Trail Report: Vepco 1/9/21 / Turner Run 1/10/21

February 4, 2021

I managed two solo rides over this weekend.

Saturday 1/9 I took both ponies out to Vepco Rd. I planned a short ride, parking at the first right hand fire road turn. Kitchie Mountain. I noted that there was a a crumpled up metal covert in the parking circle. I didn’t think too much of it at the time. We headed off through the fire gate, and bared left at the split. We wound down and around for a while and then came to where that covert must have been dug out of the trail. A new covert was not put in and the ditch was too big to pass, nor did I see a way around it safely. This is when I remembered riding Possum back here over a year ago and finding the ditch in place at that time.

It was a nice ride and I enjoyed it, although it was rather quick, maybe 45 minutes at best.

Sunday 1/10 I headed to Turner Run and parked at my normal spot. I quickly noticed the gate was still open, which is not usual during the winter. I went ahead and rode in which would allow me to verify that the road was still in passable condition. I found that it was actually in improved condition and if it is open the next time I go there I will drive in farther.

I also spotted a pile of tires dumped near the gate. This is not out of the ordinary for National Forest. But what was unusual is that the pile was crowned with a motorcylce tire. And not just any motorcycle tire, but one that looked just about spot on for mounted games standards. This is not the easiest and most typical size tire and has proven to be a little tricky, and often not inexpensive to secure. I snatched it up on the ride back out of the forest and tried it out. The weight and size felt just about right so I popped it in the trailer and have added it to my games practice equipment. Score.

Coming up on the first right hand side fire road, off the top of my head I want to call it Dave’s Camp, but I am not sure what it is labeled as, I could hear an engine being zipped around. As I got closer I took in a 2 door, home painted black, early 90s model Nissan spinning around in the mud and then heading my way. Oddly, when the driver saw me he threw it into reverse and backed up into the side of the road, nose out. I noted he had no front plate, but when he floored it on out of there I caught a glimpse of his VA rear tag.

This encounter reminded me that I want to start wearing a GoPro device when I ride on my own or on roads. It did encourage me enough to purchase a used older model one on Market Place that night for future use.

On previous rides ponying Neville, I have let him sort of do his thing as long as he kept with me and was not annoying. I even have let him off lead a few times for a short span to follow along, and lead the ride as he pleases. For the most part he has been good at staying with me and not being obnoxious to lead but he has been nippy and has irritated Simon. On this ride I decided it was time to work on leading properly. So I worked to keep his head near my knee. If he fell behind or got ahead I bopped his lead until he was back in place. If he tried to nip at Simon I bopped him again. There was a lot of licking and chewing. And it didn’t take long for him to start walking in heal position. We finished the day with very strong and consistent walking but his trotting was a bit hit or miss. Sometimes he maintained it well and other trot stretches he got behind and struggled to catch up and then maintain his position. I am looking forward to continuing this exercise with him.

It was a nice ride over lasting just over two hours with plenty of walking and nice sessions of trotting and a little cantering.

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by riderofchaos on February 4, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Trail Riding

Posted by riderofchaos on February 4, 2021

https://blueridgepony.com/2021/02/04/trail-report-vepco-1-9-21-turner-run-1-10-21/

The Chicken Massacre of Winter 2021

February 2, 2021

Two weeks ago I released my chickens to peck around the yard during the farrier visit. While he was trimming and resetting Simon’s shoes I watched the chickens peck around, eating grass, bugs, and hoof shavings. The ladies were happily enjoying the day when the two roosters came wondering into the area like two narcissistic dick-heads, swaggering into a ladies brunch. They immediately began freely having their way with the hens. Dislike.

The next day I noticed a couple of the hens were not going back in the coop at night and were trying to sleep on the horse porch. I picked them up, one at at time, and put them in the coop. They kept running past me back to the porch. I took note that these were the hens that seemed to avoid the roosters as much as possible. This went on for several days until I stopped letting them out of the coop for the day. After all, no one needs chicken poo on the porch.

A few days later I noticed the “groupie” hens, these are the ones that follow the roosters around like they are 1980’s hair-band rock stars, were looking pretty rough from all the abuse. Their necks and backs were getting torn up, and their cloacas (egg/butt hole) were looking a bit raw. And this is not even the season that the roosters get extra hormonal. If they were looking so rough now, how bad is it going to be in the spring?

Enough. I posted “Two FREE Bared Rock Roosters” on Craigslist. Saturday afternoon I met someone in town and handed them over.

Done. No more roosters. I drove home smiling.

Sunday morning I woke up and said to Rich, “ah no crowing” with a pleased sigh. I went outside a bit later and let the ladies out. They happily ran past me to go scratch about the yard. I went in and made breakfast, puttered around, and then got dressed to go ride ponies in the cold. At 10:40 I was about to head out the door when Rich yelled, “there is a fox on the porch!”

I ran outside and found my first body. A headless Buff Orpington. I called to my hens and none came, I ran around some more and found the Cockoo Maran hiding on the horse porch. I grabbed Simon out and tacked him up and went hunting for hens. We covered the property, and the height advantage allowed me to spot several feather strewn areas. Daisy found a Salmon Faverolle hiding in some tall grass in a field and ushered her back to the coop. My older resident Ameraucana came running up and followed Simon and I back to the coop. And later the younger Ameraucana was spotted wondering slowly across the killing yard looking around like “WTF!”. I also noticed a few areas with some older feathers sprawled about that would only match the no-longer-resident roosters leading me to believe they had been in a few tosses with a predators that I was unaware of. I eventually found the headless body of the Welsummer hen, and another pile of bloody feathers but no more live hens. With my due diligence done, I put Simon up and headed into the house.

We reviewed the video from the porch cam. Annoyingly the horse porch cam which faces the chicken coop/run was offline and not working. But the other porch camera did catch a panicked chicken shrieking at 10:19, and you can just make out in the very bottom corner where the time stamp is, some flailing wings, and then a still chicken body being dragged off camera. We really do not know what happened but we surmise that the fox was not the sole predator and was more likely coming late to the game to grab some left overs. Do we have some weasels we are unaware of? Would raccoons have done this at 10 in the morning? Is it possible that the absence to the roosters left the gate open for a multi predator hunger games event?

Investigative skills exhausted, I pulled up Craigslist and scrolled for a new rooster. I found an ad for a two year old Ameraucana rooster for $10 and made arrangements to head out immediately. Before we had the two thug Bared Rock roosters, we had a lovely Ameraucana rooster named Roger that we adored. He came in the mail included in a box of pullet peeps, having been sexed incorrectly. He was eventually taken out by a predator during the great chicken massacre of summer 2019 while I was out of the country. We believe that massacre was perpetrated by a pack of coyotes, but that is a different story. Our new rooster, not ironically named Roger #2, was living at a gorgeous hobby farm, tended by a friendly lady who helped me pop him into the carrier and away we went.

Shortly before dusk I tucked him into the coop with the four of twelve remaining hens who were standing around looking quite traumatized. He quietly walked in, tested the water and food and then strolled around the run. I left them to settle and when I checked back they were all climbing up the ramp to the coop together. In the morning when I left for work I left them all locked in (duh), and could hear happy clucking noses coming from the coop as they were waking up.

Two of the thugs before they had grown into full thug-dom.
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by riderofchaos on February 2, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in NonHorse Posts

Posted by riderofchaos on February 2, 2021

https://blueridgepony.com/2021/02/02/the-chicken-massacre-of-winter-2021/

Product Review: Hurtta Dog Cooling Vest

February 1, 2021

Daisy is my main riding companion and we love to spend our time climbing mountains and racing up fire roads together. Trail riding is our main off-season, winter-time activity. But with Covid causing competitions to be canceled, we filled our summer of 2020 with trail riding. Daisy is an experienced horse dog, with lots of trail riding miles under her collar, and she knows to lay in creeks and puddles when the opportunity presents itself. She is also getting older, and I am happy to put in any effort to make her life easier. This brought me to looking into the Hurtta Cooling Vest for her. We already have a Hurtta rain coat and a Hurtta winter coat and have been completely impressed with their quality and functionality so I had no question of selecting the Hurtta brand.

Their size guide is pretty handy and accurate and I ordered Daisy the Large from Amazon for $35. Daisy is a Medium dog, about 55lbs, a lean and fit suspected Catahoula mix dog. It came quickly and I followed the instructions by running it under water before putting it on her. It fit great. Not too tight and not too loose. The vest clips closed and then zips up, making it very easy to put on. The material and quality are excellent as expected and the functionality is just as good. This is why I choose to go with Hurtta, quality and functionality.

We rode around at home, getting in lots of gallops up the hills to give it a nice test. It was a hot, humid Virginia July day. When we stopped I quickly jumped off my pony and checked Daisy. She remained cool to the touch under the vest, dry, but cool. I would also say she appeared to be more comfortable and cooled down quicker than she usually did in these same conditions without the vest. I was impressed.

A couple days later I gave the vest its first try on the trails. To help give it optimum cooling I packed it in a gallop zip lock with cold water and some ice cubes for the drive to the trail, waiting until we arrived to outfit Daisy. We took off on a good two-three hour ride, climbing mountains and racing along trails. Daisy still plopped down in the creeks we crossed which I assume helped keep her vest “recharged” to continue cooling her. When we got back to the trailer I checked under the vest and found her to be nice and cool to the touch, and she seemed to cool down a bit quicker than usual. Again, impressed.

I am very happy with this purchase and continued to use it for the rest of the summer, and will be using it again when the temperatures heat back up this coming summer.

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by riderofchaos on February 1, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Reviews

Posted by riderofchaos on February 1, 2021

https://blueridgepony.com/2021/02/01/product-review-hurtta-dog-cooling-vest/

MGAA November Pairs 2020

January 29, 2021

As with most things, MGAA competitions were mostly cancelled all of 2020 due to Covid. in the fall there were three smallish pairs competitions, and I choose to take part in the third and final one. It was held at Diamond 7 in Pennsylvania, which is a comfortable laid back venue.

Rebekah photo: D Dungee

Team Ponynado (minus Susan) decided to pair up, putting the two new ponies together in Novice for their first competition and the two more experienced ponies together in O25. This was sort of neat since we could all wear our new team gear and get experience riding together.

Photo: Dungee

It was a super fun time and a very enjoyable competition. I am so glad I decided to go, although I was still apprehensive, I did end up feeling comfortable and safe at the event. Although wearing a mask all day in the heat of summer, while laboring to do ring crew might be a bit much, it was not so bad, and at the colder times that weekend it was almost wanted.

Rebekah and I had a great time riding together. She has come a really long way over the past year with her pony Secret. Simon was also in an excellent mood and even moved out quickly, in particular on Sunday. Jenny and Heather looked great on Seven and Fin, who really seemed to thrive in the low key atmosphere for their first competition. We all saw a few things we need to work on, and some goals to set.

Camping was enjoyable and it was so nice to be able to socialize with my favorite people.

That is all I really have for this competition recap being its several months past. But since it was my only games competition all year, it certainly needed to be documented.

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by riderofchaos on January 29, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Mounted Games

Posted by riderofchaos on January 29, 2021

https://blueridgepony.com/2021/01/29/mgaa-november-pairs-2020/

Marauder’s Maze – Mounted Orienteering

January 28, 2021

Looking back to November, a couple of us decided to try out mounted orienteering. This event was Harry Potter themed and held at Fair Hill in Maryland. Since it is quite a hike for both Jenny and myself, we went up the night before and camped at Fair Hill.

I got set up in time to take Simon for a ride, although I did not want to go too far so only adventured through the grounds near the camping/stables, checking out some of the cross country jumps, viewing the track, and enjoying a few jaunts in the woods and fields. The stalls were nice. They require the use of straw bedding only, which was a little out of the norm, but no big deal. The camping spots are limited but nice and we enjoyed meeting and chatting with our neighbors. Each spot had water and electric and a picnic table.

The next morning we packed back up, stripped stalls, and headed over to another part of the park, about a five minute drive away, to where our first mounted orienteering event was being held. Rebekah and her friend Linz met up with us there and we all got tacked up and outfitted, with lots of excited yelling back and forth.

Fully geared up we each had on our own Harry Potter school robes, scarves for ponies, some unicorn horns, some HP neck ties, and we went to check in and head out. I will say that we were expecting more people to be dressed the part, but had no qualms being the sole group in costume. And it did feel cool riding off in a pack with school robes flapping behind us, while looking for golden snitches, and silver worm tails.

Explained in inexperienced terms, we had 5 items to find. There were three points giving for each clue. You stand at those points and then using the degrees given and a compass you are turned in a direction. You triangulate those three points and they should intersect where your item is. Each item was simply a word that you needed to write down (or take a photo of) to prove you found it.

In retrospect, I know we would have been a heck of a lot more successful if we had ever done this before. And after we found the final of five items we finally realized how difficult they could be to see.

We found the first three points pretty easily. A small stream crossing, a blue tree tag and a Dementor (which was tucked into some grass). We found where these intersected and spent what felt like forever looking in that spot, but did not find an item. We moved on.

The second three points were a crash site, a wooden bridge, and godrick hallow graveyard. We again found these points with some riding back and forth, and this time we did find the item hung on a tree!

The third item had points that were a bit tougher. A 90 degree turn in the trail, a golden snitch, and a 4′ log on the north side of the trail. There were about 100 places in the trail that were 90 degrees and how long is 4′ really? It seemed like every log on the side of the trail could have been 4′. We rode around and around in this area and never found a snitch, or which 90 degree turn or 4′ log we needed. wa wa.

The fourth item was a success. The points included “dusk”, baby acromantula, and a trail opening into the field. Score! Two items collected (well photographed).

The final item also kept us scratching our heads. We found the Y fork 10′ up the south side of the trail. We found the blue rectangle, and then eagle eyed Jenny spotted the silver worm tail. It was a rather small silver paper cut out of a rat hanging in a tree. We triangulated and dang nab it, no item. We went round and round, and were about to give us when Jenny managed to spot the clue, on the back of a tree, down by the ground, that would not have been visible without some real looking.

As mentioned earlier, after we found this item, which was tucked in so well and hidden from the trail, we realized that the first item was probably right where we thought it was but behind a tree trunk where we could not see it. The instructions had said everything would be viewable mounted from the trail, which we took literally to the word. Technically you had to step off the trail, lean forward, and stretch to see this fifth item. So its quite possible the first item was set up very similar.

We had been out for hours by this point and were all thristy and hungry and done. So we called it good and headed on back. We checked back in and were told we won the award for the best team due to our dressing the part. This came with a bucket of cool goodies we divided up before heading out. When we saw the final results later we were even more pleased to see we actually did quite well. We missed two items but only one team got them all, and only one other team got four. After that placement was dependent on your time, and we admittedly went slow, but not the slowest. I think we finished fourth, or something close to that.

It was a really good time and all of us enjoyed ourselves. We would enjoy doing it again, and next time, we will bring a stronger game!

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by riderofchaos on January 28, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Pony Stuff

Posted by riderofchaos on January 28, 2021

https://blueridgepony.com/2021/01/28/marauders-maze-mounted-orienteering/

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