Dreams of running with horses

Connie who does the Special Lady creations loves horses as I do. The horse above reminds me of my dreams. I used to dream about horses a lot. One of my favorites was dreaming that I was running side by side with them along some western trail and keeping up! I would wake up and think I must have been a horse at one time, if I could keep up with a horse in my dreams. They must have been my brothers in some dim past life. Since my grandfather owned about 40 horses and my dad fifteen or twenty on his ranch I made it a point to get acquainted with as many of these horses as I could, just like you would with people.
I glanced at the horse my dad is riding out on the Boulder winter range in this picture and I think it was Hank. If it isn't my sister Ann will correct me as she acquainted herself well with my dad's horses once it was her turn to do some cow punching with him after I went away to school. The other guy is probably riding a Jepsen horse. Looks like Blue. When my dad bought this ranch, to my delight, there was a bunch of new horses for me to get acquainted with. I had a notable experience with all three of the riding horses we acquired, Blue, Blackie and a little red mare named Wissy my dad gave to me. The owner was Danish so I assumed Wissy was a Danish name. Wissy had been gored by a wild cow so everytime a cow with horns got near her she would jump sideways all over the place. My dad warned me to watch closely or she'd throw me. She was so easily spooked she was a strain to ride.
Anyway Hank was sired from an expensive guarter horse and was he spirited. Even as a colt he would gallop up and act like he was going to jump right on the horse you were riding just to scare you. I had to ride Dinah, his mother, a lot and she absolutely hated to work. She would start kicking up after about an hour or so and try to scare you into taking her home. She really acted up with me one time when we had left her colt home and she was mad. She nearly keeled over backwards. In fact she scared my dad so bad, he yelled at me, "Git off! Git off!" I knew he did not mean it as she was up in the air. How could I get off? I yelled at him she wanted her colt, so after she came back down to the ground, the old cowboy Dad finally said I could take her back to the barn and her colt.
Anyway Hank had to have something of Dinah's defiant nature in him, and he was so fiesty that my dad finally gave up riding him as his main mount and passed him on to Pole, his son-in-law, who probably loved this horse more than any horse he ever rode. He was fast. He was beautiful, and Pole was proud of himself for being able to handle him.
By the way, the other photo is of the rugged country where our family ranches were located. This was taken on Hell's Backbone looking off into Death Canyon.
Now, I am looking closer, I see the horse my dad was riding is not Hank, but Sorly. Oh, but that horse was a magnificent animal, generally conceded as the most intelligent and well trained cow horse of his time. My Dad was confident when he put me on him to do a difficult job Sorly would see it got done. Well, I knew I was on a master when I rode him, if I had the sense to stay on him, which I didn't one time. One of my worst days of cowpunching among many. Cowpunching for my dad was always a trial. When I survive the day I felt I had succeeded. Whether I was with him or by myself I knew I had to answer for every mistake I made. He cussed until he got it out of his system which might be two or three days, everytime he thought of what you had done and how much extra work it was going to cost him.
He put the other sisters through the same rigamarole. My mother could only be persuaded to go cow punching with him about once and she said he tried to kill her by forcing her to ride pell mell through a bunch of aspens down hill, so she refused ever to go again, but the love of horses was in the sisters' blood, so no matter what happened on the trail, we could always be lured back on a horse to go again. My dad and my granddad King were great horsemen.