Grampa's stories #3

Welcome back to Grampa’s stories. Now for a change of pace. 

I grew up in Salt Lake City. We had a big yard, were members of a swimming club, and pretty much had all the friends and things you could ever want in the city. But my mom decided moving to start a small family farm was part of our future. We were all excited about that at the time. When we first went down to Castle Valley to see the land, nightfall was fast approaching. We stopped at the sales office and were told we could set up camp near the old homestead at the bottom of the valley.  It was dark by now, and we found bats living in the old cabin, so we chose to place our sleeping bags under a canopy of trees. Exhaustion soon overcame anticipation, and we quickly drifted off to sleep.

Morning came quickly, and when we awoke, a herd of horses had wandered carefully into our camp and surrounded us. They sniffed our sleeping bags, and snooped around curiously. This was brand new for us, and the horses seemed gigantic when we awoke and saw them from our sleeping bags. They were as interested in us as we were in them. The horses remained calm until we started to get up, then they galloped away. The children were all elated. And although this encounter with the horses was brief, little did we know it was just the beginning of many hours of fun and excitement with them.

Later on, Gregg and I made friends with the animals using hay or an apple and would slowly mount a certain horse by cautiously pulling ourselves atop the animal by grasping the mane and jumping across the withers of the back. Now, when you visualize our mounting these horses, if you picture the Lone Ranger and Tonto leaping to the backs of their stallions and riding off into the sunset, you would be mistaken. I usually couldn’t jump high enough to swing my leg over on my first try. So after my initial attempt, I would lie on my stomach, perpendicular across the horse’s back and try to lift my leg over without upsetting the horse or startling the others. If I made too much of a racket, the herd would start running, and we would have to bail off before the stampede got moving too quickly.

When things went right, we sat high and proud on the backs of our favorite horse, and the rides were the fast and exciting. Sometimes the horses would trot. That was pretty bumpy with us tossing up and down, especially without reins or a saddle. Remember, we were riding bareback, so staying atop the horses was a challenge. But eventually we would get them galloping. That was the ultimate because their rhythm and speed made the rides pleasant and exciting. Their natural desire to run got them galloping up the valley. Again, for our own well-being, we bailed off before the herd got running too quickly. But for a brief, thrilling moment, we had tamed the West, and all our hard work and preparations paid off big time.

We thought our horse riding days were the best of times--we were so right.

Finding our dream