Chico, Dakota (the horse I ride), and I have gone for a couple rides this year, just short ones to get us all back in condition. It’s beautiful right now, trillium and violets flowering, and a couple different shrubs in the woods, that I don’t know the name of, blooming white.

Though it doesn’t need to, my phone’s camera makes a pronounced click when it takes an image. That sound got Dakota pretty excited, thus, there are no other pictures from this ride.

Last year I worked pretty hard to get Chico to go to the side of the road when a car was coming during a horse ride. My efforts seemed to meet with minimal success. But on both our outings this spring, Chico seemed to know exactly what I wanted from him when I asked him to go ‘Side, go side for the car’ and he complied perfectly. Needless to say, I paid him well for his efforts. Something about not doing this “trick” all winter seems to have made it work much better. That’s so counter-intuitive.

If we really have this mastered, it will make our rides much easier on all three of us, and the drivers passing by too.