My Love My Mudpie

As I post these pictures that Bill took of my brumby this week, I feel the need to say that I have only seen Lilly rolling around in the dirt MAYBE two times. And yet look!!


Clearly she has spent some quality time rolling around on the ground. Maybe even sleeping there! Compared to the other horses, my beautiful brumby is one giant mud magnet.



Bill did suggest I put a sheet on her. That would keep her cleaner, and maybe protect her from a bite or two. But do I want my pet burdened by clothing? Well.....if I could find a nice pink sheet, maybe plaid, I'd probably consider it.......

Forecast for this weekend: RAIN.

Like the Rain, I have Fallen for You, dear Brumby

If I did not have a brumby, I suppose the rain would not be such a bummer!


I decided today I would ride even though it was raining. After all, the horses do not seem to care one way or another what the weather is doing. However, when I got to Lilly, I wimped out! It was raining too hard. I imagined the tack getting very wet and soggy and never drying. My husband says I need a duster because dusters are made to keep the saddle dry. The more I think about wearing a duster around, the more I like the idea. Very Clint Eastwood.




You might think that Lilly is so low in the pecking order, the other horses have forced her out of the shelter. But I think she likes being out there! I have seen my brumby be very aggressive with other horses in the pasture. And I have seen a few of the horses try to boss my brumby around! Sometimes I see little bite marks on her! But I do not worry. She has a good life. And every herd has its alpha. I don't think it is Lilly. I do not know who it is. QTee maybe?

Because it was raining, I got home from the barn very early. So I got out my sewing machine and sewed two balaclavas. The first was way too small. The second was way too big.


Here is Brandon posing with the second balaclava on his head. I also made him hold two little baby hats I knitted for two co-workers of mine who will be having girls in January. I can't decide if the balaclava makes him look like a very homely nun, or a merry medieval guy.

Along Came Brumby

The horses all ran up to me in the pasture today as soon as I arrived! I am the pied piper, I cried! Come to me! I love you all!! But wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Hmmmm. Where is my brumby?


Oh look, there she is, completely unimpressed by my arrival. Of all the horses in this field, she is the one who can't be bothered to say hello!!



Yesterday Lilly lost a shoe on the trail. Today we found it in the hayfield we trotted through, just before the trailhead by the blueberries. When I saw it there in the hay today I remembered that was right where yesterday on our ride I thought Lilly was giving me trouble. Had I known a shoe was actually falling off of her foot, I would not have been so bossy with her. I thought she was just resisting going forward. Well, she was, but apparently with good reason. Next time, I'll know to be a better listener. Here she is with Bill who squeezed a new shoe fitting into his busy schedule.




Here I am playing with adding text to photos.

Before Christine and I headed out on the trail, Christine's put Henry's safety vest on him. He sure looked cute with it on. We kept calling it his dress.

Not the best shot of Christine since I have lopped her head off. But you can see how beautiful the light in the woods was today.

Much better shot of Christine and QTee. It was just chilly enough today that we almost wished we had gloves on. But if we are wearing gloves already in September, what will we be wearing in January? My husband saw a coat in Outside magazine that features a built-in heater. I want it.

When we picked up the trail where Lilly had gotten caught in the wire yesterday, she remembered the wire incident. She did not want to go that way. She sidepassed away from the trail, clearly thinking that the wire would get her again! Not just in the vicinity, but the exact spot. Christine and QTee came over for support, and Lilly followed them cautiously through the trouble spot. Brave brumby.

Oh dear, it looks like Louise is having a stand off with the cows. I'm sure she is upset they are right under her apple tree, snatching up all the apples! Do not mess with Louise!

Sunny Skies With Some Gloom

Our beautiful dog has died.
She was 15.
I have not felt much like blogging or doing anything. I miss her very much.
She died of old age, after a rich and merry dog life.

I have tried to see Lilly a few nights after work, but already by the time I get there it is too dark. Rats. I do not like riding in the dark. There is a wooded area right near the ring and Lilly gets very spooky as we ride by it. Brandon took some pictures but they were all pitch black. Go figure!

But today the weather was gorgeous and I was able to get myself to the barn by 10am!

This is what greeted me in the pature! A couple of nosies! That's Pokey and Banjo. Bill took CC and Banjo to a gymkhana a few weeks ago. They did well. And it also inspired Bill to set up a little practice gymkhana in the ring....

Well, this picture doesn't detail much, but you can see that three barrels are set up, and some poles. Last Saturday (when I forgot the camera) I did get Lilly spinning around the barrels a few times. She was pretty good! I noticed Lilly is much less cranky in the ring when other horses are down there with her which was the case on Saturday. I guess I will have to repeatedly corral Bill and Christine into the ring with their horses in the future. Might be good practice for gymkhana.

Here is one patriotic brumby! I wanted Lilly to stand by the flag because it was pretty windy today and the flag was blowing all over. It didn't phase her at all. Does that eye look wild and buggy to you? No, she was very calm.

My state-of-the-art Kodak EasyShare C813 camera gave me some real trouble today! I was trying to take this picture of Lilly (below) and it refused to turn on. I thought for sure it was the batteries and changed them three times. Lazy little camera! I am aghast at this camera's bad behavior.

Here is my brumby before we headed out on the trail today. I took it to show you that this tack situation drives me crazy. I do not like how not one thing matches. Pink and red do not even look good together. Some of you may find this concern to be very frivolous. I agree. This proves that I can be quite the frivolitor. There, I made up a word. The point is that I just want my paint mare to look goooood when we go out.

Leaves are starting to fall! My brumby wanted to crunch through them on the way to the trail.
Twice on the trail I called my horse by my dog's name.

We took a short trail to get started, and then crossed the pasture into the new trail Bill cleared, the one Christine and I call Trollwood. Well, some trolls must have been hard at work plotting disaster because as soon as we got in there, Lilly began to freak out. She began to Freeeeakkk. Ouuuuuut. She bolted and then stopped and then bolted again. I was yelling WHOA, LILLY!! WHOOOOOA!! You are OKAY!! WHOOOOAAAAA!!!!!! and trying to one rein stop her. I seriously thought some little troll was stuck to her. Then I had the horrible thought she was being stung by a thousand hornets because I could feel her back feet were in a panic. She also kept spinning her head around to her back legs. This did make the one rein stop a little easier, but it was very scary!

Then I caught sight of the trouble. It was a long wire (not barbed thank goodness), one say that might be a line of old electric fence. It was brown and rusty, hidden under leaves for the most part, and about 20 feet long, a remnant of Trollwood's previous life as a cow pasture. Somehow that wire, which must have been just laying on the ground, had wrapped itself around one of Lilly's back legs. How that happened I will never know.

When Lilly finally stopped moving but when her eye was still all rolly and buggy, I told her I was going to get off of her. THE POOR DEAR. She was trying to be so good and must have been very frightened. She did another mini freak out when I started to pick up the wire. So I started to sing Debby Boone to her, not because Debby Boone is my hero but because (and this is embarrassing) You Light Up My Life was the very first song that popped into my head. Honeysuckle Faire has written in her blog that if you sing to your horse, she will remain calm. I wrapped up the wire, sang You Give Me Hope, To Carry On, You Light Up my Day, and put the incident behind us.

Here is the trollish wire, which I bundled up into this tangle.

Here are Lilly's pink boots that I must remember to put on her for trail rides because sometimes we walk through prickly bushes.

Do you see where my brumby goes when I am on her back? Right into some branches!! Around this point I am sorry to say that Debby Boone was still in my head and my brumby was probably getting sick of hearing me singing it. I myself was getting sick of it. I also became horrified at the thought that my cell phone had autodialed in my pocket and now my own version of You Light Up My Life was now on Bill's answering machine at home. I could just hear his wife saying Why is Colleen leaving you ballads on voicemail? Meanwhile it is bear season here and I could here gunshots! And I worried that Sally might get shot! Because to an idiot, she might look like a black bear!

Let's just say I was happy we made it back!

I quickly realized Lilly had lost a shoe on the trail!

Those little marks are from the wire in Trollwood!! My poor brumby!!! I put a bunch of SWAT on them.

Back at my own house, the animals were out enjoying the weather:

There's Monkey by her little house,

and that troublesome Bijoux rolling in the leaves,

and the lovely Lollipop (aka The Gee).

Happy Trails, my cyberfriends!

Oh, September, September

Today's entry could not be more random. I haven't been blogging because a few things have come up and occupied much of my mental space. But before I leave for work today, I am plugging in a few random pictures from my horse album. I did ride Lilly on Saturday but forgot my camera.


Oh who do I think I am here? A wrangler with a cheap plastic helmet on, that's what! See that necklace? Bill made that for me out of some beautiful stone.



Hah!

That's Karen P and me in the hayfield. I love this picture so much.

See you back in the blogsphere real soon.

Furtive Bloggers, Unite!

I am writing this from my desk at work...something I never do. What if the CEO walks by and sees my brumby on the computer screen???
Earlier in the summer I found this beautiful poem by Gary Snyder. Now, I have loved Gary Snyder forever. He was definately one of my hard core heros when I was in my twenties. I have been hoarding this poem, wanting to post it on a beautiful day in the summer when it felt just right, say maybe when the farmers were actually haying their fields. But alas, we didn't get a summer this year; all we got was wet glop. It is amazing any haying got done at all! In any event, I am posting the poem today.


Hay for the Horses

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of haybehind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

Smile, You're On Candid Camera!

Saturday in the rain I gave Lilly (and myself) another cantering lesson. At first I was just going to groom her and feed her some apples. But then I thought it wasn't raining that hard, and put Lilly's saddle on her!


Stirrup adjustment. I cannot understand how my stirrups need adjusting each time I get on Lilly. I'm the only one using this saddle! It's like my legs get longer or shorter each day!



While I was cantering with Lilly, Brandon and Kestrel saw this little frog hopping by. Kestrel cannot resist a frog.

The cantering lesson went very well. There was no willy nilly cantering. And only going counter-clockwise did my brumby try to pull one over on me near the gate. Then she thought better of it. This happened three times. And then she was fine. She even stopped immediately each time I asked her too! Maybe the rain was good luck!

After I was finished, I let Kestrel get on Lilly. I'm in no position to coach a ten year old, and Lilly is no lesson horse. But once in a while we get Kestrel up in the saddle.



Maybe this is what Pippi Longstocking would look like on a horse.....

I'm not sure what is happening here. But something seems to be going on.

This is the best way for me to be in a photo! Hah! I cropped my own head out of this because I looked very wet and sour. I know that my old feminist professors would have a field day with me cropping my own head off my body. Help, I've decapitated myself! No brain, no intellect, I'm just a body! Don't hate me because I crop! I know, this is so bad, turning thine own self into the Headless Horseman. Where is Sleepy Hollow when you need it? The point of this picture is only to show that I'm saddleless!

Sunday was a much much prettier day!

Who is that little mare peeking out from behind that tree???

I see white nose!!

Hello, beautiful Brumby!! I seeeee youuuuuu!

This is Tuffy trying to get a whiff of Lilly!

We had an awesome ride today! We were alone and headed straight to the new trail that Bill made. To get there we go through a pasture for a minute.

In the pasture Lilly looked to the left.....

And then to the right!!!

Without these trail markers ala Bill, I would not ever use this trail. While we were out there what sounded like a 100 pound crow was cawing and cawing. I guess I am lucky that we do not have any seriously scary animals around here. Like wild hogs, or baboons....Can you imagine coming across a baboon on the trail? Or a tarpir?

My Canterbury Tales

One of the first things that got me hooked on riding a horse was my first canter. It felt glorious. The canter remains my favorite gait, and yet, aside from the gallop, it is the one I use the least! Why is this? This very question has come up recently in a Clinton Anderson publication. In the No Worries Journal (Fall 2009), Clinton devotes an entire article to cantering with confidence--an article spurred by his observation that people do not canter their horses enough. Clinton asked my very question: Why not? And he discovered the answer was fear.


I have to say a little fear is at the root of my own lack of cantering. What is that fear based on? For me personally, the fear is twofold: 1. When Lilly walks, she walks slow. When Lilly canters, she canters fast. In a field, up a hill, even down a trail, this isn't so much a problem. But in the ring, she runs around fast and twitchy, almost like she's panicked. Or maybe she's just trying to quickly get it overwith! In any case, it does not feel relaxing. It feels wild. And, 2. There have been times when once Lilly is moving fast, I am not so good at getting her to quickly slow and stop. Whoooops, now that's no good! Whoooooooa, Brumby!


Clinton's answer is to fight fire with fire. Ride through the fear, says Clinton, and you will have nothing but exhilaration on your hands. And this is exactly what I try to do. (OK, I have grossly oversimplified his article, but you get the idea...) Lately I have been better at it. If Lilly seems mad at having to canter, or lazy, I get tough and make her do it anyway. This is a picture of me preparing for a cantering lesson. There is no doubt that when she resists the canter and acts spoiled in the ring that I am afraid of the situation. I try to ignore it. I rationalize that it must feel scarier than it really is.



My husband, who took these pictures, likes to sit on the sidelines and tell me everything I am doing wrong, along with suggesting completely unreasonable ideas. The non-rider with all the answers. He is sincerely trying to help. Here he said my reins were not loose enough and actually he is right. But at the time I was trying to get my brumby collected, and was seesawing the bit in her mouth to get her to draw her pretty head in.



I have mentioned that I do not have the best posture at the canter. I do not have that string from my head to the sky, like Sally Swift talks about, pulling my spine straight. I like to blame this on the fact that I only started riding horses a few years ago. Excuses, excuses. I'm sure that I lean forward because somewhere in my head I've gotten the idea (the erroneous idea) that I feel more secure that way. Or maybe it is to be closer to my brumby's head so I can yell reprimands into her recalcitrant ear.

Here we did a little jump. But I hadn't cantered to the jump. If I did that, we would have gone flying! Especially since the jump is pointed at the gate.

Look! We are so fast I'm a blur!!

Actually I think this was just another camera malfunction.

Hah!!

One last thing: you may be interested to hear that the word "canter" and its origins are linked to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (one of my fave books, by the way). As the pilgrims made their trek to Canterbury, England, the pace they set was called the canterbury. Later the verb was shortened to canter. I have actually been to Canterbury and although I was not a religious pilgrim and I certainly wasn't on a horse, it was well worth the trip. Long Live the tourist trade!