Bringing him home

The plan was to take pictures of the entire thing.

The drive. Here's a shot of the road.



You might want to look at it again, because that was the only picture I got of picking him up.

The only one. Well, I accidentally took a picture of the truck floor mats, but I'm sparing you that...

We left later than I hoped, a typical occurrence around here. Kids needed to be packed up and I was so over the top excited that I couldn't think straight. I was forgetting everything and constantly running back and forth.

As it turned out it was just me and Adam for the trip - the kids bailed to be in A/C and spongebob with Grammy. This wasn't a bad thing, we miss traveling together. Adam and I met rock climbing and sometimes our favorite part of climbing was the drive to get there.

This was a good thing since it's a 3 hour drive to pick up the horse.

When we got there, there he was, tied to a hitching post. Audrey met us there and was riding her horses in the arena - June Bug, her quarter horse, and ponying a beautiful young bay Irish draft (who's name escapes me).

I was a little nervous. Would he be the same? And, perhaps stupidly, would he still like me?

He was exactly as he was before. He followed me around with his eyes, at one point leaning against the hitching post trying to get a little closer. Even Adam was surprised. "He's just like Canyon was with you!"

My pocket pony. Just what I hoped for.

We loaded him in the trailer, which took a few tries since he's used to a larger trailer, grabbed some lunch and headed home. At one point we opened the window because he seemed awfully cramped, but he literally stuck his head out as far as it would go and I was sure he was going to get it chopped off.

He is, apparently, part giraffe. We literally had to push his head back in.

Then, at home when we released the but bar he calmly turned around in the trailer to come out. LOL. Guess it wasn't so small after all.


He greeted everyone with a high pitch whinny and we settled him in.

By the time I came back the next morning everyone was going on and on about him. He was curious, respectful, handsome, sweet, sweet, sweet.

This is the horse that was a little stand offish? Here, he's a rock star.

And what is his name? I know you're wondering.

It took me three days (which is why I didn't post anything for so long. All my computer time was spent looking up names) to come up with it. Part of the challenge was after spending a morning with him on Sunday, I'd decided that he wasn't hispanic. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Maybe because his papers show that he's from the Dakotas, maybe because he has such a classic quarter horse look, maybe because he seemed to not respond to Cariño, Lumbre, and half a dozen other contenders.

This was troubling since his name for years was Lobo. (I just spoke with Pam, his previous owner, and she said she never liked Lobo for a name either! Isn't that funny?)

So I started to jot some names down. I enlisted the help of my office mates. We came up with these.

Yes, I know. I should have gone into medicine.

So I looked on line for HOURS. Famous horses. Stars in the sky. Movie mounts. Famous cowboys. Places. Attitudes. Rescue horses (those people at rescues are so clever!).

I even hit up my sister for help since she helped name Canyon.

She came up with d'Artagnan which I loved, because d'Artagnan was such a sweet guy in the 3 musketeers. But it tends to sound like Canyon and it's darn long.

I had sorta settled on Caspian, which sounded great, but wasn't quite right.

Then we hit on it.

He really looked like a Bo (as in Beau) to me, but that was too simple.





Then I realized I had a name. A name I liked before I picked Canyon - the Canyon runner up name that actually fit him perfectly.

Cibolo.

Cibolo, after Cibolo Creek, after a place I used to go to hear live music, after a town where the last of the ranches outside San Antonio linger outside the rim of malls, Cibolo which has a spanish ring with a nice western feel (cibolo means buffalo, actually). It has Lobo in it, which is fortunate given his freeze brand:


But Cibolo has the sound of running hooves in it for me.

And I can call him Bo.

So, there we go. With Cibolo.

I think he likes it.

(I love a horse that licks and chews. Makes me think I'm doing something right.)