Horsemanship

About a month ago, we took a horsemanship that was taught by our uncle, Don Harrington, that was offered through CWC, similar to the Jerky and Sausage class we took. Not only was our uncle teaching the class, but he was nice enough to let us borrow two of his family's horses for the class. His wife, Tina, was also there to provide some individual lessons, when we were too confused and naive to understand what was going on. One of their sons, Ryan, was there helping to break a colt and their other son, Joel, was there watching and taking pictures.


Heather listening to Don with her horse, Joe.


Me staring at my own horse, Biscuit.


Heather up on her horse and listening to Don before we started actually riding.


Me trotting around the arena on my horse.

We quite enjoyed our two days of learning basic horsemanship. Unfortunately, during the first day of the course, we discovered that I was quite allergic to horses, likely a combination of the dirt, hair, and dander on the horses. The first day was probably the worst since I helped clean and brush my horse before the course started and ended up getting a number of things in my eyes. When I was talking to my mom earlier, she had expressed concerns about me being on horses because my eyes are such that the muscles connected to my eyeballs are stretched and weak and a blow to my head, either from falling off a horse, slipping on the ice, or playing in contact sports, could severely injure me, possibly even blind me. Anyway, my allergic reaction was such that my face swelled up and I got quite a nasty looking rash around my eyes. It looked like I had been in a fight, but I joked with my relatives and Heather that there was now no way for my eyes to pop out with my face so swollen! The next day I made sure to dope myself up with Claritin and some allergy eye drops before going to class and Tina was kind of enough to brush my horse for me. I still felt my allergies kicking up, but they were definitely more under control.

During Thanksgiving, our other Aunt and Uncle (Pat and Pete) on Grandma Elsie's side were up from Elko, Nevada, and are raising mules for their soon-to-be retirement enjoyment. Pete was telling Heather that, if I'm allergic to horses, I still may not be allergic to mules. So maybe we will just get mules for our fields instead of horses. Then we can ride our mules to corral goats. We're already discussing brands. We're thinking W P combined (Watson Pozun) might be nice. :-) Now we just need to see if the brand is already registered in Wyoming.