TST: Hunters?!

Can't believe it's that time again.  Actually, it's not, as I'm scheduling this post in anticipation of losing posting time during NaNoWriMo, but let's just pretend it is.  Head on over to Once Upon A Miracle to link up to share your dirty laundry best stories.  Those of you who love to laugh at my expense (it's okay, if I were you, I'd laugh at my expense too), be sure to head over to Mrs Mom's blog for her take on my trichophobia.

Hunters?!



A couple of weekends ago, Mrs Mom and the BrownEyed Cowgirls joined me at the lodge under the guise of working on Estes' feetsies.  In all fairness, her feetsies did get worked on, but we had all that free time on our hands and decided to go for a ride.

Picture shamelessly stolen from BrownEyed Cowgirls

You notice how we're all wearing orange?  And you see that pumpkin riding on the elk colored horse (Ranger)?  Yeah, I'll go for the orange over-kill when riding a horse that may or may not look like an elk to a lazy hunter.

We loaded up on the orange just in case there were hunters still on the mountain - it was cold cool and overcast; perfect hunting weather.

We were enjoying our ride, exploring the mountainside and giggling like a bunch of, well, girls.  LT, Meg and Mrs Mom rode up a hill to check out an abandoned mine shaft; Compass and I waited at the bottom for them.  They rode up, looked, and began to ride back down.

BANG! a shot rang out from fairly nearby - just the other side of the meadow where we'd just posed for our picture.

Now, Bill described how to make a fist with one butt-cheek to stay on Ranger a couple of weeks ago.  He may have described it, but I demonstrated it.  Ranger does. not. do. guns. 

Let me repeat that: Ranger. Does. Not. Do. Guns. Ever.

He snorted, grew about ten feet, and bounced a couple of time.  I forgot I had a hair phobia and grabbed on to his mane with both hands, while simultaneously perfecting the butt-cheek fist and grabbing onto Ranger's spine.

According to Mrs Mom, Ranger's eyes bugged right out of his head, but I'm pretty sure that she was mistaking them for my eyes.  I puckered up so tight that the anal inversion pushed my eyeballs right out of the sockets.

I'm also pretty sure that the only reason Ranger decided not to bolt after his little bouncing, blow up to ten feet tall, snorting session is that he was afraid of what I would do if he decided to take us for a ride.

It was the longest year of my life, waiting for him to calm down and willing my hands to let go of his mane.  They wouldn't listen.  I had to tell my hands a couple of times to just let go.  Finally, they responded and I worked on releasing my deathgrip on Ranger's back.

Eventually we got it all sorted out and calmed down.  None of us had any errant holes in our bodies or our horses' bodies, which is good.  There was also only one shot, which was good.  We hoped that meant that the hunter had gotten his deer.

Once it was all sorted out, we kind of looked at each other and laughed.  We got all duded up in orange "in case there were hunters on the mountain", but not a single one of us (GunDiva included) actually thought that the hunters might have, you know, guns and would be shooting.

Imagine, hunters with guns.  Huh.  Who woulda thought?

The really good news is that the hunters got their deer; we ran into them on our way back to the lodge and Compass was quick to offer up Eli to pack it out for them.  Talk about a good horse, look at how well he's behaving with a carcass strapped across his back...

Again, photo shamelessly stolen from BrownEyed Cowgirls.