Another day older and deeper in debt

Today was my birthday.  I'm not going to say which one, since I'm still convincing people that I'm twenty-nine.  Put enough beers in people and they believe it.

I spent my birthday exactly as I dreamed of as a kid:  I went for a trail ride with my very own horse.  The princess and I hacked out to the Hollis Town Forest for some conditioning work.  This is also the first time I tried actually navigating the loops without anyone to spot me.  I'm rather infamous for my ability to get lost.  We went for a lovely trot, then took a canter down the fire road.  A recently discovered single track trail gave us a necessary walking break.  I've found that Fi and I really enjoy these rough, single track trails where we're weaving around trees and limbs.  I really think she missed her calling as a trail horse.  She'll do this on a loop rein at the walk for as long as I want to be out there.

I don't think she'd ever win a trail competition, since she always walks like she's got somewhere to go and doesn't want to be messed with, but she really is a delight to take out trail riding.

After the single track, we went for a long trot/canter along snow mobile trails that are wide and fabulously well groomed.  We did stop for the various pedestrians and dogs that we met.  We also stopped so I could snap a picture of one of the ponds that are found in the forest.

Have I mentioned how much I love riding in New Hampshire where I can hack out to things like this?  After about an hour of wandering around the town forest at a brisk trot, interspersed with the occasional canter, we made our way back to the barn.  It was the ideal way to spend a birthday.  There's nothing more pleasant than taking a well trained, fit, trustworthy horse out for a nice run in the woods.  When I was a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to own my very own horse so I could go out and do things like this.  How cool it is to actually be able to do exactly what you once dreamed of doing?

In my opinion?  Wicked cool.