As you may have noticed I have depreciated myself as an animal person. What I forgot to mention was HORSE PERSON – I am also beginning to feel that this relationship to this Port Angeles property and livestock was like that of Sisyphus doomed to occur for all eternity.

After my bad juju with my pasture I allowed a neighbor to board her two horses. In exchange we could ride them. These would be untrained and temperamental Arabians … at least by my estimation. They knew where to bite and even when the owner got too close they bit her on her breasts.

Nice girls huh. Anyway, they behaved differently around me and my youngest daughter. Not so for the older. She stayed away from them as much as she could. As I saw it, they had pasture and a safe place to sleep. What more did they want? My own guess as a Monkey Brain is that they wanted friends. Ownership of animals is always an iffy proposition, esp. when they are intelligent. Worse yet, if they are abused.

(PICTURE of Naomi and Shelby on the horse.)

Now to the gritty: Naomi and I were riding together when the horse suddenly put on the four wheel brakes option that horses have. (NOT in the instruction booklet) Both of us were thrown off but nothing worse happened. A bear was crossing in front of the horse. No wonder! We got back on and came back home.

A time later I was riding by myself and this brake-age at full gallop happened again. This time I was not so fortunate. The horse simply braked in front of a stream (moving water) it did not like. I flew forwards over a cliff and got injured, discovering trees and rocks I had never known before. By that time the owner came riding up … screaming at me to recover her damn horse.  Blood was flowing from all of my appendages, I walked 2.5 miles home. A friend  house sitting my daughters remarked upon the ‘old man’ hobbling up the road.

By cliff, I mean cliff and as I bounced down that incline meeting every tree snag and boulder my body could find. My arms took the brunt of my cartwheeling body. My legs survived better – and so did my head. What I neglected to mention is that the horse owner was a NURSE, and didn’t give a crap about my condition.

Need I say that was the end to my boarding of horses? I ended up stitching up my many cuts. Never again! That refers to horses, not to needle work sutcherings in the future. Always have curved needles in your medical kit! Maybe a rabbits foot as well.

What should have forewarned me about horses was an episode in the past.

As a ‘Tenderfoot’ Scout in more ways than one, my friend Huck and I decided to check out the nearby Girl Scout camp. As it turned out they were far more wily and knowing about boys than we were of girls. We came upon two horse riding Amazons and when questioned … we assured them that we knew how to ride horses.

Somehow they discerned our lies when they had to assist us to mount. They gave both horses a hard slap on the rumps and watched us bouncing up and down, totally out of control. Mind you, our legs were not long enough to reach the stirrups, so when finally thrown we were not dragged. They got back on the horses and gave us a laughing kiss goodbye.

Since then I have ridden Morgan’s, Thoroughbreds, and Tennessee Walkers. None would be a problem. After the treacherous Arabians the Tennessee Walkers would be like stretch limousines.

Picture of me and my pony