P-Jack and Lady.

Ever since I can remember I have always loved horses. When I was real little we had mules, "Brack" and "Red." I don't recall this but my Mom said that my Dad would put me on the mules when he was logging and I was only about 3 yrs. old. She was so scared that he was going to get me killed! He said there were times the mules would slip on ice and go down on their knees but I hung on to the hanes and never fell off. So perhaps that experience of riding mules so young begat my love of horses? Who knows. When I was older I begged continuously for a pony. We lived out in the country on a big farm. One night my Dad went to the auction and he brought a pony back!! It was around midnight when he got home and he brought that pony right into the house and to the end of my bed!! I flew out of bed and got on the pony's back! (that was his first and only time being inside), he went to the pasture and I went back to bed!!). That was the beginning of a great bond between myself and that pony. I rode every chance I got. It was so much fun to ride among the cattle and pretend that I was a wrangler out just checking on the herd or riding fence! Sometimes my neighbors, who also had ponies, would ride with me. I just thought that was the greatest thing to ride in a group! I took quite a few spills on that pony. His name was P-jack. I wanted to name him "Red" but my Dad got to calling him P-jack and he learned that name! So P-jack it was!! The farm was big and there was 3 graveyards on it. I used to stop and wonder what had happened to the people that was buried there. One was a girl only 16 and I would stop and think about her life and what it might have been like and wondered what happened to her at such a young age.

After I outgrew the pony my Dad got me a horse. She was a beautiful mare and I named her "Lady". She was a strawberry roam. I took lots of spills off her too, but luckily I was never more than just shook up or had the breath knocked out of me. I used to pretend that I was barrel racing and I would use an electric pole in the field as my barrel and go tearing around it. My saddle hung in the barn and the mice/rats had been chewing on the girth. One day when I rounded that pole the girth broke and off I went. I landed on my back with my feet up in the air and I just slid like that for several feet. Lady just stopped and turned around and looked at me as if saying, "Don't blame me!" She was such a good horse and those were such great days. My cousin finally got a horse and we used to ride every day when school was out! I remember once it came up a big storm and we found an old house. We made for that and jerked our saddles off real fast and took them inside so they wouldn't get wet. We waited out the storm there. She and I used to shoe our horses too, the front feet only! We'd ride all day and carry our lunch in our saddlebags and stop for a picnic.

Sometimes you would be riding through a field and a bird would fly up in front of you. (That caused a few spills when I was galloping and the horse shied!). Then when the bird flew up I'd stop and often find her nest with eggs in it. There was one nest I knew exactly where it was. One day my brother and I were riding. He was riding one of the mules. I took him and showed him the nest with the eggs. He immediatly rode the mule round and round over it to smash the nest and eggs, which he did. I got so mad at him and regretted ever showing it to him. I said, "Well, just what would you do if you were the poor bird and you came back and your eggs had all been mashed up?" He thought a minute and he said, "I'd just lay some more!" Needless to say I never showed him anymore after that!!