Here's the past couple of days adventures. I've gone horse back riding twice, and supposedly I will have an official lesson today. The first time out horse back riding it was abudnantly clear that I never should have claimed to have been riding before. True, I've been on a horse, but it was one of those horse tour sort of things, so the horse just kind of follows in line like it's been taught to. As it turns out, you have to tell a horse to go, or it doesn't, and you have to tell a horse to turn, or it doesn't. I slowly got the hang of walking my first time out, and the horse, Celeste, was very patient with me. We tried trotting the first day, which was great fun, and a literal pain the butt. The second day there were 4 of us out for a long ride, with my legs already sore from the previous day. It was a really wonderful ride, and I got to try galloping. This time the problem was more trying to keep Celest slowed down. I have no ability to communicate how fast I would like her to gallop, so she just kind of took off. Fortunately the other predicted this and had made a wall or horse flesh in front of me to help do some of the controlling for me. It's a little frightening being on top of such a big animal with so little real control, but I know within a week it'll be no problem.
We also had an incident where the horses escaped from their paddock into a neighboring field. We had gone out in the morning to look for them and bring them in to eat. they came after loads of calling, and stood around just long enough for us to put on one halter, but then they just took off. When we went and looked for them they led us on a jolly little chase around the neighboring field. Chasing galloping horses is really an exercise in futility. Finally 2 of the 3 were in the correct field, and I managed to approach and bring in the other, which made me pretty proud. It was a pretty fun way to start the day if you ask me.