Birthday Ride

Wayne and I celebrated my birthday this past Sunday by visiting Hell's Gate for a ride. I hoped and prayed that Moscow Mountain would thaw as a birthday present from Mother Nature, but it wasn't meant to be. On top of that, it started blizzarding Sunday night and has only temporarily let up this morning. Oh, well. Maybe when I return from spring break we'll have had miraculously warm weather. The extra good news is Boise is predicting weather in the 50's and 60's next week when I'll be home, so I'm going to try to get in a ton of mileage while I'm there.

As promised, I took a TON of pictures of Hell's Gate on Sunday. Although it was a little chilly, the sun was out and everything was beautiful. The ride was fairly uneventful save for the fact that we startled a deer and sent it swimming into the river. Jasper spooked, of course, but recovered very quickly. Wayne rode Gandolf, a Fresian/Paint cross gelding that belongs to Lacy.

Can you see the deer? (Hint, Sammy is looking straight at it.)

The deer swims away.

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Yesterday, Sarah Metcalf of Equine Performance Dentistry came out and floated/corrected Jasper's teeth. It turns out his incisors are malaligned and long, which causes his molars to be further apart than they should be. She corrected it a little, but he'll need more frequent dental care in order to get on top of the problem. He needed to be drugged five times during the procedure since he'd act really sleepy until she'd start to do something. He wasn't bad, he just didn't want her grinding around in his mouth! After the sedative wore off, he dug right into his food and water which made me feel happy. I'm hoping this helps with his lack of weight gain, but we'll see!