June 14, 2009

Five miles of muddy sloggy work and the deer flies are brutal!

My daughter and I set out for a short ride post family reunion today. The deer flies were swarming so bad that there would be five and six on her poll and ears at one time to smash. She was so bothered by them that we couldn't work up a good walking or trotting pace, so I resigned myself to killing everyone of those little suckers that I could get my hands on. Phebes was happy to have me in her corner mashing bugs as we slogged along the trail. We did manage a five mile ride that was fairly uneventful until the end. Then Phebes met up with the parked backhoe sitting near the road at my neighbor's house. At about the same time, she stepped on someone's discard plastic pop bottle and it made a popping sound. She pretty much came unglued, scrambled backward, threw me forward, and I connected once again with her poll in rather unpleasant way. It hurt but not so bad, I was thinking that I was so thankful that my nose did not take a hit again. Holly says, Mom you're bleeding. The metal frames of my eyeglasses cut into the skin over my cheekbone. Just a little more and I'd have needed stitches, but I'm okay. Expect I'll have that prize fighter look again tomorrow. Reckon I'll throw a bandaid over it. We are heading to the park in the morning! I'm shooting for 8-10 miles. ~E.G.

2 comments:

  1. We deal with horrible deer flies here in Virginia too. I just got one of the Cashel Quite Ride fly masks for Huck and it's a miracle worker. Our last conditioning ride went so much nicer with it on. I forgot the fly spray for myself so I got attacked by them, but Huck was happy as a clam. The mesh is very fine and provides a lot of visibility (I tested it myself much to my husband's amusement).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hope you have fun at the park today. There is a ctr near Hillsboro OH the last weekend of this month. They have a 15 mile novice CTR on sunday if you are interested. We may do the 25 on saturday. I think it's called the flamingo fandango.

    Did you see the easyboot cuff? I hope it's not too expensive and I may try it. I am too the point of really thinking about shoeing Stormy's fronts. I can't find anyboots that will stay on her!

    ReplyDelete