Friday, July 10, 2020

my wife goes horseback riding almost every day. she's quite thin and the anxiety of this whole covid thing has gotten to her pretty badly. we have four kids left in the house and mostly we concentrate on keeping them safe. they are teenagers and don't really believe that anything will get them ever. or maybe it's more accurate to say they have too many distractions to keep risk abatement in mind.

the horse ranch is four miles away over a remote, rocky, back road which is impassable part of the year. the ranchers get out for groceries only once a month but like it that way. they run an rv park that combines horses and camping, and being way out there the way they are, they are pretty assured that trouble is not going to just sneak up on them.

she tries to take the girls with them but often, very often, the girls have other things on their minds. it seems to me, if i had a chance to keep getting up on a horse, i'd keep doing it. but i'm not them. i can't tell them what they want.

to me the drive out there is the best part. it's just such a remote road, that it makes the remote road we live on seem like main street. we were lucky the time we got a flat way out there because a sheriff who lives out there just happened to come by. it's the kind of road where people don't just happen to come by.

she rides up into the dry mountain country and i'm surprised there aren't more rattlers or something to spook the horses, but apparently they are more used to it than i am. i would say, if you're not packing a lot of padding, and your horse gets spooked, the problem is that you'll land on rocks. i'm sure the thought has occurred to her.

in fact this one wild horse did spook one time, and they had to call a helicopter. when we got the bill it was like fifty thousand. but they have such things covered as long as you can explain how you were way out in the middle of nowhere, actually driving to the hospital would be very risky (involving cattle guards etc.) and really helicopter was the way to go. she says, the view was great, but all i could really see was stars, since i was on my back and had to stay that way.

to her credit she got back on a horse. she's tough. i think she knows she needs it to survive in these tough times. i don't begrudge her some good times way out in the mountains. i worry, though. she's the only wife i've got.

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