Thursday, 21 May 2009

• A morning on horseback!

  My boss gave me permission to take the morning off as I'm through with everything I need to do for the year and I still have 4 sick days unused so I went ahead with my plans to go riding. Think lower humidity and between 75 and 82 degree temps, clear sky, and riding through trails... The weather this week has been beautiful! So I asked and received the morning off.

  When I got out to the stables, I was partnered up with a set of riders who were going out for two hours even though I was only going to be out an hour. The lady who owns the stables was the wrangler who came out to get me and we separated from the group. She trusted me enough on her horse to spend about 20 minutes at a trot. Well, her horse was loping. Mine was trotting. Stormy is part Belgium and part quarter horse, so her legs are considerably longer than the arabs everyone else was riding. So her trot kept her up with the boss' horse quite easily. lol.

  She took me around to check a couple of trails which impressed me mainly because I didn't think she would do something like that with a "guest". That was kind of cool. I liked riding with the group, but I had to squelch several impulses that apparently still exist from my two and a half years as an assistant wrangler out at a local YMCA. So when we broke off, all I had to do was focus on my own riding which was nice.

  On our way back, we got to talking about what I did for a living and I mentioned I was needing to find something for over the summer. What she said next I think I can state is an answer to prayer. While she's already hired paid staff for the summer, she does take volunteers and some volunteers progress to riding drag (last place in the trail ride) and/or leading trail rides! Also though, the volunteers come out and work in exchange for horse bucks. The horse bucks can be put towards things like... oh I don't know... riding! So it would be a way of being able to ride without having to pay. This was something I had wanted to ask about, but wasn't going to until my next trip out there in a month. lol.

  At the moment, I'm leaning towards trying to figure out how to do that. If I get a job I'm waiting to hear back from, I'm not sure how I'll pull off my regular volunteer work let alone anything additional, but I could go ahead and go out and start learning the ropes over the next couple of weeks. We'll see. It's something I'm going to have to pray about and see if my time management skills can handle it.

  Another thing that happened this morning was that my left ankle, which had hurt like crazy towards the last 15 -20 min of the last time I was out there, barely bugged me at all! Praise God! I sprained a muscle in my left ankle/leg in May of 2008 and when I have to use that leg to support me (horseback riding, ice skating, something that takes a lot of muscle control), it really aches. Today was the first time that I've had it only ache a little bit and not at all once we started trotting! I am so thankful! Maybe it means that muscle is finally getting stronger again.

  Ok... I've rambled long enough.

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