LETTERS FROM SAGE

Sage decided to write a letter home during her first week in Arkansas.

Dear Mom, camp is great in AR. I've never seen so much grass. These big black animals have quit following me around. They've got kinda short legs to be horses and they say moooo. My leader feeds me Winnie's cookies, I like that very much.

One sunny afternoon she got a bucket of warm water and washer my hair and got all the cockleburs out of my forelock. Yesterday I thought we were going for a regular ride, WRONG. Not much around here is regular. We went for a little ways and then there was a gate like the one at Jenny's. I did the gate just like always but she wanted me to do something with a rope that was on the post. I didn't understand this part at all but she didn't get mad and beat on me. I took a while because I shut the gate and I thought we were done so I tried to go to the next task but she wanted to stay there and do whatever with that rope. The gate was easy but that rope part was a real trick. Jenny doesn't have a rope on her gate so how was I supposed to know what to do with it.

Next we went to a little black hole with a little water in the bottom of it.????? This is a whole new playground mom. Jenny doesn't have one of these either! It was a pretty scary lookin' deal for sure. And my leader actually wanted me to go IN THERE. Sure enough, she kept asking me to step forward but I couldn't figure this out. And mom, sit down mom, ther were a whole bunch of cars and trucks going by over our heads. I smelled her hand and she wasn't scared. I was locked up good. You know how I can do. She just put a little rhythmic pressure behind the drive line and I followed her in there 8-10 steps and had to think about this some more . The cars and trucks on top of us were loud and echoed in there. It was very dark and smelled just like those black animals, even the walls smelled like those things. I smelled the water in the floor of this place and it even smelled like those animals. Even Jenny and Tony and Ed never thought of this task. I wonder how many points I got for doing it. She rubbed my face in the dark and my favorite spot in front of my withers. My neck was getting really tight so she waited till my breathing became fairly normal again. We continued on and the place got very black. I couldn't see a thing, but could sure hear cars and trucks going on top of us. We went a long ways and finally came out into the sunshine again. She said we had gone under 4 highways of 8 lanes of traffic on I-540. Mama, what's a 540? Whew! I was pretty proud of myself, I can tell ya' that, and I think she was too.

And just when I thought we were finished, here came another gate. No problem, right, I can do gates. But oh no. This one also had something strange on it. A wire I think, that she had to stay there again and put it over the top of the post. Oh, and it was a BIG,HEAVY gate. I don't know why she just couldn't get down and do it herself. Fortunately, this gate had a long rope on it so she could pull the gate slowly toward us up the hill to the post. Every time I tried to leave, the rope went over my head and there went the gate down the hill again and she had to start us all over again. Finally, she was happy with the job and we were off over the big mountain where we saw 5-6 deer. It was beginning to get dark and starting to sprinke but my leader didn't seem to care. To get back home, you guessed it, we had to do the heavy downhill gate again AND the small black place again that went forever but it wasn't so scary that time.

Whew!!!!!!!! Can you sign me up for the next session of camp here? Whew, I wonder what my leader'll think of next. Love, Sage