Relax, only the” line” applies and it turned out good. I’m alive to write the story!
The iPhone “Weather” application said it was going to rain at noon and keep on raining today. I called my riding buddy. “She-who-will-remain-nameless” assured me that it would not rain and riding today will be really fun.
Why I believed her, I will never know. I had HOPE!
I rode Nova and “She-who-will-remain-nameless” rode Velvet. We were zipping along coming upon a small lake. Before you could cook a goose, up came two geese from the dam, hissing and honking while running into the lake. The horses came to a halt and we all stared at the geese. But, they were being chased by a fox. What we really saw were the outraged geese and a fox chasing them. The fox gave a hard stare at them and then another growling hissing noise erupted from the tiny island in the lake. It was a blue heron making his scary noise. I’ve never heard a scary noise from a blue heron before. All of us (horses and humans) were darn amazed at this entire drama. Nova led the way down the side of the dam. She was very careful as there had been a predator leaping about. But we negotiated the tight trail including the pipe with pouring water and the mud goo.
We came up the other side and saw the geese again swimming in the lake. Then we saw the four tiny geese babies! That fox was trying to catch him a goose baby! I wondered why a fox would take on a goose that was twice his size. But a baby goose would make a great meal. There were four baby geese and they were alive!
About 10 minutes later the non-promised rain started up. We came to the farthest lake in the park and I was all for taking the quickest trail back to the park. “She-who-will-remain-nameless” argued that a medium quick trail might be OK. At that moment the rain had slacked up and I agreed. Off we went by the side of the lake to the medium longest trail.
I could hear some Velvet leaping behind me sounds. Usually Velvet doesn’t move when she spooks. Then a voice rang out, “Stop, Susan Stop! Stop Susan! I wondered what the heck was wrong with Velvet. But it was not Velvet who was in danger. It was Nova and I!
Nova and I came to a stop and were told that a fish line had wrapped itself around Nova’s back leg.
“Scream!” I said silently.
I looked around and there was a pickup in the parking lot. It was a pickup mounting block! Thank Goodness as I can’t mount my horse from the ground.
I did an quick dismount. The fish line filament line was thin, long and looped. It was also dragging a stick with a root. That’s what Velvet got excited about. There was a stick jumping up and down from the ground in front of her. Nova was dragging the filament line with the stick caught in it!
Nova didn’t react at all with the fish line around her foot or the pop-up stick. I am very grateful for the million of hours we have spent in desensitizing, especially with ropes around her feet. Because of that, I’m not injured or gone to horse heaven!
Nova stepped out of the fish line and I threw it in the trash. The pickup owner was out of sight, fishing. I borrowed the truck’s trailer hookup “step” to mount my horse.
Nova, she’s worth more than my weight in gold!
We sped back to the trailer while I was getting colder and colder on my arms. I learned that “She-who-will-remain-nameless” was wearing long underwear and three other layers. I was wearing a sweatshirt and a CNN raincoat light jacket. It was wet, cold and forty seven degrees!
When I got home and took off my rain jacket, my sweat shirt was wet on my upper arms. My raincoat leaked! No wonder my arms were cold!
Good GAD! Oh the suffering.
It was really really cool watching that fox chase the geese!