Sunday, November 05, 2006

Coons, Trees, Sore muscles, Big Butts, & Cheaters!

First, the "coon".. our first night here one of the guys wanted us to try his "barbecue". It was Raccoon meat with barbecue sauce and sweet potatoes. Despite the automatic Eeeeew factor, we all tried a bite and it was edible. It might have been better if I liked barbecue sauce at all, but I don't! They are big hunters around these parts. I told Bri & Dori you should at least try new things before you say you don't like them.. I had to eat my own words!
We have ridden different horses since we got here. One of the horses I have been riding is Missy. She can be a handful, but likes to run. The first time I got her up to a good canter we had made the horses turn back down the main trail. They wanted to head back to the barn, but we were more stubborn than they were.. or so I thought! Missy let me enjoy my run, had me feeling pretty confident, until she took a hard left right into the trees! Thank goodness I am short and I yanked back hard on her reigns. I ducked and missed being knocked out of the saddle. I also made her go back down the trail and we did it my way. You can still see her hoof marks in the clay where we did our "brake check"!
Needless to say we have used muscles our body forgot we had. I have faired better than Bri & Dori, but had a few sore spots too. So we made use of a new service you can call out for here at the ranch... a masseuse! Brianne had her first massage, and is now hooked. Dori & I are already among the addicted, so we all enjoyed the chance to relax. We met an older gentleman here visiting from Germany, Christoff, who was quite surprised we would get a massage from a man. In Germany they are done mostly by women. He teased us before he left this morning about ruining our massage by going riding again. He was headed to Nashville for the next part of his trip. I got him the info for the Opryland Hotel and once he heard they also had a golfcourse he said he would be staying there. I hope he enjoys it and has Godspeed and safe travel home.
Now I bet you are intrigued by the Big Butts title...well.. they have Percheron draft horses here. Dori has been riding Stella. So Brianne & I asked if we could ride one as well. They let me ride Marge, and they got Trudi out of the pasture for Bri. Boy do they make me feel small! When we were all ready to ride the girls from the stable, Marei & Connie, came out with their cameras and asked if they could take pictures. Most people won't ride them because they are so big and intimidating so they hadn't had all 3 out at the same time before. They even took pictures from the back of the horses. We had been joking.."does this saddle make my butt look big??", well on those horses nothing looks big! They were great to ride, quite different from the average horse. They want to use the pix for their website and calendar.. hopefully not the "butt" shots.
We have been falling asleep by 9:30 every night..and getting up before 6 am! The cool country air, riding horses 4 hours a day, the huge meals, and the quiet here at night are all very conducive to sleep. I wake up after a couple hours, but don't want to wake up the others, so I stay in bed and usually fall back asleep for awhile. Then I lay awake and wait til I hear someone else awake, then we get up and go get hot tea and wait for breakfast. Tonight we are up late! We played cards after dinner. We were playing Go Fish after we played Rummy. I took a bathroom break and when I got back we played Spoons. Dori and Brianne hatched a plan to cheat, but Dori got flustered when she heard me coming out of the bathroom and dealt the "cheatin" cards wrong. So at the end when Brianne lost they spilled the beans and we laughed so hard we almost wet our pants.
We head home tomorrow after our morning ride. It has been great. I haven't felt so relaxed in so long. I wish Brian enjoyed riding more. I had tried calling him from out on the trail today and Bri & Dori got the horses running without warning me and I almost dropped my phone! It was the first time I took it on the trail. The Brats! I am looking forward to coming back in the spring with Brenda. We missed you girl! Thanks to Greta and Randy for taking the kids for the weekend! Thank You to Chad & Brian for holding down the fort at home. I will post pix tomorrow night!

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