(Press the lower left forward arrow to play the slide show.)
Most of the pictures in the slide show are of daddy in the mountains guiding a trip that was written about and published a year after I was born.
My memories began sometime later, when I was five. Mama and Daddy worked at a resort at the base of the mountains you saw above. I remember living in a cabin at the resort. My memories of this time are starting to fade some so I can only tell them as I remember them now. I guess that is the way things really were.
One of my favorite past times was laying in the wooden oat bin with the lid closed eating the horse feed. Sounds funny, but it tasted like oatmeal. The horse I liked best was Sugar Babe. I'm not sure why I liked her -- maybe it was her name. Once when my brother and I were both riding bareback Sugar Babe and his horse started fighting. Just one of a number of things Mama had to rescue us from.
The corral at the resort was filled with horses and mules. Some of the mules were jacks. I'm sure my mom can still hear me screaming in her dreams due to one of my encounters with the jacks. I was standing in the corral, barefoot of course, gently rubbing the fuzzy nose of a giant mule. Suddenly, I began screaming at the top of my lungs as the mule stepped onto my toes. I loved this old mule, and I think he loved me, but he was on my foot. As I screamed louder and louder the mule began to feel sorry for me and nuzzled me. I continued screaming and he continued nuzzling, wondering what was wrong with me. Finally, Mama came to the rescue, again.
My brother, sisters and I used to ride along on the trail too. When daddy would throw me up into the saddle he would say, "Hold on to that horn, tight." Then I would wrap my little fingers around the horn with my thumbs on top. One ride out the horses got scared and began to run. They usually walked in a line one behind the other. This day they just scrambled every-which-way. My horse crashed through the woods and through the brush. I did what Daddy said. I held onto that horn, tight. I was not going to fall off. The horses seemed to run forever. Then, suddenly, everything stopped. At first I wasn't sure why. The horse was still under me, but in the panic she had run under a fallen tree. There, wedged between the horn and the tree were my thumbs. I'm not sure who rescued me this time. To this day, my thumb nails still grow somewhat flat and rippled. Later I heard that the lead horse came onto a bees nest. When they started swarming the horses started running.
You think this would have made me afraid of horses, but if you read one of my earlier blog posts, you would have found that my horses and I are still crashing through trees and brush. Mostly by design now. In fact, these earlier experiences gave me a passion for horses. I still love riding fast over and under whatever.
My dad makes fun of me in my English saddle, but I don't care--English, western anyway is fine for me.
