Before . . . After

On Thursday we went to the Nefs' house for violin lessons/horseback riding lessons and to celebrate the 24th of July. I teach violin lessons to one of their boys in exchange for Emily taking riding lessons. She is becoming a proficient horsewoman. She runs around with their kids and plays on the horses like a natural.

Since we were having a barbecue and playing around Trent let me ride around on Paycheck. I am not a good horserider though. I was doing pretty well, ie I hadn't fallen off or gotten tangled in the stirrups yet, but then Leila needed diapers from the car that were in a white plastic sack. I rode Paycheck over there and got them and started back. I should have realized that the horse was a little on edge when he didn't turn right when we were heading back from the car and was skittish, but wanting to show that I could handle it I cued him to go into a trot. He instead started to lope and then run as fast as he could towards the fence. I was trying to hold onto the reins and the bag of diapers and wetwipes and couldn't get control. I dropped the bag to try and get a hold of the reins and get him to slow down. The second the bag dropped past his vision he started to kick, buck and really run! I remember thinking that I was going to jump off, but before I could formulate a plan for how to do that without getting hurt, I was flying through the air. I landed on my chest and leg. I couldn't breathe and everything ached but I was fine. Actually I hurt more today than I did then because I got up, tried to take a breath for some very long seconds and then got back on the horse.

Trent showed me what I was doing wrong - mostly everything, especially the panicking. The other thing he told me is that Paycheck freaks out about plastic bags. The sound they make sets him on edge and when I dropped it and he saw this white fluttery thing out of the corner of his eye he panicked. We rode around for a few minutes and I was happy not to break anything. My ribs are tender on one side and hurt if I breathe too hard or lift my left hand, and I will have some good bruises on my legs. I am just glad I didn't get hurt.