My lovely wife Amy is getting pretty excited. Today’s a big day for her. It’s all because today I take a step closer to becoming a real wrangler, in the true animal-related sense of the word.
As part of an arrangement with a friend of hers who has too many horses to handle herself, Amy took in a Morgan mare a few weeks ago to board, feed, and do some trick training on a “free lease” basis, with free riding lessons thrown in on the deal.
So, guess who gets to put on his “kickin’ around” cowboy boots this morning so he can climb up into a Western saddle for a free lesson? Yep, that’d be me.
This won’t be the first time I’ve ever hopped on a horse. I climbed on one of Amy’s horses for a bit of a ride around an arena last year, but that was with an English saddle and I felt like I was going to slide right off of it. I’ve been on a long trail ride with Amy in the rugged Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho years ago. Before that, there was a time maybe a few years after Amy and I were married when she put me on her horse Twister, who could be a bit of a snot at times. It was fairly early in the spring, Twister really hadn’t been ridden yet that year and he wasn’t quite ready for that kind of thing. So Twister suddenly decided to show his snotty side and lived up to his name, kicking up his heels when I wasn’t quite expecting it. I soon ended up getting acquainted with the dirt. But I was okay, and it didn’t make me think I never wanted to do such a thing again.
There were also times, in the years shortly out of high school, when a good friend of mine at the time took me up to his parents’ cattle ranch in the hills of southeast Idaho to do a bit of work. It involved herding some cattle, and I handled myself relatively well for not having much experience. I never fell off, at least not until I took off after a couple head of beef cows and my mount was going at full speed, suddenly stepping into a gopher hole and coming to a dead stop.
With that much momentum, I ended up flying through the air over the horse’s head and hitting the dirt with my lower back landing first. My back still occasionally reminds me of that time, all these years later.
“Are you okay, buddy?” my friend asked at the time it happened.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered with a wince. “But is the horse’s leg okay?”
Luckily, it was.
That experience didn’t keep me from climbing right back up in the saddle and going again. It was pretty thrilling.
And, deep down, I’m pretty thrilled to be getting back into the saddle again today. I was raised on a farm enough as a child to appreciate the farming and ranching lifestyle. It suits me. I can quite clearly envision myself owning some nice horse property somewhere, having enough of it at some point that it might require regular trips to “ride fences,” hopping on a horse or a motorcycle or an ATV and just looking after things. Just like the real cowboys and ranchers do it. I’m trying to work toward making that dream come true now.
It’s certainly been a longtime dream of Amy’s as well, since she is well-versed in the ways of the horse after being raised that way and living that life until we moved to Utah over 16 years ago. It’s something she really hasn’t had an awful lot of chance to do since then, except for the last few years thanks to the generosity of a friend with some horse property she’s never really used.
I think we both miss that fuller, greater horse ownership lifestyle. And now, this morning, I get to knock a few cobwebs off of my riding experience and actually learn things I’ve never known before. I’m looking forward to it. I look decent in a pair of boots, an Australian duster, and a good, Charlie Daniels-style hat.
And I can surely give out one hearty YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHAAAAA!!!
I’ve had some practice at that.
It’s time to “cowboy up.”
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