I think one day I slept for four hours straight after I got home from school... One day I just spent a lot of undemanding time... Yesterday I rode her... And today I rode her and then played with her a bit.
So yesterday... We started out with approach and retreat away from the other horses. She was a bit nervous leaving them at first, but after a while she got more and more confident to go further. I made sure not to go straight through any of her thresholds. At one point, we were trotting away from the horses again. This time her ears were perked forward, she was moving out into a really nice extended trot, and with bringing my energy up some she went into a nice canter and then a slow gallop. The whole time she was very happy. We were riding straight for the fence, and with just the lift of her reins she brought her butt in underneath her and slid for a few feet before stopping in front of the fence. I gave her a nice scratch and rub. She turned her face to touch my toes and licked her lips with the softest expression on her face. After that, I walked her out a bit to get her breathing rate down and then just sat on her, playing friendly. The whole time I had had my jacket tied (loosely) around my wrist in order to get her used to the sponges I one day hope to be using during Endurance rides... No, not really planning on any competing with a little Quarter Horse mix, but I think it would be fun. Why not?
Today I decided to ride her into the backfield. For some reason I was a bit nervous, something I haven't been for a long time. Instead of hopping on with my nerves, I decided to sit on the picnic table and play friendly. This brought both of our nerves down a little bit. Then I just drove her toward the gait a bit, and told myself that I didn't have to mount- I could just walk up the hill with her and that would be fine. Once we both became calm, I decided to hop on her. At first she didn't want to stand still when I got on, but I kept asking her to stand and getting off, then playing a bit of porcupine and driving. She was soon standing nicely, so I hopped up and just... waited. We started our way up the hill at a nice little trot. I had on my orange vest just in case there were hunters out, but I hadn't seen any. When I got to the top of the hill, I could see trucks off to the right and to the left. I saw a video clip in my head...
Bang. Falling. Her body crumpling. Landing hard, hitting my chin on her neck with the fall. I hopped off quickly and stroked her neck. Her eyes were wide with fear, the whites showing. I looked onto her right side after checking over her left. A small hole was in her right shoulder. It was small, but matted with dark blood. The bullet must still be lodged in there. I screamed out in agony, in fear, in anger at the idiocy of the hunters. Nobody should be hunting out here, especially at this time. Nobody should be hunting on Thanksgiving. Nobody should be hunting this close. Nobody should shoot at anything with orange. But there was no time to be aggravated with the people, as my horse was breathing hard. Hopefully it had not hurt her lungs. Oh, no, don't let it hit her lungs.
After I saw this, you could guess that I had her spinning around and cantering down the hill. She knew that I wanted to go faster, she was wishing to go faster as well with my energy up so high... but I held her back. There was no need to have her possibly fall in a hole or ditch by galloping down a hill over something that hadn't happened-yet. I had heard someone screaming to come back when I was spinning her around, but the voice just registered now. It was a shrill, desperate cry- "The hunters are out! Come back! You'll get shot!" To tell the truth, I wouldn't mind so much if I got shot. What I was worried about was Cherish. If she was shot, I don't know what I would do. If she died, I don't know what I would do. If I was shot, I would either die and it would be over or have a long healing process- no problem.
When I got back to the barn, I hugged her neck. She breathed out heavily, feeling my relief. We were safe here. I took her into the arena slowly and played some friendly just to calm both of us down. Friendly tends to calm not only her down... but also me. Interesting how it works both ways. We played around a bit with the obstacles. The biggest thing was getting her to sideways over the pole.... and then back between a tight squeeze of barrels that were up with only seeing my finger wiggle. We had a bit of fun, and when it started to get dark I decided to put her in the barn. I could smell a storm coming, so I gave the horses some water and hay. All were well, so I turned the lights off, secured the gates... And walked up to the house. A beautiful cloudy sky was above me. Georgia sat behind the glass door, wagging her whole body for her lack of tail. Today, for Thanksgiving.... I decided to be most Thankful for my animals, and for all of the close calls that never got close enough to be destructive.
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