I recently got home from an eventful afternoon. I went to church this morning and sat through an excellent sermon about how everyone has a place in God’s kingdom. There were parts that struck me because growing up, I had first-hand experience with much of the ridicule that Jason Anderson talked about.
After church I met up with Becca at the barn where she stables her horse Cricket. She had Shiloh saddled up waiting for me when I arrived. I met Jessica (a girl that also stables a horse ‘Cinder’ there) and we each led our respective horses to a corral area so Shiloh and I could get to know each other. Becca and Jessica started laughing and Jessica asked her where she found a guy that would come horseback riding…
I had no problems mounting up. The last time I rode a horse was about 15 years ago and I guess I didn’t forget much; partly because I didn’t know much to forget 🙂
After a quick refresh of basic commands and whatnot, we rode out of the corral and out into a pasture field that led to a public trail. We rode down the trail for about 45 minutes and turned around. About a half-hour into the ride, we came to a woman jogging. That in itself is not too odd, except that she was very pregnant. It was interesting to say the least…
Right before we turned around, Jessica was in the lead with me following and Becca in the back. Becca yelled forward to me that I should remember to take some ibuprofen tonight because I will be quite sore tomorrow. Then Jessica leaned back and asked Becca if we should speed up a bit and see how I would handle that. I have pretty good balance, so I think I did okay. I didn’t feel like I was going to fall off or anything, so that was good.
About half-way back, Shiloh decided to be a jerk. She started nitzing at my right-foot and not wanting to follow my directions. I finally got her under control. Becca was a little bit miffed about the whole thing. Evidently, Shiloh is generally pretty good, but she hadn’t been ridden for about 2 weeks and I am the heaviest person that has ridden her, so who knows…
A bit later, Jessica wanted to speed up, but Becca suggested that we not because she didn’t know what Shiloh would do. She said something about not wanting me to be thrown off this time.
We made it back and proceeded to unmount when a car drove up. A woman got out and asked Jessica something. Jessica then asked Becca if she wanted to go round up some horses in a different field. She said “heck yeah!” so she took Shiloh and asked if I would go get Cricket’s halter and hold on to her while they do the round up. Cricket did not like it when Becca went out of site and she started whinneying(sp?) like crazy. After a few minutes of reassuring her, she calmed down and started nuzzling me. It was kinda cool to have this huge animal acting like a I would expect a dog or a cat to.
Anyway, after the other horses were rounded up we all said our goodbyes and Becca asked if I would be at church on Saturday. After I said that I would see her there, she rode off into the sunset… Actually, she had to go over to her cousin’s house and decided to ride Cricket there.
All-in-all, I feel like it went well today. I hope that I can go riding with Becca again sometime soon.