It wasn't planned that way. I came to the realization that it made sense for Hope to have a new home. I won't have time to ride her in the next few months, and the costs to keep her were just getting to be too much to handle. If one or the other were manageable, that would be different. But they weren't. So she was to return to the farm where she lived before she came to us.
But there were conflicts, and the trailer she was supposed to ride in was unavailable. She tried, but wouldn't get into our trailer, so that was also not an answer. Having made a tough decision, I didn't want to drag it out any further. So I made the decision to ride her to her new home.
This was a dicey decision to make, for unexperienced me. Neither Mary nor I had been in the saddle yet this year. Neither horse had been ridden this year. Neither of us had ever ridden either horse near traffic, and the approximately 5 miles between our farm and Farm #2 were along some country roads. It was a 2 1/2 hour ride. I wanted Mary to ride along, in case there were difficulties, but I worried about both of us getting into something stupid.
In the end, it was a lovely ride. The weather was good; not too hot, not too cold, not much breeze, cloud cover, so, not much sun. Once or twice we rode along open fields, where the "not much" breeze was magnified and Hope got a little antsy. Twice she decided that she'd had enough of this fun, and decided to turn around to go home. We had it out, and I won. (Yay, me!) There were some dogs. There were some scary (to Hope) cows. In the end, we arrived safe, sound, and healthy. Tired, and little sore, but healthy.
And Hope? She was settled in, nice and comfy. She was even reunited with her last baby, Faith. (See what they did there?) If I had to rehome her, this was a good place. (Faith is on the right.)
1 comment:
What a nice post. Thanks for the smile. (Even though there's a little sadness mixed in.)
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