My First Ride!!

 

If someone would have told me my first ride was going to happen in this way, I would have laughed and thought they were crazy.

I had my own visions of what my first ride would be like, where it would be, how I would feel, and on who I would ride on, and with.

And technically, I’m not even supposed to be riding yet (shhhh!), but when opportunity knocks, who am I to turn it away?

  

One of my twinlings, Jem, offered to ride with me, which took some of the fear away. He’s my little rock and is always understanding, thoughtful and helpful. And Jem is loads of fun and can make me laugh, too.

They had a platform to step off of, onto the bareback pad, but I had to mount off the left side, which was very difficult for me because I'm not able to put all my weight on my left knee. But I managed to carefully settle myself onto the blanketed back all by myself. But dismounting would have never happened if it had not been for one of the helpers, a weightlifting teenage girl, of about 19, who basically took all of my weight on her arm as I lifted myself off of the animal’s back. If it had not been for her, I’d probably still be riding around that oval arena right now. hah!

Which would have been fine with me, because I thoroughly enjoyed my first ride. It was very comfortable, slow, quiet (well, sort of…..) and relaxing.

I kept thinking about Esther from Ishtar News, and her own similar ride a few months ago. What fun!

And, maybe my first ride wasn’t on a horse, but it was on a four-legged creature that eats grass.

 

Last year, I made friends with some folks up here in the mountains who own a small herd of camels on a farm they call Camelot. They were listed on the East Mountain Fiber Tour and as they only live about 10 minutes from my house, I was excited to have another source of lusciously soft fiber to spin and knit. Camel fiber, in my opinion, is just as soft and downy as alpaca fiber and feels wonderful against the skin. Last summer I bought only one skein of a natural colored camel blend yarn from the folks at Camelot Farm.

From that skein, I made my friend Val a scarf and a hat mixed with a turquoise colored cotton, as well as a scarf and a hat for me, mixed with a peach colored alpaca blend yarn. That skein sure went a long way.

Well when the fiber farm tour was held again, a few weeks ago, I just had to go, visit the camels and purchase some more camel yarn.

(This is Gobi, a Bactrian, or two-humped, camel.)

Another wonderful, and convenient, aspect of camels is that they don’t require shearing. They actually shed out their fiber, which can easily be combed off, or gathered as it begins to fall.

And this is one of Camelot’s Dromedary camels, which means one-humped camel (sorry, his name escapes me). An easy way to remember the difference between Bactrian and Dromedary is: "Bactrian" begins with "B", and "Dromedary" begins with "D"; "B" on its side has two humps, while "D" on its side has only one hump.

Poor guy is old and suffers from arthritis of the legs, so he had a challenging time standing up or laying down.

So, when I discovered that Bev and Bill of Camelot Farm lease out several of their camels to the Rio Grande Zoo, in Albuquerque, for camel rides, I decided on our next visit, we had to say Hello. My good luck, Mr. Bill was there and very friendly and nice to talk to. We spent about 15 minutes discussing wool, fiber processing, and the Taos Wool Festival. And then he offered to pose for a photo with two of my kidlets, and a fuzzy camel, too.

That was pretty awesome, I thought. What could be more amazing than that?

Well, being offered a complimentary camel ride easily topped the fun photo op, for sure!

And since Jenna didn’t want to ride the camel, who was I to just pass up such a unique opportunity…..or to “look a gift camel in the mouth”? hehe!

Ok….so I know it’s not a horse, but I did ride it. haha! 

From the Tower of,