I've been somewhat remiss about giving regular updates. I don't know where the time goes but it's sure flying by! Here is a story from 2 weeks ago that I just haven't had time to post. It's still kind of funny though ...
ENJOY!
Oh my, oh my, oh my. What a time we’ve had around here lately. Lots of crying and lots of laughing. Here’s an update …
3 weeks ago Fronie’s brother in law Bab was taken to the hospital. Turns out he had flesh eating disease so it was touch and go each day. On Thurs night he passed away from heart failure at the age of 58. I guess his body just couldn’t take anymore. He was 310 lbs when he was admitted and 148 when he passed away. We were waiting to hear when the funeral was going to be before Fronie headed out to Gambo (about 3 hrs from here). Her other brother in law owns the funeral home so we had “insider info”. Apparently dying is currently the new fad in Gambo because the funeral home was “blocked solid” with customers. There were already 5 waiting to be prepared so with Bob that made 6. I was over at Fronie’s a fair bit trying to help field some of the phone calls (huge family).
On Friday I was cleaning the barn when she came over to help me with the water buckets. She said she just needed to get away from the house and the phones. We finished up around 11:30. As Fronie was walking down the driveway towards her house she called out, “too bad you’re going to town – it’d be a nice day for a ride!” I thought, heck, why not? It’d do Fronie good to go on a nice relaxing ride. So back she came and we got ready for our ride. We hadn’t ridden for awhile so we decided we’d ride in the ring to warm up. Our ring was FILLED with puddles from all the rain we’d had and of course Mr. Stretch doesn’t like to get his feet wet. He tried to be a good sport and tip toed around the ring for a little bit but then stopped dead and refused to move. Because the critters were wet from the weather I had my waterproof rain pants on due to the fact that we only have 1 saddle so I was riding Skipper bareback. There was absolutely NO WAY I was going to dismount in order to help Fronie move Stretch. Mounting bareback is hard enough, let alone wearing slippery pants! When Stretch didn’t want to go in the ring anymore I had the bright idea of going for a little ride around the block. So off we went.
At the end of my road is my neighbour’s driveway. They have an 18 month old Bernese mountain dog and recently adopted a part Newfoundland, who they estimate to be about 2. The two dogs were out with Dennis and they must have heard the horses coming. Well out of the driveway they both charged, barking their fool heads off. Skipper just stopped and stood still (probably waiting for one of them to come close enough so he could plant a stud into their forehead!). Stretch stood for a bit but then Fronie started saying, “oh no, oh no, whoa Stretch, whoa!”. Of course Stretch picked up on her feeling of panic so started to head back to the barn. She got him back under control, Dennis got the dogs under control and we continued on our journey. As we were walking away Fronie says to me, “well, I now know what the f-in horn is for!”.
We continued on our way. The next “obstacle” was the steep hill that comes down to join our road. It’s not really a problem and I like to trot Skipper up it so he gets a good butt workout. Fronie chose to keep Stretch at a walk so up I went. As we started going further up the incline, my slipper pants started to take over. I was slowly slipping backwards on Skipper’s back and no amount of wiggling would gain me any ground. Of course I NEVER thought of just stopping him – after all, where’s the challenge in that?! I’m just very thankful that he has a nice long mane. Fronie was peeing herself laughing because she said all she could see was my legs going farther back and starting to adopt more of a horizontal position. Great help she was! We made it up the hill and continued on our way giggle our heads off.
Two blocks away from home and we heard this loud dragging, jingling sort of noise. The horses perked their ears up so I told Fronie to just be aware that something had caught their attention. Within minutes we were able to see what was causing the noise. Syl had his new Newf/clyde/whatever cross out training for harness. He had him bridled and wearing a collar. Attached to the rope traces were some chains and what looked to be a shackle from a very large anchor chain. The boys were fine with it once they saw what it was. So we stopped and had a bit of a gabb. Now I’ve always told Fronie to be aware of where her horse is and not to let him go nose-to-nose with another. While we were talking, Stretch was inching his way over to Skipper. Sure enough, just before I was going to tell Fronie to get some distance between them they squealed (worse than pigs!). I thought Fronie was going to wet herself again! Once again we continued on our way and Syl headed off in the opposite direction.
We got farther up the road and were almost at the cross road where we turn down to head back home when the horses heard the noise again. Fronie and I knew it was just Syl and his pony but they were cutting through a path in the woods so the horses couldn’t see them. We stopped on the side of the road to let them figure things out and see that it wasn’t REALLY the boogie man in them thar woods! Then Stretch decided that whatever it was coming out of the woods was going to kill him so he started backing up. He does this anytime he’s scared (like when he met chickens for the first time) – and BOY can he back up fast! Fronie was just getting him to switch back into forward when along comes this truck, heading straight for us. Instead of stopping, the driver figures he’ll just drive around the big black horse that is in the middle of the road. And so Stretch starts to back up again. And buddy keeps driving. And Stretch keeps backing. And buddy keeps driving … until THUMP! Stretch backed right into the truck and hit it with his butt just behind the cab area. Pooped all over it (nice runny stuff because he was nervous). Well that certainly persuaded him to go forward, let me tell you! At the time that Stretch backed into buddy, the truck was that far over on the wrong side of the road that one set of tires was on the shoulder of the road. A lady jumps out and says, “OMG, are you guys OK?” Luckily we were fine (from what we could tell at the time) other than the fact that Fronie had such a death grip on the saddle with ALL parts of her body that I didn’t think it’d ever be removeable! Off they go, and off we go.
Fronie and I both agreed that it would be best for everyone if we just got home because clearly it wasn’t going to be the nice relaxing ride that we wanted. The sideroad that we were going down is a very quiet little one way street that goes past a graveyard. We couldn’t wait to get on it so that we could start to breathe again. As we’re riding up it wouldn’t you know it but they chose that day to be digging a grave. And of course when they dig graves in foul weather they put portable “tents” over the site. And these “tents” just happen to flap quite nicely in the breeze! The horses must have been tired of all the excitement though because they didn’t even bat an eye. We’d almost made it all the way down the “quiet street” when we hard a big FLAP! Skipper jumped sideways and Stretch jumped because Skipper jumped. Off to our left was ONE pair of jeans hung out on a line and at just that moment a stiff wind had gusted and snapped the jeans. I was suprized that I didn’t fall off because of my slippery pants. Fronie said, “I bet you Skipper is glad you’re wearing water proof pants!” HA HA … funny girl.
We made it the rest of the way home without incident, untacked, brushed and put the boys away. Fronie wanted to call her doctor and tell him that he need not worry about her doing her keegle exercises – every orifice on her body was clamped shut so hard that she didn’t think any of them would ever open up again!
It wasn’t quite the ride that we had wanted but I can guarantee that it took Fronie’s mind the family trauma that had been going on.
Thu Feb 11, 2010 7:51 am
