Horse Stories in the Country

My four boys were in the habit of listening to stories on the radio while I was making dinner. They listened to The Lone Ranger, Red Ryder and Sargeant Preston.

These were exciting Western adventures and usually featured horses.So when we moved to the country, they were ready for their own horses and I began to acquire many horse stories!

We finally saved up fifty dollars and my husband went to a horse trader and came home with our first horse. Jim.

Now all horses have some fault and the trader never tells you what it is. It turned out that Jim's fault was that he was head shy. Any movement near or around his head would send him galloping away.

The boys soon learned to be careful and not make any quick moves or they would have a wild ride!

I thought that they should learn to ride bareback and then we would invest in a saddle. But my husband's employer thought that was mean of me and so he gave us one of his saddles. The boys were delighted!

Lady

She was not head shy, but she did not like to be caught when she was in the field and sometimes it took a loooooooonnnnnngggg time to catch her.

She was quite adept at avoiding being caught and saddled. However she was gentle (once caught) and we could let visitors ride her because she always behaved like a Lady.

Cricket

One of our close friends had a five gaited horse named Cricket and asked if we would board him for her. In return we could also use him for riding.

Cricket was smarter than the other horses and his fault was that when he would go about a mile on the trail, he would suddenly be limping and have a hard time going along.

When we would take him back to the field and remove the saddle, he had no limp and would gallop away in the field. He was always able to trick us into taking him home.

At this time we were using an accountant in the city to do our taxes. I listed income and expenses and sent the information down to him.

The owner of Cricket paid us $100.00 a month for his board. So I listed the amount we received for boarding horse.

The accountant,who was a city person, called and said "What is a boarding horse?"

We had a good laugh over that!

Cricket was also smart in other ways and unless you wired the fence closed, he was able to open it easily and escape.

Moe

But there came a time when the white mule (Moe) was too much work so guess what….you are right, he came to our Country Home!

Now we kept Moe by himself in a paddock in back of a building we had. Everyone would try to ride him.

He was fine for a few minutes and then he would race towards the fence of the paddock and stop and whoever was riding would be thrown over the fence.

This was a great source of merriment to the boys and many a friend had a “ride on Moe.”

Pinocchio and Brighty

So I went to a horse trader to see what I could do and he offered to trade me a donkey and a burro for Jim.

I thought this was a good deal.

I didn’t know what faults the donkey and burro had but I knew Jim’s fault and I didn’t tell. So the deal went through.

Pinocchio was very vocal and we could hear him “hee-Hawing” many times. He was also addicted to eating and the only way he could be ridden was to take hay and attach it to a long stick and hold that in front of his face and he would start to walk toward it and eat. Otherwise he merely sat if someone climbed on his back.

Brighty was named for the story of the burro in the Grand Canyon. And he was cute…. No one rode him but he was sort of like atmosphere to just have around.

Horse trip or Horsecapades

The older boys rode the horses…Lady and Cricket over to the new farm which was about two miles away.

I drove the truck and the other children sat in the back holding the leads of Pinocchio, Brighty and Moe and we slowly…..and I mean slowly..... made the journey to the new farm.

It took a long long time.

The following day was my birthday and I was awakened by the sound of “Hee-Haw” outside my bedroom window. I couldn’t believe that Pinochio was there for we had locked him in the pasture at the new farm.

When I looked out the window….not only was Pinochio there but Lady, Cricket, Moe and Brighty!

It seems that we had not wired the gate at the new farm and Cricket with his gate opening ability had opened the gate and they had all returned “home."