July 1, 2022
Beth and I took riding lessons in Albuquerque about ten years ago.We only took 6 lessons unfortunately. I never got comfortable fitting the bridle on the horse.One day after a lesson we were leaving the facility when we saw a horse coming down the road at a trot. It was a riderless horse. I jumped out of the truck and stood in front of it waving it down. Lucky for me it slowed and I grabbed the reins and walked it back a couple of blocks to our trainer. Did I want to ride it back? Absolutely! Was I smart enough to walk it back? Fortunately! I was secretly proud that I caught the horse.The trainer was impressed and a little concerned I tried. We later found out the horse was returned to its owner who had fallen off during her ride.She wasn’t hurt.
Essentially our first real life experience with horses.
Skipping forward 10 years. Beth and I were looking for a house with some acreage. We were (are) living in Albuquerque, New Mexico but our daughter’s family, including four children were living in Lindale, Texas. Our daughter is Becky and you will learn all the names as this blog continues. You need to understand grandmothers and grandchildren to justify what happened. We bought a decent ‘second home’ amazingly close to the grandkids. We had 10 acres on a small lake and I added a working garage to allow me some down time while we visited. I guess you can call it visiting because we were in Lindale nearly 1 week of every six weeks for several years. The kids could easily ride their bikes or walk between our houses. I used to make fun of the fact I needed to count noses at night to know how much breakfast to make. Noses because in addition to the kids both of our families have two dogs that seemed to be pleased to stay at whichever house they were in at supper time.
Fast forward 4 years. Daughter and family moved to Ben Wheeler, Texas. That is only 40 minutes from Lindale but too far for the kids to walk. In fact it took actual planning to pick up the kids for an overnight stay. Planning is neither what Beth wanted to do or our forte. Clearly Beth and Becky started the planning for us to find a house nearer to them well before they told me. Eventually I was informed we (Beth and I) would be looking for a house closer to the kids.
Background May 2022. Becky has four children. Samantha, Isaiah, Gabriel and Johanna. Their father, Nathan, who was born and grew up in Lindale, is a private pilot meaning he travels a lot generally on his customers schedule. Anyway, we again - Beth and Jeff - started looking for a house. This time we developed a list of must haves and want to haves. Our realtor was very patient with us because the house search stretched over 6 months.
We decided on a ranch with 55 acres, three ponds plus a 40 stall barn, indoor and outdoor arenas and other horse stuff. Well, the pictures looked good and they set our first impression. Note to self, pictures can be deceiving. The prior owners boarded horses both short term and long term plus set up activities for arena uses. On site and desiring to stay was a trainer and her daughter and son. Later added to the mix was the trainer’s mother, a retired veterinarian, and her mother plus an assortment of dogs and cats. This blog intends to follow the learning process of getting the ranch up to speed while learning to live and interact with a whole new set of friends plus the transitions involved.
