs. The first time past, both geese flew
up. On the way back, one flew up and the other just waddled down the bank
and swam out on the canal. To get more mileage in we repeated the ride, and
the third time we passed the nest one bird stood and watched us while the
other did the wounded bird trick down the track ahead of us, then flew back.
The fourth time, one stood by and the other arose from the nest and extended
its wings and hissed, scaring the horses. I think this canal is one edge of
what will be a big Indian casino complex.
Granada?s suspensories are intact, says the sonograph. Margareta is
also ok, Jean exercising both to gradually build them back up. To give
Granada a little exercise, we put her in with Grandiosa and Andalusa the
filly. Granada and Grandiosa fought; and Grandiosa as always won, but at the
cost of divots on upper rear left leg and, impressively, the top of her butt
above her tail. Granada got cholic from not drinking during the hostilities.
In order to keep the ordinarily hyper Margareta from dancing around on
her healing suspensory so much, Cotati Large Animal gave her a shot of
fluphenazine, which they claimed would cool her down a little for a whole
month. I think it did; four weeks later she shocked even herself by falling
to her knees in the midst of the first episode of rearing and balking when
first mounted since before the injection. I would say the dope shaves maybe
10-15% off her usual ? hotness? Heat? I don?t think there really is a proper
noun form of ?hot?. Excitability, I guess.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon Jean, Margareta, Traveller and I went from
the Petaluma marina along the Bay Trail through the marsh, by the river and
around the ponds of Shallenberger Park. The afternoon sunlight skimmed
across the tall spring grass, giving it colors you only really see on the
third or fourth look; blue was in the water and the sky it reflected; it was
entirely gorgeous. On the way back Margareta broke through a faux-aluminum
plank on one of the footbridges that we?d already crossed three times
previously, and crashed, dumping Jean hard, who tore a rotator cuff and
began a rheumatoid flare. Margareta got off with skin lacerations. Jean
longs to go back.
The horses shed their winter coats in February, then the extended cold
and rain of March hit. So they grew in a thick secondary coat, which they
shed rapidly in about the first three warm sunny days of April. Traveller
gets more riding, currying and brushing than any of the others, and his coat
is sleek and gleaming. Might also have something to do with the corn I give
him every day to try to keep the weight on him; he?s the only one that needs
it.
Got a great new scales to weight the feed from saveonscales.com for
$35. Accurate to .001 lbs, weighs up to 55 lbs, no springs. If it lasts it?
ll be perfect.
The 3rd weekend in April, took Traveller out to the Valley, jumped off
by Elmira and wandered around the appx. 18 square mile equilateral triangle
bounded by the 6-mile-long Fry Road running east from Vacaville, the NE
side being Ulatis creek, and NW side being I-80, agricultural, fields,
pastures, fringe suburban, fine dirt footing, almost all flat. The first
really nice weather weekend of the year, everything green. Spent all day
meandering for 25 miles, according to the GPS. Towards the end we would be
gaiting slowly along a canal and I would just lean back and gaze straight up
into the sky and watch a bird passing above the trees, blue sky and white
clouds for a backdrop. For most of the day, the whistle of the trains from a
mile away would jack T into a staccato, adrenalin-driven paso llano. But on
the last half mile back, where the canalside runs parallel to the tracks and
20 yards from it, when the train came at us and by us he scarcely sped up.
Took Grandiosa along the same canals and railroad tracks east of 101
between Santa Rosa and Cotati that I discovered with Traveller a few weeks
earlier. When we got to the cattle pastured along the canal, one started
running after us along its side of the fence ? I don?t understand cows, so I
don?t know if it was chasing us or trying to follow us. Grandiosa started
galloping in fear, and as it was futile to try to bring her down to a gait I
reassured her that since she was a horse she was faster than a cow, and she
relaxed into a canter that kept us ahead until the cow got to the end of its
pasture. In the middle of the run I twisted around to look back and see how
close the cow was, but then I thought it was much more important to watch
where we were going.
Regards,
Mike Sherrell
Grizzly Analytical (USA)
707 887 2919/fax 707 887 9834
www.grizzlyanalytical.com
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