Once upon a time in Tennessee, I had a horse named Biscuit.
She was awesome.
We were great friends, except for one thing. Biscuit HATED it when I tried to put the bridle on her. Specifically, she hated the cold, hard metal bit in her mouth. She was a pro at clamping her jaws shut against the bit. I was too scrawny to win a battle of strength. But I was sneaky. And a lot smarter than dear little Biscuit.
I developed 2 tricks for sliding that bridle right over her head, past those long horsey teeth:
- Get a handful of oats and hide the bit in them. Worked every time, but got a little messy, and we didn’t always have oats on hand.
- Stick my finger in the corner of her mouth and wriggle it around a little. She always automatically opened her mouth, at which point I jammed the bit in.
Success! Poor outsmarted Biscuit.
You’re probably wondering what on EARTH brought on this little childhood anecdote. While I do enjoy reminiscing about my brief country-girlhood, recent events have caused this memory to surface:
When it’s toothbrushing time, I take a turn brushing and then Jay gets a turn. Lately he has been reminding me of Biscuit: Jay likes to clamp his teeth down and hide from the toothbrush. This was rather frustrating and difficult until I applied horsey bridling trick #2: Insert finger into corner of mouth. Wriggle finger. Open sesame, jawbone! Hello, sparkly-white Jay-teeth!
Thank you, Biscuit!
I guess I should say thanks to Molly (our other horse) too, because she had the same jaw-clamping horsey habit. [Side note: the quality is low on these photos because I took pictures of my horse pictures, since I didn’t have a digital camera back in the day, and our scanner is down]
And now, permit me to trot down memory lane just a little longer…
Oh those carefree summer days when I lived in a bathing suit, overalls, cowboy boots, and a bike helmet! Ride, swim, ride, camp. Repeat. Wow, my pants sure got dirty.
Saddles were too much work. We’d just throw on a bridle, jump on, and GO! Having horses was a FUN 4 years of my life. Being a hooligan in the Tennessee woods was awesome!
ah, my heart is warm with the memories.
Who would’ve thought that my stubborn ole horses of all things would help Jay have clean teeth? I like it.
1 comment:
Yes, thank you Biscuit! Those are some awesome pics Shaina! I loved seeing your delightly, adorable, younger self :). It reminded me how I use to LOVE sleeping in my swimsuit even, just didn't want to take it off during the summer :). We can always use old tricks for new purposes!
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