Back in the tack

After a few days hiatus from the saddle due to Koda's head injury and me being down with intense migraines in the evenings (strange things... but they've stopped so I'm not complaining!), I swung back up in the saddle last night for a long hack with the BO.  I'd planned to head out earlier in the day to get some fences built, scout some logs for cross country jumps, but it was incredibly hot, couldn't believe it!  I live 600km north of Edmonton, and it still made it up to 32 degrees yesterday (90 F).  It's supposed to hit that today as well. 

Either way we tacked up and set down the trail, BO all in trail gear, ponying her pack horse, me in my english get-up, with Koda in a fly bonnet.  I was doing some walk-trot work, leaving the group, coming back to the group, and just enjoying the company on the trail.  As we moved onto a field road both Koda and Dandy (BO's horse) became very alert watching a clump of trees.  We keep riding since the horses aren't stopping or anything, and BO sends the dogs in to flush out whatever it was.  We're expecting deer.  Out comes a young black bear.  We stop and watch the dogs chase the bear for a bit, then turn around.  It was really neat to discover that Koda wasn't backing down from this bear, he wanted to keep going instead of turn back!  Very cool, and good to know.  So we headed back and decided to do a long trot down the road for a little less than a kilometer.  While we walked back, Koda and I hopped down into the ditch and popped over a few low trees that had been blown down.

Once we got back to the yard, we herded our little escape artist duster back into his pen, then settled everyone down for the night.  Koda's cut is looking better every day, no swelling, treated it with wonderdust and swat last night, put on his fly mask and he was good to go.  I've discovered that Swat is the BEST product for up here to use on the clusters of no-see-um bites our horses get.  I tried using vetrolin, but the only thing that really helps heal, soothe, and keep the flies off is swat!

Today is hopefully going to be more productive with finding some nice logs to pop over :)