At least I got a bruise to show for it.

Today just wasn't my day.  I went to the barn, hoping for some comforting companionship.  I held my face to Lainie's neck and breathed deeply (horses smell so good) and asked her to please be sweet to me today.  Not in the mood to work very hard, I first thought I'd just take her out and let her graze on the lead line.  Once we got out of the pasture, I figured I might as well walk her around some.  We saw a baby fox, walked through the barn and here and there, then, after passing Courtney and pointing out how well Lainie was doing, I decided to take her into a ring and walk her over some poles and amble around.  We were in there for only a couple of minutes when Lanie suddenly, inexplicably, bolted and bucked a couple of times.  I didn't let go of her, but she did almost pull the lead rope out of my hand and got far enough away from me that I didn't have a good hold on her.  Then the hateful little thing kicked me.  I saw it coming and raised my arm in front of my face.  I still held on to her, but one more buck and she was gone.  I know I'm using a lot of words to describe an relatively benign event, but humor me.  Like I said, not a good day.

Courtney told me to make Lanie run until she stopped and turned toward me ready to cooperate.  She ran straight to the stallion (don't they all?) who was standing at the fence line, then all around the ring.  After she calmed down, I picked up the lead rope and as quickly as I could do so without letting her think she'd won, walked her back up the lane to her pasture.

The experience was actually pretty fun, but it took me awhile to feel that way.  Driving home, I was tempted to cry from general frustration about my day until I reminded myself, as I do when I'm upset, that I'm from hardy stock and that I'm sure as hell not going to be a baby after my dad went through what he did as a POW for eight years.  That never fails to pull me up short, so I called Dad to thank him for the toughness running through my veins.  He reminded me that I'd had a complete blood transfusion as a newborn.  Thanks, Dad.  Micah assured me that genetics are set well before blood is present and that your genes don't change when you get a transfusion.  She was probably just babying me because her stupid horse kicked me.