Mustang Saga

Tonka and I finally got to go for a good ride again yesterday. We went with my sister and a friend of hers. It was a gorgeous day, and a really nice ride. Tonka mostly behaved himself, but I did have to get after him a few times. We rode for about 3 hours total, heading for some trees to ride in. They're tightly packed poplars, pretty dim inside, an environment I haven't had him in yet. I got off a little bit before we got there, so I could introduce him to the new place confidently. We didn't actually get to go in there though, because one of the dogs started acting really weird about something just over the hill. We thought it might be a moose, since he doesn't run away from much else. Apparently it's the season for rut, and you don't want to get in a confrontation with a mad bull moose. They're faster than horses, so no point in trying to outrun them, and I didn't like the idea of that anyway! So we turned around and headed back. Which turned out to be a good thing, since my sister had to be home to meet the school bus. After I got back on Tonka wasn't sure he wanted to continue to lug me up and down hills. He kept just stopping. We got over that, and he was a good boy until we got to some horses he'd rather look at than listen to me. So we did some work, and he got over that too. We passed the shop where my brother-in-law was blowing chaff out out the combines and Tonka thought that was worth keeping an eye on. He's heard an air compressor before, but is worried about the big farm machinery, so I wasn't sure how he'd take it and I got off and walked for a while. He just watched it with a very curious face. Then, going through the field where all the other equipment was stored, he was kind of twitchy and very worried. But we got through just fine. Lots of good learning experiences!