Pinky Problems

The pony and my pinky finger have something in common. 

There was a hoof to pinky connection that is now indelibly imprinted on my pinky. I am working for 7 months now to erase that connection but I am positive that this is a keeper.

So broken and fixed, but stiff and clublike, do I keep the pony after the damage? Is there more damage to be done? Am I stupid?

I'm definitely stupid. But I've been stupider. I married a short jew. Kidding. He's the only voice of reason around here, bros.

I do not like the work of fixing the broken. I don't mind getting broken I just prefer things were zipped up neatly into their former glory, finger all better, look you can hardly tell.

It just makes me mad. I'm mad at the world, mad at my mom for having dementia and thus handing me dementia every day now for two years sitting on my couch giving me all your problems. I love you but why did you have to break.

I'm mad at the kids for getting bigger but secretly glad because the bigger they get the more trash they can take out. Eventually they will empty the garage and we can refill it with Still More Crap probably for grandkids. That's the win win. The worst case is they clean out the garage because I need the morphine. Or something.

Wait this is supposed to be my horse blog. 

The horses are in remission right now because it's summer and too hot to ride unless you get up early or go out at sunset. I do get a ride in as often as I can. I finally seem to have found a halter that puts enough pressure on the pony without hurting him so he will be a good member of society and not rip me from my other horse when I lead him out on trails. I am liking learning how to train a baby. It's just the brokenness that has made things a slight bummer. It stopped me from being whimsical and just made me mad.

Maybe madness will lead me somewhere new. I hope there's a trail through it and it involves water and sloshing. And laughter.

I am almost 56, an ungodly high number. In ten years that number will seem nostalgic. I'll take the 56 and raise a broken finger. 

I love you, readers. Stick with your horses, they came into your lives for some reason. They are magical beings, aren't they.

There Must Be a Pony

 I am learning so much from little Meriwether.

It turns out that it doesn't matter the size of the horse, they still want to know what you're doing and if it involves carrots.

I guess like all of us, he's just on the six month, 400 pound level, he is wary of new things, and wants to be sure what you're doing will make him feel better (brushing) or fill up his stomach. I would brush him while he was eating so he wouldn't care what I was doing and he'd get used to being handled withtout worry. That seems to be working. He likes to follow me around even when his belly is full, because at 6 mos and 400 pounds, you want to know where the girl is going with the bucket on wheels full of shit. Maybe it's a good place. It's movement anyway.

He is a big kid. He puts his face directly into tarps. He plays with beach balls. He sniffs the dogs. He loves running flat out and spazzing his little legs out into the sky. He lies directly flat out in the sun to soak in the earth. He is fluffiest on the top of his neck. He loves scratches all over, and he has spots.

I think maybe I am 14 again every time I get a horse. I like to learn them, and study them, and smell them and wrap my arms around them. I like setting boundaries and growing a good sensible horse. I like showing them as much as possible to give them a solid mind. I like the sun dappling on them at 4 in the afternoon when everything feels mostly accomplished and we can sit back and feel joy and wonder at life.

This little baby came on my son's birthday, at 2 in the morning. My parents said why do you need another horse.

I never thought about why

My mom is dying

My kids are going off to college

My husband is getting older

My house needs work

My littlest daughter is growing up

Meriwether came to distract me from that

With him I can shape something. I can grow something. I can laugh at antics. I can connect to a brain. I can feel softness with my hands. I can learn a new thing. I can do something I haven't done before.

Aren't those the main reasons for living?

I have a place for my love. I have a vast capacity, seems a shame not to channel it somewhere I can see tangible results in a pretty short time. Four legged results. 

Meriwether has to do with the sun, and the dirt, and the newness of things. He keeps me outdoors at a time when things are too close, closing in. He gives me a reason to go out. Scratch the pony. Build a bond.

Meriwether reminds me who I am, and what I'm best at.

Special Delivery

We got a new pony delivered at two in the morning after a late night Dodger Game hobbling on a broken toe. Also it was the wee hours of Aug 19th, the day my son was born 21 years ago. Also my son was there.

That's some pretty sweet shit. When the guy pulled up finally, 12 hours behind schedule, he didn't get out of the truck which I thought was weird. He said the halter's in the back, and it took me awhile to figure out if it was in the truck or where and then he told me to go ahead and get the baby out. 

It's weird to go into someone else's trailer, it's like you wouldn't just open anyone's trunk especially someone you've only met twice, when he delivered horses 5 and 2 years ago. I open up the back and there's the little white baby deer, Meriwether, looking at me like oh hey I was wondering where you were all my life. All his four month life.

He jumps right out of the trailer and we can't believe how tiny he is, this is the first horse I've been up close to so little as my actual horse with tiny baby feet and soft baby fur. 

Then the guy is coming around the trailer and he's pushing a WALKER, and can barely WALK. I feel so bad that I was mad how late he was, and the last time he delivered a horse it was on Christmas morning, at like 3 am, and I even gave him a tip like, thanks for being late AND ruining Christmas. But then how many times do you get a horse delivered on Christmas. 

I think maybe this is the last time he's delivering horses for me. First because next time he'd be in a wheelchair apparently, and b because I'm only going to pick up my own horses from now on, I can see the truck and trailer section of my life is about to begin. My horsemanship is growing, I've evolved. 

Also I don't need any more horses. But it is addictive.

So Meri has been with us two weeks almost. He is a thoughtful, loving, funny, fluffy little guy. I was worried the guy had to next go pick up a draft horse and drive it to New Jersey. A draft horse is like a truck and trailer all on its own, and this guy can't even walk well. I hoped he would be okay.

My little wispy Meriwether is poking around loftily, not knowing that he has landed in the softest spot in the universe. 

Just like Nathan did, 21 years ago. I still have him, too.

anew

 Man, haven't been on here in awhile.

The horses have been less write-worthy, because they are serving a purpose which is ride me away from dementia mom care. So there's no time to write when you're deep in the jungle by the creek or out in the barn brushing a little bit of dust off.

Life is all functiony out there, that's the miracle. Things need water, and things need attention. 

Lately I've been looking at getting a foal because maybe things need to start anew. I've never done anew. It might a nice.

Or maybe we should go to Europe.

Or both.

Dangle

 I stand in water. Well the horse stands in water and my feet dangle above. 

Water and creek with jungle plants all around. I ride to go stand in water and then I ride back and then everything seems better.

The horses have not ever told me one thing.

They just go where I go because usually the place we end up is a good place, and I always bring them back to a safe place to eat. Home.

They're happy with the journey.

They take my drowned heart and we go to the water and release it into the muck and it swims around regenerating til healed and then we walk back new and this lasts at least 24 hours. I am not healed all the way through. But I am comforted, and the sun feels good, and the horses smell good, and my feet dangle.

This is important for a tall person.

Listen

I'm riding with this insane person well he's just left of insane, he's definitely in the turn lane heading toward it. He's been riding with me 2 months straight with his horse, and riding with me and my horses since August, so like six mos.

There is something about this relationship, where I never look at him, we are never face to face, in fact that would be weird. We are a voice either in front or behind, sometimes next to. We are always running, lately, we are trying out running with thundering fast feet under our own dangly ones.

I didn't run this much on my horse as a kid, and I certainly never ran this much using my own body.

There is something about the feel of the air with this companion and these horses, that dares us to just go. It's a certain meshing of safety, chaos, logic, dare, exhilaration, fright, happiness. I never pressed this level on my horse, it is a new level. He is much more comfortable at this level than I am but he has never sat in a hospital with a broken pelvis and ribs.

I am liking who I am, and how the world is shaping up around me. I am aware that I must do more to further my path. I must indeed hack away at all the weeds, even the scratchy mean ones, which is just the part of me that I don't use the most. That's what it is, with this new riding level, it is untried, so it is silent and huge and scary. I should realize that I am slogging through this world and it is all here for me, to pick through, and remember and choose my path and doggedly and faithfully be myself.
And listen.

Gilligan is on His Way

Because I'm stupid, there's a new horse coming here next week. Not my horse, but because I will do anything to avoid writing, I decided this guy who comes to ride with me needed his own horse and even though we've only  known each other a few months, he is now going to have his own horse and keep it at my house.

I don't actually NEED another horse here at my house. I have plenty of children and chickens and dogs and horses. Except the children seem to be leaving, one by one. In the way that apparently children do, in normal homes, like it's no big deal. I'm not having the easiest time with this. Why do people need to go and do things?

I will try and not fill up the holes entirely with horses and horse related products. I could maybe learn to sell my writing, or be kinder to people or share myself a little more. I don't really know what I'm doing here if not for children, and horses have always sort of kept me buoyant, even in the worst of times. Even if I'm in the hospital from lack of buoyancy from falling from horses.

My body is getting older, it's telling me. I'm only 53. The numbers are silly, but they are telling me, your time is running thin, lady. There's still much to do.

We'll start with pairing this horse and this human. This horse has a Gilligan personality and so does the owner. I like the pairing, and the happily ever after which includes much work. But the trail's the thing. It might not cure the baby bye bye blues, or cure anything, but I don't go there to cure I just go to breathe.

Dude Ranch

Lately I've been taking out some guest riders. I get bored and put my craigslist ad for trail riding and I usually get some fat ladies who used to ride as kids but are missing horses. Not always fat, but I did have to put a weight limit in my ad after the last one. Dewey has ballerina ankles.

The latest two have been guys, Armenian Bakery Owner and Medi-Vac Helicopter pilot with a side of throat cancer.

I don't usually ride with guys because what if they murder me so I told them to meet me up at the school. The only other dude who came to ride was Travis the Fireman (an actual person) and he was everything you'd expect in a fireman. Tall, polite, sweet and I never saw him again. Although he did talk to Nathan about becoming a fireman.

So I didn't know for sure if the Armenian Bakery dude was a dude because his name was Cartin and isn't that a container? But he was for sure a guy and I took the dogs since I thought that might be a deterrent to murder if he had that on his mind. He paid me his 40 bucks and signed his life away on my waiver and then got on Dewey the most patient guest riding horse there is. Dewey sighed and got to work. Cartin looked short but then once on I had to adjust his stirrups for longer legs. The man is like all head, like his head is like the size of storage locker, and apparently the rest is legs. Fresh Bread makes this kind of person.

The trail is good for Cartin, who is actually a really nice guy once I realized he wasn't in it for the killing. He loves to be outside, he makes his kids camp and fish, and he wanted to ride to "shut down" as he put it. I don't usually shut down on horseback because that sounds like a safety hazard, but he's right that the anxious city me does shut down and the regular life outdoors me opens up and allows breeze and trees and birds and morning light. Cartin was someone I didn't quite know how much to talk - riding with a stranger is sort of like getting a massage, you cringe when your masseuse starts talking, the whole point is to NOT talk. But you're moving through the world on a beast, so you have to have SOME talk or it's weird, so on a date scale, not too much talking, not awkward with silence, maybe not the person you want to spend your whole life with, but as a ride, it was like a solid 5. Just sort of boringly just right.

Then that same week came Drew, who because of his name had no choice BUT to become a helicopter medi-vac pilot, who is a huge animal lover and whose texts were full of Awesomes! Because of the chopper I thought in person would he yell all his conversations? In person, he was like someone you'd meet at an AA meeting - all tatted up, skinny, looks like he lives on coffee, whose voice is scratchy like someone ran over Bette Davis because he had throat cancer - but I can't say one mean thing about Drew because when I meet Drew, I am in instant love. No, man, as riding buddies go, he's the perfect match. First of all, I don't know him, so there's plenty to talk about. He's someone who LOOKS like someone I might be scared of normally, but he's straightforward, smart, kind, whimsical, has a weird job, has a kid my kid's age, thinks rich people who rent his helicopter are wasteful, had an actual LUNG in an ice chest riding shotgun next to him.

Drew's dream is to have a few horses of his own and get a ranch in New Mexico and be in the quiet. Lots of riders come to me that are trying out horses to see if they can do it, and I feel lucky to be here in our busy city to help aim anyone in the direction of riding and wilderness. So Drew and I do a few rides, one in the little trail nearby and one out in the water where I know he will be dying of happiness. My friend Linette says that there's something funny about taking people on trail and only talking to someone about important things when you never have to look them in the eye. That's why I function best on trail, you can say whatever you want, what is said on the trail stays on the trail. You're sort of suspended in mid air with your legs dangling, this causes all sorts of freedom of speech.

Wild wanderings these days on trails I know pretty well. Although the huge winter rains here swelled up the river and when it came back down, it's all changed so now it flows a whole different way. The water trail through the woods I used to ride all the time is now all sand, like it never existed.

But the same river is only a few feet away, doing a different path. That's the one I'm on now.

Wobbles

So three in the morning the dogs were barking and I thought is someone breaking in or something?

I go out and there's nothing, but I think I hear Maggie the mare who has figured out how to get out the tiny gate and into the chicken area and eat all the chicken food and then come over into the backyard where I'm worried she'll fall in the pool so I go out to make sure she's not causing trouble.

I hear water gushing so I'm like dammit Maggie, she must've broken a water pipe and I go into their area and there's a flood happening but I caught it early so I go over to the water pipe and there's no one to help so I do what Tim taught me which is look at the base of the pipe for a shut off valve and it looks like there's one buried in the dirt so I'm kneeling in wet dirt in my boxers and digging with my fingers in hard dirt and I get the valve and will it by some miracle actually shut off the water? And it moves and it DOES! I am amazed at myself for finally fixing a boy thing somehow on my own in the middle of the night and the flood is not so bad thanks to the dogs for waking me up now instead of later. So I clean up horse poop barefoot since I'm already out there and I hate a mess and there's my boarder's horse, an OTTB, laying right next to the flood and not seeming to care, sleeping, so I just go back to bed after dipping my feet in the pool.

Then I hear again the sound of horse hooves hitting metal piping and I'm thinking dammit Maggie she is really getting into the chicken area now so I get back up and go out and there's the boarder horse, and he's flinging himself all around in the dirt like crazily. I watch him, frozen, because this is weird. He's laying down like a normal horse but then he can't get up. He rolls and it's like his legs aren't working, he flops and throws himself to get up and his legs just don't work, they don't belong to him, they aren't reaching under him to help him up like normal. I think oh shit he got his leg stuck under that water pipe and broke his leg. Something is so wrong.

So I have to wake up my boarder and knocking softly on anyone's door at 3 am is not the thing anyone wants to do or hear.

She comes out and we watch this horse fling himself all over and then I start getting worried because he's going to hit the water heater or the wall or break everything and himself - a 1200 pound whale flailing around in a too small corral is a disaster movie.

I tell her to call her vet because we need a sedative, and she calls him and her old cigarette smelling cowboy ex boyfriend and the cowboy shows up.

We again try and understand what has happened, checking the horse's legs, which all seem to be intact, and trying to get the horse up, and trying to angle him for safety while trying to stay out of his way.

After 2 hours and some sedative and no vet, we get him shakily standing. He's like a baby who is just learning to walk he has no balance at all.

The sun is suddenly coming up and I go back to bed for an hour and then the vet comes and it is a stroke or a broken vertebrae and I'm thinking how do they get dead horses out of backyards? Because are we having to put him to sleep and he is huge.

The horse looks like a boxer with swollen eyes and cuts and swelling all over his body from his fight with balance and the ground. The boarder and I have tried to remain calm and figure out what to do.

In the next six days he stays in one small area, and eats and drinks and barely walks. One time he's standing and we're watching him and he just falls over suddenly. But after that he manages to stay on his feet and slowly start to walk funny, tiny steps with a weak back end, all mismatched weirdly like the kind of walk you do in a horse costume when one person's the head and another is the butt and nobody knows where you're going.

The vet says he has a 50/50 chance of making it.

My horse licks his knees. My boarder thinks it's because he's a healing horse but I think it's because he had some food on his knees. Maybe it's both. Except I know my horse. He's a kindhearted horse, but more than that he loves food.

She has an animal communicator out even though she hasn't been able to pay her rent. I try not to laugh but I'm getting now a little bit worried. And I'm open to voodoo shit, sure, that's cool, but animal communicator is the one thing that can be totally made up and no horse is going to tell you anything different. Because they can't talk. She could in fact be making it ALL up.

My horse comes up to her and she says the horse is showing her on her body all the places where the boarder horse is hurt. I'm thinking my horse is checking your pockets for snacks. But. Okay.

She tells us the chickens are happy.

THE CHICKENS ARE HAPPY. Of course the chickens are happy. Their brain is the size of one sand. No doubt they are happy.

She then gives an expensive laundry list of all the things we have to do for stroke horse, and my boarder who never listens to anything I have to say even though she is new to horses, she suddenly wants to do everything this quack who is talking to my chickens wants her to do.

I told her no I will not electrify my fences. No I will not feed special hay. No - have you looked at my horses? My horses are fat, healthy and happy. I will continue to do what I am doing to give them the life that is obviously working. Overworking in fact.

I am sorry for her huge, ill-used ex racetrack thoroughbred who was hard used and then thrown out, and then romantically adopted by her with the thought that you can love anything into being better. We had a feral dog that I did the same thing with and he was never normal. He just cost a lot less to feed, and a dog is not a horse. A horse is a partner and unless you're rich, not a great pet to upkeep. Especially if you're not riding him.

I'm hoping she will find him a home with a big pasture where he can stretch his long legs and be a companion horse for someone else's horse. That is a horse's ultimate dream anyway. To just hang out in a meadow and not have to do anything. Heck that's MY dream.

In the meantime I will try not to be mean in the meantime because she is a nice person and we need the rent too, and her horse isn't dangerous. But I hope she will do what he needs, and maybe we'll see where we all end up. This horse was not the ideal companion on the trail anyway, maybe he's best resting the rest of his life. I have hope for him.

Wobbles, the stroke horse. Still standing. So far.

Learning Curve

When I ride I think about my cracked pelvis. And my tight hip. It's only been 3 months. I'm back to riding in a bareback pad. Maggie is learning and we were doing walk trot canter and trying to learn her gaiting that she's bred for but neither of us knows anything about. The cruise control gait. Someday we'll master it, or maybe bit by bit. We'll figure it out.

I've been working on keeping a long leg, relaxing and not holding on to everything in my body. Release. It's good to remind yourself and to see the horse listening to you the less you do. Trying to be the one thing, the horseperson combo. The less brain the more feel.

It's hard to not picture yourself flat on cement. Anything can happen, true. But each time we go out my muscles build a little more and I can feel the fall as part of my journey. The falls help you know what you're doing, where you need work, and how surprises can happen. The rebuilding helps. Remembering with humor where I went splat. That I was working on something, and my horse wasn't quite ready for the lesson. As my mom said, if you can come back from that you can come back from anything.

Starry Starry Ride

I haven't written in here because Dewey decided to launch me after a vicious palm frond under his feet tried to attack him, and I went flying off first into the sky and then whump into the ground which being cement had no into, cement it turns out is a very angry and strict situation.

So as the firemen are busily working around my suddenly long and useless body and I'm staring at the blue sky, I am considering maybe riding is not the best thing to be doing and so cavalierly. Like I'm invincible, like I can fight dragons, in fact dragons aren't big enough.

But that's not true, really. I'm a very safe rider. I push the limits sometimes, when I feel like it's safe, and my horse is listening to me. Dewey and I had been working on palm fronds. This day he just couldn't do it. He is a terrific and dutiful horse. With an explosive buck that I just can't sit when it's three in a row on a bareback pad. I failed the rodeo. But I won the fractured pelvis and ribs, shaking hands with the accident judge while accepting my prize, yes, thank you very much.  Thank you everyone, while you're doing my chores I'll be sitting on this couch for two more weeks, I earned it! So we all win!!

As the pain slowly heals away and I get more mobility, I can imagine riding again. I don't see the world in this rigid grid, where safety is over here, and I have to move this pawn or everything bad will happen. I see the world all swirled like Van Gogh, and that makes me open to people loving me, and mistakes being made, and flying up into the sky every now and then. As long as I don't make the big leap. I'm pretty excited about being here, still.

If only the ground was softer.

P.S. It's Effing Hot

Family trip to Palm Springs. Eight cousins, some bigger cousins, two aunts and an uncle.

Water park, 120 degrees. Lilly and I are waiting at the top of a water slide and she turns around and looks like a wilting flower. "I don't feel too good, Mom," and I get the water slide dude to give her some of his water. She for sure was about to pass out from heat stroke. We learned after that to carry a water cup with us, and drink it all on the way to the slide.

The kids made me go on the Tornado which is like a huge bowl you get dumped into down a chute with 3 of your best friends on a raft together. The best part is they weigh you as a group before putting you on the raft. We wondered if there was a Fatty Alarm that went off and how horrible that would be. The only way I got through that ride was looking at Lilly's grinning face across from me on the raft through the scary falling part and the zooming upward part. Sometimes joy and reassurance comes from the easiest places, right across from you.

At the top of one slide I asked the guy as he's putting me on a raft if they made them wear long sleeves to hide tattoos or if it's for the sun. He says his boss has a lot of tattoos so he doesn't think that's the problem. He said he does it for skin cancer. "Because that shit is for real," he said.

We survive the hotness and get to the night where we're all cramming around one table with not enough chairs eating hamburgers some of us actually hovering because there's no place to sit.

When we should be going to bed, instead we're playing frisbee in the empty resort street because it's a fake vacation neighborhood and there's no cars. They tell Dima the 5 year old not to run in the street and later we're taking the street again to get to the pool and he says it's okay he's not running in the street, he's jogging. We go play tennis at 945 at night because it's only 107 out.

The next day I can barely walk, but there's more hot pool and frisbee, more food, thrift stores, the only Trader Joe's where you can park without any traffic (I go here 3 times just for the parking). At night I am laying on kids and a niece on the couch, while eating melted chocolate chips out of brownies that are on a plate on my chest. I take a tiny piece of the brownie and stick my whole hand into Bruce's milk, then put the whole dripping thing into my own face. The dripping is what makes it worth it.

There are no other things to do here like clean or maintain, really. So we just get hot, get waterlogged, eat, listen to people talk loudly, play a new card game, play tennis, play frisbee, swim, never wash, and finally get in bed.

Lilly and I seem to be the only ones who miss the regular routine of our lives, maybe because we like our actual life. The noise here is good, the family is good. But we like the maintaining of home, we're good at the peace of everyday.

Take Me to the River

Maggie and I and the Beck dog are off to the water trail alone for the first time. We've done short solo rides close to home around the neighborhood, maybe 4 times now. It's time to try the longer ride into the dam. Maggie is 6, she is saucy at times still. It's 7 am. On the brink of being scorching summer hot. My goal is to get down the snaking path, through the woods, through the water, back safely and happily.

At the bottom of the big rocky mountain I see an old trail buddy on her horse and so my plan of going solo is overlapped with one and then 2 old buddies as they police escort Mag and me through the tunnel, up the hill and then down the hill into the first part of the water trail. I like catching up with them, I never ride with them anymore because I'm a renegade, so it's good to see and talk. But then we pass the overgrown trail that I want to take and I feel a little sick, because that's what I came to do, not to follow along on the old lady rideathon that it's looking like it'll be.

"I'm gonna go do that other trail, and see how she does alone," I call out to my friends, who are already ahead. I have no idea if Maggie will have trouble leaving the other horses. Luckily we have the dog for company, I call to her and we turn back and head down the haunted wood trail all overgrown that we've done plenty of times with Dewey ponying behind us.

Maggie is perfect on the trail. Once we get to the water, she suddenly realizes that maybe she should call to Dewey and tell him she's alone and where is he. The calling makes me nervous because you can feel every muscle in her back tense to talk to him. All those muscles could then decide to tense and jet rocket me forward as she runs crazily toward home. If she thinks of that. And decides that.

I relax my body and keep my tension in my torso, where she can't feel it. I lengthen my leg, and wiggle my toes and scratch her neck like I'm not worried at all.

We get through the water, and she calls a few times, and she has a little excitement in her feet, so I turn her in a few circles, and aim her slightly sideways to take the forward speed out of her step, and I allow her forward, and we canter up the hill because she can't get away from me with the gravity of the hill helping hold her back, but I can get out her energy.

She is actually fine all the way home. I just am more aware of her quicker step because we are alone. She listens, she turns, she calls a little to Dewey, but she doesn't run away. She stays with me and Becky. She stays, she's mine, she says. Bossy, but mine.

We get on the secret path to home, she calls to Dewey and he calls back. I see in her ears, she smiles to herself, her boys are there in the barn, just like she left them.

She gets a carrot, she gets rinsed off, she wins the first long ride out, missing her buddy but not leaving me in the dirt.

Next time it will be better, because we are through the first, and the rest is just building blocks.

Flying Solo

I like that your self will tell you when you're ready to do something.

It's been a year and a half with Maggie, and I knew it was time to take her out all by herself.

She's never in her life been out without other horses.

But lately I'd gotten tired of always having another horse on the end of a leadrope, it made it hard to work with the horse you're riding, if you're worrying about the horse you're taking along for the ride next to you. I had to get bored enough of one thing before I would try another thing.

I took Becky out with me. The trail dog is the key to success. She didn't know it, but I knew that if Maggie was just following Becky like she usually did, leading the trail, she might not realize that Dewey was back home in the barn. She'd have comfort.

So I just saddled up and we went out. I gave Dewey his favorite alfalfa hay, just a handful, like giving him a handful of Skittles. It's the candy hay he doesn't usually get. So he didn't cry for her when she left much. He had candy.

And then as we started down the path, following Becky, I just psyched myself out. I kept saying, it's just a regular ride. Dewey is right here with us. I pretended we had done this a thousand times, not the first time. I think because I was playing these relaxing things in my mind, my legs and body were relaxed, and then Maggie felt like it was regular ride because I was relaxed. So she was relaxed. Also, the day before I had been hanging out in the barn just looking at the baby chickens and deciding which ones were going to be roosters, and not paying attention to the horses, and then they both came over to me and begged for attention. In a way I hadn't had them do before, like I was gently one of their herd. They put their faces on me, and demanded their butts got scratched, they smelled my cheeks and put their heads on my shoulder. Because of this bond that I didn't realize we had, really - we'd been working every day for a year, the three of us, but you know when you're working, strictly working and you don't notice that you've sort of built something? I was surprised, feeling that.

Anyway, that gave me the security to trust her, and go out alone. Trust the whole situation. It turned out perfectly. Like we'd done it a hundred times. We did our little trail loop, following the dog. No big deal. Because we have done it a hundred times. Just not alone.

It's true what they say, every moment with your horse you are training it. We have learned some things, even things we didn't know we could do yet. Then when we were ready to try it, it was already there, done, waiting for us.

Centaur

I've channeled all my horse adventures into a weird western I'm writing. I would like one thing I've written to get out there and be important to other people. Or entertaining.

I still get on the horses everyday, even tho my body kind of hurts like my skeleton isn't too happy with my bones on horse bones. But I ignore that as much as I can, and with Maggie I've been able to forget I have legs and just use her legs as my legs. Centaur? I think? It's weird as a rider, how I've ridden now for like 40 years, and I'm just starting to figure out my body and the horse's body working meshed together. It takes so long to forget yourself, and trust you horse, and then you kind of flush yourself down into the horse and then the horse moves better because you're not resisting so much, you're with her. It's just I'm SO GOOD at resisting anything good for me. Maybe because resisting keeps you safe, keeps you scrutinizing, keeps you keeping everything else OVER THERE so you can function in your little way, just nicely, right here. In your tiny circle. But letting yourself NOT know what you're doing, that's also a freedom. Allowing things to be.

Anyway, things are blowing open, I guess I'm crossing through something. The horses are easy to trust, they are idiots but they are always interested in going a new way. As long as eventually they get to go home, and they didn't have to work too hard, and there are carrots or some kind of treat. They make me happy and they never, ever talk.

They just feel.

Mares Are a Pain in the Ass

Maybe not beating the horse. Is what I'm learning.

I've never had a horse that slowed down when you ask her to trot. Maggie will actually slow down.

So I get off, put her on the lunge, and she does everything I ask, like of course I'm perfect. Then I get back on and ask for a trot, and she gives me the finger. So I'm thinking, well, maybe she's sore. Maybe she doesn't enjoy balancing a rider. But we've been riding together for a year now.

The last time this happened in the arena, I thought I was going to make her into sandwiches, and feed the neighborhood, and be done with her. But then we went trail riding the next day, and she was perfect. She is bold and fearless pretty much on the trail. She'll go through anything except hesitating at muddy water for a minute, or getting startled momentarily if something jumps out from behind a bush. But 90% of the time she has the mind of a cigar chewing Cuban mafia boss. Judges carefully, and then just busts right on through regardless.

My great trainer friend told me to make the desired trait easy, and the undesired trait uncomfortable for the horse. And to use forward motion, and variety, to keep the horse's mind fresh and focused and happy in her training. And, she said, mares are a pain in the ass.

So that is turning out to be exactly true, every word.

I'll try and ease up in the arena and figure out what makes her go. On the trail she seems to have less problem with go. I have to figure out her mind, and work from her softest part.

Mares make you work harder. But she is also the most curious.

Squirrely

Squirrels with their tiny doll hands.

Squirrels think they're so smart because they can flick those puffy tails.

They lock eyes with me in my mind. They are getting those eggs. Those are my eggs. Go eat nuts or whatever else you eat.

Lay off my eggs. Ha, get it. LAY OFF

I'm in a battle. 24 hens, and only two eggs yesterday. They took advantage of me, because I was working and couldn't guard the henhouse.

I'm here today. There will be explosives.

Watch your asses, squirrels. Me against squirrel nation.

At the Speed of Maggie

Maggie the new horse is reliable as crap, which is amazing since she's only 5 and we've only had her 10 mos. But she's a worker, she just walks right into anything you point her toward, she's ready to explore. That's why today was surprising.

Today we were heading back through the woods after going through the water, and when you turn her to go back she does turn slightly into a 5 year old horse, with more speed and a yippee attitude. I was ponying Dewey behind us and we were on the sort of bushy woods part of the trail and I don't know if she got poked in the stomach by a stick or if Dewey bumped her too much from behind all I know is one minute she was walking along and the next minute we were rocketing forward at the speed of light. The world, when surprised and on horseback at suddenly high speed, is a carnival ride. Time blurs upwards, and everything feels like it's upside down. I lost Dewey's rope, because we were hurtling forward and all I thought was what's going on, oh crap, Dewey is going to come zooming behind us, I will be in a steeplechase. I also thought hey Maggie has a really smooth canter. I also thought shit how do I stop this thing.

All this happened in about 3 or 4 strides of her running. Then I got her stopped (always a miracle, especially if you're still on top of the horse). And I looked back and there was Dewey just standing in the bushes where his rope dropped. Relaxed. The perfect gentleman.

I don't know why horses have to be idiotic, they just are. I got off Mags and got on Dewey since it was time to switch, riding back home. Maggie was fine and silly the rest of the ride home. She likes to bite at Dewey when we're going down hill so I spent a lot of time trying to hit her in the face when she tried to nip.  But even that is business as usual.

On the way back in I saw Lisa my  trail buddy and we held our arms over our heads in victory at seeing each other on the trail. The universal Life Is So Good on Horses greeting. I also saw our preschool neighbor friends, even though our kids are all more than 10 years past preschool. It's a good way to see the neighborhood, nothing but happiness comes when you ride by on a horse.

I figure I've done about 280 rides on Maggie in 10 mos. She's had about 3 times she's done something idiotic. So she gets to be 5 years old sometimes. Pretty good odds.

The Horses Lead Us to Everything

The horses lead us to everything.

They lead us to the new girl who is renting the guest house next door. She came to ride and fell in love with the magical forest we rode in.

Now she lives next door, and takes long walks with our older son, in the twilight, like it's the 1880's, and they're a young couple.

They lead us to the water, where all the troubles are dumped out and washed downstream. I come back from the trail, cleaned out and ready for more.

Farmland and French Fries

Today was the last day of summer even though it's only August 14th and some idiot thinks that's now the beginning of fall.

I took Bess and Becky to the beach, the only willing volunteers.  Bess is a beginner surfing maniac, and it turns out when you take Becky the dog and both get in the water, she is a surfing maniac too. Not to be left on the beach, she charged right in with us and swam and attempted to surf. Which meant I had to stay in the pretty shallow water until she got tired out so she didn't drown in her enthusiasm to not be left behind.

Seeing the dog tossed about, and leaping over waves, and seeing the 10 year old almost fifth grader managing the surfboard that is feet longer than she is, in her mini wetsuit, with her long California blonde hair and summer tan - and the ocean herself, washing machine tumultuous, full of sand and freezing and churning us up - this was our last grasp of summer. We played knowing there was frozen yogurt directly afterward, our tradition. French fries and farmland waiting as we drove home, our tradition. Swimming and hair washing and the long night before school ahead.

I'm not sorry I spent the summer with my babies, the tall and the short, the four leggeds and the furry. I got to see them sprout surfer's legs, I got to wrestle through the heat and the boredom of long days. The real reason for summer is to give your mind that long stretch off, to think nothing, to find other things to do, books to read, skies to watch, cousins to sift through, water to float on and contemplate your life.

This is as important as AP classes. It may in fact be the Real World. The fertile soil and the tan skin and the French fries on the way home.