Springtime in the Desert....

Ahhh, Utah's beautiful high desert. The smell of sage, the golden plains dappled with sunlight, grasses rippling in the hurricane force winds...

Yeah, it's springtime. The wind is howling like a movie sound effect of howling wind. Everything outside is bent at a comical 90-degree angle. Sometimes, something improbable will cartwheel through the yard. Recently, an entire dog house blew across the back yard. Every toy the neighbor kids have ever brought outside has just flown by my house. A basketball AND hoop...a skateboard AND homemade ramp. Just waiting for one of the kids to blow by now. Heh heh. Kind of looking forward to that, really.

Anyway, the good news is that the weather is not at all constant in the Spring. Yesterday was so lovely, I had to leave work early, due to feelings of extreme wellness. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and I had a date with doom.

You might remember the last time I rode Bailey...it ended with me walking home. Well, I know this is party my fault for not riding him enough, and I've vowed to make up for that by riding the legs off of him every chance I get. And that's what I did yesterday.

Things started out well. So well, in fact, that I became suspicious. Normally when I saddle Bailey, we play this little game where he launches into the sky, squealing and bucking and basically blowing smoke from his nostrils. That's all part of the routine. But yesterday, there was none of that...this made me uneasy. Was he saving his energy for something much worse?

I decided to longe him. This is where you put your horse on a very long lead rope-a longe line-and encourage him to walk, trot and lope in a circle around you. It's a good warm up, and teaches the horse that you control his feet. This is where things got weird. Bailey skipped walk and trot, and basically went straight to dead run at the end of the longe line. Have you ever flown a kite in a hurricane? I think this was like that. One good thing was that he wasn't bucking very much, but I think that's because he was focused on building up speed for some kind of takeoff. Seriously, there were times I was pretty sure he was no longer earthbound.

After a while, it occurred to me that this wasn't doing anything but tiring ME out, so I decided to take a break. The funny thing about Bailey is that, when we're not locked in a struggle to the death, he is extremely loving. So we cuddled for a while. Then I decided to get on.

Nothing happened at first. I guess it rarely does. He likes to lull me into a false sense of security. We got down the road about half a mile before things went sideways. Literally. A distant four-wheeler made Bailey remember he had meant to kill us all, and he exploded into the air, spinning and bolting, and making those troubling squealing/snorting noises I wrote about before.

I got him calmed down after a while. I mean, relatively. He stopped bucking, but continued to basically gallop in place for the rest of our ride. He got a work out, though. By the end of our ride, he was literally in a lather. So when we got home, I rubbed him down with hot water and gave him some treats. We made up and cuddled some more, and agreed to fight again tomorrow.

Remember those cartoons with the coyote and the sheep dog? They're buddies until the work whistle blows, then it's the coyote's job to try to eat the sheep, and the sheep dog's job to, essentially, try to kill the coyote. Then, when the whistle blows at the end of the day, all is forgiven and they're friends again. It's like that for me and Bailey.