Flashback Friday

I have very few pictures of me on a horse. But growing up I rode horses all summer long. Me and my friend Julie would spend summers at my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Peni's house on KL Ranches. We would ride almost every day. In the picture below, I'm still not on the horse, but my favorite horses are in the picture. Left to right: Blaze, Sandy, Sooner. Sooner was the horse I would ride. She got her name because she "sooner" be home than out!! Julie and I aren't actually on the horses, we're the ones on the ground (I'm in the tan pants) letting the little ones have rides). Anyway, she was a good cow horse and was the one I always rode during the round ups when we took the cows up to their summer pastures, or brought them down for the winter. The following is an excerpt from my journal dated March 19-27, 1976 entitled Spring Vacation. It tells a story of my and the horses:

On Monday we went to Jackie and Don's and Bruce and Billyie Joe in Washington. Kylene got the croop on Monday night so we went home on Tuesday if we'd have gone home on Wed. we could have been killed in a car wreck. So then I went to Edie's and we had fun. On Thrusday, we went to the movie "No Deposit, No Return". It's a neat movie, then Grandpa and Grandma came to get me on Friday and we came to Pendleton to get Julie, Rob and Randy, then we went to Pilot Rock and on to Denny and Peni's ranch to help brand and Julie, Denny and I went up the creek on horses and herded the cows but we had to leave them at the gate. We left at 1:00 and got back at 8:00 pm. The next morning we went back with the horses in the truck and we went up the creek and up a little hill. The truck started sliding back down and Sandy's reins broke and he slid out and broke the door and went right on out into the creek. So I got out to hold Sandy and then Sonner's saddle horn got stuck and Denny had to pull her out by the reins and she cut herself between the legs and it was bleeding then Blaze went to the top of the pickup and fell back and out. Her hind leg was super bad, it was bleeding like heck and then she went to the top and fell back and cut her hind hoof and it was bleeding kind of bad. But we had fun anyway!

So funny to read back over what I wrote. Just to clarify: The people in Washington were my Aunts and Uncles (My mom's sisters and their husbands). My sister Ky ALWAYS gets sick on trips and this proves it started at a ver early age (she wasn't even two yet). I don't know why we might have been in a car wreck, if I remember correctly, there was a terrible accident on the highway the day after we left! Edith (Edie) is my dad's cousin, my second cousin but we are the same age, so I would spend a lot of time during the summer with her. She lived in the same town as my Grandparents. The horses fully recovered from their injuries as we rode them for many more years to come!! (Carol, aren't you proud of me for including a journal entry!!)



I was 11 years old when this entry was written.