How it started

I am about to drag my husband out of his city comfort zone, and relocate him. He’s a very forbearing man.

We are going to be moving to a 14 acre block of land which is two hours drive from where we live now, and roughly the same distance from the nearest BurgerFuel outlet. The husband has never lived this far away from BurgerFuel. As I said, he’s a very forbearing man.

So, let’s see. This all started with learning to ride at the age of 47. Well, officially it was re-learning, since I had once, about 30 years previously, somewhat possessed this skill. Apparently though the body does not remember.

I took lessons at the local riding school on one of their horses, a 14.2 bay Kaimanawa pony by the name of Summer. After a few weeks in the arena she and I were let loose onto the riding school farm. We bonded over gentle ambles through the bush trails, terrifying (I mean exhilarating) gallops on the home track, and my various falls from her back when her agility and speed exceeded my balance. She was very patient with me.

The reason for the five year plan

The reason for the five year plan

Then came the day when the riding school announced that Summer was to be sold. She’d become unhappy as a trekking pony with a different person on her back every hour, and my riding instructor wanted her to find a human partner she could depend on. I hadn’t really been planning on owning a pony, at least not so soon, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing her again.

I bought her in December 2012 (craftily labeling her as my Christmas present) and life started changing, one cowboy boot at a time.

chrissyb

4 Comments

  1. I would like to observe that the change appeared to be more both boots and a stetson at once rather than one boot at a time. Just saying.

    • Ha, you’re right. It’s hard to hop along in one cowboy boot, and horses are rather life-changing. But for the sake of artistic license… Congratulations, by the way, on being the first person to comment on the blog.

  2. I’ve just started reading through your blog and this introduction gave me a good laugh – we too measured how far away we were by how far the local BurgerFuel was! Luckily only one year after we moved they built one in our local town, so now we’re only 40 minutes from civilisation.

    • Ha ha. Lucky you! We still miss it. Wouldn’t swap back though. Been enjoying your fence building post. Super work. I have fence building in my future and hope I can do half as good a job. 🙂

Leave a Reply to Charlotte Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.