A Saturday Ride

I drove over to my muleskinner friend's house for a little playdate.  Miz Fancy mule was already hitched up so I hopped aboard and we circled their lower lot a couple of time real peaceful like then we went through a gate down an access road to a field of coastal Bermuda grass to ride around that area.   About halfway through the field two chestnut quarter horses came galloping, spinning, and bucking back and forth on the other side of the fence.  Miz Fancy suddenly and with some amount of fury whipped that cart in a 180 turn and started to run. Pat, the driver, was pulling a whoa with all her might,  her sidekick  husband fell/jumped off into a roll on the brown dry grass breaking the seat as he went. Fancy started kicking high enough for me to see the bottom of her shiny shoes.  She broke those two slates you can see in front of the cart into splinters and injured both of Pat’s shins with one of the kicks.  When the back end wasn't kicking the front end of the mule and the cart were going up in a see-saw fashion.   The harness braking straps and rear britchen came loose, the rest of the harness and the cart shafts were at a strange angle.  During a nano-second break in the action  I leapt off the cart. Sidekick got the mule slightly calmed so Pat, the driver, could finally get off the wagon.  We walked Fancy’s shivering jumpy self back to her stall and carefully, very carefully, got the rest of the harness off.

     The beer back at the house tasty mighty good. Pat put frozen peas on her injured legs and we rehashed the rodeo and ramifications of the experience.