Just Horsing Around

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I love horses. I probably always have. Even owned two of them when I was younger, but more on that in a minute or two.

There are several stables near where I live, and I pass by them on a regular basis. Doing so always brings back fond memories.

I went for a bike ride this morning. Usually, when out walking or bike riding, I'll start off by heading south, which would take me past the closest stable, but today I headed north. After maybe twenty minutes of riding, I ended up on a road just south of my neighborhood; the stable closest to my house is on this road. It would have made sense to go straight home. But instead, I crossed the street and headed south a little further, passing five people on horses - four in one group, the fifth coming from the dirt road I was about to head down.

"Beautiful day!" enthused one of the riders and I agreed. The group was crossing at the same crosswalk I was, with traffic actually waiting for us. There's usually one car that will fly through the crosswalk, ignoring the flashing lights. Did they all wait because of the line of horses, or because of the waiting police cruiser? Hmmmm...

Down the dirt road, there's a house on the left, moved in about twelve years earlier. On the right side as I headed south, there's a drainage ditch, then part of a group of townhouses, then another stable.



Usually, there are several horses out in the pasture closest to the ditch. But this morning, there were only two. They were both laying in the shade in a dirt patch that horses frequently roll in. Want to see something amusing, watch a full-grown horse rolling on its back in the dirt, kicking all four legs, as it gets all those pesky itchy spots on its back. After a minute, it'll get back off and shake off the dirt, dust rising, before moving on, frequently at a gallop.









But these two horses were just laying there. I watched for a few minutes, wondering whether to be concerned. Were they okay? Sick? They were the only two horses there; were they being quarantined from the horses peering out from the stable? One of the horses looked over with intelligent brown eyes.

I wandered a little farther south, pushing my bike, as the dirt here was too soft to peddle through. But a minute later, I was back, watching the horses.

A man on horseback came along the dirt path. "It always seems strange seeing those two just lying there," he stated. "They're like that every morning." I nodded as he headed off.

Just they, one of the horses stood, as the other rolled over, kicked its legs once, then righted itself.

Heading north, I soon crossed the street, smelling the stable near me before I got to it. Even the smell triggers memories.

As a kid in New York state, I'd taken riding lessons, first at one stable, then another where several of my friends were also taking lessons. One of my favorite horses at the second stable was an older mare named Bionda. We all had our favorite horses to ride while getting our riding lessons.

One evening, as we waited for our parents to pick us up, we talked about what we'd all do that evening; it mostly entailed finishing our homework, eating dinner (we sympathized with a girl who said her mom was fixing liver and onions), then watching The Flintstones. Did it really get any better than that?

Later, when we moved to a little town in Connecticut (Thompson, up in the northeast corner), I bought the first of my two horses. Miss Troy Girl - Missy - was a Standardbred and had raced in her younger days as a pacer. She usually was easy to ride, except when she'd get it into her head that she wanted to pace instead of trot. (Pacing is about the same speed as a trot - slower than a canter, much slower than a gallop - but instead of the right front leg and left rear one going forward at once, followed by the left front and right rear legs, the legs on both side move back and forth at the same time. Not a comfortable ride.)

Then there was Copper Penny, a younger horse who loved to run, a high-spirited one.





At this stable, there'd once been an old horse named Smokey. Frequently, when I'd be out for a run, I'd stop and feed her carrots. It got to the point where she's see me and immediately head over to the fence to see if I had a treat.

Smokey's gone now; she was old for a horse. But there are other horses there, and I enjoy watching them.







I'm sure I'll move from here eventually. And when that time comes, I hope it's near horses.

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A Walk In The Park...

It's been one of those days when things get a little weird. Not bad weird or good weird, just weird. It'd be easy enough to say what all went on, but it would almost sound whiney, and it really wasn't a bad day. Just...aggrevating and...weird. Let's just say it entailed half-hour long phone calls to walk me through computer stuff while listening to my friend Kevin calling on my cell phone about some weirdness he was going through. Let's face it, when one deals with any kind of government agency, no matter how large or small, and computers and paperwork, it's bound to get weird.

So this afternoon, I decided to go for a walk through the nearby park. My son, J., decided to go, too. He grabed my new cell phone that my daughter, M.H., had gotten for me. It has all sorts of features, one of which makes it great for geocaching, something J. has been interested in for a while.

We got to the park, then started heading off in different directions, he toward the horse trails through the woods that I usually use mainly on my holiday walks, while I headed south along a path that I frequently go on. But at the last minute, I detoured and caught up with J.

Turns out, he wanted to check a few spots that the geocache site said were in the woods. He'd never found any of the stuff from the site, but that hasn't stopped him from checking it out, anyway.

We wandered through the woods, both on and off the path, looking for stuff. "What sort of stuff is used for geocaching?" I asked.

"Just stuff," came his response. Sometimes it's stuff in baggies--a pad of paper and pen, a couple of dime-store toys. Sometimes it's stuff that can fit into a film canister. You just never know. But if you find something, you're supposed to leave it where you found it, then, when you're back on the computer, you check in and report what was found and where.

We wandered around for maybe half an hour before heading back. Since it had rained heavily a few days ago, much of the trail was muddy; some of it had huge puddles stretching across it. We finally had to head back, since we really could go no further.

A little way back, I spotted something just off the path and pointed it out to J. "Could that be something from the geocache site?" He checked the phone's GPS and said that there was something nearby on the site.

Turned out what I saw was simply a discarded food container. But a little farther, we spotted a baggie with a pad of paper, a pen, and a few odds and ends. A waterproof camera sat nearby. We opened the bag, saw that the pad had been signed by quite a few geocachers. We signed it - no real names, of course, but as his geocache name "and friend" (me), as well as the date. We opted out of taking any pictures, though. Long story, but we figured it'd be safer that way.

On the way home, we talked about how cool that was, finding the geocache stuff. "I think I want a cell phone like this," J. told me.

All I know for sure is that after a very weird day, a walk in the park was just what was needed.