It was a beautiful Saturday morning in June. My husband, Jeff and I were feeding were feeding our stable full of horses on our southern California ranch, the Rocking Horse. Foxy, my beautiful bay Arabian mare, put her head over her stall and nickered as I passed by with a horse named Conn's grain.
"I'll get you next, Fox," I told the mare.
It was after we fed the horses and I was checking my email. Junk, junk and more junk I thought to myself. Than an email caught my eye. It was from a girl named Raven. This is what it said:
Dear Mrs. Smith,
My name is Raven Baxter and you might have seen me on the hit Disney Channel show, "That's So Raven." Anywho, I was wondering if I could bring a bunch of my friends horseback riding, if that wouldn't be too much trouble; none of us have anything to do today. There is going to be eight of us coming, myself included. Please email me back if we can come.
Take care,
From,
Raven
I emailed her back and said:
Raven,
OMG! I watched your show, "That's So Raven" all the time when I was eighteen. Of course, you and your friends can come riding, but all of you need to bring the following:
A pair of riding boots – no sneakers or sandals. Rain boots would be perfect.
A riding helmet – if you don't have your own, I have plenty
And
A sack lunch.
My only open slot for riding is two o'clock. Is that okay? Email me back soon so that I can prepare your horses. One last question: What are your friends names?
Hope to hear from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Smith
Five minutes later, I got an email from Raven.
Mrs. Smith,
I'm glad that you watched "That's So Raven." All of us have rain boots, but we don't have helmets. We're going to stop for lunch on the way. Two o'clock sounds great! This is everybody that's coming:
Chelsea Daniels
Eddie Thomas
Lizzie McGuire
David "Gordo" Gordon
Miranda Sanchez
Phil Diffy
Keeley Adams
And myself.
Hope to see you soon!
From,
Raven
I logged off my email and went to get horses ready.
"Jeff, I need some help getting horses ready," I yelled to him. He was sitting in the den, watching TV. He quickly turned off the TV and followed me to the barn.
"Which horses do we need to get ready?" he asked.
"Foxy, Melody, Gunny, Pudgi, Conn, Chum, Splash, Magic, CJ and Tzer," I named ten of the safest horses I owned.
"Why are we saddling up ten horses? I thought there were eight riders," said Jeff.
"Because, pookie we are going to be riding, too," I said as I saddled up Foxy.
"Which tack is going on which horse?" asked Jeff, heading towards the tack room.
"Foxy, Gunny, Pudgi, Conn, Magic and CJ get English tack and Melody, Chum, Splash and Tzer get Western tack. Got it?" I snapped.
"Okay, okay. Settle down," Jeff yelled from inside the tack room. He emerged with Melody's Western tack. He tacked her up and led her to the corral fence. He snapped a lead rope to her halter. After he did that, he tacked up Chum, Splash and Tzer and led them to the corral fence as well. Melody nickered when she saw her friends coming her way. She nipped Chum's shoulder and got a slap from Jeff instead. Ten minutes later, the horses were waiting for their riders to come.
