Horse Scents

As I have been working on rebuilding Horsetrailriders.com: The Website, I have been reading old posts I wrote for the Stable Talk page. I especially liked this one and it is so fitting right now.

February 28, 2004: Horse Scents

Until this past weekend, January 24th was the last day I had my butt in a saddle. If you recall from my prior Stable Talk, Kathy Newberg and I rode in the cold! When I got home that day, I left my saddle in the trailer. Not unusual during the riding season, but in winter, I prefer to have it inside.

Then the storms hit. Our trailer was drifted in. Every now and then when I was tucked away warm in the house, I thought about my saddle – how I hated to leave it out there. I hoped the trailer wasn’t mysteriously springing a leak and my saddle falling victim to water damage. I would think about my saddle as I pulled out of the driveway to work each morning and think, “tonight I’ll bring it in”. I never did.

This morning I was home when John was leaving for work. For some reason, I thought about my saddle and asked if he would rescue it for me. (What a trooper that John is. I should of thought of him earlier!) I heard him come back in the house with it and never leaving my desk, hollered at him asking if it was okay. It was fine – no worse for the wear, he said. He put it in the corner by the stairs and I didn’t think any more about it.

After finishing my work, I headed down the stairs to the rec room. Something stopped me in my tracks. In that moment - the smell - you know the one I mean. The wonderful smell of leather and horse overloaded my senses. And just for a moment, it was no longer February in Nebraska. The essence of that moment swept me off to warmer days! Is there anything else like it in the world?

Do They Ride in Rhode Island?

I try to post to this blog a minimum of two times a week and most of the time that comes easy for me. Being that my family doesn’t have the same excitement over horses that I do, I can talk to you about my horse life. If you tune in here, you must get it, right?

When I started Stable Talk on Horsetrailriders.com: The Website years ago, (blogging before I knew what blogging was), I thought I would always have something to say, but after awhile, I started losing my edge. No longer were my posts clever and fun (assuming some of them were to begin with), but almost had the tone of a junior high student having to write his obligatory book report. (Which reminds me, is his book report done?) I got out of the habit of writing something regularly and finished off 2007 with only a dozen stories on Stable Talk.

The next year, when looking for an easy way to tell the tales of our 10-day horse vacation, I discovered Blogger. I had forgotten how much I missed writing. And all of a sudden everything old seemed new again and I looked forward to once again sharing my horse stories. Taking it off my website, Horsetrailriders.com: The Blog gave me a different audience; many of whom had like interests, but not necessarily local. The Blogger community expanded my horse friendships nationwide. How cool is that? Every state in the union and countries I haven’t heard of have tuned in at least once to this blog.

Well…. okay, I lied. Not every state. Forty-nine states to be exact. There is one hold-out. According to Google Analytics, I have no friends in Rhode Island. You would think just one horse person out in Rhode Island would find me. Over 200,000 have found my website and over 50,000 have found this blog. Doesn't Rhode Island have Google? Are there horse trails in Rhode Island? Are there horses in Rhode Island. Just how big is Rhode Island anyway?

As I am rebuilding Horsetrailriders.com: The Website, I was reading some of my old Stable Talk posts from 2004. Some weren’t bad and I’ll include in the archives of the website, while others were so embarrassing, deleting was my only saving grace! I’ll look at 2005 entries tomorrow. I can only take the pain in small doses.

What I am trying to say in this long, drawn out post is while I have been neglectful of this Blog, I have been working behind the scenes on the Website. Yahoo tells me The Website may be back up on Thursday and then I can stop worrying about it and get back to my regular postings on The Blog.

(Re-reading this post, I think a Junior High book report WOULD have been written better and probably more interesting!)

In other news, the Nebraska Horse Expo Schedule is out!