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Re: [RC] [RC] snakes on the trail - Lucy Chaplin Trumbull> Fellow ride campers, what do you do when you see a snake on the trail?When Provo and I were first learning to do trail work, my mentor told me that before going down a steep hill, I should collect my horse up to get his hocks were under him, so that he'd proceed down the hill in a balanced manner. So there we are, out on the trail and I see a very steep incline coming up. I stop Provo at the top of the hill and collect him up (him kind of rolling his eyes at me, like, "what the heck are you doing?"). I'm just about to ask him to move forward when I realised there's a rattlesnake curled up asleep in the middle of the singletrack about 6' in front of us. Had we not stopped, we would have ridden right over him. But now what to do? The trail is too narrow to go around, indeed, too narrow even to dismount, so we sit there. The snake continues to sleep in the sun. Eventually, I started snapping twigs off the bush right next to me and tossing them over Provo's head, to land on the snake. After about five or six direct hits (I'm talking matchbox-sized bits of twig, not ruddy great branches), the snake wakes up and slides off the trail. Provo wakes up from his nap and gawps at the snake, and we continue on our way. As for turkeys - we met some trail riders one day who had been attacked by an irate Mumma-turkey with babbies. Talk about putting the fear of god into horses. And the funnest thing we see on the trail are the salamanders in the Autumn - they are usually crawling along near creeks (but sometimes a ways a way from water). Spend lots of time trying to avoid stepping on those. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lucy Chaplin Trumbull elsie AT foothill DOT net Repotted english person in Sierra Foothills, California * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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