Getting back on that horse...again.

My mom's always said that I was a cowgirl at heart..

I have to agree with her even though I don't necessarily appear to be.

But I guess that's why I'm married to a cowboy

& I guess thats why some of my best friends since middle school were cowgirls (They got me to join FFA- Future Farmers of America- in high school even though all I did was tag along for the field trips..awesome right!?)

& I guess thats why I for some reason started listening to Country music on my own and converted the rest of my family to start listening to it at the age of 11.

...now if only I were more like a cowgirl physically..

As in a little less clumsy..

Exhibit A.

Culprit: Meg

When: Summer of 2008

Where: Dimple Dale

This is Meg. She is Blakes horse. He loves her more than almost anything.

Isn't she pretty?

About the third time Blake took me horseback riding while we were dating, I rode Meg. We went to Dimple Dale (sp?) with his dad and brothers. At one point we got to a spot where there was a log in the middle of the trail. Blake turned to me and said "Meg will jump over those you know. Go ahead!" I thought.. "Hey, why not?!" and went for it without thinking twice.

If only we'd noticed the other two logs..

She went over the first and it kicked me outta my stirrups, but I was still on the horse ok. All of a sudden she jumped over two more logs which I was NOT expecting. When a horse JUMPS over something you don't realize how much of a kick it adds to their back end till ya do it. I went flying for the second log, but I was still holdin on! I was just hangin off the right side of her. I probably still woulda been ok if not for that third log and then the tree...

When she jumped over the third long it happened to have a tree to the right side of it. The tree wiped me out and I was on the ground.

I was ok. FREAKED out, cut up and bruised, but ok.

My hand was all cut up from the tree (people kept asking me if I got in a knife fight or something) and I had a big bruise my thigh from hitting the horn on the saddle. It was awesome!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of those battle wounds fresh, just the scars:

Can you see the scars on my hand and the top of my wrist? I actually kinda like that scar, I hope it never fades away!

Exhibit B.

The Culprit: Scarlet

When: Memorial Day 2010

Where: Dimple Dale

This is Scarlet. She is Bret's (Blakes brother) horse. She is really sweet tempered. I love riding her.

This past Memorial Day was this first ride of the summer. You could feel how excited and anxious the horses were to get out and go for a ride. Towards the end of the ride, Jared (Blakes other brother) decided to take off running on the horse. If you ride horses you know that because horses are pack animals, where one horse goes they all want to go. What one horse does they all want to do.

When Jared took off on his horse, our horses took off. Because she was so excited to be out running she started kicking up her back legs. Well because 1. I'm a new, inexperienced rider and 2. My stirrup on one side was longer than the other (which I hadn't realized till Blake was fixing it later) my feet fell out of the stirrups again and kicked me forward onto the saddle horn again. Unlike Exhibit A, I was able to stop her before I actually fell off. But I could sure feel it for the rest of the ride!

& here was my battle wound! I didn't look very good in my running shorts for a little while. The last of that bruise is just beginning to fade!

Exhibit C.

The Culprit: Stormy

When: This last Thursday

Where: Blakes parents backyard

This is Stormy. She is the by far the most even tempered horse. "Drives like a Cadillac" as we like to say. She is Blakes dads horse and is the one that they have visitors ride the most because she's so chill.

Unfortunately this is the least exciting story, which embarrassingly enough has the most tragic ending.

Last Thursday Blake and I were at his parents house. They are thinking of breeding one of their horses, and we wanted to see the stud.

Afterwards, we were in the corral just petting the horses. Blake was actually on his phone with a friend from school and I was standing in the middle of all the horses petting them. I was turned to Scarlet trying to get her to let me pet her when I think Meg snapped at Stormy and bit her backend. Stormy was behind me and whipped her butt around and ran into me. This caught me off guard and knocked me into Rucio (the donkey) and scared him as well as Scarlet who I had been reaching towards at the same time Stormy had hit me. As I fell I saw all the horses that were surrounding me take off. Because I was watching them try to avoid stepping on me, my first instinct was to cover my head. With my right arm over my head I put my left arm down to catch myself. Of course this all happened really fast.

So as Blake saw this he quickly told the person he was talking to "My wife just got knocked down I gotta go" (THAT makes me sound cool). When Blake came over I knew my wrist hurt but I wasn't sure if the tears were coming from pain or from just being freaked out.

We went inside and I realized how much my arm hurt. We ended up deciding to go to the ER and sure enough, it was broken!

I'm going to the Orthopedic Surgeon tomorrow to find out if I damaged any ligaments and to get a hard cast. Great way to start off the summer huh?!

Please don't blame the horses. This is from a combination of my inexperience with being around horses + me being abnormally clumsy.

P.S. How long do I have to be around horses till I can consider myself "experienced" with being around horses?!

;)

THE END