CAUTION - NOT a fun post! I HATE WILD WEED EXTREMISTS!

A week has elapsed since the most fateful, almost worst day of my life, occurred.

  It was a day when this: 

2' Steel Stake in ground 2' from edge of country road hidden by tall Wild Weeds (nature loving neighbors planted Wild Flowers and did not want road district to mow Wild Weeds)

produced this: 

Granddaughter in hospital bed after being thrown from horse and grazing steel stake as she fell.

It began on Thursday after school.  With warm weather and later sunsetS, granddaughter wanted to ride, so I promised her we would ride Friday when she got home from school since she had not completed her homework yet that day.

Friday came.  She was so excited she wore her riding gear to school!  As soon as she got off the school bus she found me and we mounted up and meandered down the lane.  Warm day and horses with long fur coats make for lazy horses.  We rode down the road, round the corner and into the woods where we have had a longstanding invitation to ride to the river flood plain.

We met dogs.  Lots of dogs.  LOTS of dogs.  In a pack.  Which ran to greet us, swarmed us, surrounded us, and then ran off.  Granddaughter's horse stood still, planted, and stared.  NOT at dogs, but at owners yelling at dogs to return to them.  BUT, the dogs ran home, and granddaughter's horse ran with them.  And continued to run.  At top speed.  Galloping.  To the road, down the road, and stopped and twirled at top of hill when she realized her companion horse was not with her - held back by me to avoid making the horse run faster....

Hearing a 7 year old yelling "Grandpa" while riding a galloping horse dodging trees going through the woods is VERY heart rending.  VERY.  EXTREMELY!

As I exited the woods, her horse is standing at top of rise around corner, looking for me.  As soon as she spots me, horse leaves once she sees that -I- see granddaughter laying along edge of road right in area where steel fence posts are.  As I gallop across field, I see granddaughter flopping on ground.  I reach her, terrified of what I am going to find - a steel stake through the chest of an 8 year old.

But as I approach, she is rousing and crying hysterically.  I pick the life size doll up to keep her still, noticing the blood on the side of the head...  Slightly less terrified myself, my whole mind is occupied with relief that there are no holes punctured through her body (including the base of the skull) and my world becomes one of getting emergency help to the terrified flopping 7 year old and get her on the road to recovery.

One week later and she is on the road to full recovery.  Got to miss a week of school (she missed PE).  Keeping a 7 year old calm and quiet for a week for brain recovery takes a gaggle of adults to manage!

And in the end, I hate wild weed (flower) loving extremists who think it is more important to protect their wild weeds in an illegal manner at complete disregard for human safety and the township road commissioner and township board that allowed it to continue after I warned them of just such a danger!