I think the goatsheads won this battle

I pulled three feedsacks worth on saturday and plowed some under in couple different areas when I cleaned pens. But the heat just about wiped me out and then I was pulling some that had tenacious roots. My calves are still feeling it today and on saturday it cooled off some but I had not rebounded enough to ride. Plus there are still many many goatsheads I didn't get to.

I rode Shade on sunday. Didn't get myself going early or quickly enough to really beat the heat --it was after 8 am when I hit the saddle but it was fun. Shade has 'girth rubs' way up in her elbows on both sides (I had only noticed on the right side before) They are healing pretty good and the cinch didn't aggravate anything --I used desitin to ride and put more on again today but I'm also pretty sure this is forward of any cinch contact.

I think this is why eastern riders shave their horses 'under arms.' Its never been a problem before and I always worry about irritation of hair growing in so I've never shaved my horses arms. But with it being hot and humid in Sturgis and me sponging tons, including the shoulders not just the neck I bet I set up some irritation during that ride. Go figure, since she was cleaned throughly at the midway hold and after the ride to cool her off so I thought she would be less likely to have any skin issues since I don't wash her up if she will get chilled and since we don't finish mid afternoon like the front runners we are usually bumping up against evening cooling and she just has to wear the days sweat, with rolling and brushing to get most of the extra salts removed.

The girls were out to see Lady saturday late and for a couple hours on sunday evening. I'm trying now to mainly stay out of their way and let them enjoy their horse if I happen to be around when they come. Ole always thinks he has to go say hello, else I wouldn't have even known they were here on saturday. I rode RazzMo yesterday while they were riding Lady. I took him down the road and Mia took advantage of the cooling we'd gotten and came for a run along with Ole. Razz did pretty well looking at the different sets of dumped stuff. He's so funny, the folks on road six were using their hot walker and Razz and the 2 horse on the walker stirred each other up. Razz snorted SO loud a couple times --the hot walker horses were cantering in their circle. I decided I had to make Razz move on and stop stirring them up so I did. Razz looked hard at several things but never offered to try to 180 or buck, the only thing he did was go way wide of the mattress and I had to make him move over as there is downed wire on the other side of the road that I didn't want him stepping in. Lots of redneck hazards around our neighborhood.