Myra, who lives and works at the Lake Glendale Stables Equestrian Center, and I bonded today on our two-hour tour through the Shawnee Forest. She was a lovely lady who moseyed through the winding trails and terrain near the bluffs in the forest, and who only tried to kill me once. That I know of.
The day began, as so many of my adventures have, with Jen arriving at my house much earlier than she prefers, but today she brought her sweetie, Kris! Here they pose with Anita the Horse:
We set off for Golconda with the GPS lady guiding us all the way there, from interstate to two-lane to rock roads. In the rain. Hmph. The rain was a little worrisome, but Mother Nature was on our side today and it cleared off as we got closer to Lake Glendale in Golconda--yay! We found the stables with no wrong turns and were greeted by our guide who led us into the stables where our ladies were getting their gear put on. No one, I was happy to note, was fighting the bridle or throwing a hissy fit about having her saddle put on; mostly they were pretty calm, munching on some oats and the hay in their stalls. Not entirely sure if I could have been that chill, given the pungent, um, scent in the stables. Oy. These ladies are pretty, but you should happy that this blog is not scratch and sniff.
So the girls who were in charge of picking out the horses, leading them out to the yard, and getting them all organized for us brought us out to the yard and assigned us to our rides: "Pink shirt (me) gets Myra, green shirt (Jen) gets Anita, and the guy (Kris) can have Easter." Alrighty, then. Sounds like a seating chart, and I'm all about organization, so I went over to Myra, introduced myself, and was coached on how to get on her and what to do then. Just so you know, you put your left leg in her stirrup, hoist yourself up with the horn thing on the saddle, throw your right leg over the other side, and then put your feet in the stirrups so the balls of your feet are in there. And then you have to stand up to prove that you did it right. Eeek! Stand up? On this horse who appears to be more interested in the grass than on standing still so I can balance? Okay.... But I did it! Totally can sit on a horse properly. I now know that one holds the horn (pommel?) with the left hand and the reins with the right. Leave a bit of a loop in the reins so Myra is comfortable, and tug them right to go right, left to go left, and pull the reins back to your belly to make her stop. And say "whoa" while you pull back. Truly! I always thought that was for the movies--so we watching could tell that the horse needs to stop--but I said "whoa" a LOT today.
After we all had our tutorials on horse riding/sitting/stopping/steering, we set off onto the trails! The guide went in front, Anita and Jen next, Myra and me, Easter and Kris, and then two other ladies who brought up the rear but who appeared to have ridden before, and therefore needed less maintenance than us up front--although Kris was pretty proficient. He has family with horses and seemed not to be completely freaked out by how big and smelly and muscly the horses were. As someone, you know, who had never ever been on one might be. A little.
The trails were a nice blend of easy to see and also a little bit untraveled. We moseyed through the grass into the woods to find dirt trails with trees, rocks, ditches, muddy spots, all the terrain one might expect on a horse trail. And the view was really pretty--we passed by a lake, rocky bluffs, ferny patches in the shade of the trees, and lots of other scenery that I probably missed as I clung to Myra's reins and horn with all my might. She sashayed her way through the trails, not really paying attention, as far as I could tell. We were not to let the horses eat, as the guide said they would then want to eat allllll through the rides that day; allowing them to eat sets a bad precedent. Mhm. That was easy for the guide to say, but I assure you that Myra was HUNGRY. Way more hungry than interested in a tour of the Shawnee Forest. There were some of these little plants--about a foot tall, very green and ferny, with leaves shaped like long marquis diamonds--that Myra found to be DELICIOUS, and anytime those were on the horizon, I knew she was going to lean her head waaaay down to munch on them, and I would need to lean waaaaay back to avoid tumbling over her head into the delicious ferny plants.
We had two Moments on the trails, Myra and I, that taught me some lessons in the horse world. Moment #1: as we followed Jen and Anita, Myra decided that Anita was a fine horse to mimic. If Anita took Jen off the trail into the trees beside it, Myra took me there, too. If Anita paused to munch on some leaves, Myra paused, too. So, in one part of the trail, Anita had dragged Jen into the brush and Myra followed suit, leading us right into branch--which whapped me right on the face, and pulled one of my earrings right out of my ear. Sigh. So, if you are riding in the trails and spy a sparkly pink earring in the brush, I will buy your lunch for its return! Promise.
Moment #2: Myra, in her intense quest to follow Anita, wedged me between her body and a tree and refused to back up or move to the right to allow us to go forward. I'm not sure how much Myra weighs (and it would be rude to ask, I'm sure), but her body was the unstoppable force and the tree was the unmovable object, and my leg was the cushion between them. Yikes!! I really, really worried my leg was going to get snapped in two at the knee. In the wilderness. With no cell phone signal to alert the helicopters or ambulances to come get me. I was well and truly wedged between the two! So in my haze of pain, the guide's voice finally surfaced, and with her instructions, I was able to manoeuvre her to the right to free us both from the tree and continue moseying on the MIDDLE of the trail. But after that, I was a little shaken and worried, which I voiced to the guide, who told me that Myra knows that now, and would act accordingly. Well, great. Be firm with her, the guide told me, and be her boss, and don't let her follow Anita like she wants to. Hm. Deep breath. Okay.
Following her advice, I paid a lot more attention to how much slack was in the reins; too little makes the horse irritated, too much makes her think she can do what she wants. Figuring out the right balance was interesting, and using my legs to control her, too, was high on my list of things to learn quickly. By the time we were headed back to the stables, I had us pretty well under control, able to guide her down the middle of the trail with no more forays into the brushes on the sides with not too much overcorrecting left to right. Also, I was able to stay *on* the horse as we started TROTTING instead of moseying, which felt like RUNNING at Mach speeds with the wind in my hair and a smile on my face! Pretty excited that I didn't tumble over Myra's head or slide under the horse to get trampled, as I sort of pictured in my mind when the guide decided trotting would be a great fun idea.
As always, there's a metaphor imbedded into the adventure today; I could sense it even as we were still on the horses. There's a journey here. There's a certain amount of control one has, and a certain amount of trust in a thing that can't communicate back in words. There are times to simply enjoy the ride, and there are times you have to take the reins and take command of the journey yourself. Learning to recognize the difference between these times remains the ongoing goal, but I offer this in the meantime: sometimes you lose a good sparkly earring in the journey, but they are replaceable--go on the journey anyway. Sometimes your ride will leave you bruised. Wear the bruises proudly and make sure you have a good story to go along with them (henceforth, the black and purple mark on my leg will be referred to as my "old cowgirl injury"). Yeehaw!!
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