Lose a Ball, Gain Some Insight

So it's best not to ride when you have a cyst in your pants. I found that out two weeks ago, on a Monday. When I rode the last time, and swung up into the saddle and felt like hmm, sitting on a hard golf ball that is actually my BALL. Attached to me. Painful. I rode anyway, because I was all dressed for it and Dewey and I were aimed toward the trail and the creek is on the trail, and well we had to do that. When you're all geared up for water, and nature, you just have to keep going, balls and all. Three days later I was driving to the ER to have my ball drained, and it was not as fun as it sounds. The good news is it's only temporary and I get to have it permanently removed this Thursday, for those of you marking your calendars. It was just an old cyst, but too much riding made it an old, big mean villain cyst. I hope to keep it with my sheep's ball that I have in the tack room. Maybe we can make a little necklace. In the mean time (and I am mean when not getting to ride), although it's nice to not have to ride sort of-- in the mean time the kids are getting to actually ride, and get their chance to learn the basics like I wanted but never was ready to do. Two kids have already been up and I'll keep it up in the next month while I'm grounded. I'm also back to teaching Dewey to drive, and we got to have him wear his driving bridle with blinkers for the first time. Then I walked him around with that on. Then I drove him around the paddock with that on. Then I drove him around the arena with that on. Next we'll try the street. He seems fine with not being able to see me. Something interesting I learned- if he's used to your steady hands on the reins, and your voice, and your reassuring touch, he doesn't much mind not being able to see you. The horse feels you, hears you and trusts you - he is built for work, and to be a team. He's way better at all this than you are. So really you are the one learning while he's saying of course we're working together. That's what we're doing. All this time. So one ball lighter, and maybe Dewey will pull a cart eventually. And I become aware that I am more than I knew I was, and that Dewey already knew this.

It's All in the Delivery

Dewey's Nemesis. Effing Fed Ex. If you're a rider on a young tall horse, and you're riding next to the road, Fed Ex will find you. Fed Ex will test your skills at staying on and controlling your horse when he turns and tries to run the other way. I don't know if Dewey got a bad package once. A letter bomb. Some sort of hate mail. Because when he sees Fed Ex he knows DANGER. Fed Ex has the biggest, whitest, rattliest trucks on the road. Fed Ex is not going to slow down. They are Federal EXPRESS. They are in a hurry. Young thoroughbreds do not enjoy a big rattly white monster coming at them at 45 miles an hour on our road. I always put my cowboy blinders on and scan the road for the white monster. The delivery hell. Delivering me from my spinning and terrified horse to the hard ground. I keep a watch. You can hear me mutter, out on the trail, when I see it coming. F**cking Fed Ex... And turning my horse into the nearest driveway or getting off and making space. Dewey can do space between him and the evil. Just can't do bearing down, rattling, speeding, white vision of hell. We never wave at FedEx.

On the mountain, with Fed Ex at a safe distance, Dewey thinks. Someday. I will get a delivery I like.

Saddle Up

So I got a new old saddle for $150 bucks after selling my Aussie saddle since it was too wide for Dewey anyway, and I like to switch things up. I decided a Big Horn half synthetic saddle could be my western lightweight alternative, and it's been fun to try. I like to worry about the saddle fit, and then make the blanket match the saddlebags (I guess I am a girl in some ways), and I like to take Dewey out for the nice walk through the neighborhood trail because it's quiet and no one is talking to me and I see birds flying and I get to test my skills if Dewey gets nervous. But either turning 8 is making him mature, or we've just been lucky the last few months, because Dewey is becoming a laid back guy. He'll do whatever I ask, he's seemed to stop throwing in the occasional buck and stopped being wary of things. Now if he's worried about something on the path, he'll stop and we'll both look at it and then we'll keep going, or I'll get off and walk him past it, or we'll just give it a little more space so he feels comfortable. The riding is giving me a place to put all the stress of summer. The kids have only been back in school for a week but I'm still dumping all the activity and food preparation for those two months of sunup to sundown service out on the trail. I've been too tired to actually do the big trail that requires walking over a huge hill to get there. It's the more beautiful trail, it has water and large empty space. For now I'm just doing an hour ride a day, walking around trying out the different saddle. Letting my mind wander. I will get back to writing and doing work. Getting to ride Dewey is the one place I don't have to do anything else except ride Dewey, and contemplate things.

Saddle Up

Sold my Aussie saddle, and going to try a big horn synthetic western saddle. We'll see. Just wanted something lightweight that I can climb on and off on trails and won't kill my butt or his back. Kids going back to school and then I'll be working too so do I ever actually get to ride? Maybe my riding is less than I want, but I do GET to ride, and I get to have this tiny farm and the future hopefully will be more time on a porch sitting and looking out at rolling green hills. Dewey has still managed to get out every other day mostly, even in this busy summer. But it will be nice to spend a little more time less harried and slower. Horse time is stolen time.

A Road Less Travis

Did I mention the sheep is a pain in the ass? Dewey loves the sheep. No sheep, he seriously freaks out if Travis is somewhere out of his eyesight. So Travis doing his job. Filled the job of best friend. Company. If Travis is laying by the fence, a cottony lump at rest, Dewey is standing near him, head lowered. We used to have sheep here that ran away if you looked at them. Travis is more the bust into the barn type. If you come out to the barn, he comes running over. If you open a door, he says thank you, I will go in first. He's like a hundred pound hunk of solid wool bashing into everything. He is a ram. His style is knock it over, ask questions later. He would kill for hands. As it is, if he wants to break into something, he knocks it over, paws at it, attacks it basically with his face. But if I get him out of the chicken house, let's say, where he has escaped and is ransacking it like he's on the SWAT team, all I have to do is grab the top of his wooly neck and he comes along with me peacefully. Like hey, where ya been. Sure I'll go. Sorry. Sorry I made this huge mess. Just foolin around.

I'm Not the Only One Who's Nuts

The f**ing squirrels. It isn't enough that they raid my chicken house. They started eating the chicks. Not eating them like, cleaning their plate and leaving a nice tip. They just eat the head off. They leave it for me to find, like a calling card. Like a challenge. Like WE DID THIS. What are you going to do about it? So now they're caged in behind wire at night. And then I start checking my chicken house a billion times so I can get the eggs before they do. I plug every hole, so they can't get in. I open the door and there's a chicken on the nest doing her low warning crrrrrrrr when she sees me and there in front of her is a dumbass squirrel just waiting there with his tail twitching, he's just standing there like he's at the drive thru. He knows his food is coming. Dammit! So I put poison under the tack room and blocked all the holes there and there should be a serious Jonestown going on under there with I hope every squirrel on earth. Today I walked out and no death. First thing in the morning. Chicks all safe. Now to tackle the flea issue. Maybe animals are the dumbest thing to do. But the eggs are good. And the dog is good company. But we could have gone to Europe on the time I've spent problem solving out here. But we live here. So I made living here as fully invested in the land as I could. Earth is solid. Living things are lively. Flea bombs now. Europe later. Send me a postcard and a Xanax, cause that's the future of air travel for me.

The Walk

In Santa Monica, growing up, I walked to school. Roosevelt, it was only about 3 long blocks from my house, but it felt like a very long way. I walked by myself, although I'm guessing my brothers were there sometimes. I just don't remember them. Because when I walked, I looked down at all the cracks in the sidewalk, and certain bushes we passed along backyard fences. I didn't think at all about the history of people's houses, or who lived where, my mind wasn't clogged with all the adult busy-ness and loud strutting it likes to do now. It was quiet in there. When I was 8 and I walked I was pretending I was leading my horse behind me. It was too hard to pretend to be riding a horse (required a silly walk) so I was always holding a lead rope, and my horse was just right behind me following along. This year I am 50. I was walking Lilly up to school, on the path she will remember as the long walk to her school. I was thinking about how in the mornings after I drop Lilly, I go home, and if I'm not working, I get Dewey, and walk back up to the park. Up the same path. Same little girl. Walking up to school, about a half hour from where I grew up, not near the beach now, but out near the mountains. In a valley. I'm walking up to school and this time I really do have a horse following behind me. Just like I wanted.

Holy Sheep's Balls

Holy Sheep’s Balls So when we got Travis, he had been banded, which means he was a ram lamb, but we didn’t need him to be a virile breeding sheep, we just needed him to be a mellow buddy sheep. So the farming custom (encouraged and performed by the vet) is to band the baby sheep (or goat) if you want a sheep that is sterile by putting a metal band around the tiny buds of nuts. The blood gets diminished going to that part of the body and eventually, as the vet told me while yawning, it just dries up and falls off. So I’ve been keeping an eye on Travis’s nuts, and they were getting smaller and tougher, but they weren’t falling off. He wasn’t in any pain, he didn’t mind at all when I would check them out and it certainly didn’t stop him from chasing the dog around like an insane dude or eating a ton of hay with Dewey the horse. But it had been 3 months, and she said it should only take about a month. So yesterday I went out and while he was eating hay I just bent down and looked at his little nut sack. It looks like a little cottony furball, so I bent it back and that’s when I saw that it wasn’t attached at all. It was just hanging there like a dried up little purse. It must’ve fallen off a long time ago, but since he’s made of wool, the wool was like Velcro and kept the nuts just stuck there in all the fluff. Like a ballsack matted hair clump. All his manhood erased and just stuck to the top of his leg there. So I pulled the little wooly bag off and then ahhk! I’m holding sheep’s balls. Dried, for your pleasure. Dried fluffy balls. In convenient soft wool covering. I have to say this is the first time this has happened to me. Travis was grateful to be rid of them, I think. He didn’t stop eating to let me know, but his horn buds aren’t growing because he has no testosterone, which will make him happier later, when his horns don’t get stuck in the fence or in the dog or in small children running by. Less balls means Travis will continue to be the silly and affectionate little guy that he already is, with no chance of him ramming us when we bend over like in Shirley Temple movies. Travis is very fond of a nice head scratch, all over body brush, or an old banana peel if you’re feeling generous. Travis runs over yelling HEYYYYYYY in his language when you open the gate and weaves in and out of the horse’s legs because he adores the horse. And he plays tag with the dog. He’s maybe the world’s greatest sheep, and he’s two balls lighter. I told Bess about Travis’s balls that night. I told her maybe I should send the balls to Chris for her birthday. I thought nobody probably thinks to send balls to anyone. Once you’ve held shed sheep parts in your hands, your life becomes radically silly.

Training from a Quiet Spot

Today I could hear the horse talking to me. Not talking that way, just I stopped my busy mind and just felt the horse. Looked at the world slightly lower and quieter, from big brown eyes. I saw the traffic on our street as we walked up to the park. I saw that yesterday when I was mad and thinking like a human, I didn't see that yesterday when we went up to the park he was a 7 year old baby horse who hasn't been out in awhile and was excited to look at everything. He was excited to see other horses. He wasn't paying that much attention to me and our work, until I reminded him hey. We're here to do something. Then he settled in, he did what I needed. The quieter I got in my own self, the more basic and quiet in my cues, the more he settled in. Today he had had his runabout yesterday and his getting used to being out again in the world. Today I got on and partner kept coming up in my mind. Today I bridled him slowly. I thought about how it felt to be saddled, how it felt to be treated by human hands, how a horse wants to be with the calmest, strongest leader. So they can relax. They aren't so different than us. So today I watched my horse through my legs when I rode, and I stacked up my body like building blocks so I wouldn't cave in at the top, like I do when I get scared. I rode upright. I let him move forward. I let him ride next to other horses because I was tuned in to his mood and saw that he wasn't going to get playful and forget I was up there and have a nice romp. I kept reminding him I was up there by changing speed and direction, giving him things to do, it's not that different from teaching a class of 3rd graders. Or raising kids. You do actually have to work a little bit. But instead of thinking of it like THIS HAS TO BE THIS WAY, I just used my legs as walls, and let him lean the right way by asking him and allowing him to move, softening the wall on one side means you are welcome to go over here. It will be nice over here, I promise. So then Dewey loves to work. Also he is long legged and slightly wobbly to the right, his weak cantering side, but he worked on that side for me and I held him up with my inside leg, and together, we worked together to make our ride interesting, varied, fun, challenging. Out there in the world. Instead of trying to yell it all, or contain it all, I let it crash over me in a wave, and let the water trickle back out and we were still standing there working together. It helps to know your horse. I guess when things seem frustrating I just want to get rid of him but maybe knowing your horse is actually a really good thing. He's not always in the mood, and I'm not always in the brave mood, but today it was just crisp out, and morning and I didn't have any other responsibilities, and things have been busy and hard lately and this morning just popped out and we were working together under the big sky as a team. Both of us listening. Being able to give. We gave whatever we could to make it work, and then we're both happy at the end. I should get off my high horse and do this in other areas of life. It's such a powerful thing, to give everything you have, and first listen, to yourself and to the horse. (or the human) The horse will tell you the truth. But first you have to be so quiet, and shut off that rational brain. The brain is too noisy and most of it means nothing. You can feel what means something. With riding I get to feel from different rarely used muscles in my whole body. It's a pretty miraculous thing. Dewey has done so many things growing up that have made me terrified of him and his strength and power. But maybe he's teaching me something. Break things down into small pieces. Enjoy the path, and let him graze. Let him be a horse, but let him work for me. When we free up that bond by practice, small and simple, and listening with just the middle of my self- that is interesting. Seeing where it takes us.

Dewey Scrapes By

Lemme talk about Dewey for a minute. He was doing so well and I wish he had told me before becoming buckaroo bonsai that he didn't so much like harnessing and the way the straps would hit him in the tender loin area. Because last time I harnessed him (and I was CAREFUL, knowing he was a little sensitive), he started jumping around like his feet were on fire. He in fact ended up with his back leg on TOP of the fence. Stuck there. Til he ripped it down scraping himself nicely. Which is healing now, a week later. Bucking in front of me does not make me want to ride him. Luckily, now everytime he sees a saddle a bridle or anything with straps, he starts dancing around in fear so the chance to ride him becomes less and less a realistic situation. So I check the internet and it says now that you've made your horse terrified, you have to saddle him a bunch of times in a retardedly slow way until saddling is no big deal anymore. The fun quotient is way down on the riding right now. Before this new fun situation, I pretty much stopped riding trail because it took too long to get out there and Becky got attacked by a coyote last time. And I don't like going out alone that much, and I got tired of riding with the neighbor ladies because my horse liked to frolic too much with their horses. In reality, I have a horse that needs a huge pasture and some buddies to play with. He needs to get his energy out, play and then come in for rides in a good frame of mind. He's tried really hard to be a good horse, and I've tried really hard to help him succeed. But it has been all work and no play. I got Dewey a sheep to keep him company and then I've kinda stepped back in the anxious rider department. I'm just making sure he gets exercise, and we're doing arena work. But he has hives from this weird weather or weird hay who knows. And he's sore from the leg he hyperextended during his harness freak out. So now if I tried to sell him it would be impossible because he's terrified of saddling, riddled with bumps from hives, sore on the leg. This may be something to look back on in a month and laugh. For now, it's just this was my recreation. It's become a drag. And no happy riding makes me a grumpy mom. Plus my son is failing algebra 2. That sucks. Oh and a 100 year old man told me I'm annoying. And I have a terrible cold. I need a mom. that'sallloveclyde