Fall Days - Horses - Donkeys - Fog - Kansas

Hey y'all!

We've been having some perfect fall weather here in Kansas; foggy and chilly in the morning, then by about noon the fog is gone. It's sunny, with clouds scattered across a bright blue sky. Just a light breeze, with a high degree of about 60-65. Perfect fall weather! Thank you Lord!

Molly

Daffy. I think I'm beginning to love this gal.... I seriously need to get a dog of my own. 

Buster.

-For some reason, pictures like this always lighten up a lot when I post them. 

It looked wayyy better before I posted it...

Went on a ride yesterday. It was very.... uh... eventful shall we say? ;-)

I still love my wildrag from Ashley! 

Go check out her wildrags at http://wildrag.blogspot.com/

Some of these are from this morning, when it was foggy out.

This one looked a lot better too.... :-/

Betty

Chey-Chey

Hello me. 

Anyways.... More about my earlier dubbed "eventful" ride.... It was going fairly well. Holly was a little bit more spooky than normal, but it was nothing I couldn't handle easily. 

Until on the way home.... 

We had just passed a place with two big dogs that always run back and forth, bark, and growl. 

Holly didn't like them very much, but since their owners put a hot wire down, and they couldn't get past it, I wasn't too worried. 

As I was saying, we had just passed that place, when a big Irish Setter comes running and barking down a different driveway. Once he reached us, he started running in circles around Holly and I, barking and growling all the time. Holly, by this time, had frozen stiff, and was scared to death; ready to bolt at any moment. I held the reins, not really tightly, but tight enough for Holly to know that I was ready to stop her. 

Then, lo and behold, the dog's owner comes running down the driveway, lugging his huge, orange dumpster behind him. This dumpster is not only humongous and bright orange, it's also louder than thunder, especially when bouncing around behind a running man. 

This running man is also yelling at the top of his lungs not to be afraid of the dog. 

"His bark is worse than his bite; don't worry about him!!" 

I'm sitting here on this very frightened horse, with one bum arm, and this man comes running, yelling, with thunder right behind him, telling me not to be afraid of the dog...? 

The dog ain't the problem anymore, Buster. 

Anyways.

Holly had had enough. She started a very frenzied bucking. I managed to stay on through this without getting too off balance. (Remember, we were bareback.) 

After bucking several times, she spun around in a circle and did something she had never done before.

She reared. She actually stood up on her two hind legs, and pawed the air with her front legs.

It must have looked amazing. 

I was holding the reins with my left hand, and had a camera in my right hand. Thankfully, I had the strap around my wrist. Of course I started slipping down because we were bareback, so I had to hold onto her mane with my right hand to keep myself on.

I felt something go pop in my right shoulder, which I just had surgery on. It hurt so badly. But of course, this was no time to think about a painful shoulder. 

As soon as she dropped back down to all four feet, I swung my left leg over her back, and got off before she had a chance to do it again. I managed to hurt my shoulder again while dismounting. 

I managed to calm Holly down in a few minutes. As soon as I got her calmed down, the man walked over and got his dog, who was in fact, still barking. 

He then said "That's what you get for riding without a saddle. At least you got long legs."

He threw that last statement over his shoulder, and I heard him mumbling 

other things that I really didn't care to hear... Boy, was I upset with him. I somehow managed to hold in any harsh words I wanted to say to him. There were sure a lot of them. 

So I walked Holly the rest of the way home. Holly was trembling, and pain was shooting through my shoulder in tremendously large waves. I managed to get Holly and myself home without injuring ourselves any further. But wow. What a ride. My shoulder is still really sore, but my physical therapist doesn't seem to think I did any really bad damage to it, thankfully. 

I crossed another item off of my bucket list yesterday. Sit on a rearing horse. Though I always hoped that it would happen under different circumstances... ;-)