Hey, Little Horsie!

Back in the day, back in the ‘Vern, when I was but a tot….

Okay, well that may be a slight exaggeration of the country bumpkin that I was growing up, but it’s still a fact that I spent a lot of time barefoot, and a lot of time on the Fowler farm with my buddy Lisa and their slew of farm creatures. Some of my best memories involve day-long horseback rides out onto the plains and pastures on the Fowler properties and finding all kinds of things to poke, prod, and explore. Thinking back, it’s a wonder we never got attacked by an angry animal or contracted some bacterial disease from jabbing around the inevitable find of some poor carcass.

Still, I didn’t realize at the time that I was learning to ride, to saddle, bit, shoe, and break a horse, day by day. I’ve loved horses since I was a kid, and so when we decided today to go trail riding, I was all for it.

Fact: Trail riding is pretty boring for someone who’s ever ridden a horse freely, for fun.
Fact: Observing the behavior of people who’ve never stepped within 30 feet of a living horse, let alone sat on a moving one, is hilarious.

Fact: The stable hand at the dude ranch we visited today hails from central Kentucky, which is still considered our neck of the woods in relation to Cincinnati. Since this is his daily job, he had plenty of stories to share of the antics people can create just trying to ride a horse moving at 2mph down a straight line.

We had fun, no less. There was a couple that showed up with their 2-yr-old son, who sat nervously still between his daddy’s legs and the saddle horn of a gentle Appaloosa for the first ten minutes before he realized he was safe. By the end of the trip, he was waving at the other horses and telling his Mommy on the horse behind his that their horses were best friends. We are having the greatest time on this trip, but deep down we both can’t wait to share an experience like this with Sydni.

The rain came like the blink of an eye, right at the 5 minute mark after we had all finished the trail and returned to the stables. The raindrops were those meaty ones that almost sting when they hit because of their weight. We took the opportunity to head back to our cabin and relax with the storm serenading us. We made dinner in our kitchen, ate together at the table, and cozied up in PJ’s to take full advantage of doing absolutely nothing.

This is proving to be one of the greatest weeks, ever J

Tomorrow is souvenir day. I’ll have to suck it up and pay full MSRP on some stuff, I know.

xo | cmd