Horsin' Around

Another family trip back to Iowa under our belts.  We took advantage of our last opportunity for Roxwell to fly free.  Bever Park, shopping, Grandma Kunkel’s, fishing, golf cart rides, horseback riding and packing a lamb in our suitcase.

The kids had wanted to ride horses for ages.  Layne was sure he knew how to do it all by himself, which ended up being the case.  My dad has a friend who is super gracious about setting us up with riding opportunities.  He lives on a huge, gorgeous, well kept farm.  A couple times we were able to take them out riding through the pastures sans kids. 

His friend, Doug, has a family full of riders who do rodeo events.  He borrowed a couple of girl scout camp horses that were used to inexperienced riders for the kids.  They were nice, quiet, small animals that gave the kids a great first experience.  I got to ride a perfectly broke horse that Doug’s son uses for roping.

We put Layne on with me first; it was tight in the saddle.  Layne wanted full control of the reigns and confused the heck out of the horse, but didn’t run us into any walls.  He wanted to go faster, of course, but after mere seconds at a gallop he changed his mind.  After this he got on his own horse while Doug walked him around with a lead.  Once Layne was tired of this he got off and lead the horse around on his own, tied it to the fence, then came back to walk him around some more.  When he got back on again, he went all on his own.

Brik was a bit more timid.  He rode with Jarom for a short while.  When the horse started walking faster than him on the lead, he dropped the rope and ran.  We got him to sit with Layne just long enough for a picture.  Brik really shined when it came to feeding the horses grass.  There was also a cat and newborn dogs that they brought out fof the kids to see, but with Brik’s reactions he has been having with cats and dogs, he could only look.

Roxwell was crazy about the animals, screaming and making animal sounds.  He didn’t want to sit on a horse, but he picked up real fast on feeding them grass.  He wanted to crawl under the fence to get closer.  He loved on the cat a little too much and was fascinated by the tiny heads of the dogs.

Nobody got kicked or bucked, so I’d say it was a day better than most.