Thursday, October 9, 2014

Whack! Wednesday

This blog post is aptly named since after nearly three years of riding, I fell off Queenie.  Whack!  Right on my back.  Luckily, I wasn't hurt.

I always say that if something bad has to happen, I hope that I at least get a good story out of it.  Well, my fall is one heck of a story.

Zoe and I took our girls out the gate in the back pasture for a ride through Rachel Carson Park.  It was a beautiful fall afternoon and we were enjoying a casual ride.  At about the halfway point on the trail, a fallen tree formed an arch across the trail.


The tree looks exactly like this only much closer to the ground

Zoe and Deja followed a narrow path around the tree.  But Deja made a significant deposit on the path and Queenie decided she didn't want to step in it.  She turned and walked right under the tree.  She had no problem fitting but I was going to hit the tree at waist level.

In the split second that it took Queenie to get half of her body under the tree, I apparently took complete leave of my senses.  I grabbed the tree and pushed against it as Queenie continued walking.  I didn't let go so before I knew it, I was lying on my back on Queenie's rump still clutching the tree.  I felt like I was part of a circus act.



 

As Queenie continued sauntering forward, I did not let go of that tree.  Perhaps after years of watching my daughter compete in gymnastics, I thought I could just swing my legs over the tree, jump down and salute the judges.



 
Did not happen.  Instead, I rolled slightly, fell off Queenie and hit the ground.  I confess that in that one second between leaving Queenie's back and eating dirt, I thought, "Oh shit.  This is gonna hurt."  Zoe had no idea all of this was going on behind her until she heard the "thunk" when I made contact with the ground.

I laid there for a minute stunned and staring up at the sky.  The first thing I said to Zoe was, "do you have Queenie?"  As I slowly rolled up, I started laughing at how ridiculous I must have looked in the 30 seconds it took for the whole grab-the-tree, lie-on-Queenie's back, hit-the-ground event to occur.  Where is a camera when you need one? 

I credit my safety vest and helmet with preventing serious injury.  I only have a few scrapes and bruises on my arms.  I thought I might be sore today from the impact, but I'm not.

Oddly enough, even though I was wearing heavy boots, I must have jammed the toes on my right foot when I hit the ground.  I don't think anything is broken, but two toes are bruised and I'm limping a bit.


I don't think that I will be wearing the high-heeled shoes that I had picked out to wear to a wedding this weekend.

The old adage is that you have to fall off a horse three times before you are considered an experienced rider.  I hope that I can count the two times that Queenie decided to lie down and roll while I was in the saddle (read about those adventures here and here) plus my "Whack! Wednesday" event and call it done.

In the meantime, today I will ....



4 comments:

  1. I think I know exactly which tree you're talking about and I thought it was getting lower and lower, but figured maybe I was imagining things. Apparently not!

    I'm really glad you're okay and that you were wearing your full safety gear (like you always do!)...and that has to be the funniest fall story I've heard in a long time!

    So did Queenie stay right next to you? :)

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  2. I'm glad you are okay. It sounds like it happened in slow motion. I'm glad the tree wasn't so low it impacted your saddle and I'm really glad you weren't hurt. I wonder if you struck your foot on the tree as you were pulled out of the saddle.

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  3. LOL, literally! Glad you are OK!

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  4. I think I know what tree, too! LOL

    I tend to call the fall onto the back-deck of the horse maneuver the Matrix Move because in the Matrix movies they tend to do this limbo move waving their arms in a "rolling up the windows" way while retaining their balance lol

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