Take Me To The Rodeo!
So…
I said we were getting ready for the little rodeo. Well we went. I wont say it was a disaster. It actually went rather well all things considered. Only because of my husband and our good friend Tanna. My husband said I should ask her to come with. I said no, I wasn’t going to bother her. Why would it be any fun for her to come along and help watch kids for the evening? I didn’t ask. He ran into her at the store and asked if I had asked. Then he called and informed me that she wanted to go and why hadn’t I asked her? I asked. She came and brought her horse Jerry.
Jerry is a lovely little gaited Morgan mare that I started and showed years ago. She has found the perfect home with Tanna and they do so well together. That night she also did a lovely job of ponying Coyote with my small children on him. She has never been at all flustered by arenas and crowds. She was always the exact same horse at a show as she was at home. The same can not be said of Coyote. He was hot and nervous and calling for Rusty when ever they were apart. He was also very glad to see Jerry. They spent lots of time grooming each other and visiting.
Rusty was, as usual in strange, scary places, back to his old self. The way he was when he first came to live with us. He was high headed and nervous. Bouncing off the end of the rope, back and forth, smashing into me and stomping on my toes whenever he spooked. We started off with my son in front of Tanna on Jerry and me leading Rusty and Coyote with my daughter on him. It worked pretty well. The arena has a large parking area, lots of room to let the horses settle down.
I wanted to work Rusty though. My main goal in most things we do 
I handed Coyotes lead rope off to Tanna and got Rusty’s rubber chicken. We played fetch for a bit, then I was going to get on. But. We really needed to get the horses in the arena. I couldn’t just abandon my children to Tanna for her to take care of while I played. My son was having a very emotional night, he could not handle, well, just about anything.
I ended up leaving him tied in the trailer. It seemed like the safest place to let him have the fit he was throwing. I pulled my saddle for its safety and left him with a hay net.
Coyote did settle down and did very nicely for both kids. We couldn’t turn him loose like we did Onna and both kids had to be led the whole time. It would have been funner, maybe ?, if we could have but the kids enjoyed it anyway. I did not. Between children’s temper-tantrums and horses It was more than I could handle. By the end of the night I was feeling rather sick to my stomach and exhausted. And that was with Tanna doing all the work
Things like this make me realize all over again how much we lost when we lost Onna. Without her I’m not sure we are going to be doing as much of this sort of thing. We wont be going to the one next Friday. But horse people are wonderful people and I do have other things I would like to share. This post has gone long enough though…
