Well it happened.

I fell off a horse today.

My head hurts a tiny bit. Thankfully I was wearing a good helmet. I knew as the accident was occurring that I was going to bang my head hard on the ground, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it from happening. Whack!

My right side is suffering from a mild pain. I hit my back, just below my right ribs. There are some scratches there, and if I sit down for a while, it’s very difficult to get up. I soaked in a hot bath, and took some aspirin and feel much better.

I noticed when I was brushing my teeth that my right arm is covered in bruises. And I must have also whacked my left hand on something because it's aching a bit.

However, I'm very happy. I’m happy to be intact. I’m happy to be alive.

I went riding with Norman this morning. Somebody else was riding Nicole’s horses, so I took Norman’s wife’s horse. His name is Garob. He’s a lovely white Arab horse. Before we set off, Norman joked and told me that I had to watch out if I turned him to the southeast because he would take off running towards Mecca.

Garob was easy to saddle, and was a joy to ride. He has a very pleasant walking gate which is faster than Tasha’s. He doesn’t mind going down hills. Tasha doesn’t want to tackle them. He doesn’t try to eat while you’re riding. Tasha has the bad habit of fighting you to allow her to eat as she walks.

Norman had to walk his horse, Jesse, down the big hill through the woods behind my house. Jesse has arthritis. But, Garob handled the hill admirably. When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, we sat and waiting for Norman and Jesse to appear. When they showed up, Garob picked up his gate and we trotted down the level lane that crosses behind our farm buildings. I was able to slow him down and stop him when I thought he was going too fast for my skills.

We traveled about two kilometers down this path, and then turned off onto a narrow path that heads back up through the woods. I have never been on this path with the sheep or with a horse. Several times Garob took off running up the hill, and when he would get going too fast for me, I would rein him back.

Eventually, he refused to respond to my heavy reining and went flying up the hill. A fairly thick tree branch was hanging over the trail. I saw it. I tried to push it forward to break it while leaning forward to try and avoid it, with the horse galloping underneath me. My admirable attempt at avoiding catastrophe failed. The branch was too low. It wouln't give way, and I went tumbling over the back of the horse.

In the past week I've been felled by a peach and a tree branch. To hell with gun control, I'm going to start lobbying for Vegetation Control.

My helmeted head and my ancient body hit the ground. Hard. I lay there stunned, wondering if I was alive. Garob ran up the hill out of sight. I tried to pull myself up so Norman’s horse wouldn't run over me when she came around the slight bend; Jesse had also decided to start running when we turned onto the little path so instinctively responding to my deep will to live, I attempted to quickly move myself out of the narrow trail to avoid being trampled to death.

Poor Norman. As he put it, seeing me lying in the path gave him “the shock of his life.” He’s a veteran of World War II so I think he’s exaggerating. I was trying to roll myself out of the path, but I found that impossible to do: because I couldn’t move without great pain, and because there were raised embankments on each side that prevented me from easily getting out of the way.

Luckily, Jesse stopped when Norman asked her to.

I rolled over on my stomach, and slowly raised myself. As soon as I could stand up, Norman told me to mount Jesse. Psychologically, I knew that it was imperative that I get back on a horse, immediately, and I was willing to do this. However, the right side of my body wasn’t ready to mount a horse. So as I tried to pull myself up into the saddle, and then dropped back down, Norman interpreted my moaning and failure to mount as a lack of will to mount. I told him I wanted to get back on; I just needed to walk a bit, to get the “kink” out of my side. We walked up the hill. I led Jesse, and Norman walked ahead with the intention of finding Garob.

But Norman is eighty years old, and he was running out of steam as we walked up the steep hill. We stopped in a meadow for Norman to catch his breath. I was worried that Norman would have a heart attack and I didn’t quite know how fast I could get out of there to get help. I didn’t even know exactly where I was: whether it would be faster to go up the hill or back down the hill to get aid. We soon heard the thundering of horse hooves approaching. It was Garob returning to the scene of the crime. He was apologetic the way a horse can be apologetic, rubbing his head against my body, easily letting Norman take his reins, willing to be led, no trouble at all.

We continued our trek back up the trail winding through the woods. We walked, because we didn’t know if we’d encounter any more low hanging branches that wouldn’t break off. (The trail is owned by a Dutchman who is only here a few weeks a year, and he keeps the trail closed. So it isn’t used a lot; hence, there is a high possibility that the branches might be hanging dangerously low for horseback riders. We only thought of this after the accident.)

When we arrived on a wide, better-traveled trail, I managed to get back up on Garob. He walked slowly the rest of the way. I know he was repentent.

Lessons Learned:

1. It’s great to be alive.
2. If your horse is not responding to your rein commands, pull his head sideways as if you are trying to turn him. Reining back and yelling “Whoa” (and this was a horse that understands English) doesn’t always work. Especially when the horse is galloping.
3. Always wear a helmet when riding a horse. I think I’m going to get a bike and a ski helmet now.
4. If you fall off, get back on the horse immediately.

Norman’s wife and I plan to go riding this coming week. If I can walk. I’ll take Garob again, even though it’s her horse. (Did I mention that he’s a really TALL horse?) She’ll ride her husband’s shorter horse, even though she’s six feet tall. It’s very kind of her to go out with me. She hasn’t been riding much. She says it’s because her helmet and boots were burned up in their house fire this spring. But when Pamela isn't within earshot Norman claims that she doesn't ride any more because she was spooked when she fell off while galloping on one of Nicole’s horses. I think Pamela is seventy years old. The fall shook her up and made her think that she was getting too old to ride.

When I was pulling myself up from where I had fallen, Norman said, “Well, this will be good for Pammy. She’ll see that it wasn’t because she of her age that she fell off.”

I’m glad I can be an inspiration to people!

Enjoy breathing today!

(Oh, and we were heading towards the northwest . . . not towards Mecca when this happened.)