By September I was able to take a much needed deep breathe and began to slow down and focus on myself again.

The horse shows were over so I didn’t have to design anything new. I had just finished my biggest project yet. I didn’t have a heavy demand for woodworking projects. My two injured friends were on the mend. My other friend moved and her horses had recently departed (sad to see her go of course).

It was this time that I realized it was already September. I had barely blinked and summer was over. I barely enjoyed my horses, I was out of shape (and so were they), and I was wound up tight. I didn’t always appear it publicly but when I was working on any project alone I was grinding my teeth, holding back tears (or not), and sometimes simply screaming my bloody head off. I was a raw nerve and needed to decompress.

I realized in September that my opportunity to hunter pace and even endurance ride was closed. There was no way I’d get myself or the boys in shape to do any of those. I never intended to hunter pace this year but I didn’t rule it out completely until then.

It was almost a relief to no longer carry the burden of training for the events. At the point I was at I simply needed to get in the saddle and exist. No pressure. No strings attached.

And that’s what brought me back to myself.

I had a chance to explore a park nearby called Cherry Plains State Park with a friend I don’t often get to ride with. She showed me around and I enjoyed learning about the history of the area. It seems there’s a lot more to the place than I ever realized and a lot more to see. There were old dirt roads and some narrower true trails. The narrow trails could get a little hairy with so many rocks but with Nahe as my mount I trusted his feet.

I also had a chance to take a couple friends out to another nearby park, Grafton Lake back to back weekends. We explored the trail system and even made it to the fire tower on one of the rides. My previous trips to this park didn’t result in such nice rides so I was happy to finally find where the good trails were hiding.

In the middle of the month we took a brief trip to Otter Creek and enjoyed the foliage while we could. In only 2 days we got in 22 miles. There were three of us and I brought both boys (for the simple reason that I could and they prefer to travel together).

The days were nice but they were still early fall in northern New York so swimming weather had long passed. To our surprise, my friend’s pony Buttercup decided to sit down in the river for a dip. After the initial shock we all laughed and enjoyed the video (finally I got perfect timing!).

In addition to the trails I was able to make it to the farm once during the month for a lesson on the boys.

We aren’t in shape at all but I am really happy to say that September made for an incredible start to regain myself. I got back in touch with my horses, my friends, mentally started to decompress, physically started to ride again, started getting more confident trailering, my horses began loading like champs.

A sigh of relief as rain washed away what was left of September. It didn’t get me down because I had many plans coming for October…