Recently I had a gal comment on a Facebook post ‘that might possibly the dumbest thing you have ever done’. What would you say to an opening comment like that?
‘Actually you don’t know me very well as the list of dumbest things that I have done is long and distinguished’.
That would be one response if I’m feeling humorous but actually I found no humor in her comment and started out by saying, ‘you are welcome to your opinion’ then I started to say ‘I’m sorry that my post offends you’ but I stopped and said ‘actually I’m not a bit sorry’.
‘This picture has been on Facebook for over 3 years so why now do you find it offensive? Do you have so much free time that you can troll Facebook looking for things to insult people over’.
She ended up blocking me which is certainly okay; I have found being blocked rather painless.
I think that what made her really mad though was that the response on Facebook was over whelming on my behalf,
Her comment wasn’t one to elicit a long friendship or spark an intelligent conversation. I am all for being tormented good naturally and giving back as good as I take. Friends, family and co workers are all fair game but it is interesting to me that people have found it easy to insult each other on social media as there are no consequences. If you insult someone in person you run the risk of getting your skull split.
My point is that if she had something worthwhile to say another approach would have been better. Free speech and ones personal opinion is certainly their privilege.
I’m not sure why it is that I can post a dozen articles about every subject but horses and all the comments are respectful even if not in complete agreement with me but post one about horses and the ‘Arm Chair Quarterbacks’ come out of the wood work like a bunch of worms. Whatever it was that you were doing it was wrong. How nice!
Like I told this gal, you are welcome to your own opinion but is it necessary to trash everyone about every subject under the sun. I’ll discuss any subject with anyone and I can be a bit uncensored at times but starting out calling someone stupid, dumb or an idiot is not conducive to an intelligent conversation, and no I’m not being overly sensitive. My family prefers me sensitive and not cold and indifferent.
Gambler the horse that I was roping off of with my 2 grandsons aboard is a wonderful horse. He’s solid, level headed, athletic and broke. I know someone will want to lecture me on not breaking a horses spirit but ‘Broke’ is a generic term used in calling a horse solid, broke, well trained and maybe even gentle. As has been pointed out a horse can be broke but not gentle or vice versa.
Not long ago I posted this picture from over 40 year past, we were on a ranch out of Melrose Montana. Cranky, my fleet footed cow pony is content carrying me and our 2 oldest boys. Some gal commented that she felt children should be allowed to grow up. Not trying to interpret her comment I thought to myself that they did grow up, hanging out with a working dad and mom. Around here we put kids on horses as soon as possible. We watch out for them but with horses the earlier you start the better.
Normally our kids and grand kids are roping at a branding by the time they are 14, some earlier but not by much. They start out on an older and solid horse and go from there. Quite often by the time they are late teens or early 20’s they are taking young horses to their first branding. Our horses like our family start as young as reasonable.
The look on my grand daughter’s face says it all as far as being on a horse at a young age. We were at the Bruneau Dunes and are riding Kid Colt. He’s another one that we have raised, a half brother to Gambler, same sire different dams with different blood lines. One mare was foundation, Three Bars, King and the other Gun Smoke. The sire was Colonel Freckles and Remenic.
I know horses can be dangerous, horses, mules and donkeys kill more people each year than sharks. It could be that we ride more horses, mules and donkeys than we do sharks but you get the idea. One of the big dangers with horses and small children is getting kicked. A small child’s head it about the same height as a wolf so if startled a horse will naturally kick or at least its a possibility. Even though our horses are gentle as well as broke we never assume that they won’t kick. Adult size folks are less liable to be kicked by a seasoned horse than a small child but even at that we never assume it ‘s not a possibility.
Several years ago while working for an Outfitter as a guide I ran out of patience with a horse that was a kicker. No one rode him he was used strictly for packing and he took a swing at me one night. It had been a long day and it was late. We were unloading and getting hunters down to town for a hot meal and the kicker struck at me as I went by. I was out of range so he missed. It brought out the ill temper in me and I picked up a grapefruit sized rock and nailed him right at his tail head. He hunkered his rump under him and never swung at anyone else the rest of the night.
Later that night as we ate supper one of the hunters pointed out that that was pretty rough treatment for the horse. I didn’t say much as they weren’t my clients but I suppose he’d have been happier if the horse would have kicked me and broke my leg. Maybe guiding wasn’t in the cards for me.
The featured picture is me and 3 of my grand daughters riding in our arena. I’m on Gambler with 2 little ones and Merrick, their sister, is on Crash, the horses are half siblings, same sire different dam, both good family horses, both will work for a living.
Here in Southwest Idaho we rope both ends at most of the brandings we go to. Would I rope at that type of branding with a grand child in the saddle with me or behind the saddle either one? Absolutely not! The action at those types of brandings are too fast.
The day I roped a calf, as in one calf, we were heeling and dragging them to head catches. I didn’t plan on roping with my grand sons on board with me but the action was slow and one of the other ropers was my son, the 3rd roper was solid so I fished around for a few loops until I had a calf double hocked that wasn’t throwing a fit and then had Grady lift his hands off of the horn long enough for me to dally and then went to the head catch and fire.
My son Kamron, the dad to these boys was in Honduras flying a Helicopter for the Army and they along with their mom and older sister were living with the other grand parents here in town and we got to spend a lot of time with them.
Just one memory they’ll never forget, even if it ranks high in
‘the dumbest things I have ever done’.