New Equipment: Mounting Block

Watch that next step. It's a doozy. — Watch that next step. It’s a doozy.

Don’t worry. I won’t get on without help. However, I have to I WANT to get on. Right now, not so much.

The problem, per usual, is Rodney. I suspect I would handle this latest reversal of fortune with far more aplomb if I was not already deeply marinated in frustration. I’ve done the OTTB thing before. Previous Horse was a bigger twit than Milton will ever conceive of being. I was young & stupid, so I plowed ahead.

Back in May 2012, I said “(Another) pasture ornament might just do me in.” [Never Settle] I misspoke. The problem is not Milton’s ornament status. He is not. He will not have Rodney’s career arc. Four years from now, Milton will be a happy working pony, perhaps for me, perhaps for someone else. The problem is the blow to my judgment. What I should have said was, “Another mistake might just do me in.” It has. Being back at this place – for whatever reason – has gutted me.

Thus progress grinds to a halt.

Yes, there are many things that I could do. First, I have to want to. The past four years do not make that easy. Riding the Saddlebreds for the last two years has helped. My stunning slide from first to last this year has not.

I have wandered from the point haven’t I? Now I have a mounting block. When I figure out what I want to do with it, I’ll be ready.

(This started as a simple shopping photo to fill up a post. Then I worried that you might think I was about to lose my mind and leap on. I had no such intention. Milton is wearing boots for lunging. So I added that I wasn’t about to get on to the post. Then the screamy voices in my head started: Why not? What the hell is taking so long? Just get back on the damn horse already …

This is my answer.

It gets loud in here.)

~~~
On the lighter side, a guest gratuitous cat picture:

Ser Pounce. Photo by Elizabeth Stevenson Johnson

For non-horse folks, that’s a box to hold grooming equipment. And kittens.

4 thoughts on “New Equipment: Mounting Block”

The kittens leave me weak. ❤ As for the rest, it will come. I'm rooting for you!

I’d been both wanting to and putting off riding my horse bareback for three years. Late at night I’d find myself leaning up against her while she munched hay in her paddock and I’d think, “Why don’t i just hop on? What’s she gonna do? Where’s she gonna go?” Truth is, “just hopping on” at this stage of the game is well beyond my ability, but that was only part of the problem. What bothered me more was that I hesitated (or reasoned) when years ago I would have glided from thought into action without the slightest hesitation. Then last fall I boarded my horse. One rainy afternoon I had the arena (and a mounting block) all to myself. We stepped up and I slid on bareback. She didn’t bat an eyelash. We walked. We jogged. We even loped, and it was GOOD. All of it. And with no thought required. Gotta Wanna … you’ll get there in your own sweet time.