I am being re-habbed by my own horse

How often do we refer to re-training an ‘animal’ as “re-habbing”?

Well I have a young mare that sees what I don’t see in myself anymore. Reading ‘things that change life’s directions’ first may help understand what she sees as wrong with me. Her name is Faith. She was born in 2008, she was a ‘bun in her momma’s oven’ when I got hit. So I didn’t have a great deal of contact with her when she was growing up on pasture with the mares. She has ‘delicate sensibilities’ much like I do. I get frustrated with her, I am in a hurry all the time to make up for ‘lost time’ that I cannot get back. She knows when I am holding my breath, so she runs, she shakes when I reach for her. I am slow, deliberate and gentle with her. We were friends once. Now she is not so sure. She makes me slow down and breathe. When I stop, let out the breath I am holding and take a deep breath and let it out again she relaxes and does exactly the same. She willing does any scary thing I ask, as long as I breathe.

She is phenomenal, jet black, short coupled, long dark legs, and a trot that any Olympian would give their eye teeth for. She is the epitome of collection. Loose on her own, collected work naturally. Her parents corrected everything they did wrong when they created her brother Donovan and I thought ‘he’ was the “IT” I had looked all my life to create.  His photo graces the FB page Iberian Dressage.

But she corrects me. Makes me breathe again. Shows me that I am not always ready to work the colts again. We have several on the way this year. We cannot support the ranch/farm if everyone isn’t pulling their weight. That means that the mares need to have babies to sell (and those foals must be worked with) to cover their expenses and their share of the taxes on the land they live on and that supports them. Are you starting to see the full circle of the farm yet? I will remind you often, of the bills that need to be paid with cash. Trades and bartering don’t pay taxes. It takes cold hard cash. Gone are the days of paying the government in livestock or produce for the kings table for the right to eek out an existence on land that you call yours. I guess she is the barometer I must work by and up to her standards to get back to where I was. The stallions don’t show me what she does. They are much more like men. Even if there are really responsive they are not ‘delicate’. And we say that we train them… what a laugh.

I am often asked if I am a horse trainer. I always say ‘no’. People look at me funny. I cannot explain what I do, but I certainly don’t train them. I ask them to do things. If they don’t understand, we go through it, over and over until they understand what I am asking and are not afraid to offer a guess at it. We both know when the little light of recognition goes on. And they say. “is ‘that’ what you wanted, oh, ok”, “I still think its scary to walk on that welded wire panel laying on the ground, but if you say it wont entrap my legs, then ok”. Then we practice it a few times. Ah, the word practice, we will cover that another time. We just communicate well together. I always got great results, before my life was changed forever. DH always says I am more horse than human. That’s a label I can accept and live with. Horse trainer, on the other hand I will not.

Please, it is unnecessary for anyone to comment about her being abused. She has not been. She, like her now 19 year old dam, was born with us. She is just emotionally sensitive. I post this because I feel strongly that animals are our emotional mirrors. Her father, Merlin, had a similar reaction when 3 ILAHA Judges could not agree with each other about him wearing the same snaffle bit that he qualified for a Regional Finals class in because he had turned 5 years old. The rules had changed mid season (a whole other story for another time). I was upset under my professional persona and he knew it. He didn’t want to work in that arena anymore because it upset me. He just didn’t know why, he just knew it was a bad place to be. But once talked into doing his professional job, he had the best scores of the class anyway. These are ‘War Horses’. I am honored and often humbled to be their servant. And, apparently, being re-habbed.

Is Spring really here?

This seems as though it may become the first beautiful work day we have had in a while. At least I hope so.  I have many plans for today,                 and tomorrow… and Monday….. I’m so behind on my work load.

Well, it’s already after noon, twelve thirty, and I have barely finished morning chores. But I did get the strawberry bed covered with netting. All winter no one has bothered the strawberry bed. Until yesterday, still rainy and freezing cold, some industrious hen decided it needed a complete overhaul. Nothing is left except the carrot I have tried so hard to keep. I am hoping the strawberry crowns will send up new leaves, they were a gift from a KFC’er in Texas. The carrot was a volunteer from within the strawberries. Everything she has is heirloom, her garden has been going so long that she just lets everything go to seed and either thins or transplants things to their respective sections of the garden as they come/sprout in the spring. She doesn’t remember what carrot it is. It is about 3+ inches across the last I checked. The cow got it once, the deer got it several times, but today, it’s BACK and about a foot or more grown. Carrots seed in 2 years, so this farmer is hoping for seeds from this carrot to not only plant in the garden but on the south hillside for winter cattle feed, they can pull and chomp themselves. They already got my beets I was overwintering for Kavass. I hope Butthead enjoyed them. I won’t get to this summer.

The older cattle are NOT in the pasture that I want them in, that I put them in this morning. But, until I get a few more posts in the south fence and get the charger on it they are where they are happy and not in the barn eating expensive alfalfa. So be it. For today at least.

The new, used chest freezer has been plugged in for about 20 hours and is at 0 (zero). It gets sun a couple hours per day. I am going to make a shelter for it today and also this week I will get some insulation board with reflective siding on it and make a box for it with a lid for an extra “comfort” zone. Maybe it won’t have to work so hard in the summer to stay cold and no one needs to go into it every day anyway. Now let’s see if Steak can pay us back for the freezer, the fuel to go and get it, his purchase price, the fuel to go get him, the milk that started him, the alfalfa that kept him his 2 winters, the taxes on the land that he grazed, the electricity for the water he drank. Then there is the time this farmer and her husband spent raising him, feeding him, herding him from one pasture to another, pasture maintenance,  pasture seed, cleaning any stall he occupied, washing his water tubs, hoof trimmings, caring for the milk cow that provided his milk, salt, the day to harvest him, the emotion of loosing yet another friend, the fuel and time on the backhoe engine to lift him for harvesting, the new skinning knife (desperately needed and will do others as well) the time to drive and deliver him to the butcher shop for hanging time, cut and wrap, the fuel again, and the return trip to put him all neatly wrapped in white paper in freezer camp, then there is the few hours its takes us to inventory what came back and notify share members freezer camp is open. Wow! Didn’t mean to go there, but there is a lesson there. Food doesn’t just appear in the grocery store for you to purchase. Someone had to do all the above to get it there. Do you know where your food comes from? Do you know your local farmer? Did ‘your’ steak or burger have a decent life? And end? Was he loved? Ever… Hugged? Kissed on his nose? Mine was and will be… was yours?

This is not an easy life…    physically and emotionally… but it is mine and I wouldn’t trade it for an office and a 2 hour commute ever again.

Later, evening feeding. I cannot find the bovine herd. I have walked the perimeter of the barn pad, from which I can see 90% of our pastures. 4 steers and one milk cow are nowhere to be found. There is a hill, it is steep, that I cannot see the south side of. But it is beautiful back there, under an enormous ancient oak tree that few know about. I went ahead and fed the mares. Pearl usually hears the Dodge Diesel go down to feed the mare pasture and brings the boys back… still no cows… hum… I search the fringes again. Standing in the garden looking over the south pastures, I holler, “UUUUP!” my call for anyone out there to “heads up” and get home or make yourself known to mom. A tanish orangish body pops over the Southern most ridgeline, high up, it is steep, Butthead, those lazy mowing machines all come charging over the ridgeline and plunge headlong down the steep hillside. Where did all that energy, happiness and agility come from? All the young steers leave Pearl behind, they are already on the second, lower ridge and she is still cresting the south, steep hill. She has been in most of the winter and isn’t in shape for this terrain. Her normal pasture is slightly sloping, North face of the hill the barn sits on. Oh, my, here she comes barreling down the hill!  Full udder flopping in the breeze, how can she run like that? I took the truck back down to gather them and bring them all back to the barn for the night. They a re finally ‘getting it’. Out in the am, in in the evening. This will work for a few more days, then I will not put Pearl out with them and they can learn to stay out on their own again for the summer.