In the “Life Prepared Me For This” Department
Sometimes we’ll hear people say that everything in their life before now prepared them for the life they’re living currently. I chuckled over the summer at how that wisdom has manifested again in my life.
My days now of course revolve around my ponies. Most of the year, they are extensively grazing on a large pasture. It is my habit to check on them twice daily. In the morning this usually involves bringing them into the corrals for vitamin buckets and a looking-over. Later in the day, I walk to wherever they are on the hill. Since a good portion of the hill isn’t visible from my house, sometimes I guess wrongly about their location and find myself walking an extra mile or more looking for them at the end of the day when I am already tired. Not wanting to give up this late-day check, I nonetheless have learned that I need to not walk so much.
In my pre-pony life, I used a lot of personally-powered transportation. I walked to school, walked on the beach, and took forest walks with my family. As soon as I began to ride a bicycle, I rode it to school, rode it to house-sitting jobs, and rode it around the neighborhood. In high school I even took a long-distance bicycle trip in Europe. Another decade on, I learned to mountain bike and explored many breathtakingly beautiful desert landscapes in Utah.
I find operating a vehicle powered by an engine to be tiring, or I could have used my pickup to drive the ranch roads to get a distant view of the hill and the location of my ponies. Instead, though, I decided to harken back to my bicycle days. I found a used mountain bike that could quickly be brought back into service, and before long my evening walks to find the ponies were directed by information on their location gathered by bicycling the ranch road to ascertain their whereabouts. It is wonderful to be a little less exhausted at the end of the day!
One morning, all the ponies came in except Madie and Aimee. I knew where they were, so I decided I would take their bucket to them rather than bring them to the corrals. When I got part way to them, I realized I didn’t have to walk all the way. I hung the feed bucket from the bike’s handlebars and rode to their location. That’s when my chuckle was most hearty about my previous life preparing me for the life I lead now.
I’ve discovered one big difference so far about bicycling in my current life compared to my previous bicycling experiences. My dogs go everywhere on the ranch that I go, and they don’t quite know what to make of me riding a bicycle. I am constantly watchful of where they are so they don’t pull on my pants leg or dash in front of me, necessitating a hard application of the brakes. The ponies, too, are having to get used to the idea of a bicycle in their midst. I’m glad I can get them used to it because there is a wonderful public trail nearby open to equines as well as bicycles. Someday soon we’ll be meeting two-wheelers there, I hope!
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020
There are more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.