When She Needs It

Before we decided to move to Guam, Rylee and I snooped around on the internet for horse ranches. We found a few. 

Lesson #1 about Guam. People do not utilize the internet. Two of the three ranches have been closed for nobody knows how long. Don't search for a business and trust what you find. Even if you find an address and type it into Google. You could be totally led astray. 

 If you want to find, say, a place that rents out moving vans because you only own a tiny car and need to buy furniture and the soonest date that the store you buy it from can deliver is in FEBruAry (?!?!?!) you don't go find a phone book or fire up Google. You call your wife's cousin who tells you that there's Home Depot or East West Rentals up north. 

Obviously, you first try Home Depot because you and Home Depot are like old friends, right? So you waddle through the heat and talk to two different ppl to find out that the only two flatbed trucks they have are both rented out and they have nothing else. As you walk back towards the heated outdoors, the lazier (smarter, more efficient) spouse will suggest that you call East West to gather  info before driving all the way up there. Good thing you agree, because they want like $150 for a day with their flatbed. Then, you come up with a great idea of your own. Rent a pickup truck from Thrifty. Wonderful. For $80 you got your new living furniture home and had a second car for 24 hours. 

Who needs a truck??? This is how we got our dining tables home. Yes two. It was cheaper than one. 

But this post is about horses! We tried to find the Rock n Rail ranch on our own based on ---you guessed it--- the info Google gave us. One flat tire and two trips later, we finally called the number and spoke with an old artist friend of Auntie Judy's. 

Mrs. Tenorio (who is not pictured anywhere here) has owned the ranch for many, many years. They only do English riding which is utterly different from Western riding. 

This is Jenny, she is a Naval nurse and comes here to ride and help with chores about four days a week. 

We had a good long visit with Mrs. Tenorio, finding out how her daughters' love of horses led to her owning horses and offering lessons. She would only let Rylee watch at first. 

Then, she surprised us by telling Rylee to grab a helmet and try it out. 

She has five horses and two ponies. One horse had just been found lifeless that very morning. She was very old and sick. Mrs. Tenorio had just decided to have her put down soon, so I think it was a tender mercy that she didn't have to. 

This was all very new for Rylee. Mrs. Tenorio kind of grilled her with questions to see how much she knew, but Rylee has never had any reason to learn about leading legs and square stops. Rylee has learned a lot about horses pertaining to her pure joy in riding and desire to be able to take proper care of one. 

Since this day, we have gone out to watch a competition. They had contests like holding a dollar under your leg, and dropping a brush in box. There was one horse that didn't want anything to do with the box. Then, they did jumping which was neat to watch. One girl's horse slipped on a turn and they both went down but none were hurt. We watched a couple of dressage routines and then had to leave. 

English style is not something Rylee is particularly interested in, so I don't know if she'll want to pursue that. She did meet a couple girls her age who are also horse crazy, maybe she'll find a true friend there. 

But, she always loves just being with the horses. So, when she needs it, we know where to go.