Old Sampson, New Aslan

Sawyer and I have done some shorter rides and a couple of 11 mile climbs with his new diet, and it seems to be doing the trick. A bit too well, sometimes. He got way overly excited about a moose one day, I think because he couldn't tell what it was through the heavy trees.

We trotted a couple miles straight up, only slowing or stopping when I insisted. That was at the beginning of the ride and he was still going well the rest of it.

The forest service has it mapped as 11 miles up and back, my GPS said 12, but I'll go with the 11.

I like the history of this old trail. I don't know if there are other sections still surviving. I hope so. It makes me sad that so many of the old trails aren't continuous anymore.

We have to walk along the highway a ways to get to the trailhead. There isn't enough parking for horse trailers there. The horses do great even with log trucks speeding by. The truckers are pretty courteous, giving room and even slowing down sometimes. Everyone else seems to be in such a huge hurry.

Here's pretty juniper standing on her leadrope.

On Tuesday some kind person found this dying snotty emaciated dehydrated filthy cat in a trailer park and brought him in to our clinic. She didn't know what to do, because she couldn't afford to take care of him. I said I'd take him.

My boss was pretty sure he was going to die, but I thought he probably just needed some help. He tested negative for leukemia so I went ahead with treatment.

Here is Aslan just a couple days later:

We took him camping and he had a blast

I'm pretty sure at this point that the dogs won't kill him. But I'm still watching carefully. If I have to I will find him a safer home. But I sure do like the little guy!

I'm not sure if I'll be riding much over the next month or two. I'm going to try to spend most of my free time with my sister. But that's OK, the horses don't mind.