To Everything a Season

    I slung my grooming bag up over my shoulder and trudged to the barn. Snow crunched beneath my boots and sparkling flakes fell from the sky. It was a beautiful day, but not my idea of the perfect weather for my horse and I. After all, I couldn't ride thanks to a thick layer of ice on the ground.

Trusting

By Anita P. Seavey

“Just let go. You'll be all right.”

     I made a skeptical face and my fingers only clutched their safe tuft of mane all the tighter. The young woman at the end of the lunge line laughed a little as she flicked the rope, urging my horse to continue trotting despite my hesitation.

     I can do this, I silently coached myself. I am not going to fall off... like I did the other three times I've ridden a trot bareback. I  licked my lips nervously, feeling the grit from riding in a continuous circle in the gravel. Yeah, I bit the dust pretty good on those ones. I suppressed a groan. I'm not the greatest at pep talks.

Loving Perfectly

By Anita P. Seavey

   The sun was beginning to set below the tree tops and a crisp breeze stirred the air seeming to hold the promise of a coming autumn. A scattering of dried leaves swirled across the ground and crunched beneath horse hooves; hooves fighting stubbornly to break into a trot when I was just as stubbornly telling them “No”.