That Miller Girl...

I miss my family tonight. No wailing and gnashing of teeth, I just plain ol' miss them. This picture sits on my grandfathers' desk as I type this. Its of my sister. She is 9 months old in this photograph. This picture is one of the reasons I'll have more than one child, God willing He blesses me with them. You see, she's my best friend. And we had the most wonderful adventures when we were little...

I was my sister's childhood hero. Or heroine if you will. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting the most charming, intelligent, beautiful Miller girl, she'll tell you she thinks I'm one of the grandest things God put on the face of this earth. Which is fine because I think the same of her as well.

We don't see each other much anymore. Usually once every six months. Life just takes you in different directions. But when we're together, the sun is brighter, the sky is bluer, and we can both talk each others' ears off. My sister likes to tell stories of when I saved her, protected her, etc. I frankly think they get more grand as time goes by, so I'll give you my version of a few of the stories and you can talk to her if you want to hear her side of it.

Legs was eighteen hands high. And for a 9 year old (leanne) and a 10 year old (me), that's pretty tall for a horse. He was generally good-natured, not like the very proud showhorse Spike that we had as well. Legs and Spike were corralled in, but for the most part just roamed around our ten acre vineyard. We had some type of fence, whether barbed or electric to keep everything both in and out.

One day, Leanne and I were on Legs. I was in the back of the saddle, Leanne was in the front. Leanne was happy in the front and I like making her happy, so in the front she sat. Legs was meandering around towards the main road and just kind of walking along. Stress free, happy as a lark. We're giggling about something, as little girls tend to do, and all of the sudden Legs bolts straight for the fence.

I'm still not sure to this day what made that danged ol' horse spook, but he could get up and go, and with his long stride, hence his name, he was making extremely fast progress towards that fence. He was going to try and jump that fence with both of us on him which would more than likely throw both of us. Or he was going to balk at the fence, throw both of us, either over the fence or onto it. Neither of these options is a pleasant thing for two little girls.

As Legs is booking it towards that fence, Leanne understandably gets scared and drops the reins. Not the best idea, but really, can you fault her? All I can remember is thinking no way is this horse going to have the straight up gall to scare my sister much less throw her off him. So I reach around so I'm holding Leanne but trying to grab the reins as well. I get a hold of them and tug and tug and tug. He's got to stop or we are going over that fence. Now, I've never weighed a lot and weighed even less at age 10. And to this day I'm pretty sure Someone Else was helping with that horseflesh cuz sure enough Legs skidded to a stop about four inches from that fence. Leanne calls it my Charlton Heston move.

I get off and walk Legs back up to the house. Keeping Leanne on him for a little while so she's not completely terrified of him because of this experience. Then she gets off him, and we walk hand in hand back up to the house. My other hand was firmly holding Leg's reins.

He might be a bottle of Elmer's by now...