Is this heaven?!?

It ain't Iowa, I know that.

Not that there's anything wrong with Iowa, per se... although I could live happily without seeing snow again for the rest of my life... but since I was quoting the line from Field of Dreams, I figured I should continue.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes!

Heaven!


Heaven can be found on the back of a mellow Quarter Horse named Joe (who's still sporting his winter fuzz for the time being)... at a ranch west of Gainesville, Texas where they train cutting horses.

I helped.

No, really. I did. A little.

The folks who own this place go to my church, and the wife (Melanie) asked me this morning after worship service if I wanted to come out and ride.

Did I? Are you kidding me?


That is ACTUALLY ME there on the horse on the left. My job was to help keep that little Angus calf moving so that Jeff could work at training his horse to "cut"... which means to keep that one calf separated from the rest of the calves so the cowboys can do whatever they need to do to him (brand, de-worm, de-nut, whatever).

Do you KNOW how happy this kind of thing makes me?

Really, really happy.


Alice also sat on Joe for a while, because he may be the mellowest horse known to man (even though he's relatively young, only about five or so). And she got to ride him for several rounds in the round-pen.

Mister Mellow Joe, the furry bay Quarter Horse.

Oh, and my butt-bones are screaming in pain now. It's a happy sort of pain, of course, but it still hurts. I sure hope I'm able to walk tomorrow. It's not looking promising.



But it was WORTH IT. Oh, yes, it was.