Riding Again (with Modifications)
We’ve established. I’m not proud. I will accomplish what I have to, when I have to, and it doesn’t have to be pretty.
I’ve hauled and Hunted three consecutive times now in a row. And I am planning to again this coming Wednesday.
I must have some muscles left. I know this because whatever is left of my phantom musculature is screaming and whining………………..but that’s a good thing………………………it has to be…………..(?) Throwing in the towel is not an option.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger…………………Right?
Who said that? It better not be Uncle Bob. ‘Cuz I feel like smacking Uncle Bob right about now.
At the suggestion of our mail-lady (who apparently was a barrel-racer in her youth), I’ve fashioned a mounting-block-ladder, which can adhere to the side of my horse trailer. It’s a standard wooden step-ladder, well, one side of it is anyway. The other side was conveniently smashed into smithereens by my younger daughter’s first horse, a Suffolk Punch named Ginger. For some reason Ginger decided to crush/mangle/& mutilate an innocent ladder which was not put away and left out where she could tap dance on it.
Ginger had actually done me a favor.
I salvaged the remainder of the ravaged ladder and screwed in a couple of those bicycle-storage-ceiling-hook-thingies into the top, then wrapped it with old towels and secured them with electrical tape (so it wouldn’t scratch the side of my trailer).
And Martha, my mail-lady, was right. It does work! She had a great idea. The ladder gets my inflexible joints up high enough to reach the saddle’s stirrup irons (depending on how high I have to climb up the steps). And the ladder won’t wobble and fall (like the last one did after a Hunt———-flopping me unceremoniously underneath Ruby’s belly where I was left staring up at the muddy bottom of her muddy girth, when I was trying to dismount———-fortunately Ruby didn’t move and I was able to log-roll under the trailer and out of the way)…………………you know, not many people know that story. 
I try to keep those stupid antics quiet and secret…………………just my older daughter and I know that one………………….and now my new friend, Pascal (who I named that Cloud-doo-dah that I write my journal to).
This all occurred on the blind-side of my horse trailer a couple of years ago. The rest of the Hunt field was dismounting elsewhere and couldn’t see me…………………so, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
But “this” new modification to the traditional mounting block is great! A bit Red-Neck-looking, but great none the less.
Maybe I’ll bling it up a bit. I’ll cover the rags with gold-lame upholstery material or maybe faux leopard print fur. Maybe I’ll paint each of the steps a different color in shiny enamel.
Plus, I have some cheesy rhinestones I can glue up the sides. I figure if you have to rely on accommodations, you might as well make a statement while doing so and do it with panache.
This last Hunt we spent over two hours in waist-high palmettos……………….keep in mind I’m on a tall horse! Glad there weren’t any kids on ponies in the field.
You couldn’t see the hounds, unless they were porpoising over the palmetto bushes. Otherwise they were invisible. It was like they were little fan-dancers trotting unseen in front of you.
There would be these little palmetto frond fans waving wherever they went. No hounds, just greenery. And LOTS of holes. But again my horses were a little luckier. The size hole that it would take to swallow a Clydesdale’s dinner-plate-sized hoof would have to be a pretty big hole and more easily seen.
Thoroughbreds, not so lucky. They can slip through the eye of a needle.
Don’t tell anyone, but I was secretly pleased that the hounds didn’t get on anything……………………I don’t know how we would have moved safely at any faster speed in that huge expanse of tropical bramble and vine jig-saw.
Did you know that a lot (if not all) of the old, Johnny Weissmueller, Tarzan movies were filmed on this coast of Florida? Yes. Yes, they were. Just up the coast a tiny bit. (And there are still wild monkeys loose up there who can have their family trees traced back to Johnny’s movies).
Well we were Hunting in our own version of a Tarzan movie………………….a herd of elephants could have easily been right at home in this jungle panorama. The activity was minimal (but I was happy———-shhhhhhhhhh). I could just see myself falling off and disappearing in that immense expanse of palmettos.
No one would have been able find me after I hit the ground and slipped under that saw-toothed sea of green.
So, I live to Hunt another day……………….
I just bought another bottle of Absorbine liniment. No, not Absorbine Jr. I ordered the original stuff that’s meant for livestock. I used up my last quart last week……………………….like I said……………………I’m not proud…………………..I’m just sore.
