The day Bernie found a gaping hole in the foundation of our cistern was the day Magneto bucked his saddle clear off, and I discovered he also had a hole in his foundation. While Bernie went after the repairs to the cistern’s foundation with shovels, rebar, and cement, I am slowly going after Magneto’s foundation with time in the round pen and a subscription to Warwick Schiller’s horse training.
Bernie is always ready to leave for a long trip with very little preparation. I am not quite so adjustable. Bernie eagerly meets the challenges that present themselves on a trip. I’m much happier to do whatever homework I can ahead of time and hope the challenges will be a little less hostile when I’m out there. Sometimes though, I’ve just had to grit my teeth and follow along behind him because going is almost always the better move than staying, even when you are not fully prepared. You will never be fully prepared. Bernie has reflexes like a cat and the calmness of a good zen master. He’s an experienced single-hand circumnavigator and an excellent horseman with literally thousands of miles of unexpected events having occurred while he was in the saddle, not to mention his career as a steeplechase jockey. The man is brave. He has huge courage and self-confidence. I, on the other hand, am more chicken shit. I’ve Googled “how to grow courage?” more than once and never gotten a satisfying answer. The best I’ve come up with is to gain knowledge and skills, find calm and yes, carry on. Bernie and I are thinking of spending a while (maybe a year) roaming the West with our horses and mules, sleeping out under the stars or in our tent while we explore the western public lands. We have no concrete plan other than to head out West with our animals after we get done working on Bernie’s current book (click here to know when it will come out). We want to become western characters, steal back the romance of those who used to roam the West with their horses and bedrolls. We want to write about the beauty of the West. We want to go to BLM lands and National Parks and write of these places that belong to all Americans. We plan to take on fake western-sounding names and enjoy the feeling of slipping into two timeless characters, one hand on our reins, the other on a pack animal’s lead. Together Jake Punch and Harriet Bighorn will roam the West. I realized this December 31st, on the eve of the new year, when I was thinking about resolutions, that my list this year was long. That’s because I am not only out to improve myself this year but to transform myself into the frontier character of Harriet Bighorn whose people hail from the area around Wolf City, Montana. Courageous Harriet Bighorn whose horses behave and grizzly bears fear. A woman for whom the West could never be wild enough. Now that’s one massive pair of cowboy boots to try and fill. My list for 2022 on becoming Harriet Bighorn. Learn about guns. Learn what I’d need to carry to take down a grizzly bear if needed. Learn to shoot a gun and to use it safely. Learn to shoot a gun powerful enough to take down a grizzly without it knocking me over. Learn about grizzly bears and their ecology so I can stay away from them and avoid as much as possible an encounter with one. Learn about bear spray and how well or not it works in grizzly bear confrontations, as I'd rather not ever shoot one. Learn how to solve Magneto’s ticklishness and broncing issues with the help of Warwick Schiller’s, Ray Hunt’s, Tom Dorrance’s, and Buck Brannamen’s horse training methods. Learn to help Pie with her opinionatedness with Warwick Schiller’s, Ray Hunt’s, Tom Dorrance’s, and Buck Brannaman’s horse training methods. Teach Pie and Magneto to picket. Teach Pie and Magneto to pack (and remain calm even when the pack saddle flips under their bellies or they see a bull elk or a mountain lion). Learn to improve my nervous system response by following Jane Pike’s Confident Rider program. Take on a bit of mindfulness meditation. Learn about the western public lands and their issues. Learn to use a lasso because it would be fun to know how to rope something and I imagine that Harriet Bighorn knows how to throw one well. Learn to breathe deeply and hopefully find I have more courage. Let the learning begin! Happy 2022 to all. May we all arrive somewhere in the general direction of our goals.
3 Comments
There aren't too many days on the White Mountain Pony Farm that you'd have more of a kingdom for a pair of skis than a horse or mule. Today is one of those rare days. Happy Sunday.
In the right lane. Doing the speed limit. There is heavy traffic all around. It's full-on dark, and there are shiny lights. Suddenly, an SUV is crashing into the driver's side door, going about 70 mph. Bernie is behind the wheel. He doesn't swerve us into the guardrail, but we are over the rumble strip. The SUV makes contact bumps us. Then it proceeds to careen on past the front of our car. The SUV slides down the guardrail, scrapping along for about 35 feet before coming to a stop.
Cars, trucks and semis hurl on by. We are nowhere near our own home. It is hard for Bernie and me to comprehend quickly enough what has just happened to us. We've been hit. We might be sitting in a totaled car. We were on our way to a hotel to spend the night before driving on the next day to visit friends in NH for Christmas. We are somewhere in PA, and it's around 8 pm. So much traffic is racing by us in the dark. Now what?! Bernie and I snap out of shock in about the same moment. I say. "I think that guy must be drunk." Bernie says, "Call the police." I dial 911. Bernie takes a photo of the guy's license plate. Slowly then more quickly, the SUV comes off the guardrail and accelerates back into the fast-moving traffic. Bernie is enraged, high on adrenaline, focused. He pulls promptly in behind the SUV. He flashes our lights, sounds the horn. I've got the police on the phone. I get too rattled when the police ask where we are because I wouldn't know the answer without reading the mile marker, and I am more concerned with whether we should be chasing this erratic drunk or not. Just as I see a mile marker, Bernie takes the phone from me and starts talking with the police dispatcher. The SUV takes the next exit, and we follow off behind, Bernie driving and talking with the police. The SUV comes to a halt at the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp. A roundish fellow, mid-60s, pops out the driver's side door. He is trotting towards Bernie's door. He doesn't look mad or drunk by the way he is trotting over. "You guys OK? I didn't hit you, did I?" What! "Oh yes, you did!" we both say in unison. Bernie explains to the guy that he's got the police on the phone and that they already have his tag number. He tells the guy we need to go somewhere to exchange insurance information. The guy says, "OK," and hops back in his car. We wind our way to a Holiday Inn Express parking lot. When Bernie goes to open his door and step out, I am surprised the door will open. I've imagined it totally caved in. I've also been surprised that the front tire has not felt warped or flat. I get out too and prepare myself to look at the damage to our car. Again, I think of how far we are from home and our Christmas plan destination. Neither of us has ever been to this part of PA. Now we are here in the dark with our damaged car. The police tell Bernie they are sending an officer over and hang up. The SUV's driver's name is John. He's a friendly guy. He tells us he was sneezing, and the next thing he knew, he was riding the guardrail. He thought we had pulled over behind him to make sure he was OK. Bernie and I are so rattled. We are in disbelief. That this has happened when we were minding our own business and driving along carefully. That we are both fine seems a miracle. That it could have been so much worse. We realize that just a little more swerve and our lives could have been over or greatly changed for the worse forever. We look at the side of John's SUV. It is wearing a nice full-length impression of the guardrail. We look at the driver's side of our car. There is no visible damage. We look again and again in disbelief. The mirror is folded in toward the window. It is folded in but not damaged, folded in by an SUV going 70 mph. We can only guess that the contact was made by the SUV's tire hitting ours. This is what steroidal good luck looks like. We are elated. We can proceed with our plans, with our lives. We feel so lucky. We are two that have been fed a reminder of just how quickly the ride can come to a halt. Precious and tenuous that's, how life is. John says he was sneezing. I want to believe that he was but, it's as likely he was distracted by his cell phone. On our two-week vacation of traveling from our farm to Tryon and Oriental, NC and then to NH, Bernie and I saw so many cars swerving all over the road. We saw a flipped-over car in the bushes on a dry back road near Tyron. The police had just arrived, and the driver was crawling out the window. We saw several more fender benders. We saw a car hit a big deer that had passed in front of our car. Exploded the deer's back end and tore the bumper off the car. We saw a semi flipped on its side. We tooted at several trucks and cars wandering into our lane. We even called in a tag number of a guy entering the highway, texting on his cell phone and swerving all over the rumble strip. We watched the glow of cell phones on the laps of many drivers as we passed. It's surely a nation addicted to their phones. Highway announcements are pleading for drivers to turn off their phones while driving. Nobody believes that the problem or the addiction is theirs. That's the nature of addiction. Life is what all of us are gamboling with when we choose to use our phones when driving. It may or may not be your own life that you gambol; perhaps it might be mine or a deer's or that of a nice man riding across the country with his mules. Look up. Keep your eyes on the road. Show you care about the preciousness of all our lives. Don't use your phone behind the wheel. PLEASE! The following disturbing story was told to Bernie and me by an old dog's owner. He did not seem to understand how cowardly and cold he had acted. He told us the story only because he was impressed with the old dog's determination. His dog was almost blind and down to two legs, yet she still got herself up off the ground each morning and did the best she could to stay by her owner’s side. She’d been his little companion for 13 years. She rode next to him in his pickup and trotted along at his side when he worked. He had named her Little Susie. He seemed fond of her. One day he looked down at her and noticed how old she’d become. How deaf she was. How clouded over her bright brown eyes had become. How gray her face and muzzle. He saw that she was moving on just two legs. You’d think perhaps this would have pulled on his heart. That his love and compassion for her would have expanded just a bit. That he might have found an old soft jacket or pillow to make her a more comfortable place to rest in his truck while he worked. She was so small and now also so frail. Yet, she was still trying to honor her bond to him. Instead, the man got another man to take her. He asked the other man to take her up in the woods, near a cave they both knew of, and dump her off the cliff next to the cave. It was several miles away. He asked the man, “Would you do that for me?” Like the man was doing a huge favor for him, that would spare him the pain of saying goodbye to Little Susie. The other man flung Little Susie off the cliff and left. He told the man he’d done what was asked of him. Five days later, dragging her battered body on two legs, Little Susie was back at her owner’s side. He shot her and put her in a hole. She was loyal. He was a coward who never deserved the love of a dog. The picture on the left is of a famous Arabian stallion named Marwan Al Shaqab. He is worth millions. He has his own grooms and managers and jet sets around the world looking beautiful, breeding purebred Arabian mares, and winning good-looks awards among Arabian fanciers almost every where he goes. The picture on the right is a picture of me on my new, assumed-to-be-Arabian, gelding, whom I named Magneto. I did not pay a lot of money for Magneto. In fact he was a starved feral colt that the Georgia Equine Rescue League (GERL) rescued in November of 2019. I adopted him in September of this year (2021). He is now estimated to be about 4 years old. He has been gelded and under saddle a little less than one year. He is a sweet horse and tries hard to do the right thing. It might just be my own opinion, but I think Magneto is even a touch better looking than Marwan. Please nobody tell that to the Al Shaqab Arabian Stables as I do not wish to offend them. I wish only to point out how stunning this little horse has become, because he was once a poor and miserable colt with a good chance of starving to death. Magneto owes his revival and good fortune entirely to Cece Meyn-Calli and her co-workers at the Georgia Equine Rescue League. The following is the story of Magneto’s misfortunate colthood and how he came to be rescued, rehabilitated and turned in to the magnificent horse he is today. This story is based on an hour long phone call I had with Cece about her rescue work, the GERL, and the history of Magneto, who was then named Braveheart. Cece named him Braveheart when she rescued him along with five other young horses. She called the little band of horses, all under 3 years old, The Six Amigos. Cece’s past was in thoroughbreds. She and her husband used to have thoroughbred training centers, first in California and then in Ocala, Florida. When they moved to Georgia they got out of the thoroughbred business. Looking for a place to put her passion for horses Cece researched various horse rescues in Georgia and decided that she liked the work of the Georgia Equine Rescue League (GERL) the best. She volunteered with them. Now nine years into it, she is an area coordinator, the rescue coordinator, the event coordinator, the adoption coordinator, the foster coordinator and the treasurer and she also fosters a few rescues herself, every year. It’s fair to say that Cece’s life is consumed with rescuing horses in need in the state of Georgia. Last year during the heart of the Covid pandemic GERL still saved the lives of 33 horses. The Georgia Equine Rescue League has around 50 area coordinators working across the whole state. In mid November of 2019 GERL was called in by the state of Georgia to help in a confiscation and rescue of a herd of 80 feral horses. The owner an octogenarian had turned himself into the state, letting them know that he had been unable to care for his horses. Cece said the horses and 50 head of cattle were all running wild on 150 acres of fenced land. They had nobody taking care of them. They were drinking from puddles and a small pond. The horses were all fairly starved with many too wasted to save. There were horses with broken legs. She said the scene was a real heartbreaking disaster. None of the horses had been handled so they had to be rounded up and put in pens before they could even be evaluated. There was a bunch of mature mares and 3 adult stallions and of course the rest were young unhandled colts and fillies. Cece and GERL agreed to take six of the youngest ones. Thus the six amigos. They were five colts and one filly. The Amigos all 2 years and younger, and not yet haltered were rounded up and loaded into GERL volunteer, Patty Livingston’s trailer and taken to her farm. “Two weeks after pick up we had them vaccinated and pulled coggins. That was a wild day. Tinker Moffit and I drove to Patty’s with his stock trailer. He backed it into the paddock and we just kinda ran them one by one into the trailer where the vet and her tech gave vaccinations and pulled blood. Sox and Braveheart were the last 2 and they just stayed in the trailer and Tinker and I hauled them off to their new lives.” Said Cece. Sox, like Braveheart, was another approximately two year colt and Braveheart’s buddy. Sox was the alpha colt in the group and Braveheart was his right hand man. Cece decided she would foster the two of them herself. The youngest colt, who they named Radar, was only a weanling when the amigos were rescued. He was the friendliest, having not yet even learned what to fear. He was adopted out immediately as was a particularly difficult colt, who they named Rocky. Rocky ran through several fences and refused to be caught. Luckily, a barefoot trainer that GERL uses and who was also a horse trainer, took a shine to Rocky and agreed to adopt him and keep him forever. The other colt, who they named Forest and the only filly in the group, Jenny went to be fostered with Angie Hammond, a GERL volunteer at her farm. They were yearlings so needed time just to be handled, fed, cared for and allowed to grow. Cece got her trainer and friend, Tinker Moffit to take Sox and Braveheart to his farm to be haltered and handled a bit. Tinker got kicked in the stomach the first time he entered the stall to try to halter them. He eventually got the job done but did not have the time then to do more with them. So Cece got them back with halters on but not much more on their training tick list. She brought down one of her geldings to her stable area which was enclosed, dumped some nice hay in the stalls and turned Braveheart and Sox loose in there. When it was feeding time she shut the stall door to keep her gelding out. Cece said Sox broke down several stall doors and fences while he was living with her. Eventually she sent them back to Tinker’s one at a time while she continued to work on trust and handling with the remaining one. Cece said she spent a lot of hours with them. First just trying to gain their trust to be touched. They were very reactive and nervous babies. They snorted and blew like leaf blowers. Eventually she was able to touch them all over, then to groom them. She started brushing and scrapping them to remove their long matted and scraggly coats. She said the more she shed them out the worse they looked because their bodies were so malnourished. She spent several months putting weight on them, fixing their weeping eyes, teaching them to trust, to lead and to go through obstacles. She hand walked them through the woods getting them used to negotiating terrain and allowing bushes and thorns to touch their sides with out panic. She said there was times when she was working with them and they were so nervous she thought they were “all going to die”. Eventually a day came in the beginning of January when she evaluated them both. She determined that Sox and Braveheart were ready to move on to the larger world and find their forever homes. She sent them both out for some saddle training. Actually GERL sponsors and runs a challenge competition. Cece invites trainers to apply. They get 120 days to train one of GERL’s untrained rescue horses. Cece selects the best trainers, those who are good and also use gentle methods, with quiet hands. She then pairs them with a GERL rescue. The trainers pick up the horses or they are dropped off with the trainers. At the end of four months they all gather for a competition in front of judges. The rescue horses are shown in hand, then they must be ridden through an obstacle course. The last phase is a freestyle competition where the trainer can show off what they have done with the horse, something that highlights the best of their training. GERL sponsors the competition and the winning trainer gets a substantial check. Cece put Sox and Braveheart in the competition. Sox’s trainer had to quit only 2 weeks in, but Braveheart’s trainer Cassy Hoban won the competition with Braveheart. In the free style they went through trot polls, pushed an obstacle that blew bubbles and walk, trot, and cantered around the arena together. “They were in total sync with each other and it was easy to see that Braveheart trusted his rider.” Cece said. “That’s why they won.” Cece sent Sox on to Thompson Farm in Iva, South Carolina after his trainer had to quit the competition, where the Thompson’s 16 year old daughter, Savannah continued his training until he was ready to be placed in a forever home. He wasn’t an easy horse but with Savannah’s help he finally turned a corner. In late summer of 2021, Sox found a nice home with a GERL volunteer who has a children’s riding program. Braveheart followed after Sox to the Thompson’s Farm where Savannah kept up his training. The Thompson’s advertised him when they thought he was ready. Lucky for me, I was up early that Saturday morning in August when his ad first appeared on Craig’s List. I called right away. Said we’d be down that afternoon to try him. Bernie and I hooked up the trailer drove to Iva and came home with Braveheart in the back of it. At one point while trying him, though we both loved him right away, we noticed he seemed a little uneven at the trot and decided we’d take a pass. But something pulled us back. He was too nice to leave if this was just a sore shoulder as we both expected it might be. Plus the GERL would take him back if we didn’t want him. We decided he was worth the gambol of his small adoption fee. He’s proven that it was. Braveheart has become Magneto The Magnificent. He still has a virus in one ear, an eye that gets cruddy and a funny tooth but he’s come such a long long way thanks to Cece, GERL and the trainers that have put a lot of love and time into him. Bernie calls Magneto the “trash-Arabian” as the original stock of the old man that had owned the herd was Arabians. In fact Cece said people had told her around 60 years ago the man was know for raising nice Arabian stock. He owned purebred Arabian mares and an Arabian stallion but over the years as the man grew old and senile and stopped caring for his herd someone had abandoned a quarter horse stallion and a mustang stallion in the herd’s pasture. The old man had left the Arabians for someone else to clean up after, thus the title “trash-Arabians”. I asked Cece what she thought, from all her experience in horse rescue, could help make the situation better for horses. What might help to make GERL’s work less busy? She said the number one thing was educating people to the fact that having a horse was a thirty plus year commitment. She said everyone who gets a horse or has horses ought to have a plan B for them. What are you going to do with your horses when you get old? What are you going to do with your horse when your kid’s are no longer interested in riding? She thinks people need to understand that horses are not cheap. That they cost a lot of money to take proper care of and that they can’t just live off your pasture alone. She says they deal with a lot of horses belong to people that are getting too old to care for them and have made no plan for their horses. Other family members don’t usually want to deal with them and sometimes have no knowledge or resources to take over. She says they are dealing with an 88 year old woman right now in Jones county who doesn’t want anyone touching her 38 horses but she can no longer take care of them herself. The law got involved and now they are taking them away from her and 16 of the horses are over 30 years old. Cece said, “We need to be better friends to our horses and make sure we make a plan B for them always.” Know where your horse or horses, or other pets for that matter, will go if something were to happen to you because it eventually will. GERL, Cece and Magneto have bolstered further my belief that it not in the breeding but in the care, love and time that makes the biggest difference in the end. If a half starved feral colt with some Arabian lineage can look not too different than a multi-million dollar famous Arabian breeding stallion in less than 2 years of his rescue then most of the credit goes the care and love he received. Jenny and Forest, the last of the amigos, are now 3 and ready to be saddled and ridden. They have each just been sent out for training by GERL. Shortly, they will be looking for forever homes of their own. Both have sweet natures and have come to trust people through the careful handling of GERL staff, trainers and fosterers. Both Jenny and Forest are likely to be around 14.3 hands to 15 hands when they mature. Both show the Arabian in them and have turned in to beautiful young horses like Magneto. If you are interested in adopting one of them and providing a true forever home with a solid plan B, you are welcome to contact me for more information or contact The Georgia Equine Rescue League at the link below. Also GERL could always use a donation to help them with the money it costs them to feed, rescue, doctor, train and care for all the horses they take in. The love they give to the horses is free.
GERL https://gerlltd.org/ We've found our pony! After an extensive search we've finally brought home the final member of our team. He's a 14.1 hand, 4 year old, mostly Arab, bay gelding that ran wild in a herd on private land in Georgia until he was confiscated and put into a rescue when the owner of the herd stopped caring for them. He was a stallion until last year and has only about one year of riding on him. That said he is a gentleman through and through, both on the ground and in the saddle.
We took him on a little ride with Pie today and made the initial introductions with all his herd mates. I think he's going to be a tough, fast, confident and curious member of our herd. I love him already and am very excited to get working with him. I have named him Magneto The Magnificent but he shall be called just Magneto. I will never forget him. I promised Snookie I’d carry him in my heart and mind for the rest of my life. I picture him still, coming to quietly check in on me as he so often did during the day. He liked to know where I was. Sometimes I’d look around and there he’d be just standing at a distance gazing at me. That kind of love is so nice. I picture how while sleeping or watching something, he must have had thoughts of me cross his mind and so he’d get up and come to find me. I miss that small golden shadow of love so much.
He died on August 8th 2021*. These photos of Snookie and me were taken by Bernie just as we were all getting up on the last morning of his life. He was the third wheel of our family tricycle now Bernie and I must learn to ride the tandem bike of life for a while. At least we still have the Neigh bors, as we call the mules and Pie, to hug on. * Snookie was put down as his Degenerative Myelopathy was advanced and was starting to make it hard for him to get up and down on his own. We did not want him to get to the point where he was suffering. We fed him a breakfast of London broil steak and bacon and then a friend of ours who is a vet put him down at our farm under the shade of a Chestnut tree, while we gave him tons of pats and hugs. He felt nothing but love and then went to sleep forever. He was comfort. He was scared of thunder. He came from Tennessee. He was found as a wee pup flung in a ditch on the Missouri Tennessee line. We called him a Missouri ditch dog, a King Tutt pointer, duck tolling sun of a bitch or a slothallo when people wanted to know his breed. He liked to sit and watch the world. He barked at an owl’s hoot. He howled with coyotes, classical music and when we did. He loved me. He loved Bernie and Tom and Greg and Beth and a lot of others that he knew well. He squinted when he greeted old friends. He barked at strangers. He liked the outdoors better than the indoors. He could not tolerate flies. He hated a dog named Yogi and attacked a ball every time he thought of that dog. He shook with fear during storms. He liked to be where I was. He kept his eye on me. Even in his old age he’d limped a long way to come and find me. He traveled everywhere with us that he could go. He would have always tried to come. He did the pig dance when he found something dead and would drop down to roll unless he heard the word NO! He put up well with all the silly things we did with him. He never ever messed in the house after he was a pup. He liked food from the table and going out for ice cream. He loved a good walk in the woods. He liked to give chase. He liked sleeping in the cold. He dreamed and twitched his paws and wrinkled his nose. He was among my best friends of all my life. He had no greater accomplishment than just being a world class friend. He was a great dog. I am so glad his path crossed mine. I wrote the following poem for Snookie and for all that have lost a dog friend. Soul Dog
by Julia Carpenter A dog just is until he isn’t. Just was until he wasn’t. He tries for no more. But is so, so much more. The space that dog was can not be filled. The lonesome has come where his shadow was. Something deeply apart of you has been lost. It belonged to the comfort and you need it now but it is gone. The softness, the warmth, the silence, the knowing, the beam from the eyes that radiated love. Dog never questioned but always loved. Let him now stay in your heart. Toss him a smile like you once did a bone when you remember him and the love that he gave you. Dog has leapt inside you and will remain with you ever more. His memory lingers nearby. You have only to call it and it will come. He can no longer stand by your side but he’s curled up in your soul. Howdy Folks, Today Jack Punch and I found ourselves riding down a long and lonely dirt road in Grand Escalate National Monument. The road called Cottonwood Rd wound for many miles past red rock walls and thickets of cottonwood trees. We saw no other animals. They must have found a better place to hide from the baking heat, 100 F. The land because of the extreme heat, the remoteness, the sparseness and the dryness makes no sense to me as a place man should pick to do anything but wander through admiring its beauty and praying that he will make it where he's going before nature sends him a harsh message he is not prepared to receive. Like today's heat. What a strange place to try to graze a cow. I have seen no water. Surely there is some because the cottonwoods find enough to grow. But a cow? I've heard a single cow drinks at least 2 gallons per 100lbs in hot weather. No, I think best to leave this place for the plants and animals nature has found for it on her own. I am hoping to find enough water to give the horses and mules a drink. We have fifty miles to ride before we will be out of this dry environment. Lucky we started with one full canteen each. We have been wandering down this road for the past three days and have not seen one other human soul. Around high noon, I started to hear some noise behind us. It sounded like voices and hoof beats. We pulled of to rest the animals for lunch in the shade of a small canyon. When we reentered the road I saw some hoof tracks I did not think belonged to our animals. Was someone following us? The thought did cross my mind but then I told myself I was probably just developing the kind of old West paranoia a place like this could give you. Yours truly, Harriet Bighorn The above is a fake account of the adventures of Harriet Bighorn and Jack Punch but perhaps next year sometime you will find the duo and their animals out for real reporting from your land and ours, the public lands of the West.
Most days I am content riding around on the fields next to our house and on our driveway. I like it that sometimes, as old as he is, Snookie comes to meet us. I like listening to all the birds as I ride. I like watching the hawks and vultures that often soar over the fields, catching the thermals and rising higher and higher. But there is nothing like riding up the mountain behind the cabin. When we get to the top a breath taking view always awaits us. It's a view of the beautiful, light blue Blue Ridge Mountains. It's just up the hill from our cabin but it's another world that often feels it should be on the other side of America or even the earth. A sea of trees, wilderness, peace and beauty. Of course on any given weekend Bernie and I are probably going to ride together. But what else will we do on a weekend? I thought you might like to read this tongue in cheek email invitation to our neighbor P, inviting him to participate in our upcoming weekend plans. It will give you some idea of how we really are planning to spend this coming weekend. Whatever you will be up to next weekend, I hope you enjoy yourselves and don't forget to pack your smile. Dear P, Weekend Itinerary. Please pick and choose what you wish to participate in. Friday Night Diner at Leatherwood 6:30ish we can pick you up. Saturday: Dog Hair Cutting Festival (Dog's hair is long and matted to provide extra clipping fun!) Hammock Rides…slots still available but book early!, Weeding and Gardening Demo (cold beer available). How To Scoop Poop Clinic (with Julia) Tractor Ride (you may be asked to drive it yourself with a bush hog attached.) Mule Ride (you might get a good one you may not) Fun like Russian roulette! Round Pen and Mule Rope Demonstration (I don't know who will be teaching this, maybe the mule.) Noon Nap (book hammock or bring a blanket for the lawn) If you need help we have an expert napper on hand. Saturday Evening: 6pm PICKLE RAFT SEASON OPENING FLOAT with beer and bonfire Some Sort of Easy Meal To Follow Raft Ride. (You could offer to bring it.) Book and philosophy discussion as well as current events and any jokes during dinner. Nature Observation from back deck and Arrival of Firefly Show. Wren Mother Sightings as she feeds brood (sorry the garbage near her box stinks, bring clothes pin for nose) Don’t miss out! What’s recommended is: Friday night at Leatherwood and the Saturday pickle raft float and simple diner to follow. But all events are free and open. Note: White Mountain Library hours from 12pm to 5pm all day Saturday... book sign out sheet, no mask policy but leave doors open and wash hands on entry. Food and Talking Always Allowed In Library Love, J & B Be hearing from you! The humming birds are back, sucking on the sweet water. The firewood has been harvested and brought in to the shed. The blue birds have claimed boxes and are climbing in to nest. The wren in the bird box on the front porch has already had her chicks and is frantically feeding them, a seed, a worm, in and out she goes. We are heading towards summer.
The nostrils on pony, Pie and the mules have trickles of yellow pollen on them. We have probably said good buy to the cheery fire in our wood stove for the season. There is song every where from bird and bug. The turkeys gobble every morning. One close to the house is in search of love for sure. He sounds forlorn. I hope he finds what he’s looking for. The leaves on the trees are still a softer green than they will become but any day now the shade will darken and this will bring with it a thought that perhaps there is too much green about. Shedding time brings tickling noses as we groom the mules and Pie but also shiny coats that suggest they are tremendously well cared for. Snookie is too hot and his coat which has not stopped growing is too long. He pants often and hides under the porch. Digging in the dirt to cool and hide from the flies. We are out of the cabin a lot now and though tasks require us to sit inside when we’d like always to be out, the writing gets done. The days are longer, so evenings beckon us out and tardy to eat. Then it’s late and we are not sure where our reading time has gone. We sleep and wish for the cold that all winter long has kept us tucked comfortably under the blankets. Now we must adjust them often. Mornings are beautiful. We are woken to busy birds, like a country city, off to its morning agenda. We set about to get as busy as the birds, but first we sit with coffee and just take in their head start. This is how it is here as the spring gives way to summer. The garden must get planted soon. There is a palpable turn of season. Summer is upon us. The whippoorwill has been herd, faint and far but already here. Content in all things. I feel it here on this farm. In this picture sun, blue sky, golden earth, good health and a great companion. I wish this kind of peace for all. True happiness is pretty elemental.
Transitions are never easy. I can't imagine being a horse and having to go to a new home after being settled in to a life. Horses like people get attached to things, other animals, their surroundings, people, a routine, what's familiar.
Both my new pony Pie and my dear pony Pickle have just been through that transition period. Pickle moved in December from our farm in to a retirement herd in Virginia and Pie came to live with us from the Yoder's Rock Valley Stables in Ohio where she was well loved and well cared for especially by her five year old friend Eva Yoder. It's hard to be asked to start over. To make new friends and alliances and to begin feeling like a new place is home. Both ponies, I am happy to report, are making great strides at this. Pickle has integrated into his new herd, and funnily enough, he has befriend my old horse Sara who is a member of that herd. They never knew each other before as Sara had been retired to that farm long before I got Pickle. Pie, though I think she still misses her old home and the Yoders, has made good friends with the mules and really started to relax in her new home with us. I am hoping one day she will feel a bond as strong with me as she has with little Eva. I will work for it with all the respect and admiration that smart, little horse deserves. Below are some pictures of the ponies making their adjustments. It is so important that we humans realize what big asks we demand of these intelligent, sentient beings. We must always be patient and grateful for their goodwill and effort to readjust. It's one thing to brag about a big house and quite another to brag about the night sky. But this is where I most proudly live, in the little cabin under the big night sky. One doesn't have to be rich so much as lucky to live here. Sometimes we pay for it in loneliness but mostly it's the grandness of nature at our door that fills our souls with an overflowing gratefulness. How grand it is to call this place home.
The mules and Pie snort, shift and munch their hay under the starry sky. And Snook curls up beside the bed on his blanket. Our heads touch close to the wide open window above the bed. Eyes gaze at stars from under the heavy puff. The fire has gone out. The house cools. The brook noises come alive as our eyes close. Then, maybe an owl calls before the night is lost to sleep. Home is dear. It is our comfort. Our place in the universe. Sleep well where you dwell. I wrote the following post on my birthday Jan 7th 2021 in response to the insurrection that sadly occurred in the American Capital yesterday.
We must have faith in a stable, free and honest government serving all the people of this nation. Faith that good people can be fairly and honestly elected to our government and that they will serve it with the greater good in mind not self interest. We must all strive at this crucial time for civility, integrity, responsibility, transparency, open-mindedness, fairness, sensibility, discourse, hope and unity. We must keep at bay the insidious destroyers of fear, selfishness, one-up-manship, bigotry, force, hatred and terrorism. We must use carefully chosen words not weapons. We must listen to one another. We must solve what ails us in unity. And we must be very careful to seek out truth and fact. America is a great country. It has stood for great things. It is a land of opportunity. It is not perfect but it is our home, our country and OUR PEOPLE. We come from many histories, many backgrounds but we are all American. We should be grateful for such a land and system of democracy. We should not tear down our government but fix it through discourse, voting, checks and balances and above all respect and civility. We must love America not hate each other. We must help our country not pull it apart. We must unite and make America work for all of us, all Americans. Baby let the good times roll, because they sure didn't for most people last year. Although we missed spending time with friends, Bernie and I spent the majority of this year feeling very grateful for our lives. We were glad to have our health, our cozy cabin, our sweet animals, a good garden, plenty of food and warmth, Snookie our old dog, the beautiful land and each other to laugh with.
Out here not the fractured nation nor the pandemic could take the wonder out of the land aglow in moonlight nor the joy out of the song of a Carolina wren. Here we could chalk up a good year of farm projects completed and set forward. On the farm it was a good year. Personally for me it was a good year, all but the missing of friends. And how sad that was not to see and to spend time catching up with these most cherished people. I have always said the thing I am most proud of in life is my friends and my animals. I have wonderful friends. I hope 2021 will allow us all to get back to seeing our friends without the guilt of maybe making anyone sick. At the start of last year we'd never even thought of such a concept of not being able to visit our friends but now we know what a luxury it truly is. Here's all to a better year, a return to friends far and wide! This is a hard post to write. I've been avoiding it for about a month now. It's fun to write the posts when you feel in the driver's sea,t with something interesting to say or some knowledge gained that you'd like to share, perhaps some insight that might help others as well. I have none of that to offer here. This time I simply must admit I failed, came to the limits of my courage and abilities. It's an admission of falling short of the mark I'd have liked to reach. Pickle as most of you know is my favorite equine I've owned since I was a child. I got him from a woman that saved him from a kill pen. He'd obviously had quite a poor start in life and was at one time almost starved. The very nice woman and her husband had treated Pickle kindly, got some weight on him and then sold him shortly after that to me. Some where in Pickle's past he was treated unkindly. He had some fear issues, mostly around men and sometimes his anxiety would build up and he'd buck and bolt when under saddle. He'd gotten much better with me. Work in the round pen, on the ground and many hours in the saddle had made him quite a fun and reliable horse to take out on the trails both alone and in company. Most people still could not catch Pickle loose in a pasture but he'd walk right up to me even if it was dark out. Pickle needed to trust people and to know they would not hurt him. He'd learned that with me, but would sometimes still booger, buck and bolt when something like a bicycle or a motorcycle would pass him on the road. For that reason he was deemed by Bernie and I as a fairly unreliable road horse. Yet I decided that I would keep him and keep working on him in the round pen, sacking him out, doing ground work and riding a bike around him. I decided that when we were ready to travel, although not ideal, I'd use him as my pack animal when we were riding along roads. I decided to find a very road broke horse to pair him with, that could become my main saddle horse when we ride along busy roads. So I started searching for a small, road safe horse. I found a lovely Haflinger mare owned by the Yoders of Rock Valley Farm in Strassberg, Ohio. Though it was a bit of a drive from our farm, Bernie and I took a road trip with Snookie (our old dog). We drove 6 and a half hours up to Ohio, had a look at the mare, tried her under saddle and then went for a drive in a cart with her owner at the reins. When a huge dump truck came clattering at us while trash was blowing under her hooves and passed us with out much of a reaction from the mare, we were sure that she would be a wonderful addition to our herd as my main road safe saddle horse. Pickle could be dallied to her far side carrying the packs as we road along roads. The mare was indeed for sale but she was consigned to a horse sale and the owners felt strongly about not selling her before the auction. So Bernie and I waited two long weeks for the auction. When the day came, Bernie phone bid on her for me while I watched the auction streaming live on Bernie's computer screen. We had pre-agreed on a price that we would not go beyond. The bidding went up fast and I was sure we'd lose her. As our final number went roaring by I gave Bernie the thumbs up to go one more number up. We both knew we would not go any higher. It seemed for a moment that the bidding had roared on by, but then I herd the guy say on the phone to Bernie." I think you have her. Youve got the high bid." It was so exciting. Our first purchase ever at a sale and we were so excited to be bring home such a nice mare. A week later Bernie, Snookie and I got up before light and drove back up to Ohio to pick up our new mare, which we named Pie. I called an hour out from the Yoder's farm to let them know when we'd be arriving. Debbie answered the phone and said that her five year old daughter wanted to ride her pony one more time before she left. We said that was fine. When we arrived Daniel and Debbie were in their barn and their five year old daughter, Eva was riding Pie who they had called Cami up and down the aisle of the barn. Little Eva sat so proudly and relaxed riding her pony bareback in an Indian war bridal up and down in front of the other horse, sticking their necks out into the aisle. But when it was finally time for her to get off the realization that her pony was leaving for good overtook her and she began to cry as her father gently slid her off Pie's back and into his arms. She was so sad to be seeing her favorite pony leaving. I could see that her parents felt for her and I sure felt for her. In fact I felt terrible taking her pony away but it was their family business and very much going to be a part of her whole life. We gave her a moment as she worked to contain her sobs. But then I heard more sobbing coming from another corner of the barn not near the child fighting to be brave as her pony was leaving. I turned around to find Bernie also consumed by tears. Boy, he sure felt that child's loss too. It's hard to lose a favorite pet. We all sure know that. Eva was so brave for her age. She got a hold of her tears and walked her pony out to the trailer, a really fine young horse woman in the making. Bernie too got a hold of himself and with promises that they could come and visit her anytime and that we would send updates and photos we left. Poor Eva. Little did I know that a few weeks later I would be holding back my own tears as I too said goodbye to my favorite pony. We got home around 9pm and put Pie, for the night, in a temporary stall we'd made in our barn. The next morning I got up early and took her for a walk down the road so she could see where she was. Then I got Pickle out of the corral and brought him down to Pie's stall so that they could meet each other. I assumed that things would go well as Pickle has been very easy to introduce to all horses and mules. He's spent time at other barns and has always gotten along with pasture mates and has been good with all the mules we've ever brought home.
They sniffed noses and squealed. Then they arched their necks and sniffed some more. Then Pickle struck out with his front leg. They repeated these moves a few times then went back to munching. He on the grass right on the other side of the corral panel that separated them and Pie on the hay that was next to the corral panel on her side. I thought that was more or less it. I put Pickle back in his corral with the mules and went in for breakfast. After breakfast Bernie and I led Pie up into our round pen which sits inside our corral. We decided we'd let Pie loose in the round pen to eat some hay and let the mules and Pickle have theirs on the outside so they could all get to know her a bit over a fence before putting them all together. Well, no sooner had we put Pie in the round pen when things started to go south. Pickle got very aggressive. He started striking at her with his front legs. Then he started running around the pen kicking at it. Then he started leaping up on the fence. Then he started trying to charge over it. He reared up on the fence almost getting over it. Not once but three times while we ran in and waved him off the panels with our lead ropes. He bent the round pen panels trying to leap over them. It looked very scary and dangerous. We were afraid that he'd hurt himself and her at any moment. So shaking with adrenaline I ran in and got a rope and halter back on Pickle. Both Bernie and I grew up on horse farms and that was by far the most aggressive we'd seen a horse want to be to another one. We decided that an introduction, unless done off our farm where Pickle would not be on his territory was not a good idea and would be dangerous to both of them. We contemplated taking them to another farm and doing a slow introduction over a fence. Perhaps it would have worked. In the end given Pickle's other issues we decided instead to retire Pickle to a farm in Virginia where I have another horse living the good life out in a herd of other retired horses. They run in big grass pastures and are checked daily by a lovely couple that own and run the farm. I have no doubt he will grow in to a stout but happy horse there but I will miss him so much. I will visit some when I can. I know the tears that Eva shed when Pie left her, they are mine too when I let Pickle go in to his new life in a Virginia field. One pony in one pony out life goes on and we grow a bit from the pain. Between the sheep and the duck I sleep so cozy. The bed is stuffed with wool and the puff is filled with eider down. At my head is a wide open window from which the early morning, misty air fills my nostrils with cold blasts of an air so pure. No one except Bernie loves their bed so much. Below us on a bed of his own Snookie sleeps. We can hear his content sighs of comfort and relaxation. Sometimes, when I look down at him below us, in the early morning, and talk to him softly, he will groan and stretch out his front paws in sheer bliss.
It is fall and the flowers are starting to fade. Old Snookie is fading too. I think he's no longer a perennial whose bloom I will get to see again next spring. I watch him daily now with so much love and appreciation. Surely he's a fellow I was lucky to meet in life. The feel of his fur is so soft. He's a wonderful temperature to snuggle against and his smell to me is one of comfort and familiarity. He limps after us down the drive each morning with such determination. I will miss everything about him, including his sighs. I am aware of this coming loss every day now and it pangs my heart. Snookie and I can't discuss the being apart that is coming, we can only sit together in the glow of our remaining bond. Around some corner rather too soon, the trouble will come and I will have to step up for my old friend and make a hard decision to keep him from suffering and to preserve his dignity. This is a hard task for an old friend. To have to be the one that parts us forever. I will say a final goodbye and he will be gone from me. No more yellow shadow keeping his eye upon me. Knowing this makes for a poignant autumn together. Perhaps that is why the sky seems bluer than usual. Why the leaves changing color look more vibrant than I've ever seen them. The air feels so fresh. The fire so warm and cozy. The cold mornings so invigorating. I am in love with life not just for me but for Snookie too. I know his time is short but before his eyes are these glory days and the love that we are bestowing upon him. Among the best is a nightly bowl of wood-stove warmed milk. He loves it, and we love sitting together listening to him lapping it up. For now he is not a dog to pity but one to relish. His life is good. Our lives our good. This autumn is a glorious and special one. I will absorb now and then remember later this time on this farm with Snookie as a blissful one, one in which the notes are resonating in a rich harmony. Fall is a time of passing but it is also the most splendid of the seasons. Here in western North Carolina we've recently had a lot of rain. It might have been as much as 1 foot in the last 2 weeks. Too much. Now, the skies are back to blue and they are clear as ever they have been. The halt in airline travel and the slower economy have really cleared the skies of pollution. Even in this gorgeous corner of rural North Carolina, where we have always thought the air to be so fresh and clean, we can see the difference.
Snookie and I are happy to see the sun and blue sky today. It's a splitter of a day! So drastically different then a recent day of down pours. On that last rainy day Snookie asked to be let out so he could sit on his blanket on the back porch. I opened the door for him. He looked out at the rain coming down, turned around and asked to be let out on the front porch instead. I obliged but when he saw it was also raining just as hard on that side of the house he turned around in disgust and went back to bed. Sun Dog was sick of the rain. What fun ponies are. I've ridden camels, donkeys, cows, horses and ponies....of all the fine rides I've had, those on ponies seem the most carefree. When I was a kid I used to pretend I was winning the Grand National on my pony. Or that I was the best cowgirl alive, better than all the cowboys at rounding up stray cows. Some times I fought indians. Some times I fought cowboys. Some times I won races both flat and over fences. Sometimes I was an outlaw living under the stars on my pony in the desert.
My mind set free in the saddle could go anywhere. Ponies are dream machines and now when I ride pony Pickle each day the world again becomes alive with endless possibilities. Who said the adult mind could not still play? Have any doubts find a pony to ride. Now I must go because Pickle and I have a great race to go win and some cows lost in the mountain to find before dark. We were stacking wood on the front porch when the book from my brother arrived. It was a book called Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood The Scandinavian Way. Here in the winter time our wood is at the center of our lives. It book ends the day. This morning when I got out of bed to go get some fuel into the mule's and Pickle's bellies in the form of hay, the thermometer read 22F. The windows in the bedroom were wide open, the field out side was covered in a heavy white frost. I could see my breath in the cabin.We heat only with wood and the fire in the stove had gone out in the night.
I think it's good for one to pop out of a warm bed in to a cold room. Gets the system firing and keeps you hardy. But oh, when the fire in the wood stove gets going and the coffee is ready, how nice it is to feel that stored heat of the sun radiating not only out in to the room but also in side you. Oh how lovely to watch the flames licking away at the wood, wood that Bernie has splint by hand and I have helped to stack and harvest, sometimes even with the help of a mule to twitch out the logs. Each morning and evening we sit cozily in front of the wood stove. It gives us great pleasure to watch the wood chewing on cherry, or poplar, black birch, and occasional pieces of old apple tree. We use pine and poplar for the splits and of course rationed sticks of fat wood to get it going. I indulge in 3 sticks and Bernie does it with only 2. We never use paper and we never have any problem in getting this great little stove to just fire right up. Of course they are top down fires, wood stacked tight in decreasing size from bottom to top. We think about the BTUs of the various woods and build fires according to the outside temps, cooler fires for warmer weather. That's when it's nice to have the Poplar choice in the stack. Living here with Bernie at the cabin was the first I ever even understood that there was an art and craft to wood fires. That there was a way to operate a stove for efficiency and clean burning. To drive one like an engineer knowing when to throttle down, when to engage the catalytic converter. What to do if you must add more cool wood to an already hot fire. There is a lot of pride and satisfaction in driving the wood stove well. Things like the wood stove and the thought and energy and physical work that goes into the assurance of a cozy winter spent is one reason why I like the life out here so much. I've not been so content with life since living on our farm in Vermont as a child. This rural life with animals and a great partner is the way to go for me. I enjoy the physical element of tending to our winter needs as well as those of our animals. Below a few pictures of my day. As the year winds to a close, I am taking a moment to appreciate how lucky I feel to live in a beautiful, tranquil place. I also feel so lucky for our wonderful animals Polly, Pickle, Brick, Cracker, and Snookie..
I am grateful that Snookie is still doing well enough, giving us a little more time with him. Lastly, I am grateful that B has had a wonderful adventure with Brick and Cracker and is now back where I can laugh with him and ride beside him. It's been a great year. Happy New Year to all our friends. Dear Friends,
For the past two years I've been on a very different path in regards to my approach to training and riding horses. It started with my desire to reach and retrain a great little horse, Pickle who had recently been plucked from a kill pen. I wanted to find a good path forward with this horse who showed some symptoms of miss-handling and abuse in his past. He lacked confidence and trust I thought perhaps some work together in a round pen where he could be worked at liberty would help him find a way to be with me. To learn both respect and trust from me, which I might add I needed to learn in my own way from him as well. The round pen did prove a wonderful place to begin a better relationship between us and a place from which we have begun a growing foundation of understanding. I had not previously used a round pen and am now a convert joining the masses who have known of their benefit for decades. This however was not the biggest revelation I have experienced in my work with Pickle during these past two years. When I got Pickle I decided to read two books by some of the founding fathers of Natural Horsemanship (although neither called what they did with a horse this). The books were True Unity by Tom Dorrance, first published in 1987 and Think Harmony With Horses by Ray Hunt, first published in 1978. Ray Hunt was Tom's student. In both books they talk about the importance of timing, balance and “feel”. All three are critical to good horsemanship and are always elusive in the sense that arriving at perfection is always just a goal and not a point at which you ever fully arrive. Both Tom and Ray would say they were working towards good horsemanship even though all that saw them ride or had them work a horse would think that they had clearly arrived at or at least close to perfection. Good timing requires the rider to understand and know exactly where the horse's feet are and accordingly to know exactly when to ask for a stop, a lead or a transition. It takes a lot of listening to the horse and time in the saddle to get good at knowing where the horse's feet are at any given time but with a lot of practice you can at least understand how to get better at it and even how it can be achieved. Balance also comes along with practice. It is clear enough that sitting upright over the horse's center of gravity can help him balance as he turns and transitions from gait to gait to halts and back ups. Perhaps the hardest thing to fully grasp though, is what “feel” is all about and how to develop a good feel with an individual horse. Feel is different with every horse and rider combination. Understanding feel is crucial to keeping or making a horse light and responsive and willing. If a good feel is achieved, a horse will be feather light in his response to your request. A glimpse of a good feel with a horse will make you sense you are operating that horse with your mind only. It's a completely different kind of riding than I have ever felt before when you start to get a ride from a horse based on a good feel. To develop and achieve a good feel with a horse a rider must spend a lot of time on the ground teaching that horse where he can move his feet, forward, backward, side to side. The horse must develop a suppleness and lightness in his movements both side to side and up and down. The horse learns to respond to the lightest pressure. The only reward the horse needs is a release from that pressure and the acknowledgment by the rider (on the ground or in the saddle) of his slightest try at the moment he gives it. This requires very keen attention from the rider. The amount of pressure with which we ask a horse to yield should be so little, think of being even lighter than touching a dandy lion gone to seed without destroying its form and ramp up from there only to the point of the slightest try or yield back from the horse. Over time, from a consistent light touch and an immediate rewarding of the horse for every little try he makes, a great communication can develop between a horse and rider. A well developed partnership between a rider and a horse based on a good feel does not even require a bridal to obtain collection. I hold an image of this beautiful soft feel kind of riding in my head, Buck Brannaman cantering one of his well made horses sideways across a field in full collection with as much elevation in that horse as if he were performing an upper level dressage test, yet there is so much float in the reins as to be able to throw a cowboy hat through them. His body is perfectly upright, balanced and quiet as this horse floats underneath him, no ringing tail, quiet eyes and with a relaxed expression. To me this kind of riding is a revelation. To me this has become a whole new goal, a new type of riding to try to achieve. This kind of riding is completely free of force and restraints, like any kind of nose band that closes the mouth, or any bit more leveraged or aggressive than a simple snaffle bit. Every problem is solved by fixing the issues in the foundation through ground work and riding. And yes, it is possible to fix any fixable horse this way. With this kind of training there is no use for ramped up bits or mouth restraints. Collection has never been about constant contact with the horse's mouth anyway, like I and so many others were taught. It is about established communication and partnership through feel, a feel so soft as to appear almost not there, one in which most of the time there is considerable float in the reins. It is a whisper of pressure and release. I have been making steady progress with this approach for the past two years with Pickle. He can now break into a canter while being held on the buckle with out picking up too much pace. Stop on the cue of my weight dropping back and go into reverse from a canter halt with out touching the reins. There are still miles to go and a lot to work on but I am now so convinced that this is the right way to approach training any horse. The other day a single photo caption in a book by Bill Dorrance (Tom Dorrance's brother and another founding father of natural horsemanship) upped my understanding of how light one's feel with a horse should be. In the photo a boy is stroking the face of his horse. The caption with the photo said that the boy was touching the horse with too much force as his hand was ridged and did not seem to be softly absorbing the feel of the horse. There should be no brace what so ever in one's touch, it should be fluid. In fact you come to understand that pressure can be put on a horse without touching him, merely through movements into his space or a certain direct eye contact. This is important to note as sometimes with some horses you need to back off the pressure before you've even made contact with them. I have now come to understand the lightness of pressure needed at a deeper level than I did previously and have had the best rides so far as a result. This stuff when you begin to scratch the surface only starts to become more magical and full of possibility. Below as a gift to all my riding friends who are curious and certainly with the benefit of their horses in mind, I have listed all the books and DVD's that have influenced this change in my riding and training choices. I hope some of you will give it a try if you are not doing so already. I'm wishing to share in this magic. True Unity Tom Dorrance Think Harmony With Horses Ray Hunt True Horsemanship Through Feel Bill Dorrance and Leslie Desmond 7 Clinics With Buck Brannaman (DVD) * There are a lot of different gurus of what has become known as natural horsemanship, but these four cowboys above have all come from the same branch of it, both Buck Brannaman and Ray Hunt were at one time students of the Dorrance brothers so there is a lot of continuity in their training methods. |
Archives
April 2024
|