Attendant

Friday March 14 2008

Good thing the Diva brought her attendant with her to the Owyhee Spring Riding Spa.

Today this visiting Diva gets up at noon (OK, it was 10:30)(she blames it on the cold - she's awake early but it's too hard to get out of the warm bed), and wants to go riding.

Well, she thinks she's in Egypt where you just sit like a Queen while everything is done for you short of boosting your butt up into the saddle. She sent her old decrepit dog Zico out to fetch her horse Finneas, saddle him, and lead Finneas up to her to get on, after she was done with her chai tea and her People (I mean National Geographic) magazine reading.

Once she got in the saddle, we three Queens headed out on a partly cloudy cool morning for a proper ride. Our first plan of going up the training wash was aborted when we came upon two girlie cows and one tiny baby cow - born last night or this morning. We gave them a wide berth and abandoned that wash for Blond Cow wash further east. We passed more cows - and another tiny baby - apparently cows like to choose the worst weather to introduce their offspring into the world.

At the end of Blond Cow Wash, at the top of Tamara's Hill, we suddenly had some dark blue clouds obscuring the mountains and heading our way. We'd be heading back home into those clouds, and it looked like we were going to get wet. Well, it makes us whine a bit when you have to go out into the rain to ride; but once you're already out riding and it starts raining, it's not so bad at all.

Two miles from home, it started spitting little ice balls and rain and snowflakes. But the horses strode boldly on through the weather... and by the time we got back home, the squall had passed and the sun was back out.

And as the Diva dismounted and took up her cushy position reading in the beach chair in the yard, Zico untacked her horse and took him out in the pasture and turned him loose.