Ruby and the Idiots

Normally I write about my drives out with Ruby the Magnificent in order to share the pleasure that carriage driving gives us. My driving is my recreation and I come home soothed in mind and spirit. Not so today. I’m BOILING.

I took Ruby out by herself because Mr T has had a few days off to ease a windgall on one his hind legs, and Jen didn’t want to work him hard today. So I packed up some plastic bags for “recycling” and strapped them to the cart seat before setting off towards Tebay over our big hill, Pikestoll. Since Pikey is a long hard haul, and I intended to go right round the circuit which is a distance of 8 miles, I let Ruby stroll along to warm up at a walk. I stopped at “Tom’s gateway” about a third of the way up to move the midge-repeller from the top of the collar, where it was touching Ruby’s wither as the collar moved, and clip it round the stem of the saddle terret. I don’t know if these sonic repellents actually work but when you’ve got a midgey farm and midge-sensitive horses all routes are worth trying. At any rate, the repeller (which is solar powered) didn’t give any other problems in its new position, and midges were the least of Ruby’s troubles on the drive!

It was all very peaceful over Pikey and down to Roundthwaite road end, where we paused for quite a while, waiting for a clear run out onto the A685. Ruby tends to think that once a car has passed it is time to move out, whereas I could see traffic coming from much further down the road. The traffic wasn’t actually heavy, but the cars kept coming. She was very good though and trotted straight out once the road really was clear. We kept a nice steady trot going over the motorway and railway bridges, up into Tebay and to David Trotter’s house, where I left the two bags of bags for him to reuse in his greengrocery deliveries. Then we went on our merry way through the village, through the narrows, down the hill and round the motorway roundabout. Keeping ourselves to ourselves, warning people of our presence with our flashing lights back and front.

Most people whom we meet on the road are courteous and smiling, and I smile and wave at them because I’m happy and why not share it? So it continued, until we were leaving the roundabout, when Ruby scooted because she saw a motorcyclist. But it was nothing serious, and I still managed to signal which exit I was going down. As we continued along the Orton section of the A685, however, I began to realise that there was a good deal more traffic than I’d expected; possibly leaving the motorway and heading for Appleby, where the Fair Hill gipsy gathering is coming to a close. Were they all horse people? I seriously doubt it. Horse sense was certainly not in evidence. When we approached blind summits where nobody should overtake because they can’t see if anything is coming, they overtook. When I signalled them not to overtake because, sitting higher than the cars, I could see oncoming traffic, they overtook. When a convoy of foreign registered cars came up behind me and the first one pulled out to overtake, they all did the same, as though an umbilical cord might snap if they were separated – never mind the fact that the oncoming traffic had to stop for them. I kept Ruby pounding along at a good straight trot, but her 11mph was just not fast enough for the idiots. I don’t mean that everyone who followed me was a fool, because I was aware of one car that sat politely twenty yards back from us for at least a mile; but my verbal commands along that stretch included several cries of greeting to members of the Head family [work it out], and my coachman style driving gave ample opportunity to exercise my whip hand in certain unconventional signals.

Do cyclists have these troubles? They are equally vulnerable on the road. How do they deal with them, I wonder?

Once past Orton, where we left the Appleby road, courtesy and good humour returned, and perfect strangers waved and grinned, just the way it all usually happens. And Ruby walked and cooled off from her frenetic two miles. When we passed the youngster being schooled on the lunge at Selsmire farm, and he used our passing as an excuse to squeal and buck in circles, she only flicked an ear and told him saddles weren’t that big a deal. She ignored the inquisitive Shetlands and the farm bikes, and only wanted to get back onto the yard and scream to Mr T that she hadn’t abandoned him, she still loved him and she was home.

And when I turned her out with him she squealed and told him to get lost!

If you were in your car on the A685 this summer Sunday lunchtime, heading for Appleby, and if Ruby and I held you up for a few minutes until the road was clear, then I apologise, and thank you. Nothing went wrong on the drive. We drove to the rules of the road. But I’m furious at the idiot behaviour we encountered, so come on Google, index this lot and let the idiots read the things I didn’t have the chance to say today. If they can read.

“If you risked your life and ours by overtaking on a blind brow, on a blind bend, or in the face of oncoming traffic, or if you forced me to rein in my horse as you pulled in front of me, then please tell me – what was so important, on a Sunday lunch time, that you couldn’t be patient for those few minutes?”

The Full Del Monte

It's Sunday and I've given in. Sunday tea is not Sunday tea without tinned fruit for afters. Graham had produced homegrown lettuce, beetroot, spinach and new potatoes to go with the remains of the pot roast, so deprived of my usual Sunday pancake-making I retaliated with Del Monte Fruit cocktail and, well, not ice cream I admit, but Greek-style yogurt.

At least the ring pull on Del Monte is a nice smooth one, unlike the supermarket canned tomatoes whose ring pull slices bits off your finger joint. But inside, oh dear, I had forgotten the miserly attitude that prevails in the fruit cocktail world. There were four titchy bits of something pink lurking among the peach/pear/pineapple bits. I think they were once parts of a cherry. Commiserating with them were seven grapes. I imagine there is a sensor at the Del Monte canning plant, or possibly a little man in a white coat with a magnifying glass, who sets off a DNEEP DNEEP DNEEP warning bleeper if a newly filled can steams past him containing more than four quarters of synthetically coloured cherry or eight flabby pale green grapes. He probably chuckled evilly to see that my can only contained seven.

Next Sunday I'm going to have wild strawberries in my yogurt, and bugger Del Monte.

Posting letters

I waited for the post lady to come this morning as i had three letters to go, but by 12 noon I thought she'd probably not got anything to deliver and would not turn up, so I went out to muck out the stable and of course, while I was shovelling, she arrived and left without my letters. So I harnessed Ruby and trotted down to Orton Post Office (a little over two and a half miles away) where the collection time is 3.40pm. I've found if I time my visits for lunch hour, I can park right outside the PO, which is also a very nice local shop and usually blocked up with parked cars. Then I can get off the carriage, not let go of the reins, and post my letters in the wall box safely.

Ruby was very sober as she trotted in the midday heat. I let her walk through some of the shadier patches along the road to cool off - luckily there were few flies or clegs about.

At Mazon Gill where last week the road had begun to collapse into the culvert over the gill, there were temporary traffic lights to control the traffic passing the large JCB digger and the roadmending wagon and the big hole with men shoulder-deep in the culvert. Ruby stood like a champ while one of the workmen jumped up and down in front of the sensor to try to get it to change the lights for us! She trotted by the wagon and digger, glanced briefly at the submerged men, and went on down to the village cool as you please. On the return journey the digger was working and when he saw us waiting again at the lights, the supervisor of the gang made throat-cutting TURNITOFF gestures to the driver. He kindly stopped the engine and we went by peacefully - however, as I thanked the supervisor I did tell him that really, Ruby has an ambition to drive a JCB. She has an engineering turn of mind and if allowed, she would probably try all the levers with her nose.

She's now out in the field in her "ghost suit" and I've spent ten minutes refilling all the spray bottles with my home-made fly repellent after I realised that during Sonny's visit we used up most of the last batch.

Ruby alone

I have been vastly amused by Ruby's reaction to Sonny going home. I kept her indoors all day (mainly to save her from the heat and humidity and flies, in the nice cool stone stable) and her response to the empty box next door is to USE IT AS HER LOO - she has left a huge pile of muck in the middle of the swept floor. Her "own" box is clean.

So much for missing her darling offspring!!

Sonny's visit to Greenholme (19 and 20)

Monday 29th June
Jen and I took both ponies for a quiet ride out to Scout Green, with Naomi as my passenger on the carriage. The weather was heavy and the clegs were biting, so we just wandered peacefully up to the top of Whiteholm and across the bit of open fell onto the Scout Green road, and back. Sonny was quiet and steady apart from a startle when he brushed Jen's leg against one of the flimsy "loose chippings - max 20mph" signs on the roadside, so she spent a few minutes walking him up to other signs and kicking them with her boot! Of course he just stood there and said, "whatever..." We also practised leapfrogging each other along the road; Jen would walk or trot Sonny past Ruby, then I'd do the same with Ruby passing Sonny. Both ponies were calm, to the extent that I could brush clegs off Ruby from all sorts of places with the tip of the driving whip. The only time she startled was when Jen clapped her hand over a cleg on Sonny's neck with a tremendous crack! like that of the whip a few days ago. Other than that, it was all quiet.

We washed off the ponies and then put fly rugs on them. I didn't have my camera out but the picture they both made was hysterical - Ruby in white mesh with ear caps and navy edges, Sonny all in lilac with red leg straps. They didn't fuss about their strange attire until they were loose in the paddock, when Sonny took one look at Ruby and exclaimed, "Oh my God it's a ghost!" and Ruby dashed off saying, "Where, where!" The two of them then hightailed it round the paddock, stepping and snorting at each other and generally being silly for a good five minutes before the lure of the grass settled them down. We gave them an hour and then put them back indoors with their haynets.

My bedtime "haynet check" revealed another side of Sonny - when I hung the haynet for him, Ruby came to help him taste it over the partition, and he snapped first at her and then at me. Unfortunately for him, I'd seen him coming so I put up a fist as he swung his head, and he smacked his cheek teeth on it and rebounded with a "What the hell was that for" expression. Unlike the brightest horse we've had he didn't then repeat the misdemeanour to see if he'd connected his action with the self-inflicted punishment.

Tuesday 30th June
Alison arrived prompt at 9.30 and we tacked-up Sonny with his nice clean saddle and bridle.

Naomi helped by kissing him on the nose at every opportunity.

Alison mounted to practise handling the lead rope as well as the reins, and ground tying. We let her take a stick with her, one that some boy visitors had collected a few weeks ago - on the principle that if she carried a stick she wouldn't need it and if she didn't - she would!



She walked him up and down the yard, and then set off for home, with her husband John following in the car.


Bye-bye, Sonny, be good!

And we set-to to clean out his stable...

LATER

Just heard from Alison that she and Sonny had a good time on their ~10 mile ride home; both getting very wet in the heavy showers, but it was nice warm rain! and he's going to get daily rides out from now on. Great.

Sonny's visit to Greenholme (18)

Sonny spent breakfast time at the tying tree, with his tiny mouthful of hard feed and a small haynet. It's so sweet how he lovingly licks the bowl, over and over, to get the last trace of flavour. Jen and I shut the roadside gates, and mucked out the stables. Ruby makes an awful mess now Sonny's here, because her soaked hay is at one side (she pushes the half-barrel to where she wants it) and Sonny is then behind her, so she tramples the muck and wet shavings into a right old soup as she turns from food to grooming and bossing, and back again. On her own, she is fantastically tidy. She wandered between stables while we brushed and shovelled, pushing the door to and fro with her nose as required.

Jen found Sonny was fine today - a touch wary of the watching visitors' children, but she took him round the corner to the field gate to mount, and he settled. They went up Bretherdale in order to do "getting on and off and opening and shutting gates". All well. He wants to be off as soon as remounted, but this should settle with practice, and the "rope round the gate stoop" method (see earlier blog entries) works to prevent difficulties. The ground tying is working well - Jen dropped the lead rope yesterday by accident while crossing the yard, and he stopped at once!

Today Jen put him across the fellside grass on Nichol Hill, and he listened and didn't pull or buck. Asking for changes of pace mainly on the voice and not the rein, "up, up up" will lengthen his trot or get him into canter, while "steady" will bring him down. She worked him up and down hill, in circles, rounded up a few sheep, jumped him up a bank onto the road, paddled through the beck, and had a thoroughly good time. Limited grazing time has clearly helped once again - that and a calm yard, of course.

He had another bath when he came back and now we've swopped stables - Ruby is in "Sonny's side" and vice versa - to see if it helps with the Feng Shui...

I took Ruby for a drive over Pikey just after lunch, to check how far the road resurfacing extends, since Sonny will have to go that way to return home. Luckily the chippings end just after Dyke Farm's gateway so he won't have them tearing up his feet after that. Ruby didn't attract too many clegs on our journey, and didn't sweat too badly either, but still quite appreciated a wash off when we got home, which makes a change as she usually fusses a bit. The clegs were bad, so I left both ponies indoors with haynets.

I had to beat part of the tyre back into place on the carriage wheel again though, as we'd needed to turn in a narrow lane at Roundthwaite on account of Jackie Parsley's tractor and hay trailer.

Ruby's side of the stable is blissfully tidy once again. Sonny's is a bit messy. The main thing is that he's almost permanently in the dark as he WILL keep shutting the top stable door. Ruby doesn't bother with it but he does.

Sonny's visit to Greenholme (17)

Yawn. A slow start this morning! I fed the two nags but didn't tidy the stable (BAAAD mother!) Jen, Rob and Naomi came today, Naomi having determined that she, too, had to "Boss Sonny!"

We were going to work in the fields again, so Jen opened the field gate and shut the front gate - our cottage visitors having gone out for the day - which meant the "Caution - Lesson in progress" sign was visible to the roadside. Of course, then silly James Beevor, Big Time Boy himself, ignored the sign and came bowling in, leaving his bike at the gate thank God, but getting thoroughly in the way. That meant there was me, Ruby and Naomi, Jen, Sonny, Graham talking to Big Time Boy, Rob taking photos, the Allen family and their farm bike driving a flock of sheep down the road and back to their field after clipping, and Sammy lurking behind my car ready to tell Sonny off if he put a foot out of line.

Poor Sonny, he just couldn't handle all that information at one time. He managed to behave until Jen wanted to mount, then had a small "backing" explosion. Jen got up, and made him settle, then got off and went through it all again. Ruby, Naomi and I didn't see all this, but I heard Graham offering advice so I poked my head round the corner to see if it was ok to set off with Ruby; got the nod and went quietly away down into the field.

Sonny (see Jen's Facebook photos) was gobsmacked that Mother had gone without him! Usually because we've had more stuff to attach (like harness and carriage) we've followed him, and not the other way around. Ruby was pretty chilled. Naomi was asking questions of me about "why did the sheep need to have their fur taken off," so I didn't watch Sonny working in, but Jen says he was pretty keen and for the first time she needed to have a contact on the bit as she circled him at walk around various of the smaller fields, before she joined us in the hayfield. Once she'd brought him along he was sensible and walked, trotted and cantered on either rein without being naughty despite all the clegs that were about. I did wipe a few off Ruby with the tip of the whip, but she wasn't as covered in them as Sonny was, poor lad!

When we got back to the yard Naomi wanted to sit on Sonny, so Rob popped her onto the saddle in front of Jen and Jen walked him around the yard. They took some pics of Naomi sitting on him at the tying tree, and as by this time he'd decided perhaps small children were not actually Martians, he was very calm about it all. It helped that Beevor had gone, too!

Sonny had another hosepipe wash - having got quite sweaty in his tizzing and his workout in the field - and Naomi helped me to take Ruby's harness off (Oooh, grannie just couldn't manage all those big buckles on her own). We turned the two ponies out in the paddock and mucked out (Naomi, Rob and Graham sitting on the field wall like the three wise monkeys) and went off to the pub in Tebay for lunch. We brought them back into the stable after that, as Jen said, "I think four hours grazing yesterday must have been too much for Sonny!"