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.
Friday, August 9, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
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.
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.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
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.
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.
Monday, May 7, 2018
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.
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.
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