Tails From Provence

A Little Horse Update

I have a confession to make.

Between the weather being less than ideal, a host of deadly sheep surrounding the arena, and the threat of marauding wolves in the forest, I’ve been a bit of a wimp for the last two weeks. Call it SAD, January Blues, Le Cafard, missing my buddy MC, or whatever you like, but I’ve been in a bit of a funk, finding it hard even to get the dogs out for a decent walk. I did manage to take Flurry out for a hack the week before last but it was bluddy freezing and my hands and feet were completely numb by the time I got back. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it – it’s always nice tramping through the woods with my little Flurry, but it just didn’t leave me champing at the bit to get out again any time soon.

After the heavy rain last weekend, everything was plastered in mud for the first half of this week (including the horses!) and it was still c-o-o-o-o-l-d!

Muddy Ponies!

But by last Thursday, I’d given myself a figurative kick up the bum and convinced myself to get back in the saddle. I took Flurry into the arena for half an hour, he was lazy but obedient, and I felt a bit better for doing it.

On Friday, I did the same with Aero, with my usual caution when dealing with him! I tacked him up, took him up to the arena and led him around on either rein. The sheep seemed to be gone and he was quite relaxed, but just as I was leading him towards the mounting block, his head shot up, ears pricked. I looked back towards the gate, and there was one of the other liveries, with her horse on a lead.

I’ve met her a few times, but she doesn’t seem to ride – she turns the horse out in the arena, he rolls and goes ballistic for ten minutes or so and then she take him back to his paddock. We talked for a moment, and she asked if it would disturb me if she let the horse loose in the round pen. I told her to go ahead, and I’d mount Aero if he was calm once her boy had blown off steam…

Well, Aero could have cared less! He completely ignored the other horse’s antics, so I mounted and we worked away. He was calm, attentive, obedient – what more could I want?

Very happy (possibly even ecstatic), I finished up after about forty minutes and had a nice chat with the other lady who was now giving her Boy a pick of grass. We swapped numbers and she is hoping to hack out with me & Mr Safety Flurry in the next week or two (her Boy is a bit of a scaredy cat and doesn’t like to go out on his own).

Buoyed up by Thursday & Friday’s rides, the plan for Saturday was to walk the dogs in the morning and go for a trek with the LSH in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the dog walk turned out to be twice as long as planned and I was wrecked afterwards – in no shape to ride! So on Sunday, we made sure the dogs only got a short walk and took the boys out for a hack in the early afternoon.

It was one of those uneventful hacks – we were out for an hour, the weather was ok, Aero led, Flurry led, we walked, we trotted, we weaved in and out of trees, they were both great, there’s not much more to say, really.

I am, however, going to order a pair of hind boots for Flurry. Both horses are suffering with the wet conditions (it is MUCH MUCH wetter than it was here last year), their frogs seem to be shrinking before my eyes and becoming more tatty looking every day. Flurry seems just a little tender on his hind feet, and I think in order for us to be able to tackle 3 hour+ treks with a clear conscience, I will have to boot him on all four feet, for the moment anyway.

Off to the on-line boot shop I go!

Sunday Stills – The Letter F

I almost didn’t take part in this challenge, as I hadn’t set out to photograph something suitable. Then I was looking through my shots from the week and I came across this one from last Monday.

It’s Flurry, Filling the Frame! But not only that, can you see the letter F to the right of his left eye? It’s caused by light shining into the field shelter (another F, clever me!!). Well, I had to participate when I saw that!

Off to see everyone else’s Fs. Visit Sunday Stills for Fire Engines, Fruit Bowls and other F words…

Leap of Faith

Today we went for a hike to the Saut du Moine (the Monk’s Leap).

Between 1385 and 1395 there was a bad guy, Raimond de Turrenne, who earned himself the nickname of The Scourge of Provence. Basically he went around with his armies, generally trashing the place (he’s responsible for the first vandalism of the Tour d’Aigues, when the original building, the central keep was seriously damaged) and trying to force the decent, law-abiding Provençal folk to pay homage to someone other than their rightful liege, the Comtesse de Provençe, Marie de Blois.

One day, his forces were attacking the abbey at Valsaintes, about 10km from here as the crow flies. One of the monks fled in terror, with the attackers in hot pursuit. Believing his God would protect him, the monk faced his horse at a waterfall on the Calavon river and jumped off the edge into the water below – a true leap of faith. History does not record whether he survived or not – at least, I can’t find out for sure if he did! But the waterfall has been know as Le Saut du Moine ever since.

I’ve been looking at trekking routes, one of which would bring us past Le Saut de Moine, and I wanted to check how horse-friendly the terrain was. We parked the jeep 2km away from Valsainte and set off on foot, Cinnamon running along off-leash, Cookie on the leash trotting beside the LSH.

Following on from the OOPS post, let me just clarify this – Cookie is never intentionally off-leash. She is just too unpredictable, too disobedient and too easily distracted to trust. So what on earth are we going to do when we start long-distance trekking? Leave her in kennels every time? Well, we don’t want to do that. Attach her to a lunge line and lead her along while we ride? Somehow, I don’t think that’s a safe option, and I think Aero and Flurry would take a dim view of it. We’ve been talking about trying her off-leash for a long time now, so that we can start to develop some trust in her, and so that she learns to follow us as we hike along. Once we can trust her while we’re on foot, then we start introducing the horses into the picture… that’s the plan, anyway.

Anyway, we decided that today was the day. Like the monk from Valsainte, we had to take a leap of faith and just give Cookie her freedom. We unclipped the leash and kept her attention focussed on us by throwing the ball a couple of times. I had two tennis-balls with me, every time she came back with one, I would give her a little treat and throw the other while I picked up the first one. It was going great – and then, BAM, a scent distracted her, she spat the ball out as she ran along and disappeared into the bushes, oblivious to our calls and oblivious to her abandoned toy.

What should we do? we wondered. Let’s just keep walking, she’ll either follow or she won’t, we have to trust her sometime, we said…

And she followed! She spent the whole three hour walk off-leash apart from two occasions – once when we were passing through Valsaintes and once when we met some other dogs – Jack Russell Terriers, as it happened! Our walk was about 12km, but between all the back & forth and side to side exploring she did I reckon she covered the best part of 18km, most of it at a run. We called her back every so often and gave her a little treat each time. By the time we were nearly back at the jeep, it was just like walking with a normal dog – she was pretty tired, and happily trotting along, just ahead of us. She was exhausted afterwards, and actually lay down, asleep, under my chair when we stopped into a Café – unheard of behaviour, normally she stands on full alert the whole time!

Leaps of Faith aside, Le Saut du Moine is a stunningly beautiful spot. There will be a mounted, picnic expedition there in the not too distant future…