What technology do we have in our lives. \u00a0Someone on Facebook recommended that I have someone who knows I’m out there to check on me. \u00a0Have a start time and a check in when done time friend. \u00a0It’s a little lonely at James A Reed Wildlife Area during the day on weekdays. \u00a0I guess non retired people are sequestered at their job. \u00a0I remember having a job too.<\/p>\n
So there’s this iPhone App called Find Your Friends. \u00a0You can allow people to look on a map of where you are at. \u00a0My good friend Hope is my emergency tracker. \u00a0I tell her when I’m mounting up and estimated time to be done. \u00a0I message her when I’m done. \u00a0When it comes time, she looks for me on the map. \u00a0If I’m somewhere other than near the parking lot, she will check to see if I’m moving. \u00a0If my location on the map stays static for a while, she’ll try to call me. \u00a0If no answer, she will go into full emergency mode and have the park ranger try to find me. \u00a0If it seems really bad, she knows these trails as well as the park ranger and she will come and find me…using the Find My Friends app. \u00a0Isn’t that cool.<\/p>\n
I didn’t ride Lucky yesterday. \u00a0I’m debating on how much ground work to do so that he will recognize me as his leader and be calm when I’m riding him. \u00a0He did really well the last time. \u00a0I decide to cut the ground work time time in half. \u00a0We did go into the field to play, but we didn’t walk all the way to the corn field and back. \u00a0He was calm and gave me some effort when I asked him to circle around me. \u00a0We yielded hindquarters and backed quite a ways. \u00a0He’s good to go!<\/p>\n
We do our riding warm up in the parking lot, riding figure eights around the row of trees. \u00a0We rode on the road and listened to the magic steps. \u00a0I decided we were ready to go on the trail to the dove field. \u00a0We get on the trail and Lucky tenses up somewhat. \u00a0I go into my calm down defensive moves. \u00a0We do hindquarter turns, 180’s, 360’s and bend his head slightly as we move forward. \u00a0When I get a brace on the rein, I know he’s not paying any attention to me, so we do our defensive moves unit he is light again and listening to me.<\/p>\n
We make it to Dove Field. \u00a0Dove Field is like an outdoor arena. \u00a0I love outdoor arenas. \u00a0Lucky is fairly calm as we walk down the wide dirt oval. \u00a0The dove cages are in the middle. \u00a0I make it to the end and see a park employee has come in his pickup. \u00a0He is out checking each cage. \u00a0I decide that Lucky and I will leave the dirt arena at the end and head for the trail. \u00a0We walk through horse stomach tall grasses on a faint track left by a vehicle. \u00a0Not too long in the grass and Lucky got stuck. \u00a0When he gets stuck, his front legs bounce up and down and he can also paw the ground in a furious manner. \u00a0I offer him the option of turning around and returning to Dove Field, but he lets me know that he is stuck for that direction too. \u00a0I try some hindquarter turns mixed in with offers to stop. \u00a0Stopping isn’t an option for Lucky…he paws and offers to bounce up and down again. \u00a0Now my options are 1-Get off and walk back or 2-Back Lucky to Dove Field. \u00a0Option 2 works. \u00a0Lucky becomes unstuck when I ask him to back. \u00a0We back nearly all the way to the Dove Field when he calms down and offers to walk forward.<\/p>\n
Whew!<\/p>\n
I chat with the Park Ranger. \u00a0He tells me that they are catching the doves to band them. Oh that is a relief! \u00a0I thought they were catching them and keeping them somewhere to use when Dove rifle season starts. \u00a0He drives away and Lucky and I head back on the trail. \u00a0But I decide to take the real trail out into the park. \u00a0Lucky is calm and walking nicely. \u00a0He’s a slight bit nervous about something in the bushes so we elect to ride in the weeds beside the trail. \u00a0We make it halfway through the field when I decide to quit for the day. \u00a0We turn around and walk with great calmness back to the road. \u00a0We ride on the side of the road in the grass and hear a big clattering engine noise coming towards us. \u00a0Out of the tree line comes a huge garbage truck going at least 100mph. \u00a0Good Lord, I’m thinking. \u00a0Lucky stays calm. \u00a0I’m waiting for the garbage truck to slow down and it doesn’t. \u00a0Good double Lordy. \u00a0Lucky stays calm and I flag the driver and tell him to slow down. \u00a0I sign language that I’m a little worried about my horse reacting. \u00a0The driver slows down as he goes past us. \u00a0Lucky stays calm the entire time.<\/p>\n
Love this horse!<\/p>\n
Tomorrow Lucky and I are taking two friends on a trail ride. \u00a0One of them has never been on a trail ride. \u00a0What an honor this will be! \u00a0Lucky will be a great trail leader horse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What technology do we have in our lives. \u00a0Someone on Facebook recommended that I have someone who knows I’m out there to check on me. \u00a0Have a start time and a check in when done time friend. \u00a0It’s a little lonely at James A Reed Wildlife Area during the day on weekdays. \u00a0I guess non retired people are sequestered at their job. \u00a0I remember having a job too. So there’s this iPhone App called Find Your Friends. \u00a0You can allow people to look on a map of where you are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-franks-lucky-star","category-missouri-fox-trotter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3043,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions\/3043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}