Quicksilver, T-3 weeks

My third ride this year has me totally chilling out and not prepping pretty much at all.

I'm still riding.  We did that one 18-ish miles a few weeks ago?  And that's the last bit of distance work that's been done.  Speed work has been happening, but mostly because I keep running out of daylight.  It's September, and now we have to try to be home before 7:45.  It sucks.  (I don't mind riding in the dark, but I do mind running into other people of questionable conduct and mental state in the dark, and that's an ever-present possibility here.)

Oh!  We hit a really excellent Giant Trot on Tuesday's ride.  I felt like I was riding a big horse.  Never felt it before, quite possibly will never feel it again, and if that was a true extended trot rather than adding impulsion, that's probably fine.

Things I have done:
- confirmed transportation for 'Fetti (thanks Funder!) and myself (thanks, mother!)
- confirmed with my friend that she'll be riding the 25 with us, so we are definitely a go for the LD
- looked at hoof boots
-- discovered that at least one cable is fraying on my front boots
-- remembered that I have not yet fixed the back boot (but I won't boot the backs for Quicksilver, so that's still okay)
- acquired clippers - QS was the 100-degree ride last year.  Pony's getting at least a minimal clip again this year.
- acquired my own hoof stand: boots will require hooves to be rasped weekly for a decent fit in three weeks

Things yet to do:
- actually start rasping her hooves after acquiring hoof stand
- put pommel bag back on saddle, rigged such that my knees can be happy completed this weekend, after a two-hour pommel-bag-rigging session with my ever-tolerant boyfriend
- chop bleach bottle into a scoop (no sponging from tanks at QS) -- but I do have a bleach bottle set aside for this purpose! (or maybe I'll reconsider and actually order a scoop from Henry Griffin, since I've been pondering that for over a year now)
- order cables for boots
-- and then install them once they show up, at least the day before the ride.
- clip Confetti (goal timeframe: weekend prior)
- wash & braid mane* (goal timeframe: Thursday prior)

* I actually washed her mane AND her tail this weekend.  Her tail looks vastly improved, but you can't see it because she kept swishing it whenever I took a photo.  Ponies.

Also, we've done some Trail Horse stuff, such as standing around while I broke a zillion branches off the tree:

and then politely posing for a branch height-comparison after I held the tree down** for her to walk over it:

and then being an obnoxious brat about letting me get back on her so we could go home across the river.  Can't be good all the time.

**Tree was just low enough that I thought maybe we could go over with the excess branches cleared.  Every single other angle makes it look tiny, but it was placed at the lowest point of the sand.  We actually did make it over the tree this weekend, but it was sufficiently traumatizing for our riding partner to watch the tree springing up underneath Fetti's belly that we went around it the next few times, then cleared it on Sunday.