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.