Probation

Jupiter is "feeling his oats"! We had another rodeo on Saturday. He scared the crap out of me and I screamed bloody murder. Then I yelled at him to "knock it off," "stop it," or just plain "doggone it"! Somehow, "WHOA" never seems to the word that comes out of my mouth. (: Thankfully he recognizes the tone, I guess. Toni said he had all four feet off the ground at one point. I had one foot in a stirrup, because the other one had broken when he scraped us along a fir tree to avoid the deep mud. Oh, and now both my reins are tied in with a shoe string and zip tie respectively. Having no stirrup taught me how to use my thighs like I'm supposed to, versus putting too much weight in the stirrup. Anyway, I don't know if he got stung and that's why he put on a show--Brady and I have had bees there before, but once again we were the entertainment.

Earlier in the day I used my reins to lace his behind when he continued to reach out to eat poison oak, you know like Lynn does to Ziggy every little while, and like how Shirley says to lace him a good one when he starts to buck--uh-huh--guess what happened? He humped up and got ready to give it right back to me. He has authority issues just like me. The only thing is, I AM his authority and we are getting that straight! So how does it happen that we get horses (and dogs and cats) that have similar personalities to ours? (I am sure the women I got him from would say it was my fault--it's true: he was pretty perfect when I bought him!)

Sunday morning I told him nobody would ever love him more than me, but he was on probation and if he didn't behave, he would be headed back to Springfield and dropped off. (Lynn corrected me later and said it was Roseburg.) Nevertheless, he behaved the entire ride. No eating while we were walking, no rodeos. I think maybe he was worried because he didn't know what Springfield meant. Ha!