Badlands Weekend and So Much More

Warning: This post is long and involves heartbreak, tragedy, and personal issues.

In hindsight, I should have never gone to Starry Night Ranch for the weekend. My life was on the verge of complete and utter breakdown. I had just been through the ringer with a clique of truly awful women who had taken advantage of me and caused enough drama to push me into a deep depression. And the worst was still to come. But it was only something I felt, and nothing I expected. 

The ultimate betrayal. 

I was soon to discover that my husband had been cheating on me for at least 6 months. He had joined an Asian dating site called Q-Pid, and, according to our bank records, had spent over $4,000 of our family's money on membership, phone calls, video chatting, gifts, a passport, and ultimately a trip to a Hong Kong hotel, to meet up with the girls in China that he was turned on by, from their dating site profiles and photos. I had also found out from our bank records that, on the evening that my husband had taken me out for our 24th wedding anniversary, he came home and video chatted with one of the Q-Pid Chinese girls.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

One of my sons revealed to me that his father had been borrowing money from him for his cheating. This was money that our son had been given as gifts for birthdays and Christmas as well as money he had earned from his job. And it gets even worse. His father had been confiding in his son as if they were best buddies. He was showing our son the photos, videos and profiles of these girls and talking crudely about sex with him, and telling our son how wonderful it would be to have one of these Chinese girls as his stepmother. He claimed that these girls would be more subservient than American girls, and more willing to do as they were told.

My son even showed me the disgusting photos that his father had asked my son to take of him ogling at those Chinese girls. And yes, my son took these photos of his father doing this in our family's living room.

Disgusting.......

But that still isn't the worst of it. My kids and I finally had to come to grips with the emotional and physical abuse, control, and neglect that we had all experienced over the previous 14 years and for most of my 24 years of marriage. We had to face the fact that we had been controlled and manipulated by a narcissist with a terrifying angry streak. Many people asked my kids and I if we had a hard time not having my husband living at home, but in reality we actually dreaded him coming home because it felt like walking on glass the entire time he was in the house. We were constantly anxious that he would have an angry episode and blow up with screaming and yelling and punching or throwing things.  And yes, he punched our sons several times and threatened to hit them countless times over the years. During his temper tantrums, he put holes in walls and in my son's desk and broke more things than we can count. He even got in trouble at work for threatening co-workers, once even throwing a chair at a co-worker. Other times, from yelling at co-workers. At home he would scream at us and call us worthless and stupid and good for nothing. He threatened to kill himself if we didn't do what he asked or anytime we complained about his aggression. He said it would serve us right if he died, because it would be our fault. 

We lived with fear and anxiety for many years. And it was hell. But we didn't realize how dysfunctional it had gotten, or that we had other options. We were like frogs in a pot. Placed in a pot of cold water on a stove. Gradually, the heat was turned up over many months and years, and we never realized it nor felt the heat, until it was too late and the water was boiling.    

So, when my supposed friend, Colleen, (yes, one of those women in that nasty, hurtful clique I spoke of) had stopped over to pick up my mule to take him up to Starry Night Ranch for me to ride for the weekend, I was so overwhelmed and depressed that I ended up bursting into tears and having an anxiety attack. I wasn't able to express to her what was truly wrong because I wasn't completely sure. I just had a general sense of foreboding and fear. And I couldn't tell her, or anyone else, about my personal family issues because I was embarrassed, confused and thought that no one would believe me. That's what being under the spell of a narcissistic abuser for a long time will do to a person.

So, I just made up some excuses to her and apologized for taking up her time and told her I was just going to stay home that weekend.

But she did encourage me to just come up and hang out because it might lift my spirits. I said thanks but I would probably just stay home. And then Julie, the owner of Starry Night Ranch called me and told me to drive up and stay the weekend in her guest cabin and she would even let me ride one of her horses if I wanted to ride.

So, against my better judgement, and touched that others seemed to care about me, I loaded up my clothes and some food to share for the potlucks, and I drove up to Starry Night Ranch.  

The drive up to Starry Night Ranch was good for me. The beautiful scenery lifted my spirits and calmed my anxiety.

And some of the scenery even made me laugh.

And as soon as I spotted Starry Night Ranch in the distance, I felt happy.

Starry Night Ranch is very simple and tidy. 

Colleen had already arrived, with her 4 Winds Equestrian Center boarders, and set up her camping and meet up area.

I got my stuff unpacked and got settled into the guest cabin, and not long afterwards, Colleen and her boarders returned to Starry Night Ranch from their ride out to the badlands.

Julie decided to work with the WNCR rescue horse she had accepted for training.

She decided to get up on him for the first time while we were there.

He had come a long way since she picked him up from the horse rescue.

Julie's horses were getting excited as the sun dropped lower in the sky. They knew it was almost dinner time!

The day ended with a shared meal and a campfire. I mustered up some smiles and put on a happy face trying not to show how completely shattered and broken I felt inside.

And the next day, again, against my better judgement, I accepted the offer of borrowing one of Julie's horses and joining everyone on a trail ride into the badlands.

My mount for the day was a 4 year old Paint/Friesian mare. She seemed very calm and gentle and reminded me of my Apache mare at home.

And there were times during the ride that day that I did feel happy and relaxed because I truly love being out in nature on a horse (or mule). But that sense of foreboding and anxiety never fully left me. I smiled for the camera anyway.

And I took my usual between-the-ears photos of the beauty all around me.

The lady riding in front of me, in the photo below, was not a boarder of 4 Winds Equestrian Center. But she was their neighbor, and M was invited to join in on the riding weekend at Starry Night Ranch. I'll just call her M. I only knew M from Facebook and she seemed to be a very opinionated, know-it-all kind of person. I had once politely disagreed with her once on FB about something silly and pointless, and she unfriended and blocked me. 

But I wasn't going to be rude when I met her in person, and surprisingly, once we started talking with one another, we seemed to really hit it off.

But something about her made me anxious and that sense of foreboding was even stronger when I was near her.

But I tried to distract myself with the gorgeous scenery, hoping that the sense of foreboding and anxiety would subside.

I tried. But it didn't really work.

Tough little tree. And notice the rustic stone witch's cauldron on the right?

See it now?

I really did enjoy the ride, and the little mare I was riding, too. We were riding on the same trail I had ridden just a year earlier on my Apache mare, so it felt safely familiar.

But I didn't feel safe.

But I wasn't sure if my anxiety was just internal, caused by my own personal family situation, or from something in my immediate environment. I try to always trust my gut instincts. And this time, I made the mistake of trying to ignore it.

The scenery tried very hard to distract me, but my heart wasn't in it. And my instincts were on high alert.

I just couldn't shake that feeling that something very bad was going to happen.

I just continued to take photos.......

And pose for photos, too.

At one point Julie decided to ride her horse into a big pond. Her horse balked.

But she managed to convince her horse to wade into the muddy water, while the rest of our group observed.

She even managed to get her horse to almost swim.

That was the last photo I took that day because that sense of foreboding and anxiety that I had felt all along, finally revealed itself.

Right after Julie exited the pond, the energy of our group seemed to almost imperceptibly change. But I felt it. And the mare I was riding must have felt it, too. Her energy level went up and she became a bit prancy and more alert. And I don't think it was because we were heading back in the direction of Starry Night Ranch. We were still several miles away. She tried to charge ahead of the horses in front of us and run down hills. I didn't feel scared at the time, though. It was nothing I couldn't handle, but it did add to my sense of anxiety and foreboding. I knew. I was sure of it.

I was sure that something terrible was going to happen.

I just didn't know when, or how.

At one point, we were riding past an old abandoned ranch building and the mare I was riding spooked, jumping sideways about 2 feet. 

I stayed on, though. And the lady riding behind me, M, congratulated me for sticking to the horse as she had seen the whole thing. I felt confident and positive.......for a little while.

But about 20 minutes later, I was gripped by a terrifying panic attack and I was in tears. I needed off the horse I was riding immediately. I wasn't sure if I was afraid that something was going to happen to me while riding that horse. But I just felt this intense urge to get off that horse and change or reset my position. I think subconsciously, I felt that by doing that, the sense of anxiety and foreboding would go away. I felt like I had been on an adrenaline rush the entire day, and in my deepest most raw self, I needed  to find relief. 

Julie tried to talk me out of it, possibly thinking that I was just fearful of the mare because she had spooked earlier. But that wasn't what caused my anxiety. So, talking me back up onto the mare, wasn't going to work.

Colleen offered me her mare, Pepper, whom I had ridden before, and she would ride Julie's little paint/friesian mare. I was willing to try riding Pepper, desperate for that horrible anxiety and sense of foreboding to go away, so I climbed on Pepper.

But that feeling didn't go away. I did feel safe on Pepper. But I didn't feel unsafe on Julie's horse either. I just had this gut instinct that something bad was going to happen.

And not long afterwards, it finally did.

We had been riding up and over and through a handful of deep sandy arroyos, when we were presented with an especially deep arroyo. Julie had to scout out a safe place for us to descend and we all managed to slide and scramble our way down into the arroyo. Julie and her horse had already climbed up and out the other side of the arroyo, when I felt a commotion beside me.

M, the lady that I had mentioned earlier, was hanging alongside her horse's neck as he trotted past me. She didn't seem to be conscious. 

Several of us yelled to her to sit up, and take control of her horse. Her horse seemed confused and sped up, until M just slipped off the right side of her horse, landing on her head, and flipping onto her face into the deep sand.

She lay there for a couple minutes as we all waited anxiously for her to regain her composure and stand up. But she never did.

Instead, the most horrifying noises issued from her mouth. A mix between gurgling and moaning. I felt sick. 

We all started dismounting our horses, realizing that the situation was dire.

I think I was still in shock, but as I started to dismount, Pepper started walking off and I must have called out or squealed. I have no idea. But Colleen, who was by this time, kneeling beside M, yelled at me to not do something to her horse. I really can't remember what she said exactly, as I was in some kind of bizarre out-of-body vortex. I just know that her harsh tone caused me to slightly become more aware of my surroundings. I know that I don't do well in stressful situations and I just sort of shut down. But I had been on an adrenaline rush all day with anxiety and it had all culminated into that horrible moment. 

But M was much worse than I was. She never regained consciousness. We stayed with M and the horses, while Julie galloped over to a neighbor's ranch so she could call 911 and get a helicopter ambulance to rescue M. M couldn't be safely moved and there were no roads to where she was, and the terrain wouldn't allow for a vehicle ambulance.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, the horses started getting antsy, and there wasn't anything to tie them to, just sagebrush. The sun was painfully hot and there were no trees for shade, so we were taking turns holding a shirt over M's body to keep her from overheating. But none of us had much water left because we were at the end of our ride. We decided there was no reason for all of us to stay there waiting for the helicopter to arrive, so Colleen and Loeta decided that they would stay, while the rest us of would lead the horses across the difficult terrain back to Starry Night Ranch. 

We led the horses because we were all so shook up from what happened to M, that we felt our anxiety and stress would transfer to the horses, who were already impatient because we were only about a mile and a half away from Starry Night Ranch. That walk seemed like it lasted forever. 

The sun was beating down on us, and two of us, including me, had to lead two horses, who kept trying to lead us, as we struggled over the uneven sagebrush covered terrain. And then we had a long slog down a dusty dirt road under the glaring sun.....without any water. By the time we arrived back at Julie's ranch, I was aware that I was overheated and my vision was spotty and blurry. One of Colleen's boarders told me that my face was bright red and she offered me water and told me to stop untacking the two horses I had been leading, and to just sit down immediately. I took a gulp of water and then poured the rest of the water on my head and face and finished up unsaddling the horses.

And then I sat down in the shade and drank a couple more bottles of water.

From what I remember, the helicopter ambulance arrived 30-40 minutes after M's accident occurred and whisked her away to a hospital in Farmington, NM about an hour and a half north of Starry Night Ranch and Starry Night Ranch is about an hour and half north of Albuquerque. Basically Starry Night Ranch is in the middle of nowhere.  It sure was an eye opener about what can happen in the event of a serious horseback accident while riding in the back country, where there are no roads and no access by rescue vehicles. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that night I slept much better than the night before. Most of the anxiety and foreboding was gone, although I still felt some of the heavy burdens on my heart from my personal family problems at home. But the next day, Sunday, everyone wanted to go for a ride to erase the bad juju from the day before and end the weekend on a better note. I declined.

I wasn't going to tempt fate. And my heart just wasn't in it. I'd already ridden the trails that Julie planned to take Colleen's boarders, and I needed some time to myself to just decompress and find some peace. So, while everyone else went for a trail ride, I gathered some wine, snacks, and sat down in a chair on the front porch with my feet up, and just soaked in the peace, quiet and beautiful vistas.

When I was ready, I packed up my belongings, left a pile of money on the kitchen table for Julie, to thank her for her hospitality, and I went home.

The weekend wasn't a total tragedy and bad experience, though. The time away from home, especially the time I spent alone on Sunday, did help me think more clearly about a lot of things in my life.

The Fakest Friend of All

The above meme describes this next fake friend absolutely perfect. Colleen is definitely not a genuine person and will do anything to create a reputation for herself that matches what she wants others to believe. But she is the fakest person I have ever known or associated with. She will turn on anyone that doesn't benefit her any longer. And she will take credit for other's work and if you call her out on it, she will go into attack mode and act like you're in the wrong and not her. And she will change her personality to fit into a particular group that somehow benefits her.

I had to learn all those lessons the hard way.

I got to know Colleen over 7 years ago, through my time volunteering with a local horse rescue that she was the founder of, Walking in Circles. My involvement with her began when she had discovered a small ranch for sale about an hour south of the horse rescue called Cedar Hill Farm that she was hoping to lease and allow the rescue horses a place to graze during the summer. She not only managed to do that, but she also started using Cedar Hill for horse clinics, trail rides and competitive trail competitions. I attended one of her Confidence Clinics after I sustained several injuries from my first horse, Dakotas Baby Doll, who was totally unsuitable for me. I was ready to give up on riding, but wanted to try a confidence clinic to see if I could muster up enough confidence to have one last try at my dream of horse ownership.

Well, the Confidence Clinic was a success and I was soon looking to sell Baby Doll and buy a safer, more compatible horse for my abilities. After selling Baby Doll, I discovered my current horse, Apache and asked Colleen to go with me to check her out. She offered to let me board Apache at her house so I could try her out on trails and be sure that she was the right horse for me. Colleen had a boarding business at her house, so this worked out perfectly. After realizing that Apache was going to work out for me, I then started paying Colleen to pick up me and my horse and take us to her organized trail rides, competitive ACTHA rides and riding clinics at Cedar Hill. And it wasn't long before Colleen had organized a horse camping weekend, and I signed up and paid her for that, too. I started to think of Colleen as a friend, even though I had to pay money to do anything with her at all. But I figured that it cost money to operate a horse rescue and the money was going to a good place.

Or so I thought.

At Walking in Circles Horse Rescue there is a board of directors that Colleen had to answer to, and one day Colleen was asked to resign after it was discovered that Colleen was mismanaging the rescue's money and spending the donations for personal things that weren't benefiting the rescued horses. I refused to get caught up in all the rumors and gossip and badmouthing of Colleen, because I wanted to be loyal to Colleen for her helping me get back into riding again. But it was shocking and disappointing to hear people, who were supposedly Colleen's friends, like Loeta, Christine, Peggy, and others talking badly about Colleen.

But Colleen quickly reinvented herself and signed onto a lease-to-own for Cedar Hill Farm, and eventually even gathered up a bunch of investors and sponsors and began to get boarders and trainers signed up to do clinics at Cedar Hill, all so she could purchase Cedar Hill and make it her own. And before long she had changed the name of Cedar Hill Farm, to 4 Winds Equestrian Center.

Eventually I realized that I wanted to expand my riding skills, so I started riding down at a place called Acacia Riding Adventures, in San Acacia, NM, because they were riding on rugged trails and in unique areas that were exciting and fun. Dacodah is the owner of Acacia Riding Adventures and he provided me with well trained, seasoned trail horses and fun adventures that instilled confidence and good riding skills. But when Colleen, warned me not to ride at Acacia Riding Adventures, I wanted to know why and asked Dacodah. Apparently, Colleen and Dacodah had tried to go into business together forming Acacia Riding Academy and it worked out very badly with Dacodah having to file restraining orders against Colleen. Dacodah had a lot of warnings to give me about spending time with Colleen. But I refused to listen and instead just focused on building my riding experiences and skills down at San Acacia.

I was also warned by many other people about Colleen and how she uses people for her own gain, and how she had spent donations to the horse rescue for her own personal vacations and for personal items, like a brand new Living Quarters Horse Trailer and a new truck. I was told by others how Colleen will include you in her life and keep you around, but only as long as you benefit her in some way. I was told by Barb how Colleen had used her and taken advantage of her and her husband when they were planning to invest in the business at Cedar Hill. And I was told by another friend R, who she and her husband had volunteered at the horse rescue for Colleen, that Colleen was not to be trusted...ever. She knew things about Colleen that were shocking. And even another friend L, who had boarded her horses with Colleen and volunteered at the horse rescue, told me that Colleen was only nice to you when it benefited her. I was told by Colleen's own daughter and granddaughter that Colleen was known to dump people in a heartbeat if those people were at all any inconvenience or did anything she didn't agree with. Even her own family. And I was told that Colleen would even make up lies to create false stories about people she had kicked out of her life so she could manipulate her current friends and associates into siding with her. I had heard Colleen bad mouthing and being critical of others in her life, but I chose to ignore it because I thought we were friends and I was naive enough to believe that she wasn't doing the same thing to me. And I have to be honest, too, even though it makes me feel ashamed. But I wanted to be included in Colleen's circle because she was always making activities and events happen and it felt good to be a part of that and feel needed and liked, even if I was being used, and even if I felt deep inside that things just didn't seem quite right.

But anyway.......soon Colleen was having me be more involved at 4 Winds. She had asked me to take photos of the facilities and clinic and riding events and in return for the use of my photos, she offered me a lifetime membership at 4 Winds Equestrian Center, with full use of all of the trails, the arenas and round pens and indoor arena and discounts on boarding. She also asked me to host and plan trail rides and horse camping events and she asked me to be the Administrator of the 4 Winds Equestrian Center's Facebook page and to be in charge of online advertising. In hindsight I should have got everything we agreed to written into a legal contract, but I doubt Colleen would have been willing to sign it because that's the way she is able to take advantage of people to get what she wants.

Well, after the Fourth of July Canyon Ride and then a riding event up at Starry Night Ranch she showed me truly what a fake friend she really was. I had been going through a lot of personal problems in my life involving that clique of women that used me and then back stabbed me, along with marital problems involving abuse and infidelity, and it all finally culminated in depression and anxiety. I felt like I had fallen into a deep hole. But instead of being a good friend and supporting me, Colleen instead, along with her husband, blocked me on Facebook, removed me as Admin on the 4 Winds page, and took me off her 4 Winds website as a ride host and organizer. She snuck around and did all that behind my back without telling me anything. I was shocked and disappointed because I had done nothing to her. We hadn't had any arguments or disagreements. She just up and deleted me from her life because I was having personal problems and she felt like I was a liability somehow, even though I had done nothing wrong at all to her or her business.

I called her out on what she did and she accused me of faking my depression and she tried to convince me that if only I would move to AZ to be closer to my husband, my life would be better.

She never even asked me why I felt the way I did or tried to show me support and encouragement. She didn't care that my husband had been verbally and emotionally abusing and even threatening physical abuse for many years to our 3 kids and me as well. She didn't care because she was never a real friend. Colleen never asked about my husband's infidelity and him joining an Asian Dating site for many months so he could meet young Chinese girls and cheat on me. She never asked about the thousands of dollars he was spending on the Asian Dating site and the gifts for the Chinese girls he had long phone and video conversations with. She never asked me about my husband taking me to dinner for our 24th wedding anniversary, and then coming home to video chat with a Chinese girl afterwards. She never asked about how my husband was using our two son's money to fund the cheating and lying. Or how he was using one of our sons to tell all his Asian girl fantasies and desires to. He even showed my son photos of these girls and asked him which ones he would like to be his new stepmom! Colleen wasn't there for me when my husband flew to Hong Kong to meet these Chinese girls and take them out to dinner and a hotel and how I had to find out this was happening through our bank account statements.

I must really be a magnet for disloyal, cheating, dishonest, backstabbing, fake users. Because of my experiences over the past few years, I have learned that I am way too trusting, too honest, too loyal, too kind, too generous, and too naive. Bad people just really seem to seek out people like me.

The Opportunistic Two-Faced Fake Friend

This is someone I always knew in my heart was a fake friend. Loeta only rode with me and offered to haul my horse because she needed a riding partner. She invited herself to ride with me and another former friend, Kendra at Galisteo Preserve 3 years ago and then kept inviting herself to all future riding events I organized. She never once wanted to hang out with me or talk with me outside of riding and she never hung out with me if there were other people on a ride. I knew what kind of person she was after our mutual friend, Colleen was asked to resign from her horse rescue business a few years earlier, due to questionable behavior and activity. Loeta and Colleen were supposed to be best friends, yet after Colleen was removed from WNCR, I often overheard Loeta speaking negatively about Colleen about her involvement at WNCR. Loeta had become the horse rescue's director and she and her husband also helped manage the horse rescue's thrift store, where I had volunteered for a year. It made me sick to hear Loeta badmouth and gossip about Colleen with other people that came into the thrift store.

Talk about a very two-faced person. I should have known better than to include Loeta into my life. But she always seemed to be everywhere there was an opportunity for her, so it was impossible to exclude her anyway.

But ironically, Loeta also seemed to be using Colleen. She was boarding her horses at Colleen's horse boarding facility and also seemed to be using her to get included in any riding events that Colleen planned. When Colleen offered me a lifetime membership to 4 Winds Equestrian Center for the use of any photos I took for her of her facility or riding events, Loeta seemed upset, especially since Colleen had raised Loeta's boarding and membership fees, and yet Colleen and Loeta were supposed to be best friends.

When Loeta placed her loving husband into a nursing home, I found it interesting how she spent more and more time riding with a fellow named Cory, who was married to a mutual friend named Christine. Loeta even started keeping one of her horses at Cory and Christine's house. It was a common sight to see Cory and Loeta together. So, it didn't take long for Christine and Cory to end up divorced with Christine even moving out of state. Afterwards, Loeta became even more involved in Cory's life, house and pet-sitting for him and taking care of both of their horses. In fact, after Christine was out of the picture, it was rare to ever see Loeta unless Cory was with her, all while her husband lived in a nursing home.

So, I shouldn't have been surprised to see Cory and Loeta together when I rode at Fourth of July Canyon in the Summer of 2014. And I shouldn't have been surprised when she asked me not to take photos of her and Cory together out on the trail. And I shouldn't have been surprised that the two of them rode far behind everyone, out of sight, and keeping to themselves. And I shouldn't have been surprised when she contacted me after I wrote my blog post about that Fourth of July Canyon ride, and she told me I needed to remove her and Cory's names from my blog. And I shouldn't have been surprised when she threatened me with a charge of defamation of character for telling the truth about what I experienced that day. And I shouldn't have been surprised that she didn't support me or stand behind me when she saw how badly Paula had treated me or when Paula had her immature outburst while at Fourth of July Canyon.

Of course, in my defense, I had naively believed that Loeta was a real friend. But that was just wishful thinking on my part, because I knew already what an opportunistic, two-faced person she was, long before she stabbed me in the back at the end. So, I have only myself to blame for that unfortunate mistake.

I'm Back........

Yes Indeed.

I allowed mean people to chase me away from my blog for over a year and try to intimidate me into being quiet about what they and other terrible people did to me the previous 2 years. Two of them, Loeta and Colleen, actually threatened me when I wrote about what was done to me over a year ago. Loeta said that I could be sued for defamation of character. But guess what?

"Defamation: Make sure you can prove the statement was false. A defamatory statement must actually be a false one. If the statement is true, you don't have grounds to sue, even if it damaged your reputation. In most cases, statements that can be construed as opinions aren't considered defamatory, because an opinion is subjective and can't be proved as objectively false."

Loeta lied just to manipulate me.

The other person, Colleen, snuck around behind my back and deleted me from her and her husband's lives and horse boarding business. She gossiped and badmouthed me and stabbed me in the back and even stole my photos to use for her business without my permission. Colleen had promised me a lifetime membership at her boarding facility in return for the use of my photos, but then she reneged and took my membership away when it suited her. She then publicly badmouthed me some more when I called her out on it.

And these were two people that professed to be my dear friends. They promised to be loyal and to always have my back just as I had been a loyal and true friend for years. But they wanted to shut me up after they did me wrong and when I told the truth about their actions, because the truth revealed their lies, manipulation and fake personalities. They wanted me to keep quiet and be a nice girl. And I did. But I shouldn't have. I've had to keep it bottled up inside of me for so long that it has made me bitter and resentful. Everything I wrote back then was the truth as I experienced it.
Do you know why bad people get away with mistreating others? Because their victims don't speak out.

But I'm not going to be quiet any longer.

Riding at Fourth of July Canyon

A few weeks ago I took my new mule, Choctaw, for a trail ride with some friends. Since I had only ridden my Choctaw twice, I really wanted to get Colleen's opinion of him.
Paula had offered to take him on some bosque ditchbank rides to get him used to bicycles and other urban experiences, and Choctaw and her foster mule were buddies, so I let her keep him at her place. But I decided to invite her up to the mountains to join my friends for our trail ride up at Fourth of July Canyon, so it just made sense for her to bring Choctaw up for me to ride.
But first I asked Colleen to ride him for a little while, while I rode her mare.  Notice, the britchen that Choctaw is wearing? That britchen involves a long, terrible experience surrounding the obnoxious behavior of someone I had falsely believed to be a friend.

I hadn’t bought a britchen for Choctaw yet because I was told by his previous owners that they never used one on him on their trails and hills and his saddle never shifted forward. Indeed, while doing his test ride, we rode down into a deep arroyo and his saddle stayed in place. Also, when I rode him at the Mule and Donkey Event just a week earlier, Paula told Allen, another friend, that Choctaw’s saddle fit him well and he didn’t need a britchen. So I trusted everyone’s opinions and information.
But when I saddled up Choctaw for our Fourth of July Canyon trail ride, Paula said I needed a britchen and she offered to let me use the one she had, even though it was the only britchen she had brought. I was actually surprised that she hadn’t brought me an extra britchen since she has two, one for her mule and one for her foster mule, especially since I had only had Choctaw for only a couple weeks and she had told me that he didn’t need one! If she thought Choctaw needed a britchen and knew she had told me earlier that he didn’t, then a good, kind friend would have…should have brought an extra britchen to share or at least should have told me that we should put off riding at Fourth of July Canyon until I bought Choctaw a britchen. I could have ridden Apache afterall!
But our trail ride started off well. Choctaw was perfect for Colleen and her mare was wonderful for me. There were 11 of us heading out to ride together on the beautiful trails at Fourth of July Canyon in the Manzano Mountains.


Colleen's mare is much taller than I'm used to and feels very comfortable, but a little like riding a tall elephant smoothly lumbering through the forest.

My friend Kristi liked having her horse tailgating Colleen's mare because he tends to be very forward and chargy and it makes her nervous when she can't control him, but she likes to use Colleen's mare as a wall to slow him down. Choctaw was happy to stroll along way in the back.

It was Colleen’s first time to ever ride a mule and she kept saying how comfortable he is and how relaxed and wonderful he is on the trails. I was very proud of my new mule!

We had two young boys on the ride,the horse in front is actually a talented Mounted Shooting horse.

The forest was so beautiful and green. Every time I looked back at Colleen and Choctaw, Colleen was grinning from ear to ear. Mules just make you smile!

Some of these photos in this post were taken by Paula. Here you can see me riding Colleen's mare out in front and Colleen on Choctaw.

                                                      Pretty cool looking dead tree…..

                                          See? You can’t help but smile while riding a mule!

At one point a couple miles down the trail, we had to enter through the Wilderness gate….


Choctaw walked right through, relaxed and content to be out on the trail….

                                              C and my awesome mule Choctaw!

The trail was a bit steep and narrow in sections and there were rocks and boulders, but Choctaw easily covered it all and had no problems even though he has mostly been ridden on the flats and on the rolling hills of the Chupadera Mountains in Southern New Mexico. But I have spoken with his previous owners who owned him in Oklahoma and they had taken him to the Winding Stairs Mountain Recreation Area in the Ouachita Mountains at Cedar Lake Equestrian Campground
for a long weekend of camping on trails that varied from easy to very rugged. And even though he was ridden every day, all day, he never was sore and was always ready to head out on the trails.

The game plan was for Colleen to ride Choctaw until we stopped for lunch and then we would switch…..

Standing on the Crest of the Manzano Mountains beneath Mosca Peak.

                              Me up front with Colleen and Choctaw behind.

And we finally made it to our lunch/rest stop where I tied up Choctaw, and he patiently waited until I was done with my lunch.


And then we all saddled up and got ready to continue down the trail.

                                  See my face? It’s impossible to ride a mule without smiling!


                                                        Choctaw is so comfortable to ride!

And those ears! Sometimes they stand straight up, sometimes they spread out like airplane wings, and sometimes they just flop all over the place.

The trail was very thickly overgrown and it was kind of magical to ride through all of that lush green, especially when you live in a desert state like New Mexico.


                                                         Antenna's (Ears) Forward!

                                                              Yep…..still smiling!

                             Airplane ears flying over the Crest of the Manzano Mountains!


                                  Smiling huge here!…..Gotta love those airplane ears!

The switchbacks began…………and this is where Paula began griping, complaining, and whining about not having a britchen on her mule because my mule was wearing it instead. It didn’t matter that she had offered it to me at the beginning of the ride and she even put it on my mule. Didn’t matter that it was her choice to loan me her britchen and not bring another one for me even though she believed that BOTH of our mules would need a britchen. Didn’t matter that she was supposed to be a good friend who should be helpful and not hurtful to a friend, and not set up her friend to fail.
No none of those things mattered, because she raised hell and caused a scene and made all of us on the trail ride listen to her complain. She chose to dismount her mule because she said he was not happy about going downhill and his saddle was riding up on him. She chose to walk the remainder of the trail ride, and even played the martyr and refused anyone’s help or assistance. Willow even offered her son’s horse to ride, but Paula refused! I even offered her Choctaw to ride and I would walk. I was wearing my Ariat hiking riding boots, so walking would have been no big deal for me. But she refused! And she even went so far as to loudly proclaim that she was walking to “teach me a lesson and make me feel bad”…exact words! I already felt bad, but I was angry that she could be so needlessly cruel.
Paula did take up Colleen’s offer to pony her foster mule, but ironically was very rude towards Colleen on several occasions during and after our ride. She was also rude towards others too. When anyone made a silly joke about our mules, or about us riding an ass, Paula would roll her eyes and comment “horse people!”. She complained to me at the beginning of the ride about Colleen being late to the trail head. And Colleen told me later that evening on the telephone when she called me, that during the ride whenever she teased that if I ever deciding to sell my mule, she wanted to be first in line, Paula rudely said, “Lisa better never sell him to the likes of HER!”.
And then when the majority of our group rode on ahead without Paula,(and I was glad, because I was tired of hearing Paula whine and complain) she trailed behind with two other riders in our group, Loeta and Cory, probably complaining all the way back to the trail head. (I was later told by Loeta that yes, Paula did frequently complain, yet she still refused any help or offers to ride their horses)
Her behavior was really horrible. And I was so embarrassed that I had even invited her on the ride!

When I got back to the trail head, I took her mule and mine and unsaddled, untacked, brushed down, and watered both mules. But when Paula returned to the trailer, she never once acknowledged what I did for her and just sulked around and shot me evil looks. I even hung up her bridle, britchen, saddle, scooped the manure, placed hay bags back inside the trailer and loaded my own mule into her trailer. She never even said thank you.
What she did say was that she was going to bring my mule back to my house and she wasn’t going to ride him on her ditch bank trails. She said it in a very threatening way. I think she thought I would beg her to keep my mule and would be offended…but seriously? I would have never let her take Choctaw back to her home after the terrible behavior she portrayed towards me and my friends. She seemed surprised when I agreed with her but then told me that she thought I wasn’t the best person to own a mule and that I should sell him to her (By the way, this was at least the 4th time she had asked to buy him from me! Yes, I got a good deal on him, and she knew it. And she acted jealous and seemed to want him for herself, even telling me that it was a good situation for her since her foster mule would be going back to his owner at the end of the summer, and her own mule was still laid up from an injury, so she would need another mule to ride.)

But, when I told her no…. Yet again, she got upset and started criticizing me about the britchen, about taking Choctaw on mountain trails, claiming they were too rugged for him and it was cruel of me. She complained that I didn’t douse Choctaw in fly spray before our ride, even though there were only a few flies at the trail head and none on the trail. She also chastised me about how I asked my friend Colleen to ride Choctaw and give me her opinion. Paula claimed that her opinion should have been good enough for me!!
She even made me cry out of anger and frustration. I don’t do drama well and I rarely ever get angry. I'm also very softhearted, which seems to make me an easy target to be other people’s doormat. But here's the kicker......when I was crying, Paula was LAUGHING at me and saying how 'hilarious' (her exact words) it was that I was crying.

When we finally got to my house and I took my mule back, she once again told me I should sell Choctaw to her. She actually said, “This is your last chance. You sell him to me and I’ll do all the hard stuff with him, and I’ll let you ride him and do the fun stuff”. Exact words! I was offended that she said that to me. I then offered her a check for $100 to cover the costs of feeding him and scooping his poop for the couple days that Choctaw was at her place. My intent was for her to finally realize I was severing all ties with her. She greedily snatched the check from my hand, just as she'd done with all the hundreds of dollars of gas money and countless lunches I paid for her over the past year.
But then as I walked up the hill to my barn, she even had the audacity to yell out loudly, “Give him some of Apache’s Previcox tonight”. She said it as if she owned him or thought her opinions mattered to me!

What the hell?? Why would he need my mare’s arthritis medicine?! He was not sore after our 7 mile ride, he was not even tired. And he’s only an 8 year old mule…not a bit of arthritis in his joints.
I had to shake my head in disbelief as I ignored her “request” and continued walking, because one of the things she harped about during the short time that I knew Paula over the last year, is that she knew best when it came to taking care of her horses and mules, and she didn’t put up with people telling her what to do for her animals. In fact her favorite saying is “My Mule, My Rules!”.
Well, she was crazy insane to even think I would consider selling my mule to her.





Later that evening Colleen called me at home because she had seen me crying and was upset that Paula had caused it. And on the phone with me, she was angry...no...furious...with Paula's horrible behavior. Colleen aggressively told me on the phone that "that nasty woman had better never show her face at my business nor try to ride with me again". Yes, those were her exact words.

(But I later discovered that Colleen is a fake friend, a user and a manipulator and will say and do whatever she needs to get her way or get what she wants. In fact, a year later she is best buddies with Paula. Talk about a backstabber!)

Well, other than discovering that some people I thought were friends actually never were, and they just seemed to have used me to get invited to rides and be shown my favorite trail routes, the ride at Fourth of July Canyon was absolutely wonderful! Choctaw was perfect and did everything I asked. He even led for a while when we had to bushwhack around a fallen tree and he made me smile the entire day.
Now if only people could be as wonderful as animals, life would be perfect.


(All information in this blog post is the truth as I experienced it.)