This morning I did something that I have been more or less afraid to do since I got married, in fact, I haven’t done it since 1997. I got on a horse.
Josh has taken our three older children on a fishing trip to Minnesota with his dad and two of his brothers. Since that left us females on our own (and since Tuesday is her birthday) my mother-in-law decided to collect her mother-in-law and Josh’s cousin Sarah and come over here where Jenny, Elise and I all are. There’ve been some general plans for merriment, but the one solid was that what she really wanted to do for her birthday was go horesback riding. With all the flooding, it wasn’t easy finding a place too nearby that could accommodate us, but she did finally connect with a camp in Indianola that wasn’t all washed out. So, first thing this morning, Elena went over to her cousin Charley’s house and hung out with great-grandma (and had cheeseballs!) while I drove south of Indianola out to the middle of scenic nowhere to join JoAnne, Jenny, Elise, and Sarah for our horse-riding adventure. So there’s the back story. Here comes the funny stuff. The girl trying to find us liability waivers to sign asked how many families were in our group. JoAnne replied that we were all related, but were technically different families. This seemed to kind of confuse our handler so JoAnne went on to explain that Jenny was her daughter but that Sarah was her neice and had a paper from her parents okaying the activity so the girl turned to Elise and I (and bless her heart!) asked if we were both over 18 then!!! Then she found the “appropriate” forms for us to sign, but wheras Elise and JoAnne and I got to sign the “adult” forms, Sarah AND JENNY were given the form for dependent children which JoAnne then also had to sign off on! (She said Jenny was her daughter, she never said she was 25! Of course, I’d've thought the girl would’ve gotten it when Jenny gave a different last name, but apparently not. LOL !!!) So, forms signed, helmets on (I do apologize because I REALLY wanted to take some pictures, but I couldn’t carry my camera with me so I have NOTHING to show for the trip.) we were each assigned a horse and then called by our horse’s name for the rest of the time. JoAnne became Medman, Elise was Hannah, Sarah got to be Corky with a gas problem, Jenny was Sunny and I…I received Grace. I admit, I was nervous. Like I said, I haven’t really been around horses–much less ridden on one in a REALLY long time and I was afraid of getting stepped on or bitten, or crushing the poor creature under my weight. None of those things happened, although Grace had issues with space. First, I had a difficult time mounting her because she kept backing into the mounting block I was supposed to be standing on, and her stirrups were really short. Then one of the things that we were taught (along with how to turn and how to let them pee etc) was how much space to leave between the horses for safe trail-riding and how to slow the horses down or make them stop and go. Grace and I were at the rear of the group, and she apparently had a longer stride than the others and did not like to be told to slow or stop. Jenny, or “Sunny” was directly in front of us and Grace wanted to go whenever Sunny was going and didn’t seem to be content until she was close enough for Sunny to smack her in the face with her tail. (Which was too close according to the rules I’d been taught, so Grace and I had some issues and exchanged words more than once.) It was a beautiful day and the scenery was quite nice also–from what I could tell, because I wasn’t able to pay attention to much more than Sunny’s too-near-rear. The worst though, was when we went through the woods. The trail was hilly and muddy and not well cleared so I was carried into many tree trunks and low-hanging branches, and the first time my horse slid I really thought she was just buckling under my weight, and the ONE time I got her to hang back away from Sunny for a moment, Sunny turned around a corner and could no longer be seen so Grace decided that she needed to RUN down the muddy hill to catch up! That freaked me out a bit. But we lived and I managed to keep my composure. I was glad for the experience, but as my horse started panting her way up the last bit into the barn (and I thought “oh great, now I’m going to give the poor girl a heart attack!”) I admit I was relieved the experience was over. Well. Almost over. TeeHee There was still the little matter of the dismount–which looked incredibly simple. LOOKED! JoAnne was first to get off and on her way down her top caught on the saddlehorn and she was trapped! She looked like she was hanging although she landed on her feet on the ground, but it took a few minutes for our handlers to help her get unstuck! Then the other girls slid off their horses without a hitch–making sure not to duplicate JoAnne’s misfortune, and when it became my turn and I tried to do the same, my leg caught on the saddleseat and so I landed one foot on the ground with one still on top of the big horsey and in that brief second could not figure out how to get my leg down until I completely lost my balance and the grounded leg buckled under me causing gravity to work on my other leg sending me into a graceful (HA! YEAH RIGHT!!!) tuck and roll away from Grace. I quickly popped up covered in dirt with a fleeting bruised ego, but felt accomplished and fairly confident that I had manged to land and roll avoiding any fresh or obvious manure or pee puddles. We’re thinking about going again next year. I’m gearing up for it now. 
