It's All in the Delivery

Dewey's Nemesis. Effing Fed Ex. If you're a rider on a young tall horse, and you're riding next to the road, Fed Ex will find you. Fed Ex will test your skills at staying on and controlling your horse when he turns and tries to run the other way. I don't know if Dewey got a bad package once. A letter bomb. Some sort of hate mail. Because when he sees Fed Ex he knows DANGER. Fed Ex has the biggest, whitest, rattliest trucks on the road. Fed Ex is not going to slow down. They are Federal EXPRESS. They are in a hurry. Young thoroughbreds do not enjoy a big rattly white monster coming at them at 45 miles an hour on our road. I always put my cowboy blinders on and scan the road for the white monster. The delivery hell. Delivering me from my spinning and terrified horse to the hard ground. I keep a watch. You can hear me mutter, out on the trail, when I see it coming. F**cking Fed Ex... And turning my horse into the nearest driveway or getting off and making space. Dewey can do space between him and the evil. Just can't do bearing down, rattling, speeding, white vision of hell. We never wave at FedEx.

On the mountain, with Fed Ex at a safe distance, Dewey thinks. Someday. I will get a delivery I like.

Saddle Up

So I got a new old saddle for $150 bucks after selling my Aussie saddle since it was too wide for Dewey anyway, and I like to switch things up. I decided a Big Horn half synthetic saddle could be my western lightweight alternative, and it's been fun to try. I like to worry about the saddle fit, and then make the blanket match the saddlebags (I guess I am a girl in some ways), and I like to take Dewey out for the nice walk through the neighborhood trail because it's quiet and no one is talking to me and I see birds flying and I get to test my skills if Dewey gets nervous. But either turning 8 is making him mature, or we've just been lucky the last few months, because Dewey is becoming a laid back guy. He'll do whatever I ask, he's seemed to stop throwing in the occasional buck and stopped being wary of things. Now if he's worried about something on the path, he'll stop and we'll both look at it and then we'll keep going, or I'll get off and walk him past it, or we'll just give it a little more space so he feels comfortable. The riding is giving me a place to put all the stress of summer. The kids have only been back in school for a week but I'm still dumping all the activity and food preparation for those two months of sunup to sundown service out on the trail. I've been too tired to actually do the big trail that requires walking over a huge hill to get there. It's the more beautiful trail, it has water and large empty space. For now I'm just doing an hour ride a day, walking around trying out the different saddle. Letting my mind wander. I will get back to writing and doing work. Getting to ride Dewey is the one place I don't have to do anything else except ride Dewey, and contemplate things.

Saddle Up

Sold my Aussie saddle, and going to try a big horn synthetic western saddle. We'll see. Just wanted something lightweight that I can climb on and off on trails and won't kill my butt or his back. Kids going back to school and then I'll be working too so do I ever actually get to ride? Maybe my riding is less than I want, but I do GET to ride, and I get to have this tiny farm and the future hopefully will be more time on a porch sitting and looking out at rolling green hills. Dewey has still managed to get out every other day mostly, even in this busy summer. But it will be nice to spend a little more time less harried and slower. Horse time is stolen time.

A Road Less Travis

Did I mention the sheep is a pain in the ass? Dewey loves the sheep. No sheep, he seriously freaks out if Travis is somewhere out of his eyesight. So Travis doing his job. Filled the job of best friend. Company. If Travis is laying by the fence, a cottony lump at rest, Dewey is standing near him, head lowered. We used to have sheep here that ran away if you looked at them. Travis is more the bust into the barn type. If you come out to the barn, he comes running over. If you open a door, he says thank you, I will go in first. He's like a hundred pound hunk of solid wool bashing into everything. He is a ram. His style is knock it over, ask questions later. He would kill for hands. As it is, if he wants to break into something, he knocks it over, paws at it, attacks it basically with his face. But if I get him out of the chicken house, let's say, where he has escaped and is ransacking it like he's on the SWAT team, all I have to do is grab the top of his wooly neck and he comes along with me peacefully. Like hey, where ya been. Sure I'll go. Sorry. Sorry I made this huge mess. Just foolin around.