My, What Big Testicles You Have!!

There's a saying about the only thing that separates the men from the boys is the size of their toys. Well, it seems this past weekend was THE weekend for all those overgrown boys to be out and about, showing off their toys and their apparent testicular endowments personified by those V8 engines and glass-packed mufflers!

I'll commend Quzqo, who has no testicles, with maintaining his level-headedness when it seemed we were confronted with a never-ending weekend-long parade of Redneck males in/on about every kind of mechanized projection of their masculinity short of a Monster Truck coming down the road!

Saturday on our trail ride, we were both surprised to find two good ole' boys four-wheeling in a bright red Chevy truck , doing donuts and going round and round in a hilly empty field without roads (just a horse trail). We stayed on the opposite side of the field to see what their plan was, and apparently it was to drive aimlessly over saplings and wildflowers before heading up a sharp bank and back onto the road and southwards to find other unsuspecting natural areas to express their virility through their shiny red truck. My my, weren't we impressed!

A local campground also hosted their "Harley Round-Up" this weekend, I can't recall a time there were so many Harleys on the road, roaring up and down, their elderly riders sporting the barest minimum skullcap helmets, their beer guts interfering with their ability to steer their Hawgs. Thankfully Quzqo isn't fazed one way or another by a blatting glass-packed muffler, so if they thought they could scare the horse, I hope they were disappointed.

On our Sunday afternoon drive, we were going down a dirt road I like to call Deliverance Drive, due to it's frightening dirt-poor white trash hovels (I have GOT to take photos one of these days). I got Quzqo trotting so as to get past the scary buildings as fast as we could, when I saw a rather large woman unloading groceries from her car. At her feet was a small black dog, bigger than a Chihuahua but smaller than a MinPin...it immediately started yapping and heading for the road. The woman started hollering at the top of her lungs for the dog to git back here! Oh, yes, a yapping dog and a hollering human, Quzqo loved THAT! I calmly told the woman that it was all right, even called her "Ma'am" but little doggy was in the road chasing after us, and the woman kept on hollering. Quz shifted into third gear, almost broke into a canter, but blew out of there, trotting powerfully over the lovely washboard road, pausing only to shy at a mailbox before we made it past the settlement into the open countryside beyond.

I hate going down that stretch of road. Seriously.

On our way back to the barn (and boy, does Quzqo know when we've turned around and are heading HOME!), I went a different route, returning down the dirt road we leave by... Now leaving entails going up a long, gradual incline and down a short, sharp decline. Which meant going home, we have to go back up the short, sharp incline, and then the long, gradual decline. I was worried about this, because Quzqo gets very slow going up that hill when I'm riding, and sometimes I dismount and lead him instead. I was pondering where to stop the cart to get out and lead him, when behind us I heard a large engine with a bad muffler approaching. Ah, shit, a big pickup truck racing down the dirt road, heading for the hill and us!

I got Quz off to the side as far as I could (which wasn't far with 10 foot high dirt banks on both sides), and the truck slowed and trundled past us, blaring rap tunes with the bass thudding, and two ugly dogs hanging out the passenger side window (one was a half-Rottweiller, couldn't tell what the other one was). Quzqo was fine with that, but then suddenly right on his bumper came a big white van that neither of us knew was there, its engine sound drowned out by the hick-hop music blasting from the first truck! Quz froze in place, pointing slightly into the lane of traffic, the van slowed slightly, then tore off in a cloud of dust up the hill. Quz started to back down the hill....NO! Forgive me O Wise Ones of Chronicle of the Horse, but I slapped the reins on his rump and he leaned forward and tore off at a ground-grabbing trot up the hill after the van and had NO problems running up that hill and beyond!

Heck, he wasn't even breathing hard when I slowed him down eventually!

Back on the county road leading to the barn, we were passed by a few more Harleys and a modified hot rod. By that time Quzqo had seen it all and wasn't impressed. All we needed to make the day complete would have been some ATVs and dirt bikes. Maybe next weekend.

Kind of makes me long for the days of $4.17/gallon gasoline, when people couldn't afford to waste their money.