Get back on

I remember another good farm story. It was right when I was starting to break Ginger. She was doing really well and I thought that she could be ridden by the kids. Nathan was out in the pasture with me and I was working with her. He said that he wanted to ride by himself. (He was only five). I told him that he could if he wouldn't let her run. He said okay and away they went to the bottom of the field. On the way back they trotted and he was having a really good time. He wanted to do it again. I said okay but don't let her get going too fast. This happened a couple of times. Finally, of course on the last trip, He let her go too fast and she started to run. He was hanging on pretty tight, soon he was off the seat and was hanging on to the saddle horn off the side of the horse. He hung on well until Ginger jumped the ditch and off he came. It sort of looked like a basketball rolling in the field. He didn't get hurt too bad. He didn't want to get back on the horse again for quite a while. Quite some time later a finally talked him into getting back on Ginger. I told him that if he didn't let her run he would be just fine. That was a dumb thing to say. Away they went across the yard and into the garden. There isn't anywhere else to go once you get into the garden so she had to stop. It was just a little too quickly and off he went into the tomatoe patch. He didn't get hurt, didn't ever want to ride again for a long time. Poor Nathan he didn't have too much luck. One time we went into the mountains on a scout camp to flash mirrors from one peak on the mountain to another. We used Cookie to carry the mirrors. She was really young and hadn't been ridden very much. On the way back to camp after the mirror activity Nathan wanted to ride Cookie so that he wouldn't have to walk so far. He got up onto the pack saddle and put his feet into the paniers with the mirrors. As we started away the mirrors started to raddle and make a lot of noise. The more noise they made the faster Cookier went. The mountain was really rocky. Pretty soon she started to buck. I prayed in my heart that he could hang on long enough to get to a soft spot. He did and then off he went, head first right into the dirt. No rocks thank heavens. When I got to him there was dirt stuck in his braces in his teeth. It looked sort of funny. He complained that his arm was hurting. We still had another day of the camp and it was too late to go home that night. He toughed it out during the night and the next day we went home. We took him to the emergency when we got home and sure enough his arm was broken. Scout camps never were very good on Nathans arms. I will alway enjoy the memories of that trip and the special time that I had with Nathan fishing and riding and just being together. Thank you Nathan for your special spirit I love you. Dad