« January 2006 | Main | March 2006 »
A late Saturday afternoon outing during which I courageously ride my husband's hot blooded Arabian critter with only a bareback pad.
She is a perfect lady and manages to not turn herself inside out like a cat or flip from front to back in the wink of an eye. I think Dennis had a little chat with her before our ride.
One of my husband’s well-intentioned but possibly misguided colleagues, a long-time John Deere tractor owner, I understand, has given Dennis some advice about the equitable sharing of tractor time with the wife. He told Dennis that once he brought that John Deere home, he could barely get his hands on the thing because on the weekends because she always got to the tractor first. (Smart woman.)
His solution—
Leave a running list of tractor chores on the seat of the tractor. Whoever gets to the tractor first on Saturday morning has to work their way through the chores on the list whilst the tractor is in their possession.
Now I’m not a list maker, and I’m not sure I like this.
Unless, of course, I manage to get my dressage arena to the top of the list first along with a hay ride.
Yesterday afternoon, the kids and I rode the horses up the mountain to visit an old friend.
A venerable cedar.
He lives way up on a ridge above our ranch. Most of the trees he grew up with are now blue gray ghosts. Their trunks surround him like memories along with a few young upstarts, pinon that are perhaps fifty years old.
We've stopped and rested in our friend's shade over the years. We've eaten peanut butter sandwiches beneath his gnarled boughs. Matilda-the-tenacious heeler likes to curl up at his hoary roots for a mid-ride siesta. Our horse Caprichosa tried to bite a chunk out of him once, and got a good tap on the nose from J., who is protective of the aged.
Whenever I see this bulldogged cedar, rooted to the red rocks and earth, clinging to the mountainside, probably for about a thousand years, or so it seems, I think of what the boy Jim said in Willa Cather's My Antonia
"Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons."
Eight-year-old C. places his hand tenderly on the cedar's rough bark. Almost as if it would bruise like the translucent skin of his beloved Jack, whom he visits every week at the home for senior citizens. And I wait. Knowing we are going to have the same conversation we always have.
Gosh, Mom, how old do you think this old guy is?
I lean back where I'm sitting on a rock on the ground, and give the wizened cedar a good once over yet another time.
I don't know. What do you think? I ask.
C. knits his brows together. They are handsome Scotsman eyebrows. My mom calls them wizard eyebrows. But C. gets mad if we talk about them or his beautiful eyes much, although every now and then I catch him admiring his reflection in the mirror. He is trying not to let me see him using his fingers because he's doing some apparently complex math.
I think we're doing exactly what Jim was talking about.
Ohio, 1972, 11 yrs old
All the kids are talking about it on the playground today. I sure hope it’s not true.
I pull the patchwork coverlet up to my chin and stare through the semi-darkness at the six beautiful Breyer horses on my bureau—Clyde, Magpie, Lady, Sham, Trigger, Jack (well, he’s a donkey). The hall light slips in through the half-open door of my bedroom. Jane West and Thunderbolt are in a box somewhere, my mom says. Don’t worry. She’ll look for them when she has the time. Right now she’s too busy sorting other things out from the move.
Outside, the frigid Lake Erie wind rattles the windowpanes like a freight train. I bury my head in my brand new pillow and rub my bare feet together fast, trying to warm them up. Tonight the wind chill factor could reach 40 below, the Channel 3 weatherman says. He wears an ugly plaid leisure suit and reports the weather with his cocker spaniel sitting on a carpet covered box—the weather dog, he calls him. Things around here are sure going to take some getting used to.
They say some guy is doing it again …
Well, that boy with the shaggy brown hair and bright red shirt knows all about it. I can’t remember his name for the life of me yet. I hunker down further in the not quite warmed up bed. Anyway, he says that every year some fool—he puckers his lips up like a sucker fish to push the word out of his mouth along with a shower of spit (my mom sure wouldn’t let me call anyone that)—takes off walking from Ohio to Canada across Lake Erie.
From Ohio to Canada? one of the girls asks. She sounds just like Minnie Mouse.
Because the big lake freezes solid as a rock, you see. The boy crosses his arms across his chest, full of facts.
After the school bus drops me and my sister off, I look up a map of the United States and Canada, finding Lake Erie in between. It's right there in the two-ton box of Encylopedia Britannicas that my mom asks me to put on the bottom shelf in the den. Well, maybe it could be done, I think.
I try to imagine the guy’s footsteps in the snow. Wonder if he listens for cracks in the ice with each step, just like we do when ice skating across frozen farm ponds with sluggish catfish snoozing way down below.
But what’s worse, the boy says—and I am seriously beginning to wonder if this kid is just a know-it-all or what because by this time he has the attention of half of the fifth-grade class— is that he’s taken along a pack horse with him. Can you imagine that? A packhorse across Lake Erie?
Yes.
I can.
The snow is swirling around outside beyond my Priscilla curtained windows now, just like my mind. I can see the horse. He’s a buckskin. His head’s hung low, dropped down against the wind. His tail is whipping around in between his hocks, and he is simply miserable. He’s slowly marching behind the guy whose doing it again through the snow. I know the horse won’t know to listen for cracks in the ice with each step. How could he? I wonder why, if the guy has such a bad case of wanderlust, he couldn’t just jump on a train or something?
And leave that poor innocent horse out of it.
I’ll have a hard time getting to sleep tonight. In the morning I will ask my mom if she’s seen anything on the Channel 3 news about some fool taking his poor horse walking from Ohio to Canada across frozen solid Lake Erie.
Jane West would never let Johnny do anything as stupid as that.
Photos: Marx Toy Museum
Mary over at Equine Bliss is bloggin’ about loggin’. With horses. Check it out.
I grew up on the edge of Amish country in Ohio, up on Lake Erie. I used to love to watch the Amish men with their straw hats and rolled-up sleeves working with their big Belgian teams in the forests and the fields. The closest I’ve gotten recently is watching the horse logging on RFD TV. With whom I have a bone to pick, by the way …
Dear RFD TV— You shortened my Rural Heritage show (and the various and sundry horse logging segments of said show) on Sunday mornings from one hour to a half-hour. What’s up with that? This has markedly decreased my enjoyment of Sunday mornings. Please reconsider. Sincerely, I Gallop On
Flickr Photo: farmingwife
Creating Passionate Users—Dull, lifeless work environments cause brain damage.
I’ll bet that those of us who spend a large part of our week at a computer to pay the bills and support our horse habits share a common activity at the end of many of our workdays—booting down and racing from the cubicle/office to the barn, where there are almost always interesting, stimulating things to do. Some days, I can’t escape the hive of little square offices fast enough. (And I even have the extreme good fortune of having a window in my tiny office.)
As I'm driving to the outskirts of town and heading into the mountains, I ask myself— Will I groom? Will I train? Will I ride? Will I help the kids work on their seats? Will we explore that interesting looking trail together? Will we work on a vaulting move? How will I teach Tobias the draft horse to do this or that? Is there some minor veterinary task I need to attend to? Will I simply pull a plastic chair into the middle of the pasture and hang out with my little herd?
Did you know that Princeton’s Elizabeth Gould has demonstrated that the structure of the brain is incredibly influenced by one's surroundings? Makes sense to me. This explains why we horse people are, generally as a rule, such a smart bunch. After all, working with horses is a creative and thoughtful process.
She links the caged environments (of some primates) with stress, and stimulating natural environments as less stressful. So what does that mean for an office worker (and former cubicle dweller) like me? There is a big assumption here that a dull, boring, unstimulating cube (and office) life is also stressful (for the brain, anyway—it doesn't mean the work itself is stressful). Her findings stress that in order to keep building new brain cells and not totally dumb down from our environment, we need lots of opportunities for play. And perhaps very importantly—frequent rotation and introduction of new toys.
I much prefer a natural outside environment filled with interesting equines over my office environment and its bureaucrats any day! But the luxury of swapping 40 work hours a week for 40 hours down at the stable is not an option at the moment.
Meet my toys.
A stable of Zuni horse fetishes gallop across the shelf of my little rabbit-warren office. (I have a beautiful gray rabbit fetish with tiny turquoise eyes on the shelf as well, but that’s another story.) The Zuni believe that each fetish embodies the spirit of the animal it symbolizes. When I hold a horse fetish in the palm of my hand—fingers curled around the smooth stone, cradling the weight of it—I understand what they are talking about.
Yes, I admit, there are days when my little Zuni horse fetishes keep me sane. Now I discover that they may even heal my brain! I think I may need to add another one to my collection.
BIG is GOODer
We’re well into the tractor quest.
I had a nightmare last night … My husband Dennis went to the tractor dealership unattended.
He came home with this—
I’ve got to figure out how to take that Southwest Ag catalog away from him.
Flickr photos: Frogboy; John Carolan
I've had several days to try out my new Cashel Soft Saddle, and I love it! My only concern when I was considering this soft saddle was that it wouldn't be substantial enough for real riding and that it would slip during riding. All not true.
I've test driven this little saddle so far on my Andalusian (pictured here), who is round and Rubinesque with medium withers, and also on our small boned, flat withered, slightly-built Navajo Nation Appaloosa horse. I have ridden on the flat, up and down big steep hills, cross country, in straight lines and circles, at every gait, including a good gallop. The saddle remained secure.
Made of closed cell foam and wetsuit quality neoprene, I'd describe this saddle as a hybrid. It's a mix between a treeless saddle and a bareback pad. It is the most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden in. (I have a nicely broken-in Stubben saddle that I use on my Andalusian.) It's going to be hard to go back to my regular saddle after riding in the Cashel. I love the ability to be able to feel my horse move beneath me, without anything stiff in between us.
This saddle is perfect for a woman's body. (I suspect that my cowboy husband and other men would find it comfortable too.) Riding in this saddle is reminiscent of practicing my basic seat in equestrian vaulting (on that big vaulting pad). A friend who has an Icelandic saddle says that it reminds her of her lightweight saddle. (The Cashel weighs in at under 9 pounds.) Because of it's unique construction, this saddle should be instrumental in my continuous quest to improve my seat. I don't agree with some of the comments I've read about the stirrup placement encouraging an armchair seat. In my honest opinion, the correct seat can be easily achieved in this saddle by sitting correctly.
Riding in the cold the last few days, I've also noticed that the neoprene keeps my tush and legs warm! Before I ordered the saddle, I telephoned Cashel Company to ask them some questions about their product and to get their advice regarding sizing. The Cashel rep was very helpful and informative. At 5'8" with a medium build, they recommended a size Large for me.
Now, most importantly, I've observed that my horses like this soft saddle. I have a saddle that fits my Andalusian really well, and she's a nice mover, but she seems pretty happy in this. Our rescue appaloosa is a saddle-fitting challenge who I suspect has had more than her fair share of experience with ill-fitting tack, and I see a marked difference in her attitude when I ride her in the Cashel. I have tried to be very careful about not cinching the saddle up too tightly. I've had to do a little experimenting to find the right balance for me and my horse. I don't want the saddle dragging on the horse's withers, a common complaint regarding bareback pads.
I've had the saddle slip around on me once during mounting over the last few days. It has shifted a little to the left on a couple of occasions. As with a treeless saddle, you have to learn to mount the Icelandic way or get yourself a mounting block!
Overall, I highly recommend this Cashel Soft Saddle.
As always, the first rule in riding is safety. You should be a fairly experienced rider with a good seat to use this saddle. I would not recommend for a beginner.
My horses and I are looking forward to many comfortable rides in the future. And I can't wait to try it on my draft horse, although I'm going to have to get real good at that Icelandic mounting technique first!
My husband Dennis and I are riding home along the old AT&SF road. We’re wringing every bit of daylight out of a bonus Sunday afternoon that feels like spring instead of dismal February.
Dennis’ Miss Morningstar is having an Arabian moment, cha-cha-cha’ing her way back to the ranch—teacup muzzle tucked to her chest, nostrils flaring, tail flying—although we’ve still got a few miles to go. The little mare looks almost like she’s remaining in one spot, but actually horse and husband are moving forward. With flare. Croup lowered, back legs flexing, the aerodynamically built, hot-blooded critter has barely broken a sweat during this extravagant dance. And Dennis sits her gait so pretty.
Caprichosa and I amble along behind. Too fascinated by the Arabian’s showy and unsolicited piaffe, I’ve been reduced to a mere passenger.
Then Dennis does what I suspected all of this pomp was leading up to. He lifts a rein just so, and Morningstar’s shining red hindquarters wind up for an all-out, no-holds-barred, pull-out-all-the-stops, take-your-breath-away gallop. Now good rider etiquette requires that you inform your fellow riders when you are going to haul off from a near standstill like you’ve got a jet engine strapped to your horse’s hindquarters. (And we do stick to the rules when we’re riding with the kids.) But not on this almost balmy, we're-all-on-our-own, get-too-full-of-yourself winter day.
Luckily, I go from sack of potatoes to rider in a second. Because I know my husband. And I know Miss Morningstar.
Dennis flashes me a brilliant smile from beneath the brim of his old Stetson
I let her go.
There is whooping, and there is hollering.
Flickr photos: Domain Barnyard; jasonraddin
There's not too much finery in this ranch woman's closet. But there sure is outside.
The cherry trees that we planted for J. and C.'s third and fourth birthdays are sheathed in scarlet. No finer garment could be found, even on the overpriced Santa Fe plaza that caters to tourists with loads of money in their pockets.
Here's a gray, cloudy, soft-slurry-snow, muddy New Mexico morning daydream for you ...
I am riding Tobias side saddle.
We are galloping across a muddy field in Scotland. (I am from the Robertson clan.) I am wearing the most exquisite velvet riding habit.
It's red.
Bright. Scarlet. Cherry. Tree. Red.
My husband's Polish Arabian horse Morningstar. The blood that flows through this feisty and kind little mare's body is so hot that she is melting the snow where she stands this a.m. ...
A silent, snowy New Mexico morning. Our little ranch is wrapped in the the milky fog creeping over the mesa, and I get the feeling that nothing outside can touch our small piece of the world for the moment. I wonder where snow ends and sky begins.
All I pay my psychiatrist is the cost of feed and hay, and he'll listen to me any day.
~Author Unknown
Flickr photo: Mitchkitter
Hang on, we are going for a ride ...
Caprichosa is listening, one ear swiveled back. "What are we going to do now?" she asks.
Walk on, Cappie girl.
(Big Andalusian hoofbeats here. One-two-three-four. Clip-Clop-Clip-Clop.)
OK, Cap. TTTTTTTrrrrrrrroooootttttttttttttttttt! (Trot, please.)
(A two-beat gait. Clip-clop. Clip-clop.) We are cruisin' now.
Brrrrrrrr... It's chilly. The sun's almost down!
Wait a minute, Cap.
EEEeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssyyyyyyyy. (Please slow down.)
Where's Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler dog?
(Heavy panting here.)
You asked for it, Matilda.
(A slight lift of the rein.)
CaaannnTER! (Canter please, Caprichosa.)
We roll forward on a wave of pure enthusiasm. A clipper ship on land. The andalusian's white sails billow in the high desert air, her flowing tail is our rudder. We waltz together over red swells of earth, no longer gravity bound. CLIP-clop-clop. CLIP-clop-clop. CLIP-clop-clop.
Woo-HOO! The three of us are heading home.
.
Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler waiting for me (last night) to get into that saddle so we can go for the ride I promised her.
Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler and I are getting fat. There’s no way around it. We’ve spent way too much time snoozing in front of the wood burning stove these cold winter weekends while I read Dean Koontz books. I’ve cut the heeler’s canned dog food in half. As for me, well, I need to eat a handful of cherries instead of a piece of the delicious Chocolate Maven cherry pie (a local delicacy) I love way too much. My ankle is healing nicely (I can actually wear my riding boots again), so it’s time to start moving.
What are some easy ways to ease back into this being active thing?
Riding my horse for one hour. 360 calories burned.
Grooming my horse for one hour. 540 calories-be-gone!
Barn Work. Oh gosh, I always have plenty of that. Five horses. Endless manure. No tractor yet—remember? Vanquish another 500 to 600 calories.
Long line my son’s curmudgeonly pony for half an hour because the old codger seems to think he’s on an extended vacation. 250 calories. Long line Tobias the draft horse too. Another 250 calories. 500 calories total.
Best of all, getting back on track and becoming active again after a recuperative and slightly lazy spell will make me feel better. Gotta get going!
Sources: Fitness Partners Activity Calculator
Flickr photos: m@@ike; m@@ike
There’s a barnyard mafia over at Moonmeadow Farm.
Here in the Southwest too. The New Mexico Capodecina (wiki) and his Uomini D'onore (wiki) live in my henhouse (a.k.a. The Chicken Palace. My husband Dennis built those birds one swanky structure.) They are five African Geese.
Who would ever guess that something as cute as this—
Would grow up into this—
The Sad History of Mr. Peepers’ Childhood. We had to remove the just-hatched Mr. Peepers from his family because the other geese were mean to the cute fuzzy yellow gosling and the hens were pecking him. We raised him in a posh brooder (an extension of The Chicken Palace) in the kitchen. Snuggled him in our laps in tea towels while we watched TV. Took him swimming in the master bathtub. Treated him like family. When Dennis took two weeks off from work to build the deck, Mr. Peepers snoozed in the sawdust on the workshop floor and doggedly followed Dennis back and forth and back and forth on his floppy webbed feet for fourteen long days while Dennis hauled the heavy boards from workshop to house.
Mr. Peepers Today. To gather the eggs in The Chicken Palace these days, you first have to get through Mr. Peepers. This requires wearing boots and jeans. Heavy insulated coveralls are recommended. Sometimes when the horses try to eat their hay, he nips their noses. Just because he can.
Analysis. When we ask ourselves what happened to our sweet gray goose—Why is he so mean? —we have no good answers. Dennis still talks about watching every single step he took during that 14-day deck project so he wouldn’t squash the little gosling at his heels. He still recalls, with an amount of tenderness appropriate for a rough and tough cowboy guy, how Mr. Peepers imprinted on him.
The Current Threat. Sometimes in the mornings, Mr. Peepers and the other geese gather in a circle around our ancient pony, Thor, while he munch munch munches his Purina Equine Senior. The geese curl up like five plump feathered teapots around the old pony’s hooves, pretending to nap. But after what happened over at Rurality recently—
I’m beginning to get worried.
Watch out.
Flickr photos: Paul Voskamp; fubuki ; fubuki ; fubuki
Round Hoofed, short joined, fetlocks shag and long.
Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttocks, tender hide.
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
~ Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
Flickr photo by: jdeu24
I am as excited as a kid at Christmas. My Cashel Soft Saddle
When I got home from work yesterday, it was too dark outside to try it out. (Running late as I was out buying a Valentine for my wonderful husband.) So, I saddled up my equestrian vaulting barrel in the garage instead and gave it a try.
Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler was very disappointed that we went riding in the garage. After all, the moment my hand touches a saddle, any saddle, that means nothing other to the big-eared dog than … a cross-country extravaganza. She stood squarely on all freckled fours at the foot of the vaulting barrel, bobtail wagging, vacillating between anticipation of a ride and abject disbelief that I was saddling up the blue barrel instead of a horse. I told her it was the best I could do under the circumstances and promised her a ride tonight.
At 5 pounds, the little Cashel Soft Saddle
No complaints from the vaulting barrel. Now to try the way-cool saddle on a real horse this evening.
The big-eared bobtail dog is going to be so happy.
Flickr photos: digital hearth; shasta
The cold February wind whips up behind Caprichosa’s hocks along with two raggedy dogs who are ambushing us from their hiding place behind the doublewide trailer. More than the usually-bomb-proof-babysitter-mare can tolerate, her hindquarters ratchet up beneath her and she springs forward one, two, three, four spooked strides (no more thank God) while my nine-year-old daughter, terrified, freezes in the saddle and forgets how to ride. Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler rushes after the interlopers. I’m yelling, “J., pull back on the reins and sit down in that saddle,” while the surprised little girl leans forward, hangs precariously to one side, and topples off onto the ground.
Caprichosa carefully lifts each hind hoof up over my prone daughter as she begins trotting down the trail towards home, loose reins flopping from side to side, nose in the air, tail arched in a question mark. I jump off of my own horse, pulling the appaloosa behind me while panting, “J, are you OK? Are you OK?” punctuated by yelling Cap’s name as if the Andalusian horse is a large dog I can somehow keep from cruise controlling all the way home.
J. is fine, but shaken. That’s a long way to fall, and her first fall from her trusted Cap. Four uncontrolled and fearful strides on an animal 20 times your size—even a good spook in place—can be daunting for a child. I am immediately thankful for the helmet fastened securely beneath J.’s chin and the over-stuffed goose-down vest I insisted she wear because it probably cushioned her fall. She’s trying not to cry, but the tears squeeze from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. She rubs her nose with her sleeve. Sniffles. I hug her tight.
There’s a train track in between here and home. J. knows this too. I tie my horse to a tree and call to Cap one more time. The excited mare is sniffing the ground, not quite certain what to do with her unexpected freedom. One ear cocks towards me. I hold my breath. She lifts her head, then swings back into a trot in our direction. She halts when she reaches us, standing quietly while I pick up the reins
“Good Cap,” I say, petting her neck, overwhelmed with relief. The horse stares at me with liquid black eyes, not seeming to understand what all of the fuss is for. I tie her to a pinon as well.
Through the pines, the wind sings a high thin tune. Jessie and I sit together in the buffalo grass and catch our breath. The dogs that jumped us are nowhere to be seen, thanks to Matilda-the-tenacious heeler, I think. When she’s ready, I pick J. up and boost her onto the back of my much shorter appaloosa mare. She will feel slightly safer at that lower elevation for the return ride. In fact, I walk, leading everyone home.
J. and I ride again on Sunday afternoon without incident. Caprichosa is in full babysitting mode, and there is no big wind to stir her up. Not that it necessarily would anyway. She is generally impervious to fear.
Not me.
Matilda and I keep a sharp lookout for dogs. I try not to be an overbearing mother and fight the temptation to look back at J. and Cap every few minutes or ride back to circle around them. I only talk a little bit about maintaining your seat and not getting too cozy up there in the saddle, no matter how much you trust your horse.
My little girl is one gritty kid.
Flickr photos: http://flickr.com/photos/nikkisioux/97984879/>nikkisioux; nikkisioux; nikkisioux
This morning Tobias the draft horse is more interested in the brand new curlers in my hair than he is in his hay. He snuffles the silly curlers I just couldn’t resist from Wal-Mart, blowing excited alfalfa-redolent breath through quivering nostrils as he tries to figure out what in the world is wrong with my head.
The Chinese manufacturer has covered plain old rag rollers—like the ones with which my grandma set her long hair when she was a girl—in ridiculously gold metallic fabric. My head is honeycombed with them. I glitter in the dawn, a high priestess of the barnyard in Carhartt coveralls and barn boots.
Toby’s whiskers are tickly, and I know it’s just a matter of seconds before the fascinated horse tries to steal a curler from my hair like he does the gloves from my pocket. “Quit!” I tell him, and the Percheron reluctantly does as he’s told. I stroke the gentle fellow’s head, tracing the perfect crescent moon between his dark, heavily-lashed eyes—an eclipse of white on an otherwise jet-black horse.
Beyond Toby’s big ears, the full moon, la luna, is setting in the west, hunkered down like a cold opal over the roof of my house. The eastern sky burns red, announcing the arrival of the sun. Soon sun and moon will hang suspended together in a perfect balance.
It’s years ago. I buy a house with water rights from a woman in the Pojoaque Valley. She tells me that every full moon the acequia (wiki) overflows and floods the three-acre property. The woman doesn’t shave her legs, wears psychedelic kaftans, has kinky gray hair that needs a good combing, doesn't smell very good, and sports enough chunky astrological jewelry to drown her if she tripped into the neighbors’ farm pond. I think she is probably prone to exaggeration. That is, until I find myself wading in ankle deep water across the back yard of my new house the first morning of the full moon to feed my horse and chickens, and every middle of the month after that.
Our ranch is dry as a bone this winter. With little rain or snow, we’re worried about a drought and the surrounding National Forest lighting up like a tinderbox in the summer lightning storms. But as sun and moon level off in the blue vault of sky this morning, I am overflowing like the Pojoaque valley acequia, awash in waves of lunar and solar—
Good and bad. Light and dark. Joy and sorrow.
I am all of these things right now.
I bend down to pick up the gold Wal-Mart curler that Toby has managed to nuzzle from my hair. It glimmers in the dirt next to his pie-pan-sized hooves. I run a hand along the horse’s thick velvet neck while he sniffs one last time at the gold rag roller I offer just beneath his muzzle, and head back up to the house.
Q. Why is it that I get this same photo every time I take photographs of my horses???
A. Because our Andalusian Caprichosa is an extremely nosey mare.
Maybe Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler thought that the biscuits and gravy I gave her from this morning's breakfast leftovers was her last meal. Here she is getting a little too big for her doggie britches with Teyla, our appaloosa rescue mare, who has had ENOUGH teasing this morning thank you very much.
16 degrees on a northern New Mexico morning. The herd is hungry. Filling up the round-bale feeder for a little grazing.
Well, actually ... Tobias and my nine-year-old daughter J. this morning!
The interaction between this gentle giant and a little child never ceases to amaze me.
Back bend on the ball
I'm continuing my series on the flexibility of the spine for the rider with a wonderful stretching and opening exercise. The backbend on the ball stretches your spine, abdominals, and shoulders. Backbends expand the heart and open us up to new possibilities. Energizing and mood enhancing, the backbend is a wonderful exercise for the equestrian athlete. Introducing your horse to the balance ball is also a great exercise in helping him to accept new things!
Let's begin.
Sit on the ball, feet flat on the ground. Inhale as you slowly walk your feet away from the ball.
Exhale and pull the navel to the belly button. The ball moves forward and you are rolling down your spine.
Keep walking until your back is resting on the ball. Relax. Lengthen the arms and the legs. Drape yourself backwards over the ball. Feel the stretch. Remember to breathe.
You may wish to hold this pose for a couple of minutes.
Having a flexible spine enhances your riding and your horse will be happier too!
We’re at Jack’s creek campground in the Pecos Mountains. It’s my first time riding horseback in the high country . Every evening after the horses have been taken care of for the night, dinner dishes washed, campfires stoked, the horsemen and women stroll from trailer to trailer to swap stories of the day’s rides. Their voices carry over the alpine meadow and linger in the increasingly cool mountain air like the last few rays of sunlight. Some endurance riders from Tennessee excitedly describe their ride along The Wall. People gather around to listen. Camp dogs sit on their haunches and yawn, pink tongues unfurling.
For a flatlander like me, the trail riders’ description of the high-altitude path along the spine of the mountain range makes me imagine my surefooted horse stepping right off the edge and the two of us free-falling into space. I don’t tell anyone that when my Andalusian mare Caprichosa carries me and my 5-year-old son down off the mountain to the campsite each afternoon, I am relieved to still be among the living.
I keep this to myself, because riding the mountains is something I’ve wanted to do all my life, and once you’ve had a taste of the high, wild places, you can never look back. Eventually I expect courage to well up in me like the Pecos River headwaters and become part of the landscape. It’s a matter of exposure, I tell myself. My husband has known this country most of his life, and look how comfortable he is, I think. However, I make up my mind that I’m not riding The Wall this week.
Some evenings, a cowboy from Oklahoma delights our children with hummingbirds who perch on his rough fingers like raffish ruby and emerald rings. Occasionally, the old gentleman smells of White Lightening, and Dennis and I are even talked into an eye-popping swig or two. Once, J. and C. each get to hold a tiny hummer in their hands. I’m not quite sure I approve of this, but don’t want to hurt the former bronc rider’s feelings, and the hummers flit away unscathed. I can almost feel their hearts beat, diminutive percussion instruments. A Rufous peers at us from his perch on a wildflower stem.
My colleague had a heart attack in the ER this week, which, I guess if you’re going to have a heart attack, is a good place to do it. His heart stopped beating, and he had to be resuscitated.
He said that when his heart stopped, the entire ER tipped sideways like a black-and-white television set turned on end, and he found himself walking in a golden field of wheat with friends he knew but whose names he couldn’t quite remember or say. There was no more pain—he says that a heart attack is excruciating—and in the wheat field he was ... content.
Far off in the distance, he could hear the ER doctors shouting, making a lot of noise, and he was very annoyed that they were disturbing him so and wished they would go away and leave him alone. He was having a good time in the rippling waves of wheat until suddenly, he found himself back in the ER, chest searing with pain, bright lights blaring in his face, with a lot of people very glad to see him. He’d been just a heartbeat away.
My colleague is on the mend.
He’s feeling awfully happy to be back, but energized by his glimpse of the high, wild places. I can't imagine he’ll ever be the same again.
Flickr photo credits: Don Bailey; sosidesc; CAZASCO; Don Bailey
Rosemoon at Moonmeadow farm writes about putting up her electric fence—
“Then I had the immense satisfaction of standing around waiting for the horses—the horses who, you may remember, have been systematically destroying my fences—to touch it. And boy, was there a lot of drama when they did. I'm sure they appreciated my victory song and dance over on the other side of the fence. They're very subdued this morning, which is a lovely change … “
Knowing that someone else has done the silly "hah-hah-gotcha" dance when the horses are zapped with the electric fence somewhat assuages my guilt.
It’s spring. Last year. We plant twenty cottonwood saplings, and place eight in a pretty row just outside the northern stretch of the horse pasture fence. After digging twenty canyon-sized holes (because our soil is bad), the rental tractor breaks, and we resort to wheelbarrows and shovels. It takes five exhausting days (after work) to tuck twenty saplings in by hand with a mixture of red New Mexico earth, a truckload of rich black soil from the nursery, aged horse manure, and the special fertilizer mix my gardener husband uses to make those native cottonwoods grow like weeds. Not to mention countless gallons of water.
After the last tree is in the ground, we stroll around the ranch, covered from head to toe with dirt, glasses of red wine in hand, and admire our work. We talk about how much we are going to enjoy these trees with leaves vs. the pinon and juniper that cover our land. We revel in how well the others we've planted in previous years have done. We look forward to the shade they’ll provide for our famil
