Bad decisions make good stories.
About a year and a half ago, our daughter, her fiance, Juanita and I went out for a ride in the national forest across the highway from us (I love that the lodge is within a couple hundred yards of twenty plus hours of trails). Beautiful day for a ride, the horses were feeling good and so were we.
Now, for the last few years, I would occasionally grab a stick or limb while riding and carry it like a "lance". Ranger was never amused, but would put up with it for a couple minutes. On this particular trail ride as we were walking along the trail, I passed the best-lance-ever beside the trail. It was about twenty feet off the trail in the middle of a small, pine-needle covered opening in the trees. "Woo hoo!" I chortled as I jumped off my horse and ran for this long, straight, natural lance. Great, about fifteen feet of straight stick! I grabbed my new stick and climbed back onto Ranger.
Ranger and I have reached an understanding over the years. He understands that he can buck hard enough to send me skyward, and I understand that it hurts like crazy when the trip is over. This arrangement works out pretty well, though I think Ranger is happier with it than I am.
I had just seated myself on my little mustang, when he took serious offense to the new situation. ***"DROP IT BILL"*** "Wait, Ranger this is a really great..." ***"NO NO NO NO OFF OFF OFF OFF"***.. I have a very clear memory of thinking how stupid I was going to feel trying to explain to the EMT's why I had fifteen feet of stick jammed into me. I threw the stick away about the third bounce. Ranger continued *** "OFF OFF OFF OFF"***. So, I did.
I had made a world class three point landing (both heels and my butt) in the pine needle covered clearing, and was still holding a rein. At the end of this particular rein was a bug-eyed, lock-jawed, pissed off little mustang. And, just off to my right, still on the trail were three horses, with three riders and all six had the same open mouthed expression-"Swiss cheese feces! What was that!" (It's a G rated blog, I can't say holy sh*t).
I stood up, dusted myself off, and climbed back onto my horse, without my stick. I think I'll pass on any future jousting tournaments I might be invited to.
No pictures, thankfully.
Bill
I still have tears running down my face, just remembering this "jousting practice". I was amazed our other three horses stood there calmly watching, like they were scoring judges, or something.
ReplyDeleteJuanita
RockCrawlinChef thought Washoe was going to join in. Have to tell you, though, since there were no mid-air acrobatics, your score was low. Ranger, upper 40s; you stuck him out pretty well, so we'll say mid-30s. Overall score: mid-70s.
ReplyDeleteMaybe my next book should be "Riding With My Parents". :)
ReplyDeleteGunDiva- You could call it "ER horsemanship"
ReplyDeleteBill
I've had your blog bookmarked as one to catch up on for awhile now. I think that one line "swiss cheese feces" has made spending the evening catching up on it worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteI totally think this should be part of the book. And it merits either a redo for a photo op, or an artist's rendering from a particular talented jousting dude :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes... swiss cheese feces is CLASSIC
ReplyDelete