The weather got cool enough to drive pretty quickly and I have been driving in lessons consistently with not all that much ground work in between. To date, I have hit only 4 small bushes and gotten us stuck into one large bush (thankfully, Cayanna pulled us out of that one with no problem!). It is a lot of fun, driving, and when we went to the Christmas party, there were several horse drawn carriages and Laurie wanted to know if I could drive her in any of them. :) Not too long ago, my lesson was extended to a hour and a half instead of just a hour. I learned to drive while Cayanna trots, which was a lot of fun and exciting. One of the ground lessons that we did do was letting the horses out to play. I'd never seen a horse lay down and roll around in the dust before, and it was so much fun to watch them buck and run and interact together. I also didn't know that horses fart while they buck around, which was pretty funny. I've learned safety stuff and just barely touched on how to walk a horse on a lead rope around the barn. I've learned almost all of how to tack up Cayanna for driving and all the names of the equipment. I've also fed chickens and looked for eggs, cleaned tack with saddle soap and various other fun horse care things. I also learned that you should not drive with your cable needle tucked behind your ear because, "You might end up spearing your head on it like an olive." (I now check before I put my helmet on for that cable needle...)
I arrived at Camelot this passed Wednesday, after the winter break excited to be back with the horses and people there. When I arrived, I saw Tammi, a volunteer and student in the barn and I didn't think much of it. Michelle and I talked in the conference room and I showed off the pictures of Paul that I had brought with me. Shortly thereafter, we headed out to the barn, to which I was told there was a surprise. Honestly, I'm not sure what I thought the surprise was going to be - definitely not what it ended up being. As Michelle lead me out, there was an unfamiliar horse tethered to the railing. Not Cayanna but Nick, the horse that was picked out for me to ride.
Me - a rider!
It had to have been the greatest surprise I could have thought of and I couldn't believe it! Even as I groomed and helped tack him, I couldn't believe that the day had come that I was going to actually ride a horse. I was excited and nervous at the same time - what if I really couldn't do this? Would my dream of riding out on hiking trips with Laurie and doing the rim to rim trail at the Grand Canyon die right now?
It didn't. I rode and I relaxed a bit - turns out in the handful of times that I have ridden horses, I'd been doing it all wrong! I learned to use my body to tell Nick what I wanted of him, stopping was the hardest. But most of all, I rode and I didn't fall off and I wasn't so tired after all of it that I collapsed into bed for a week. Yesterday, my legs and core where happily sore. Not so sore that they ached but enough that I noticed they were there.
I'm so incredibly happy that this has happened. I thought that I would be driving all season and maybe was hoping to try riding next season, but Mary and Michelle apparently had been plotting and it was a total gift for the new year. I must have hugged them both three times I was so happy and excited! I plan on taking my camera on Wednesday and seeing if I can get some shots of me riding Nick. My dream is coming true and I don't even have words to describe how I feel or how it felt to be up on top of Nick's back, looking down on the world, walking around an arena and leaving the wheelchair far behind. There are just no words.
Here is Nick's page off of Camelot's website. :)
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