Happy Days

Stories about childhood are usually sad, unhappy, abusive tales about children who have overcome some great odds or darkness in their lives to become successful. I have no such tale to tell. My childhood was generally happy and carefree. I was expected to do chores and contribute to family life in a way that meant hard work. (I grew up on a farm!) My parents loved me, I had plenty to eat and no secret emerges from any of my closests. The only sadness in my childhood was that I didn't get to do as many fun things as my brothers. i.e. learn to shoot guns, drive the tractor, play ball on 'real' teams, fight, and so on. I was expected to do girl things. i.e. cook, do housework, learn to sew (yuck, and double yuck) sit in a lady-like manner. I had my own way of rebelling against these sorts of expectations. I shot the gun anyway. (more about that later) insisted on fighting with my brothers (until they were big enough to beat me) played ball, rode horses, baled hay, walked beans, and gave the neighbor boy a bloody nose for good measure. I never really liked being a girl, though things worked out ok as far as that was concerned. Obviously, I adjusted to the idea. Ha! The best thing during those days were my horses. I had 3 of them. The first was a shetland pony named Sparky. Onery animal that only I could ride. The second one was a white gelding named Stormy. He had the sweetest disposition and was the best all around nag a girl could have. (that caused problems later on. Related to the gun incident) The third horse was a part mule part quarter horse named Lady. She was no lady. Only I saw the potential. After she kicked my brother everyone stayed away from her. I was actually the only one who liked them, ever rode them, or took care of them. Consequently I had them all to myself whenever I wanted. In the summer I rode every single day, and did nearly the same in the winter. The best smell in the whole world was horse smell. My mother might have complained about stinky clothes, but I thought they were great! There were wonderful lazy evenings of riding one horse or another down the gravel rode, me laying on his back and staring into the sky wondering what the future held. I tried to read the clouds, as it were, to see if I could in any way predict what was ahead. What I should have done was to have held on to those moments for as long as possible. They slipped away much quicker than I had thought possible at the time. But I have a ton of horse stories to tell today. I was living an adventure I didn't realize until I started telling my kids all my horse stories. So this is the introduction to my horse story series. Too bad I don't have enough pictures to go around for every story. Oh well. Hope you're not bored.