RUNAWAY HORSE

Lalala

It’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon and I am blissfully riding my horse along the Bandy Canyon Road trail.  It winds along the valley, then up to the top of a little mountain.  A picnic table at the summit  is a great place to enjoy the magnificent view.  Normally I sit here for a little while, gazing at the valley below, and feeding carrots to my horse, then head back to the ranch.

Wow! Look at that magnificent view!

 But not today.  For some reason, I decide to dismount onto the picnic table.  Since horses are prey animals, anything out of the ordinary can frighten them.  Apparently, the sight of me standing on the picnic bench was terrifying to Scotch.  I can only imagine what was going through his horsey head.  Did I suddenly look like a monster to him because I was taller?  Guess I’ll never know.  What I do know is that he pulled back, snorting in fear.  Since I was holding onto the reins, he pulled me off the bench and dragged me through the dirt like a helpless rag doll.  Horses are strong.  I tried to hang on, but the reins slipped through my fingers and I watched in dismay as he turned and ran down the trail, his rear hooves tossing dirt into my mouth. I stood up and choked out, “Scotch? Come back!” in a feeble voice.   Uh oh.  I was in a bit of a pickle.  It was a long way back down the mountain.

Might as well enjoy the scenery

I started to walk.  I was wearing sandals.  Not the best choice.  I trudged down the trail, my sandals flip flopping against my bare feet.  I had passed some riders from my ranch earlier, and thought they would surely catch Scotch and wonder what had happened to me.  It would be embarrassing, of course, but I would explain what happened and we would all have a good laugh.  Hahahaha.  Sadly, this was not to be, as they had long since turned around.  I didn't know this yet though.  As I rounded a corner, I saw Scotch strolling leisurely along the trail.  Yeah!  Now I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed.  I called out his name and held out my hand, full of horse treats.  He turned his head to look at me, then turned back around and  kept walking!  It was no use rushing toward him; that would only make him run away.  

"Try and catch me!"

But why wasn’t he stopping?  Wasn’t he glad to see me?  Didn’t he care that I was walking all by myself in improper shoes?  What ever happened to horse-human bonding like you see in the movies??  All those old Westerns show loyal horses running eagerly to greet their owner.  They look over joyed to see them. Or they are stomping on rattlers, saving their master from certain death, or running to the nearest human and pointing a hoof in their owner’s general direction as she lies comatose in a ditch.  You know??  But MY horse was walking away from me!  Every once in a while he would turn his head to see if I was still there, then he would speed up a little.  I think I heard him laughing.  Now I was getting angry.  I picked up my pace a bit, trying to catch up with him without running.  I kept calling his name and holding out treats, to no avail.  Now the trail was winding along a busy part of the road and my anger dissolved into worry.  What if he ran in the street and got hit by a car?  What if he decided to run back to his old stable on busy Highland Valley Road?  

 A sprinkler beside the trail made a hissing sound and started spurting water, spooking Scotch.  He started to trot.  Then a motorcycle zoomed by which sent him running as fast as he could.  I was really scared now and started running too.  I passed a few people who were standing in bewilderment because they had just seen a riderless horse go by.  Then a van pulled up and a man asked if anybody knew about the runaway horse.  He pointed the direction Scotch was running (toward our new stable, thank God) and asked if I wanted a ride.  I was huffing and puffing and sweating in my black leather fringed vest and cut-off jean shorts and gladly jumped into his van.  His wife was driving and I thanked them both and explained how I came to be running along the road without my horse.  As my eyes adjusted to the interior of the car, I noticed a little girl sitting in her car seat beside me.  I said hello to her and she said, “That’s my brother in the back.”  A little boy, also strapped securely in his car seat, was sitting behind her.  They were both so cute, angelic really.  In fact I later decided this was an angel family sent to help me.  I was still panting from exertion, thinking what a mess I must look to them, searching nervously out the window for my horse. 

"Hoooome"

And there he was, standing innocently by the gate across the street from our stable.  He wasn’t hurt and none of the dire scenarios that played out in my mind had occurred.  I was so happy to see him that I said the following words:

“That  S___HEAD!” 

Alarms were sounding in my head and little red flags popped up behind my eyes, but it was too late.  The words came tumbling out of my mouth uncensored.  I immediately started apologizing profusely and dared not glance at the sweet little faces sitting beside me.  I had cursed in front of the angel children!  The mom said, “Oh, don’t worry.”,  but at that point in time I felt like a sweaty, filthy, tattooed, body pierced, leather clad motorcycle mama swigging beer, puffing on a cigarette dangling from my lower lip, spouting profanity out of the corner of my mouth. 

I truly felt hideous as I clambered out of their van, thanking them politely and trying to redeem myself.  I climbed through the fence and held my hand out to Scotch with the cookies he had refused earlier.  The angel van people waited until I had hold of him, then waved and drove away. 

I was trembling from all the emotions (and the long walk).  I could have just called it a day and gone home, but didn’t feel like I should let Scotch off so easily.  My blingy sandals were a wreck, my feet were coated with trail dust and I had been gypped out of a ride!   

So I got on him and made him go all the way back to the scene of the crime.  Then I got off, stared right into his big brown eyes, and gave him a good scolding, just like a mom ripping her kid a new one.  I asked him who he thought he was running away from me like that.  What was he thinking?  What if he had been hit by a car?  Who would feed him if it weren’t for me and other relevant, outrageous mom-isms which I’m sure impressed him.   I told him it was just me and him against the world and we had to look out for each other.  Then I started crying, because that’s what women do when they are overwhelmed by emotion, right?  He hung his head down and gazed at me with those soulful, expressive eyes as if to say, “Wow, you look really upset.  Are you OK?”

"Have you taken your meds?"

"You know you love me"

 Kids

A WEEKEND AT MY SISTER’S

Internet photo. Not really us.

Come and listen to a story about my sister’s farm

It’s up in Sun City and is full of charm

They have six horses, a boat, pool and RV

The Tutty Family Farm is the place I want to be! 

OK, this isn't really my sister's place, but how great is this (internet) picture?

Aw, Memorial Weekend – the unofficial start of summer vacation.  A time for fun, family and boats on the lake.  Elsinore, that is.  Full of bubbling crud.  Oh no, sorry.  I’m still thinking of the Beverly Hillbillies.  The lake really is quite lovely, from a distance.  But up close, it’s a questionable shade of green.  That didn’t stop us from having a whole pile of fun, though.  

Come on in. The water's fine.

Our plan was to get there bright and early in the morning.  OK, that’s always our plan, but it hardly ever happens.  First we had to stop at Starbucks cuz we were hungry. And we needed coffee. Then we had to stop at the grocery store for some food items.  Then we had to go to another store because I forgot to buy something at the first one.  My bad.

Sadly, my dogs didn’t get to go on the boat trip because they are currently sporting coneheads due to some recent surgeries. 

 My nephew is a pro at launching the boat and we were out on the lake by 10.  We found a little cove to anchor in and Bill cooked up some breakfast. 

What's cookin, Bill?

 I made my sister hike with me to the Sanihut over the hill.  Bill told me a scary story about wolf spiders hiding where you’d least expect them, and I worried and fretted about this the whole way there and held my breath while I was inside.  I didn’t want to see them so of course they weren’t there.  Or they were just hiding, pointing at me and laughing.  Don’t really want to know.

The real photos were way to creepy to post (from internet)

 Have you ever seen a wolf spider?  Have you ever shoved your unsuspecting, innocent foot inside your sneaker and felt something tickling against your toes?  Then you remove your shoe out of curiosity and out jumps a giant fuzzy, eight eyed monster with a top hat and cane, dancing and singing, "Hello my baby, hello my sweetheart, hello my good time gal..."  like the creature in Alien.  OK, I made up the song and dance part, but the Nevada hills are still reverberating my screams from that incident over 30 years ago.

Mitch likes to multitask. Here he is auditioning for American Idol while tossing horse shoes.

  

Kyle skillfully avoids an obstacle course

The kids played Frisbee and flew around the lake on Mitch's new jet ski.

Mitch, an accomplished Farrier, is demonstrating how to shoe a horse (or his cousin)

My sister and I had fun reminiscing about our childhood and quoting lines from Christmas Vacation.  This happens every time we get together.

"Can't see the lines, can you, Russ?"

"Welcome to our home.  What's left of it."

Chillaxing

Cool hiding place

Heyeyeyey, let's have a party!

Better put some sunscreen on or you'll turn into a lobster!

It was sunny and warm the whole day, but then the wind kicked up in the afternoon, making our trip back kind of miserable. 

 My sister and I hunched down on the floor and buried ourselves in blankets as the wind whipped chilling sprays of water onto our heads.  Good times.   

Laura, is that you?

The wind was so strong at the launch ramp, it kept pushing our big pontoon boat around, making it impossible to line up with the truck.  To make matters worse, some kids were kayaking in front of and behind us.  The wind was pushing us around so much, we were worried about running into them, or one of the other boats waiting in line.  It was kind of like a video game with a bunch of obstacles popping up forwards, backwards, left and right.  A lady stood on the ramp yelling useless instructions at us.  She was trying to tell us we were too far to the right or left, as if we didn’t already flipping know.  Mitch and Kyle were in the water, trying to steady the boat.  My sister and I wordlessly white knuckled the side of the boat and watched in horror.  Bill directed us all to get out and we were forced to go over the side into the waist deep water.  It was cold and our pants got all wet.  Waagh.  Luckily, everything turned out alright (whew) and we loaded our soggy selves into the car and headed for home.   

Chester and Chelsea model the latest in head gear fashion

Say cheese!

 The coneheads were happy to see us and we started a bonfire.  Grillmeister Bill made us BBQ chicken – yum.

It's OK, Chester. They're just jealous of your conehead.

The kids compared sunburns and I’m afraid Kyle won the contest.  He had turned into Lobsterman, since he didn’t listen to his mom and apply the right amount of sunscreen.  Tsk, tsk. 

The next day, in spite of Kyle’s lobster status, the boys returned to the lake for more jet ski action, and the rest of us chilled with the next door neighbors.  When they returned, Kyle had, of course, grown a pair of antlers and lobster claws.   

See??? Told you! (Internet photo. Not really Kyle)

Tried to tell him.   

Calli and I rode horses in the late afternoon, my favorite time of day, and the perfect end of our weekend.

Riding into the sunset

Happy summer, everyone!