Nancy Swearengin – Proprietor
Nancy Swearengin, Proprietor
Muddy Creek Raingear stood up to “the hardest test we ever put it through for our coats our horse and ourselves!” “It was the last Criss Cross of 2003, last half… riding out from Kalkaska, remember? It started raining the night before and we waited in the rain, me and my friend Val and Aunt Lummy, pouring rain I remember. We took refuge in the back of Dick Clark’s trailer since it was getting colder. He loaned me one more layer to put on. I went to saddle my sweet mare Miss and I pulled the blue tarp off our saddles and gear to find it was leaking, our saddles were wet. DAMN!!! I HATE THAT!!!! I walked up to her with my dripping saddle and she glared at me and said in no uncertain horse language, “YOU’RE KIDDING RIGHT, WE ARE NOT GOING TODAY, YOU KNOW I HATE THE RAIN, WHERE IS MY BARN? I THINK I MIGHT BITE YOU, GET AWAY FROM ME, WHERE IS MY BARN?????”
I told her it usually didn’t rain this hard for very long so it wouldn’t be that bad. She didn’t bite me but she wanted to. I saddled her and Junior and threw the leaky tarps over them and walked away from their glaring stares to wait for Bobe and the bus.
We made record time that day, Miss informed me that if she had to go that day we were going to “SLAP LEATHER AND GO LIKE HELL” which we did. Who am I to argue with that reasoning? I kept telling Val it usually doesn’t pour rain this hard for this many hours so it must be going to stop soon. IT DIDN’T. It literally poured all day until we got into camp then it quit. We sang every song we could think of about rain and laughed and laughed about how much water was coming down for so many hours straight.
