Barefoot, Bareback and Footloose

It's a quiet fall evening, no wind, peaceful. I've been reading, got to the place where one of my favorite characters had died, so decided to put the book aside.

Started thinking of days gone by, seems like decades ago now. It was an evening much like this, before we had adopted the boys. I had purchased a beautiful palomino mare for 4-H horse for Stayton, he never really got to know her. She was a well trained and trusted mare. I had gone out and saddled her and rode off across the road onto a neighbor's wheat field. I've had few horses who could be ridden off by themselves without a fuss. I really enjoyed my time riding alone, feeling the movement of the horse, her smell, bobbing of her head with each stride. It was a part of my childhood, a good memory that came back to me. It took about an hour to make the loop, around the edge of the field, down the backside where there was a gully and some water. Usually seen deer and maybe a fox or rabbit. Shannon (the mare) was pretty good about keeping her cool. She didn't care much for antelope, really brought a snort out of her. Most of her riding days had been in arenas and fairgrounds.

As I was thinking about her, my early teen years and my beloved horse, Lady Kay, came to mind. My dad bought her for me for Christmas, paid $68 at a sale barn. She was worth a million to me....all my life I had wanted a horse of my own. To me she was the most beautiful horse ever. I spent every spare moment I could with her, fortunately the winters where we lived at that time were not so severe, so I could get some riding in. I rode mostly bareback, probably didn't have a saddle for awhile. I could swing myself up by just holding on to her mane.

As the weather warmed up, the days getting longer, me and Lady Kay had lots of time together.

Eventually another girl in our rural area became friends (Betty) and we rode like heathens all summer. There was a gravel pit close by, lots of beat out trails from the heavy trucks and equipment and great "seep" holes to swim in with and without our horses. The seep holes were deep pits where the gravel had been extracted and water had seeped in, it was crystal clear and on a hot summer day it was just the ticket for cooling off.

One hot summer day, me and Betty had rode off, down to the gravel pits, and that particular day, we weren't wearing our usual attire, swimsuits under our cutoffs, but boy did that water look great.....no one else around but us, why not? We dropped the reins of our horses, peeled our clothes off, and dove off into the water. We were laughing and whooping it up, felt pretty brazen in our freedom.

I just barely heard the car drive up, grabbed my clothes and was climbing up the embankment to see my stepmom standing there with my horse, demanding what I thought I was doing, leaving my horse wandering around......I don't think she noticed that I had buttoned my shirt inside out. She told me to "get to the house" and drove off.

Betty and I climbed on our horses and headed home, "Barefoot, Bareback and Footloose"

Boy did we ever laugh about that!