This week was a tad calamitous for Sage Farm Girl and consequently gave rise to a goodly dollop of soul searching and digging deep as she attempted to work it all out. The question: Just what sort of person am I (Our Farm Girl is not one to shy away from the big questions.).
The cause: Her (inevitable) first equine fall.
Presto is not the most enthusiastic worker horse. He makes his Why canter when you can trot, why trot when you can walk, and why walk when you can stand stubbornly still ethos pretty clear. Usually he and Farm Girl can reach an understanding, but this week he sensed a weakness as she practiced moving from a trot to a canter without reins. Farm Girl’s unscheduled dismount was graceful but it’s still a fair way to fall and tears were shed. It was these tears that caused the soul searching. She doesn’t want to be a softy! She wants to be nuggetty and feisty and fearless like all her current heroes: Zoe from Free Rein, Anne Shirley Cuthbert (Anne with an e), and her latest idols, the Wilson sisters from Keeping up with the Kaimanawas
We took her chosen words
as a good indication our soothing ones had been of some use to her.
We are always evolving
Even the Wilson girls cry sometimes
and it takes 100 falls to make a good rider – now you only have 99 to go (this final gem from her horse riding instuctor, Jordana, as Farm Girl dried her tears, dusted herself off, and accepted the leg-up back into the saddle).
I’m pretty sure horse riding features large in Farm Girls future, she has been bitten by that bug good and proper, and I also know without doubt she will be able to sustain herself with her cooking
Four Tier Chocolate Cake with Butter Cream and Chocolate Ganache
It’s so cool watching her as she works out the massive possibilities of what she may be.
Union Homestead 
Never fun to fall off a horse, but sooner or later it happens. As for fictional girls, well, they are fictional. Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the Anne books, was a hot mess. But Farm Girl doesn’t need to know that right now. Plenty of time later to learn about authors’ foibles
I love the phrase “hot mess” and totally agree with the perfection of fictional characters, but also am proud that those characters FG aspires to are strong and free thinking
Yes, yes!
Sorry about the fall, however inevitable but the quote and the delicious looking cake shows she is not easily put down so to speak.
She’s pretty staunch – the love of horses passed me by as a girl but it is certainly strong in her
Hi, I wonder how many falls happen when Farm Girl progresses to jumping over barriers? I hope she is well practiced in the art of falling by then. The helmet will come in handy. It is a pity there is a lack of padding to protect other areas of the body, but I guess riding in a Sumo suit is a tad impractical.
I suspect that 4 tier cake disappeared pretty quickly.
Chuckling over the sumo suited horse rider, although a few more slices of that cake and I would require no suit!
When I was 13 I had a pony ( George), who sounds just like Presto, why trot when I can stand and eat this grass? We had many battles but he taught me so much about myself and how strong and determined a girl can be when it comes to the love of a horse. They say that until you’ve fallen off a certain number of times ( can’t remember the amount), you are not a true horsewoman!! Now she has had her maiden fall she’ll take it all in her everyday ride and she will look back and say ” It wasn’t so bad!”
All animals named George I have met are characters; yours sounds like no exception
I see that horse riding is much like bicycling. Everyone cries when they fall off but it is not crying when you get back on that is important.
There’s some great Tootlepedal sage words eight there😊
The cake looks so delicious yummmm. I love Shakespeare.
Nerves are the worst, falling off never fun, my son who has challenges (Autistic) went through the same thing as I think most riders do. first fall not huge injuries but to him meltdown devastation, in his own time he rode again & quite often, quite a few falls later, he learnt to get determined & fall with humour, it is a process though, he is a great rider & now we find that if he hasn’t ridden for a while he becomes quite sad, riding is his happy place. Unlike his crazy mother who has fallen often strikes a ridiculously embarrassing pose & rides off to get the nurofen before the pain kicks in. lol. Be encouraged farm girl you are brave for getting on to start with.
I like the idea of getting the pain relief sorted before the hurting starts 😊
Your Farm Girl is a brave and determined young woman. What a luscious-looking cake! I am dieting and have had no chocolate since March 😮
No chocolate!? And you say our Farm Girl is brave and determined!😊
Hehe!