The Truth

(Photo courtesy of Heidi Stevens)

I have some confessions to make.  I'm 33 years old and have not rode a lot of colts.  I can only really take credit for 2 colts, and in my opinion only 1 of them is anything spectacular.  It has taken me 10 years to get him there.

I lack patience.  I want the cream to rise now!  I'm riding a colt.  His name is "Maximus."  I call him "Max."  He is HUGE.  His size makes me forget he is still a baby.  I want him to do all kinds of wonderful things like stop, turn, and back up.  Which he does sometimes....  He will be 3 on Tuesday.

I don't like the round pen.  I get dizzy trotting in circles.  I'm not good at pleasure riding.  I need to be doing something productive like moving cows or looking for sick calves.

(Photo courtesy of Cara Small)

I don't like cats, but I do like dogs.  The best dog I've ever had was a "Border-Rat" named "Buck."  He was my best friend and went everywhere with me, even school.  When I took a shower in the morning, his little nose was inside the shower curtain so he could see me.  I knew my husband was "the one" when I came out of the kitchen and found Buck cuddled up next to him on my couch.

I don't mind farming.  I actually like dragging meadows and raking hay as long as I can do it by myself.  There is something relaxing and peaceful about being alone in a tractor with my thoughts.  My thoughts and my iPod.

(Photo courtesy of Cara Small)

My favorite place in the world is home.  The place I grew up, where we give directions, not by names of places, but by "remember where so and so shot that buck and it was snowing?"  Where a four-wheeler is for wrangling horses and irrigating, not for cow work, and branding time involves all our our family, friends, best horses, and good food!

My biggest fears include my boys growing up in a place where they can't walk a mile in any direction without seeing another person, feeling tall grass catching their spur rowels as they trot across a hay field late June, or having a green colt hump up with them on a cold morning.