What did you do today?

[blackie's maiden]

Well, last Sunday, I returned from first real trailride since Hubby died. Sept. 26 - Oct. 1, 4 days trail riding. Beautiful Lincoln Nat'l Forest near Nogal, NM, a piece of Heaven on earth. Church fed us breakfast and supper every day so only had to worry about lunch. Most wonderful country gospel singers and huge gorgeous campfires every night.

Of course, my F250, only p.u. my truck camper fits, decided to blow out its fuel system so I took Hubby's Siverado instead, put black towels in windows and those foil sun visors big front and back windows. Viola! I had me a "tent" that locked.

And my two horses i took exceeded my expectations. The terrain was pretty tough on my two black-sod flatlanders, but they were two of the best behaved horses there.

Soooo did not want to come home. Wanted to ask the mule deer or elk, also coming into our camps, if they had room in their herds for one more!

[Charlie Horse]

Hah! I'm glad you had a good time. I did some camping in the back of the Suburban. Luxury! My horses are all retired though. Alas.

[Nanno]

That sounds like a wonderful time, Connie! I'm so glad your horses are working out for you!

[Nanno]

Well, I did it! I took Maya to Halloween Town last night as "Toby" while I wore the Jareth the Goblin King costume. I was a pretty fat Jareth! I'm about the same amount of overweight as I was 3 years ago and the outfit is form-fitting without layers, but I bundled up underneath and was popping at the seams. Nevermind. I stayed warm enough with all those long johns and undershirts! A lot of folks don't get the reference these days but the ones who did thought it was the best costume there. Maya, of course, stole the show. My favorite was when kids would come over to get candy, see Maya, and immediately forget all about trick-or-treat because they wanted to pet the baby goat. Maya was awesome. She was completely chill all evening and let everyone pet her. She wasn't afraid of any of the costumes – not even dinosaurs, werewolves, or jellyfish. A few folks came up to introduce their dogs to her despite my telling them please not to. She never once startled or backed away from any of the be-costumed dogs. She was amazing! 
   

Phil went as a pirate and froze to death without his long johns and gloves. 
   

And here was our truck setup. I think it came out rather well this year! We had less than one hour to carve all these pumpkins after Phil got off work. I think they came out rather well! 
   

[Tater74]

Awesome.

We had no visitors as usual.

[Nanno]

We have no visitors at our house either (way too far from town!), and the community here is quite spread out, so about 10 years ago the town of Rye decided to start having a "trunk or treat" so that the community could all be in one place. Rye proper is about two blocks long and one block wide so on Halloween they cordon off the 4-way stop in the middle of town and folks who live outside of town can park their vehicles along each side and offer candy from the back. Families park across the highway at the high school and they walk into town for trick-or-treat. It's a lot of fun!

I forgot to mention that Maya discovered that miniature Oreos are THE BEST! It took me a minute to convince her to try the first one (she couldn't find the little black cookie on my black glove), but once she found it she was hooked! She wouldn't leave me alone after that so I saved a package of them for her to eat on the way home that night. She almost ripped my fingers off in her enthusiasm and she looked heartbroken when the package was empty.

[Nanno]

Guess what we did today!!

We drove our goats in UNICORN FORMATION for the first time this afternoon! And dang it! I didn't get any pictures! Phil took some video which will no doubt feature in his livestream at some point. Hopefully I'll get some good photos next time. We had Sonic and Scout hitched to the big wagon for the first time. They did splendidly! We've only ever hitched them to the small garden cart two times and that was sometime last spring. But as if hitching them to the big cart together and using bits for the first time wasn't enough, we attached a singletree to the front of the team pole and hooked Finn out front! It was a little chaotic for the first moment or two while Finn twisted and tried to turn round to face the others, but Phil stayed at his head and got him straightened out. Once we got Finn walking it went magnificently. He tried once or twice more to turn around when we'd stop the carriage, but after he got tangled up on the traces and reins one time he quit doing that. He's a very smart goat and figured it out very quickly. No one had to walk at his head after the first 50 yards or so and Phil and I both took turns driving with the other walking a little behind, ready to jump into the action if the goats misbehaved. But once we were halfway around the circle without any major mishaps, we both got in the carriage and rode together the rest of the way. It was amazing! I hope we can practice enough to drive them like this in the two Christmas parades in December! It's a little weird handling two sets of reins but we soon got used to it. There are a few things I still need to adjust because our hitch isn't quite balanced correctly, but I'm mighty impressed with how our goats handled this entirely new experience. (A new experience for ALL of us, I might add! I've never driven a unicorn hitch or even a four-in-hand before, and unicorn hitches are one of the harder hitches to handle.) GOOD BOYS!!!   

Edit: 
Phil got some still shots from the video we took today!! Look how magnificent these boys are!!

   

   

[Taffy]

What an impressive accomplishment!  This is a difficult hitch to drive.  It definitely shows how well trained Finn is and what an accomplished driver you are. 

In history, the unicorn hitch was used to drive a stallion from farm to farm to breed the mares.  The two wheelers (Sonic & Scout) did all the work pulling the wagon while the stallion up front (Finn) enjoyed the view at the front.  The stallion wasn't tired from pulling a load when he arrived at a farm and could do his job with the mares.

[Charlie Horse]

Well. I doubt I'd want to drive a stallion, especially if there is other horse traffic. Hehehe. Oh there are stories!

I really want to get in to driving both goats and ponies. My old pony is trained for it already but its been a while. I just need to make time and buy the equipment and figure out where to store it. And damn those deadly (meant to kill) cattle guards up by the reservoir!

[Nanno]

What an impressive accomplishment!  This is a difficult hitch to drive.  It definitely shows how well trained Finn is and what an accomplished driver you are. 

In history, the unicorn hitch was used to drive a stallion from farm to farm to breed the mares.  The two wheelers (Sonic & Scout) did all the work pulling the wagon while the stallion up front (Finn) enjoyed the view at the front.  The stallion wasn't tired from pulling a load when he arrived at a farm and could do his job with the mares.

Thanks! 

I've also read that unicorn and tandem hitches were used for driving hunters to hunt meets. The huntsman didn't want to tire his horse by riding it for miles to the hunt so he would hitch it out front where it didn't have to pull or carry any weight. Seems like you could accomplish exactly the same thing by tying a horse to the back of the carriage, but I guess that's not quite as flashy or impressive.