The Peace of Wild Things. newdharmabums.blogspot.com.

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

Big soft snuffling nose. Alfalfa sweet breath. Who would have thought that a young, goofy draft horse would be such a wonderful friend? I am very content in the company of this beautiful wild thing.

Posted by Kimberly at April 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Doc C. thought Piñon was a thoroughbred. I told him no, she's a quarterhorse. (He said that certainly back there in her ancestry, there's a leggy thoroughbred or two.) Measured her legs against my Percheron's yesterday, just out of curiosity. They are longer than Toby's!

Posted by Kimberly at April 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Kimberly at April 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Goose stepping. Marching around like they own the place. Which. Of course. They do.

Enjoying a quiet moment with Toby.

But there's no escape. They know exactly where to find you.

Geese are pure. Unadulterated.

Evil.

But as 8-year-old C. likes to say when I complain about the five feathered fire-breathing dragons, "But Mom, they're our evil geese." There are times when I think Dennis is right. We should have named them Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc.

Posted by Kimberly at April 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Kimberly at April 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, our tractor is in the driveway. We got it out of Boise, Idaho. Luckily, the seller met Dennis halfway in Utah. I am not a bumper sticker person. Have never had one on the back of a car, truck, or trailer. Check out the stickers our pretty new tractor came plastered with. Don't Mess with Texas. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. National Rifle Association.

Now we are listening to Dennis' old Johnny Cash vinyls this morning. Drinking hot black coffee, waiting for last night's snowstorm to melt (here in the Pecos we had snowflakes the size of silver dollars) so we can get out there and do some tractoring. We're going to work on the horse pasture and dig some stumps.

And Johnny's Folsom Prison Blues is rambling around my brain. I'll be humming all morning long.

I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen the sunshine,
Since, I don't know when,
I'm stuck in Folsom Prison,
And time keeps draggin' on,
But that train keeps a-rollin',
On down to San Antone.

But, regardless of any of the above, I would never have stuck those stickers on anything. Dennis is stomping around the kitchen in his cowboy boots, making breakfast, and gritching about how he can't understand how anyone would put stickers all over a $$$ thousand-dollar tractor. We're not going to hold it against The Digger, however.

I bet there's rich folks eatin',
In a fancy dining car,
They're probably drinkin' coffee,
And smokin' big cigars,
But I know I had it comin',
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-movin',
And that's what tortures me.

Posted by Kimberly at April 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following is a work of fiction. Any similarity to any persons living or nonliving is a coincidence.

Let me tell you something about myself—I cry at the rodeo. When the Rodeo de Santa Fe Queen comes busting out of the gate on her shiny quarterhorse built for speed, saluting the bleachers from the brim of her tiara-rimmed Stetson, horse's hoofbeats rifling up over the arena lights into the thin, night air of the Sangre de Cristos, a lump gets caught in my throat, and I have to blink back the tears, hard, so I don't mess up my makeup and have all these folks thinking I'm some kind of fool.

Katy's squeezing my hand and looking up at me with her big brown eyes like what's wrong, Jenny D.? (That stands for Jenny Darling, the nickname she gave to me.) The comers of her mouth are sticky with blue cotton candy, and I'm wiping my nose with the back of my good hand, smiling at my five-year-old daughter, hearing the words, "It's OK. Just watch the show, honey," coming out of my mouth from the one place I've managed to collect up inside of me like a horse you drive up into the bit and hold steady in two light hands even though you know he's just about to fly off the rail.

I'm following Katy's gaze to the young woman sparkling like a gem in the middle of sawdust sprinkled with manure. She's wearing hot pink sequins and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. All of sixteen, she's shooting past us like a comet you could never hope to catch, reining the gelding to a sliding stop before the grandstand as the crowd's roaring, and my eyes are drawn beyond her to the other side of the arena where I know who I will see.

Tyler. Leaning against the bullpen.

"Come on baby," I'm saying to Katy through the wads of cotton starting to cling to the roof of my mouth. "We've gotta go."

One-hundred-and-eighty-five pounds of sinew and muscle, slate eyes scanning the faces of the crowd with all the arrogance old oil money can buy, Tyler came down to Capitan to buy quarter horses from my daddy one spring, and got me in the bargain. Although I wasn't nearly as well broke as some of those mares, is the way he likes to tell it.

The Rodeo Queen has her horse doing a little dance now, hopping from side to side on his pretty forelegs to a Mexican song crackling from the loud speakers before she reins him to a low bow, his muzzle nearly brushing the ground. White foam's flecking his mouth, and he's worrying the bit. She's removing her hat, hair unraveling down her back in a long black rope, surveying the grandstand like royalty.

Tyler's swaggering around the perimeter of the arena, shoulders broad as a bull's beneath the plaid cotton Wrangler shirt I pressed for him this morning. He's fingering the top rail of the stock pen with one of his big, well-kept hands, and I know he's thinking something.

Then our eyes meet.

Damn. Maybe I am stupid after all, just like he says.

The crowd's rising to its feet and clapping like thunder.

I'm not talking to the Lord a lot these days, but this seems like it might be a good time to start. It wasn't much of a note I left him at the house just—Took Katy to the rodeo, then over to your mom's. Don't wait up for us. xo Jenny

A rush of words like wind in a rainstorm comes pouring out of the loudspeakers, but I don't hear what the man is saying.

I'm snatching up my purse then Katy's blue and white sweater, clasping her little arm hard, too hard, as I'm pulling her across legs and laps and scuffed-up Ropers toward the exit, afraid to let her go. But a big fat rancher's popping salted peanuts into his mouth and blocking my way, so I let loose of her hand, and the next thing I know I'm shimmying down between the grandstand seats, landing in the dust and popcorn and candy wrappers below and whispering to Katy real loud, ignoring the dirty looks I'm getting from the other mothers. "Jump, Katy. I'll catch you. Jump!"

She hesitates one heartbeat shy of me passing out cold into sweet oblivion, nearly knocking me to the ground as I catch her.

Katy is forty-five pounds of light in my arms as I'm stumbling through the parking lot filled with packs of old men and young men drinking beer, chewing tobacco, taking a piss. They seem to stare right through a worn-out looking woman carrying a little girl, and for the first time I don't care I'm not so pretty anymore.

The jangle of spurs and hissing snakeskin sneaks upon me, and I nearly cringe as I expect him to grab me from behind and snap my other arm in two.

But not this time.

I slam the truck door shut with all my strength. Tyler's shouts "Jenny D.!" over the groan of spinning tires making rooster tails in the dust as I ride the Chevy's accelerator.

We bust out of the lot toward the highway, and I watch the stranger I married in the rearview mirror with all the detachment of that doctor I took Katy to, that bastard who just shook his head and looked at me like I was to blame or something, although I kept on telling him I didn't know. I did not know.

Katy's whimpering like one of those pups we pulled out of the culvert last fall as her very own daddy's stumbling after us, a wild man. He gives up when the liquor catches in his throat, and he doubles over, disappearing in taillights and dust. Someday she'll understand. The words pound like blood in my head. Please, God, let her understand. She squeezes her eyes shut tight, and clasps her thin arms around my waist. Maybe she does already.

The lights of the New Mexico State Penitentiary shine like a portent through the darkness, but they don't wake my Katy, and I guarantee you I will never be going there. Her blond head rests on my shoulder as I pull off the main road, driving towards them on Highway 14, and dare to think beyond. South. Six or seven hundred miles to Mexico. I didn't make friends with the hired help for nothing. Que no?

Kidnapping's a federal offense, I imagine, and Tyler'd kill me for sure. But I'm not worried. I can't do that tonight. I tune the radio to my favorite country and western station and start humming for the first time this year. The first time he can't yell at me to shut up for trying to be happy. The first time Katy can sleep untouched by her daddy's hands.

One of those all-girl groups is singing, and all of a sudden I know, I know he can't catch me. He would never even guess I really have the guts to go this far, and I'm twenty-four hours of denial and one hell of a hangover ahead of him. Just enough time. I hope.

Then it happens.

The tears come streaming down my face, hot and wet and salty, and I don't even wipe them away, but fumble along the dashboard instead for that crumpled Stetson my daddy made me take the last time I saw him alive, the one I used to wear a whole lifetime ago when I ran the barrels in Capitan and the Ladies Christian League sponsored me all the way to the Oklahoma City finals. I put it on. Tuck the ends of my long brown hair up underneath. Funny how it still fits.

I think he's trying to tell me something.

You see, tonight, I'm the Rodeo Queen.

Flickr photos by Fubuki; bedeeboop

Posted by Kimberly at April 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This evening Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler snuffles out of nearly 200 bales of hay one half-starved calico cat and her brood of kittens. The momma cat coils back between the hay bales and the barn wall, glowering, growling, fur standing on end like a pissed-off porcupine. She is impressive. I depart the barn with Matilda in tow. Lock the too-curious heeler in the chicken yard. Return. Tentatively reach with one hand into the small crevice, expecting a lightning strike of teeth and claws. Instead, the cat lets me scratch her head and replies to my overtures of friendship with a piteous meow, telling me that she is very hungry, please. Her eyes mirror her dilemna. I rush up to the house, making a bee line to the kitchen. Return with one can of Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler food and a bowl of water in tow. Spoon the lamb and rice mixture out onto a pie pan. Sit in the straw and wait. Call "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty..." Out she ventures, one dainty paw after another, crouched low, sniffing. She takes a few tentative bites then carries chunks of the dog food into her den for her kittens.

I haven't had a cat in years. I wonder how she wound up here? A feline refugee. I hope she and her little family stay.

Flickr photo by: himetsunade

Posted by Kimberly at April 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Creating Passionate Users. We all have passion double-standards. Mine makes sense, yours doesn't. The time and money I spend on my passion is worth it, yours is a waste.

We meet some cowboys from Los Lunas on the rocky trail up to Beatty’s Cabin. They are decked out in full Old-West regalia—thousands of dollars of chinks, spurs, boots, scarves, gauntlets, old-time cowboy hats, 1800’s-style saddles. And I find myself admiring their gear, getting ready for a little on-the-trail conversation, thinking maybe I’ll even ask where they got those really nice saddles, until they start eyeballing my husband’s fine-boned Polish Arabian mare from astride their big buff quarter horses. As if Dennis is riding a goat or something.

I think I sense a smirk sneaking across their collective handlebar-mustached faces, as one of them spits a wad of Skoal into the dirt and drawls while pointing at Morningstar, “What kind of horse is that?”

Now some of my friends and extended family don’t understand why in the world I choose to spend the bulk of my spare time and cash on five (dirty, stinky, and dangerous is the part they usually manage to keep to themselves) horses. Fair enough. Their eyeballs glaze over when I start talking about my equines. Which is one of the reasons, I suppose, I have my very own horse blog. The big Sundowner trailer in my driveway boggles the brains of some colleagues who are golf zealots. I encourage them—Go hit those little balls with those little sticks, and drive your little golf cart! Have yourself a real bang-up spiritual experience! The Harley-Davidson rally rider might even diss my Percheron. (Althought that would be venturing into very dangerous territory.) I might retort, if I’m not in a particularly pleasant mood—Well, what kind of skill exactly does it take to sit on a dumb machine? And the fact that Dennis drove straight through to northwestern Utah last night (Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler and I slept very well, by the way) to pick up a Kubota tractor to clean up after our horse habit would probably have some city-dwellers scratching their heads.

OK. OK, all of those I can, to one degree or another, understand.

But here’s one I don’t—

The My Horse Breed is Awesome and Your Horse Breed is Lame thing.

Sure, it’s great to be passionate about a breed of horse. I just happen to be all over the map with an Arabian, Andalusian, Appaloosa, Percheron AND a Quarter Horse in the barn. I love them all! Some of us have stables filled with only Thoroughbreds (I had a beautiful one of those once) or Missouri Fox Trotters. And of course some breeds are just better at one thing or another. That’s fine. Speaking of zeal, I’m currently contemplating a big barn brimming with only jet-black Percherons. (But don’t tell my husband that. He may not return from Utah.) However, you won't find me saying anything disparaging about your Paso Fino, Belgian, or Trakhener. Go ahead, call me too sensitive, but the encounter with those rude goat ropers on the way up to Beatty’s Cabin left a sour taste in my mouth.

Not Dennis’s, however. The ever-cool-and-self-assured husband simply pats his hot-blooded critter’s shoulder after the encounter with the John Wayne wannabes with their dimestore True Grit aspirations. As Morningstar treks tirelessly higher and higher, navigating the wild and rough terrain with all the aplomb of the Queen of Sheba, I hear him tell the little horse, “We know who The Real Mountain Horse is, now don’t we, Starrreeeeennnnnnna?”

The arabian horse's brown doe eyes seem to widen in agreement.

Flickr photos by: bea2108

Posted by Kimberly at April 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My horses are wide awake this morning. I don’t know if it’s the crisp mountain air or the sliver of moon still dangling way above the mesa top, but they are full of themselves. They whirl around me in a din of hoof beats, a riptide of equines performing Airs Above the Ground and other things.

Tobias the percheron gallops down the fence line straight towards me and jumps from the sand in what I think is a moment of near capriole. (I believe I might stand a chance of surviving a good medieval fight on the big boy, as unlikely as that may be!) Caprichosa shakes her head, tail high, and farts in an unladylike manner with each round and lofty step. Teyla the appaloosa leaps into the air in her all time favorite, the spotted horse courbette.

The geese are squawking now, our barnyard symphony, while my husband’s hot-blooded Arabian mare floats through the pines, teacup muzzle tucked to her chest, inky mane and tail billowing. Diamond hard hooves just skimming the earth, she is liquid and air. Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler spins like a dirt devil and runs wild with the herd, black lips pulled back in a dog grin, thinking perhaps that she is a horse too. Still-lame Pinon watches meekly from behind a juniper tree, and I feel sorry for her until suddenly I am one of those smooth boulders in the middle of the big white water, teeming waves of horses spilling around on either side of me.

I turn to watch as they pass. Muscles rippling beneath arched necks and sleek hindquarters, my horses' shadows flicker on the cave wall. They are what I think I might have etched or scrawled on rock if it hadn’t already been done by somebody else. Hoofbeats drum as the sun breaks over the mountain tops, burning brighter than any fire I could build. The sparks inside of horses, dog, and woman, fly and smolder hot.

I take a sip of the near scalding coffee from my husband’s cracked plastic Conoco cup. The one I snagged from the dishwasher this morning on the way out to feed the horses because I was half asleep in my pajamas, barn jacket and unlaced boots.

I’m no longer drowsy. For the moment, I am wide-awake.

Flickr photos by: maxwell misty

Posted by Kimberly at April 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My son’s new horse Piñon doesn’t come to the barn at breakfast time. After I feed everyone else, I wander up to the top of the pasture and find her with a good sized piece of dead piñon branch protruding from her right front leg, right behind her knee. Her leg above the knee is so swollen she can barely move it, let alone walk anywhere. The mare whickers at me pitifully, as if to say “Where in the heck have you been?”

I checked her last night along with all of the other horses, and she was fine. I'm hoping she hasn’t had a stick impaled in her leg all night, imagining the damage that would do. I take a deep breath, tell myself that I can do this, clasp a hand around her leg, and pull the stick out. Piñon doesn’t complain much (I would have), although it is pretty ugly. I clean the wound. Give her the very last of my stash of powdered Bute with her grain to ease her discomfort and get the swelling down, then phone the vet.

Doc sedates her, irrigates the wound, checks to see if there are any splinters left, pulls her front shoes, gives her a shot of antibiotics and tells me the good news is that the stick has gone into the leg sideways and not straight into the joint. He leaves me with a course of powdered antibiotics and some paste Bute, along with instructions for doing hydrotherapy on the leg.

Now we haven’t had Piñon very long, and I’ve already given her her spring shots, which was not too big of a deal, although we need to work on getting her a little more calm. But paste Bute, I discover, is a totally different story. I think Piñon's gotten away with not having anyone put anything besides a bit in her mouth without a good wrestling match, and I don’t want to go there. That's a no-win.

So what do you do when a thousand-pound, long-legged, long-necked mare is standing resolutely on all fours, as tall as she can get, nose straight up in the air, jaws clenched together, sitting back on her hind legs if she feels you are pushing too far? (At this point in the doctoring, my 8- and 9-year-old children have retreated to the other side of the fence. Wondering what has happened to their sweet and gentle pet. It’s written all over their pale and worried faces. I tell them the horse is just communicating her unhappiness with us the only way she knows how, with her body. Both kids peer through the corral panels. Nod solemnly.)

I put a stud chain around her nose, which gets her attention all by itself with a couple of short, fair corrections mid-rear. (Although she doesn’t rear up very high, it’s unacceptable and still very dangerous for me on the ground.) Rearing quelled, I talk to her, tell her I’m not going to hurt her. Start rubbing the tube of Bute on her neck, cheek, to the corner of her mouth. Her head shoots up in alarm. I retreat, advance, retreat with the tube until she’s settled down. Then I put a couple of my fingers in the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t like that one bit. I hope she doesn’t bite, because I need my fingers. Again, advance, retreat, advance with my fingers, until she settles down again. Then finally I put my fingers in the corner of her mouth followed by the tube of Bute paste. Her head goes up again and I go with her, doggedly following her head up and down and up and down with my hands, fingers, and tube, until I can finally dispense the sticky white paste into her mouth.

Being able to not get mad and hold my temper when I’m frustrated at a horse is something I’ve learned from nearly a lifetime with them, and I’m successful almost all of the time, and down on myself if I am not. I tell my kids to not get mad, to not get angry when they are dealing with their horses, that real horsemen just don’t do that, so I stick to my own rule even when I’m dealing with a difficult horse all by myself. Sometimes this requires talking to myself or counting to ten. I’ve found that maintaining a sense of humor is the very best way to maintain one’s composure. You'd might as well chuckle about it, then have another go. (I think of what my husband Dennis says. Sometimes chicken, sometimes feathers.) Most of the time I am a good role model. (Although I did get mad at my daughter’s horse the other day, because she was dancing around when I was trying to mount, even after several corrections. And both of my kids, who really must listen to me, I found, reminded me that not getting angry at the horses is one of the golden rules at our house. Guess I’m doing OK with this teaching stuff then.)

Every horse is different. And there’s a certain amount of creativity required in dealing with our individual horses. But doggedly, calmly staying with a horse when I have to give meds seems to be effective.

In the future, I’m going to work with Piñon on not being so touchy about her mouth. The woman I bought my draft horse from gave me some very good advice. She had been putting her fingers in the big gelding’s mouth on a regular basis since he was a little bitty guy. It’s made many things, including giving meds by mouth, checking teeth, and even bitting, much easier.

Piñon is on the mend. And with practice and exposure, she’s also getting easier about her meds. Although we’ve gone through quite a lot of molasses (and cajoling) to get her to eat those powdered antibiotics.

Flickr photos:
obedientmuse; obedientmuse; obedientmuse

Posted by Kimberly at April 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's much celebrating at our little ranch for a Sunday afternoon.

You see ... The Tractor Quest is over!

My husband has to drive several hundred miles this week to meet the seller halfway and pick the big thing up. Check it out. This 34HP bad boy even has a hydrostatic transmission.

The super sensitive and poetic men in my house really are naming this pretty orangey-sunset-red Kubota Digger.

But you know what? I simply don't care. All I can do this evening is grin from ear to ear like a totally deliriously delighted fool because my shoveling and wheelbarrow days are almost over. And now I 'm that much closer to having a real riding arena!

I just have to learn to drive the Digger.

Flickr photos: candytrash

Posted by Kimberly at April 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

What I can learn about fitness from my horse: Horses don't run for cardio health, weight loss, brain fitness, blood pressure, or anything else but the love of moving. ~ Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users. While I do remember running for joy as a kid, I am not inclined these days to run for sheer fun either. I did do a lot of running in the pasture yesterday after horses #2-5 discovered after watching me give horse #1 his spring shots that they didn't want to have anything to do with it. While yesterday's exercise left me breathless and cranky, I do experience a true joy of movement with yoga and Pilates. Running hurts my knees. Guess it's best to stick with exercise that 1) doesn't hurt and 2) makes you happy.

What I can learn about fitness from my dog: No, Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler does not watch television, but I do sometimes. Which is probably why she is in better shape than I am, especially after the long, cold winter. I do like to practice Pilates while watching Lost on Wednesday nights.

Check it out: Exercise not only makes us stronger equestrians, but prevents brain decline. (As would taking a hatchet to the television set.) Check out Kathy Sierra's very pretty Icelandics too!

Flickr photo: hkvam

Posted by Kimberly at April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Big Dawg is over at the Chevy dealer's for her tune up today. Which may include a new transmission. Ouch.

Sometimes I wonder what my ancestors (You know, those crazy Celts who fought the Romans), Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, or the early American pioneers, for that matter, might think

about how we horsemen and horsewomen in this century load up our horses and gear into a steel or aluminum trailer (often with a no-holds-barred, pull-out-all-the-stops living quarters) and tow the whole shebang in a fossil-fuel guzzling truck for miles and miles to the wilderness to go riding?

I think that once they got over the initial shock, it would crack them up. The Celts might even snarl derisively─wimps. (I wouldn't put it past Coronado either.)

Flickr photos: minimal white
Braveheart photo: moviemarket.co.uk

Posted by Kimberly at April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A door opened for me the rider with the first exercise in Moshe Feldenkrais, Consciousness Through Movement, entitled "Moving like a tree in the wind".
~ Equestrian and researcher Christine Sanders, who is writing a book on the physiology of riding.

When I watch my children move, specifically when riding their horses, I am amazed at the ease of their seats, the nearly effortless way they sit the gaits. It has been a joy to watch 8-year-old C. lope past me on his long-legged quarterhorse mare Piñon, back end of his Wranglers glued to the saddle.

(My aspiring cowboy has just recently advised me that from now on he will only wear his Wranglers to ride his new horse. Those Wranglers are going to get a lot of washing, I told him, because right now he's only got one pair. I suspect there will be no more breeches for this boy ever again. And since we brought Piñon home, C. has been eyeing with great interest those silver cowboy belt buckles the size of dinner plates over at the Western Warehouse.)

After breaking my back years ago in a riding accident, and after a lot of physical therapy, I’ve been practicing yoga, pilates, and a little dance conditioning. All of which have kept me going. Particularly for horseback riding.

Looks like Moshe Feldenkrais had to keep himself going as well. Did you know that Moshe Feldenkrais earned his doctorate in Physics at the Sorbonne and later was an associate to the Nobel Prize laureate Frederic Joliot-Curie in Paris? Upon suffering a serious knee injury, Feldenkrais was faced with a 50 percent chance for recovery and the possibility of confinement to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Unsatisfied with the prognosis and conventional treatments available, he embarked on exploring new relationships between the mind and body to improve physical movement and function. For 40 years, Feldenkrais developed an ingenious method for effective neuromuscular reeducation. (Source: feldenkraisinstitute.org)

Feldenkrais sounds like a good practice for equestrians. I’m going to check it out. To learn more about Feldenkrais, Christine recommends the book Consciousness Through Movement by Moshe Feldenkrais.

Here are some online Feldenkrais exercises/movements I found:

1) 60 Feldenkrais exercises
2) Sitting in a chair─Chair Play (This looks like a good way to become more aware of my sitz bones!)

Wouldn’t it be something to at least recapture some of that movement we may have forgotten as adults? Perhaps, like Christine, practicing some Feldenkrais movements will open a door for me the rider.

Maybe I’ll even learn how to sing.

Resources: feldenkrais.com; feldenkraisinstitute.org

Flickr photos: Kris Kros; film girl; tejana

Posted by Kimberly at April 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. Shovel lots of you-know-what
2. Worm horses
3. Spring shots
4. Empty and scrub water tank
5. Continue teaching Toby manners
6. Longe Caprichosa because she's getting too fat
7. Clean house (some)
8. Go to brunch

(Actually, her fab husband Johnny West did take her out to brunch yesterday morning at Harry's Roadhouse and this morning, as always, he's doing all one hundred loads of laundry, paying bills, balancing check book.)

8. Make huevos ranchers for Johnny West

9. Go vaulting????? (depends on what time Thor's new family arrives with trailer in tow.)

Posted by Kimberly at April 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Treasure brought back from the ghost house.

I'll bet these sun-bleached antlers are at least fifty years old. Do you think that after being so long forgotten and suddenly remembered,

the spirits of these four white deer

rollick, cavort, skylark, gambol beneath our bedroom windows at night? Especially when the moon is full?

I kind of like to think that they do.

Posted by Kimberly at April 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thor's new family is coming to pick him up today at 2PM. I am feeling a little maudlin about the whole thing.

On the other hand, I know there's a five-year-old girl who barely slept last night and who is probably badgering her poor mom this morning over her Cheerios, asking, "Is it time? Is it time yet?!" Having spent as much time with this lovely family as I have, I also know that our short curmudgeon is going to be the object of much joy, love, and affection.

OK, I feel better now.

Posted by Kimberly at April 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in the kitchen this morning brewing a pot of coffee, while outside God seems to be painting everything, including my old blue heeler dog, in broad brushstrokes of gold.

Posted by Kimberly at April 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

See Jane Shop ...

The ever fashionable Jane bought her entire spring wardrobe for $96 at Goodwill yesterday. (Frankly, she'd rather spend her hard earned money on a nice pair of Irideon riding pants.) She continues to be delighted and amazed at what the good folks over at Las Campanas and other trendy Santa Fe gated communities toss out.

Jane snagged some excellent gently worn bargain basement stuff by Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, The GAP, Talbot’s, etc., one really cute pair of shoes, and several super cool (to borrow from 8-year-old C. again) black t-shirts.

Her thriftiness will pay off, no doubt. With what Jane’s saved, she’ll now be able to buy a new saddle for her very big horse, who she’s been riding bareback or with a bareback pad up until now, thinking that that's just too far to fall.

Posted by Kimberly at April 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

If we are wholly part of nature and the distinction between us and nature a metaphoric convenience; if this is true, then we are wilderness. Creek Running North.

We are trotting through the soft dirt alongside the AT&SF track in the shadow of the mountain. I know the schedule. The train isn’t coming yet. My appaloosa mare Teyla shakes her head, has a little buck, and squeals. I’m happy the rescue mare is alive enough to be full of herself.

Riding bareback, I feel my muscle, bone, and sinew drape over either side of her strong back as she settles into a walk. The mare is all business, covering more ground at this gait than most of my horses can at a trot. She swings forward, loose and free, head bobbing. I breathe in, filling my lungs and my belly, making my seat deep, soft. My hands, shoulders, torso, pelvis, sits bones, thighs, all of me, going forward with her. I no longer have two legs, but four.

I rub her shoulder, branded with the Navajo Bar N (─N). Run my hand along her spotted hindquarters scrawled with letters and numbers that are a mystery to me. Think of the woman I saw at the run-down gas station out by I-25 this afternoon.

Squeezed into a pair of faded jeans, the fifty-something woman is flirting with the man at the pump in front of her, coyly asking his name, tittering like a high school girl, showing him the colorful tattoos all over the visible parts of her body. Holding the gas nozzle, I try not to stare over the top of my car at the beautiful images emblazoned across her arms, neck, back, chest. Because in her faded, too-much-makeup, slightly coarse and worn out way, she looks like the kind of woman who’d just as soon beat the crap out of me as look at me. But then again, I could be wrong. Looks can be deceiving. And if she cops the attitude, “Hey, what are YOU looking at? ─BITCH”, she might call me, because I suppose to her I look like the soccer mom with an SUV─I’ll tell her the truth, that I was just admiring her pretty tattoos. Perhaps that would make her happy. She looks long overdue. The man she just met pulls at the back of her two-sizes-too-small tank top to peer at what’s underneath─whatever’s scrawled down her spine.

Maybe a map, I think. But to where?

To wit: We are as divorced from the wilderness inside as from the one outside. Creek Running North.

Late last summer. We are returning down the mountain from a hard morning’s ride up to Lake Catherine. It didn’t look quite this far on the trail map. We pass a towering pine with bear claw scratches cleaved into the bark, weeping sap. My husband points it out. “That bear’s marking his territory,” he says. With ten miles to go yet to the Pecos river valley, I am unhappy at the prospect of being devoured.

Teyla stops. Sniffs the air. Whinnies. Gets her bearings. The five other horses we left behind at the barn whinny back. Their guttural GPS signals waft towards us through the air.

The long claw marks on the pine tree pinpoint the bear’s place on the map, a form of geography, with the clear message─This is where I am. This is me. Part of the wild blue inner.

I urge my horse forward. She and I are fatter than Dennis and his little Arabian mare. Surely any bear will eat us first. I keep my eyes open.

The sun is almost down, shadows changing from blue to black. This is what comprises some of my inner geography─ The tall sweet grass of the mesa. The frigid blue green water of Lake Catherine. Teyla’s polka dots. The spring on Hermit’s Peak. A suburb in Ohio. Sometimes black and moonless nights. And this evening two rows of bear claw scratches from last summer mark my territory. My wild blue inner.

I tip my pelvis, lift the reins, open my hip flexors, make my thighs long, reach back and down with my heels─stringing myself like a bow, inhaling the cool evening air. Teyla leaps into a canter, eager to be back with her stablemates. No longer a mere two-legged creature, I close my eyes, savoring the feel of the departure.

The appaloosa horse’s ugly brands may tell the story of where she’s been and some of what may have happened to her, but they don’t necessarily reflect what’s scrawled on the inside─on the tablets of her heart and mind. Mine don’t either. Galloping bareback on the sandy track, both of us breathing hard, I get the feeling that Teyla’s wild blue inner is miles and miles of waving grass where you can run forever and not get tired. For a moment, she takes me there with her.

And it occurs to me that the woman with the tattoos, flirting with the stranger at the gas pump this afternoon, has simply tattooed some of her own wild beauty all over her body, trying to get her bearings. Although I doubt the designs in ink and flesh do her justice.

Flickr photos by: shadowplay

Posted by Kimberly at April 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

1973. 7th grade English Lit. Mr. H. makes us memorize and recite poems in front of the entire class. For some of us, this is an exercise in torture. My friend D. turns five increasingly panic-heated shades of red after reciting the (1) poem title, (2) author, and (3) first sentence─nearly passing out before he darts from the room in tears. And I don't escape. At 44, I can still recite every verse of O Captain! My Captain (Walt Whitman). I learned some really useful stuff in junior high school.

In the midst of what is rapidly becoming our epic quest for a tractor (I think my husband Dennis should start his own tractor blog), I’ve found myself wondering if there are any Odes to a Tractor out there. (This is obviously Mr. H.’s fault.) And, OMG, there are─

Ode to a Tractor (instrumental), Cole Porter, Silk Stockings (1955). In one of my favorite old musicals in the world, Silk Stockings directed by Rouben Mamoulian, Soviet composer Peter Ilyich Boroff (Wim Sonneveld) is hanging out in Paris with an American film producer (Fred Astaire), who plans to rework Boroff's socialistically-realistic Ode to a Tractor into a song for a Hollywood picture.

Ode to a Tractor (poem), Wayne Potash. Mr. Potash waxes poetic about his Allis Chalmers tractor. Allis, Allis Chambers, Allis Chambers was her name ...

Cole Porter? Wayne Potash?! Who would have thought?

So when my now-tractor-expert husband Dennis and I are sitting on the front porch this summer drinking a beer (so that's what the porch is for?), looking out at our beautifully manicured place and sparkling clean horse corrals, I will be composing my own Ode to a Tractor (possibly with a country western flare), even though I’m not the first.

And maybe in all of my spare time, I will go to the mall and get myself a pair of silk stockings or some other ridiculous frivolous nicety that I can wear someplace definitely NOT the barn or for any activity involving a wheelbarrow and a shovel.

Now what rhymes with Massey Ferguson?

Manure?

Tractor Photos: Massey Ferguson
Flickr Photo: Lanna Grace
Sources: Ode to a Tractor, Wayne Potash; coleporter.org; dustbury.com

Posted by Kimberly at April 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wild as a deer.
~ My farrier on his horses’ behavior after a long, cold, dark winter of being left pretty much up to their own devices.

This sounds just like something my grandma from Maud, Oklahoma would have said. People don’t talk like this much anymore, which is too bad. I like the poetry of this type of language. (And a good drawl makes it even prettier.)

Doing some ground work with 3-year-old Toby last night, I understood exactly what my farrier was talking about. I hate to say it, but my big lovely pet was wild as a deer.

The Percheron gelding stomps around the round pen, full of his own magnificence. I halter him and lead him around in figure eights and serpentines, asking him to pay attention to me and stay at my shoulder, please. He shakes his head from side to side and threatens to nip. I point at him─stopping him dead in his tracks. We resume the lesson. I ask him to release his hindquarters to the left and the right, which he does very nicely, thank you. Then I gently wave the wand back and forth in front of him and ask him to back up.

It‘s cool. There’s a little wind. But that’s really no excuse for what happens next. Toby suddenly erupts in one big buck, striking the air with a hoof (something he’s never done on the end of a lead line before)─no longer my fairly good mannered 1,300+ pound horse, but a bull in a china shop.

I come down on him pretty hard, with a tug on the lead rope and a firm no, feeling kind of sick as a dog that all of that basic training last fall has disintegrated into this wild as a deer stuff over the winter. We work on a little more basic leading, start and stop, and end on a good note.

I put Toby up for the night. Give him a nice rub and let him know we’ve got lots of work ahead of us. I go inside and pop the Clinton Anderson ground training DVD into the player and promptly doze off.

It’s been a very long day. I go to sleep with the chickens.

Flickr photos: Fack to Bront; David Herd; Sand Dragon; Some Bonnie

Posted by Kimberly at April 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

One time Atticus said you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them; just standin' on the Radley porch was enough. ~ Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

My children, J. and C., and I are squeezing beneath the fence. 8-year-old C. is holding back the rusted barbs just centimeters off the seat of my Wranglers warning, “Careful, Mom, careful,” as I wriggle through, slower than everyone else. We’ve ridden the horses past this old ghost of a house a hundred times, but this afternoon curiosity has gotten the better of us. Matilda-the-tenacious-heeler, who is forging ahead, turns to wait for us at the edge of the fallen-down yard.

We hold hands. Approach the phantom house through weeds and prickly pear cactus.

J (whispering): How old do you think it is?

Me: I don’t know. I'd guess over a hundred years.

C: Can we go inside?

Me: No!

C: Can we go on the porch?

Me: No! Look at all of those rotted boards. You might fall through.

Matilda leaps onto the porch. The blue heeler dog trots back and forth across the sagging planks, confuting my motherly words of wisdom.

The house is boarded up─blind, deaf, and dumb. “No one’s lived here for years,” I say. Still clasping hands, we skulk like cats through the buffalo grass, slowly around the perimeter of tangled barbed and chicken wire, filled with the unspoken and slightly thrilling dread that we’ll awaken a sleeping dog or something else. On the eastern side, where the shadows are lengthening, the house’s wooden ribs bulge out between the crumbling plaster and mud, an old flesh wound.

We peer through the broken kitchen window, tattered red and what was once white wallpaper hangs from the walls and low ceiling. “Wow, they had wallpaper?” J. asks. I shrug my shoulders, surprised at that little nicety out here in the middle of nowhere also, and point to a hideaway bed with water-stained blue and white ticking shoved up against the stove.

Suddenly emboldened, J. and C. race ahead of me, peering into an antique blue refrigerator (I wonder where they got ice?), what’s left of the root cellar, then disappear around the corner. "Careful, careful, careful," I say, pretty much to the wind. I place one boot tentatively onto the ramshackle porch, gauge the creaks, groans, moans, and then step up, immediately relieved that the boards don't cave in and send me tumbling into the nest of spider webs and other unimaginable things below.

The skeleton of a horsehair sofa waits, mute, in the corner. I suspect it's been a long dry spell since company. I place my hand on the moldered arm and wonder who sat there, gazing beyond the sun decayed porch rail. Was his life hard out here? Did he see the same piñon and juniper sprawled before the snow capped mountains? Feel the early spring breeze that’s warm and chilly at the same time on your face? Fall asleep at night to the sound of the train rumbling past like I do?

C. appears from behind the well house toting a chipped enamel wash pan, Matilda trailing behind in a state of dog sniffing euphoria. J. is tugging my sleeve excitedly, “Mom, come see this. Come see this!”

I follow my daughter towards the weathered outbuildings. I'll bet there were some horses here once.

A thin wind blows through the piñon trees.

Posted by Kimberly at April 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Turning around in the saddle from the back of our 14-hand appaloosa horse, it occurred to me that I've gotten each of my children an Amazon for a pet. (But the good news is that they are Amazonian babysitters.)

When looking for our eight-year-old son's new horse, my mantra was temperament, temperament, temperament. I have to remind myself of that when I look at the long legs on these gals!

Did you know that USPC cites children being overhorsed as a very large contributor to horse and rider accidents?

Temperament, temperament, temperament.

Posted by Kimberly at April 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Jane stands on top of the gigantic horse manure pile outside the barn, shovel in hand, the queen of all she surveys, she entertains the occasional fantasy

of taking the Express Train to brunch and Bloomingdale’s for a little shopping.

Flickr photo: mulsane
Subway photo: Express Train photo blog, Travis Ruse