As the Saddle Burns

Barn Drama
The situation at the barn is pretty bad. I'm not sure I trust the current management after the discussion I was dragged into today concerning my lame horse. Apparently this guy actually supports the woman that verbally assaulted me last month, and said at least she had the balls to confront me. Anyone who supports someone who treats another human being the way this bitch did is NOT someone I wish to entrust with the care of my horses.

I need a new barn and I need one fast. It has to:

• be 10 miles from my home or less
• be Parelli all the way
• be advocates for natural health and hoof care
• have no more than 12 horses including my two
• be run by people who support what I choose to do for my horses and oblige my requests
• cost half as much per horse as my current barn
• have a round pen and arena that are actually open and available to be USED by the boarders as a round pen and arena to ride in
• have two open stalls RIGHT NOW.

Heaven help us.

Lame? Sound? Who Knows?

We'll See
Tomorrow, I'll be at the barn to ride with my new trail buddy and her horse. I find it interesting that her mare is nearly a dead ringer for my beloved Wildflower. But that horse's personality is different from my Wildie. My friend's mare has threshold issues outside of the arena, gets nervous in the woods (or at the mouth of the woods, which is as far as we got before the skeeters divebombed us despite copious layers of OFF and we had to turn back), and needs to learn to be patient when waiting.

Luckily, my new friend is very open-minded, possibly even a future convert to the Cult of Parelli. When we couldn't ride in the woods, we spent the time playing in the lane. She rode up and down the lane, getting her mare comfortable with being there. I worked on Cheerios' leadership issue. Thanks to his former leaser, he has the idea that he can make decisions under saddle. When it's time to go home, it's time to go home. Going southward down the lane means going to the barn, being untacked, and being turned loose or grazed. It does NOT mean turn around and go back up the lane several times.

Unfortunately for him, with me, it means we go where I decide, and the ride isn't done until I say it's done, and you need to learn that pointing south is not an automatic ending to the ride, and threatening to buck me off isn't going to change my plan. That girl ingrained a pattern into him, boy-oh. I have my work cut out for me. And the girl (and everyone else at the barn familiar with my financial situation at the moment) wonders why I refuse to consider leasing him out again.

Let's be honest. I like the girl who leased him. She was kind to him, really fell for him, and she took good care of him. But after three years, she began to act a bit too familiar with him. He was viewed almost as if she were his owner. That created problems. However, she was quite gracious when I asked to end the lease after Wildflower died. I thought it was clear: sure, if you're out riding the next horse you lease, you can certainly say hello to him. It's not like I want to keep them apart. But there is a boundary issue. It's OK to give him a hello pat when he comes up to you in the field. It's OK to give him one cookie if you have an extra. It is NOT OK to halter him, lead him to the front of the barn and graze him for an hour. It is NOT OK to cross-tie him and spend the afternoon grooming him without my knowledge. It is NOT OK to give him special treats, like fixing warm bran mash for your favorite horses, without my knowledge.

He is not YOURS.

He never was. You were borrowing him. You were granted the privilege of use for a period of time that has now ended.

It can be likened to having your ex's gf stop by for a back rub once in awhile, after he's already engaged to you. It's one thing to say a polite hello passing on the street; it's another to have it off for shits and giggles every now and then.

It also confuses Cheerios. He's not sure who his leader is. When she's around, he's treated one way and he can get away with things. When I'm around, I expect better behavior than that. It's like good cop/bad cop and guess who's the bad one?

I tried to converse with her about it. I've explained my goals with PNH and what she'd need to do if she wanted to continue leasing Cheerios. Basically, she would have to get with the program. I would have willingly loaned her my study materials and equipment, rather than making her buy them, and I wouldn't expect her to assess, but she'd have to behave the same way around him, and help me maintain that consistency.

She wasn't interested.

OK then. Back off.

But nobody gets this. They think the logical solution to my problems is to lease him again. It's all about money. Yeah, sure, that's the easy answer. Lease out my horse to someone whose inconsistency with my program causes me to have to undo everything every time I'm with him; oh, but it'll make me able to "help" my other lame horse.

Y'know, I CAN afford to do further diagnostics, to a point. Or, I will once my parents' estate settles and my house sells and Grandma's house sells. But right now, I'm in a holding pattern. However, my mare is being fed, watered, turned out, exercised, trimmed regularly, and is absolutely fine despite occasional bouts of stiffness or soreness. She CAN wait a little while longer. She has not changed. No matter what I do or don't do, I have no control over it. And the vet, well, I wasted all that money proving what I already knew to be true. I didn't need a second set of x-rays to tell me, gee, George, there's no visible sign of the problem here. Would they x-ray further up? NO. Because they can't. Or won't.

Can I afford to drag her to MSU for MRIs of her shoulders and spine? Yeah, probably. Is it worth it? I don't know. Can we fix her? I don't know. I haven't given up on her. I really believe that moving her will change everything. I really believe that the management is harming more than helping via non-compliance while pushing the shoeing agenda and thinking their way is better and doing it their way without my knowledge. She WAS BETTER before they came on board and started pushing their own agenda.

Coincidence?

Hmm.

We tried boots. They BARELY helped. Had the problem been in her feet, which everyone but my NHCP and I insist is the case, the boots would have caused dramatic, immediate improvement. It didn't.

If boots didn't help, guess what—NEITHER WILL SHOEING HER. Boots serve exactly the same purpose as shoeing, without the resulting damage to the hoof wall from nails and constriction of the hoof mechanism.

But they are so deaf and blind out there. They saw it. They cheered at the improvements. Uh, funny—my NHCP and I are the ones trained to look for the slightest change, and we saw nothing. But people see what they want to see. Yes, that could be turned around on me. But we both desperately wanted to see IMPROVEMENT to avoid having the shoeing agenda thrust upon us further. So, why would we not see it and the shoeing advocates claim they saw it?

Then, they insist on adhering to the "shoes will fix it" campaign despite evidence that IT IS NOT IN HER FEET therefore shoes, boots, pads, styrofoam, duct tape, etcetera won't help!!!

AAAAGGGGGHH!!!! *banging my head against the wall*

I don't want to pour anymore money or worry into this mare. I just want the problem to GO AWAY. Period. I just want that horse to miraculously, overnight, without human intervention, become perfectly, wonderfully, beautifully, consistently sound.

We'll see how she's doing tomorrow.

Crap. It's nearly 3:00 AM. Time to hit the hay.

Lameness Rides Again

Shaveya's Troubles
So I've been absent again. Not much going on with horses lately; I was in school again, taking five classes, going crazy. Now that school is out, though...

Shaveya is on the downside of the lameness rollercoaster again. I am not sure of the cause. Here is the chronology:

NOVEMBER 2006
Right before winter, my NHCP proclaimed her darn near sound. I was told she finally had a good hoof on her. After a year and a half of careful trims and the sugar-free feeding regimen, it seemed we'd turned the corner at last and that 2007 would be the year she was finally sound. I envisioned happy spring days playing with her and taking her on trail rides (along with bringing Cheerios through L2).

But it was not to be. Due to the weather, school, and estate issues, I got somewhat lax on the trim schedule.

FEBRUARY 2007
She was lame again. Now. I'm not here to make accusations. But I find it somewhat troubling that the onset of the lameness coincided with two things at the barn:

• running out of her oats, putting her back on sweet feed, and not telling me;
• the manager deciding that it was too much trouble to measure out her special feed once a day and unless I had SmartPak do it or prepackaged it myself, they weren't going to do it at all.

She'd been on sweet feed for three weeks and was horribly lame. I told them that she had to go back on oats etc immediately and delivered the oats. They claimed to be giving her the rest of the diet... until this spring when they told me they hadn't been. I mean, OH, MY, GOD, do they think I have her on special food because I enjoy the extra expense? There is a REASON for it, people! I know they don't believe me when I tell them she is insulin resistant, but that's NOT UP TO THEM TO DECIDE, is it? It is, after all, MY horse, and I'm paying them to take care of her according to my wishes. Correct?

I had her trimmed. She went back on her feed. I got a call two days later informing me that she was MUCH better after adjusting to her trim.

SIDENOTE/BACK STORY
Here's the thing. Barn management changed again. Right after Wildflower died in 2005, the girl managing the barn quit. A nice lesbian couple came onboard and were there about a year. Then they bought their own place and a new couple (hetero) took over sometime in 2006.

The lesbian couple were skeptical about the treatment plan, but went along with it anyway, and were pleasantly surprised when Shaveya made a huge turnaround.

The new managers aren't so accomodating. They are BOTH farriers of the shoeing variety. They believe that shoes are the solution to everything. They claim to be forward-thinking and they are to an extent, but it's a small extent compared to where MY thinking is. They have been pushing and pushing and pushing for me to shoe Shaveya. I have been politely refusing, and have even had my NHCP talk to them.

Shaveya was x-rayed in 2005. The x-rays showed nothing significant; a little sidebone (ossification of the lateral cartileges) but not enough to cause such severe lameness. This is what we ruled out:

• abcess
• laminitis
• navicular
• founder
• rotation of the P3
• osteitis
• arthritis
• fractures
• degeneration of any kind

In other words, her feet looked FINE. Still, the vet recommended shoes and pads on all four feet. That was when I went searching for a non-shoe alternative because of the barn policy against rear shoes. The NHCP program was working. Shaveya was sound enough to go on a couple of light trail rides last year with no trouble. Then management changed to the current team. Her lameness returned intermittently, and ALWAYS coincided, oddly enough, with her being fed sweet feed instead of her special diet. Fast forward to today.

MAY 2007
The barn manager trailered us to the vet for ANOTHER set of x-rays. I was quite resistant to this. They have been pushing for this for a couple of months. I've been explaining to them the importance of keeping her on her diet AT ALL COSTS—according to safergrass.org, in an IR horse, even ONE meal of sugary food can cause a relapse/episode. ONE. MEAL. It falls on deaf ears. They pretty much do what they want out there now.

But I finally agreed to go after being bitched at by the barn manager as well as HIS manager (the guy who sold me the horse, isn't that funny). The topper was an incident that occurred at the barn last weekend where another boarder verbally attacked me over Shaveya's care, insinuated that I was being cruel letting her suffer like that, ignored my facts and my pointing out that Shaveya was in fact greatly improved since last year, then told me either I put down that horse or she'll call the Humane Society on me.

Can you EVEN believe that?

First of all, yes, Shaveya limps. She is sore. BUT. She is NOT grinding her teeth. She does that when she is miserable. I know what she looks like miserable. She'll be extremely stiff-legged. Her face is all tense. She'll grind her teeth. She'll breath shortly and sharply with each step. She'll stay far far away from other horses and not want to interact with me. She'll look off into the distance and tune out. OK?

Lately, she's been bright-eyed, happy to see me, relaxed, a little gimpy, but she still trots around, comes to me, interacts with me, and does NOT grind. She is present, she is focused on me, and her breathing is good. Her hoof care specialist says her feet are perfect. There is no sign of anything causing her pain.

But when her diet is changed back to sweet feed, she becomes lame, and it takes several weeks to get her righted again. They are playing a ping-pong game with her out there. If she goes off the feeding regimen, she goes lame; the longer she's off, the lamer she gets. They complain; I insist they rectify the feeding issue; they put her back on it (or say they do); she begins to heal; they take her off it (without my knowing); she regresses again; they complain to me; I find out she's out of something; I insist they put her back on the diet; they agree... repeat. She never has the chance to recuperate before they pull her food for whatever excuse it is this time, and it takes weeks to heal her so she's just riding a rollercoaster.

I am so mad.

TODAY
I got the second set of x-rays done. The barn manager was expecting to see laminitis or founder or even, shock gasp, rotation. He was just sure of it.

Surprise.

NOTHING.

Feet look GREAT. In fact, the only change since 2005's set is that they have improved (gotten stronger). This is what we ruled out:

• abcess
• laminitis
• navicular
• founder
• rotation of the P3
• osteitis
• arthritis
• fractures

She still has the sidebone but IT HAS NOT CHANGED. She has what the vet thinks MIGHT be a slight bit of degeneration in the P3, but it was inconclusive.

I had him x-ray up her leg.

Nothing. Not a single damned thing.

She's clean.

OK, so it's NOT her feet. So tell me, then—why on EARTH did the vet then tell me to go ahead and put shoes and pads on her front feet and call him at the end of the week to let him know how she's doing? If it ISN'T her feet, shoes and pads will do NOTHING to stop the pain. But they will cause long-term damage to the hoof, this I know; a beautiful, perfect hoof that we have been so carefully tending and healing for almost two years WITHOUT shoes.

My guess? He's clueless. Not as a vet, but with respect to Shaveya's case. I think he just is at a loss because the x-rays didn't back up their expectations, and he has no idea what other sources there might be. So he fell back onto the standard issue response: well, if the horse is lame, stick a shoe on it and see if that helps. (If it does help, it's because it's a bandaid masking the real symptoms.)

See, I know more than I did two years ago. I began studying natural hoof care and was on the road to becoming an NHCP myself until my parents got sick. I was a three-day clinic away (hoof dissection and anatomy) from being out in the field working as a practitioner in training. I've been at seminars where we studied lameness, hoof anatomy, and looked at cadaver hooves to learn about the structure and function of the hoof and what different treatments do.

I'm not just a stupid horse owner who believes everything the vet or some horse-shoer tells me (no offense to the qualified ones).

I know, for example, that the reason shoes damage hooves is because they restrict blood flow to the hoof. Inside the hoof, the coffin bone or P3 bone which is shaped like a miniature hoof sits nestled in a basket of blood vessels (yum). When the horse puts weight on the hoof (loads it), the hoof expands, and the blood vessels open to allow blood to flow into the hoof area. When the horse unloads (picks up his foot), the hoof contracts, pushing the blood out of the hoof up into the leg. Good blood flow is essential for healing damaged tissue; it's also necessary to keep the tissue in the hoof alive.

When they shoe a horse, the foot is off the ground, unloaded, and contracted. The metal shoe then holds the hoof in that contracted position even when he's loading it—meaning the blood flow is restricted. That's bad. Long-term restriction of blood flow to the hoof causes things to die in there (such as the laminae, which are little tubes inside the hoof that connect the hoof to the bone... when they die, the hoof wall begins to separate from the hoof and that isn't good—and they do NOT grow back). Add in the nails that compromise the integrity of the hoof wall (think drywall and lots of nails), and you have a prescription for long term damage that CAUSES things like laminitis, navicular, and all the other nasties that make a horse so lame they need to be euthanized. Yet, because it's the way it's been done for centuries, they keep on shoeing horses. Even if the shoe is glued on, it's a short-term solution because the hoof can expand in that instance and grows beyond the shoe. The shoe is a solid inflexible object; the hoof is a living, flexing organism. The two don't mix well.

That's why natural hoof care practitioners take an oath never to put another shoe on a horse, and advocate for the use of boots, which protect the feet yet allow for natural expansion and contraction of the hoof wall.

OK? So please respect my intelligence and my knowledge base/philosophy and do not insult me by telling me that "sometimes shoes are the only way". Excuse me. Tell an Irish Catholic that the Protestant religion is the only way to get to Heaven or vice versa. Tell a black person that only white people are smart. Go on, do it. I dare you.

Shoes are NOT the only way. If they were, then there would be no controversy surrounding hoof care because there wouldn't be anything going up against it.

Basically, I am right back where I was two years ago, and I have a set of resistant barn managers to contend with. I know the obvious solution is just find another barn. Well, I'm looking. It is a challenge to find a barn that:

• has dry lots
• has a round pen/outdoor arena in which to work
• is Parelli-friendly
• is open and accepting of natural and holistic care
• is willing to feed according to my plan
• believes horses belong on 24-7 turnout (not cooped up in a stall all day)
• believes in letting horses run naked (ie not requiring turnout in halters)
• costs less than where I'm currently boarding
• is safe, clean, and close by
• caters to a non-competing non-showing crowd
• has sane owners that I can trust implicitly with the lives of my beloved horses
• has open stalls at the peak of riding season
• understands my treatment methods and is agreeable with them (ie won't try to change it behind my back according to their own rules)

I'm looking, believe me. I'll find it. That, or maybe somebody else will take over the management (yet again) who fits the bill. The current managers just had a baby. I think they're busy enough without running a 40-stall boarding barn.

TEST (Again)
Just moved into the new Beta Blogger. Things are going to be wierd for a while. If I don't like the results, I might move to my own DIY blog on my own server. Stay tuned.

Huge

No Fear

Today, it was absolutely gorgeous outside, so I headed to the barn. It took some effort, though, as does everything these days (mentally). I told myself I didn't need to do anything, that it was OK if all I could muster up the energy for was to visit with them (I have two: my Paint mare is Shaveya, horse #3 if you're keeping track). Lately, just thinking about going for a trail ride or having a serious play/study session wears me out. It's the depression from this past year; it'll pass (I hope). I spent a little time in the mares' pasture with Shaveya, then went over to the boys' pasture to do the same with Cheerios. When I say spend some time, I mean hang out. Literally. Scratch them, pet them, love on them, walk beside them, demand nothing of them. No halter required. (This Parelli stuff is A-MAZ-ING.)

After a long session of catering to my horse's scratching whims, I felt this overwhelming urge to just sit on him. I haltered him (rope halter), checked his brakes and made sure he looked "ready" to ride (he was, they were all pretty laid back today), tied the 12-foot lead line into "reins", found a ditch to put him in (so I could be up higher), and hopped on. Bareback. With him wearing a halter and lead rope. No bit. No saddle. Naturally. Like a wild Injun (I'm part Cherokee so it's OK for me to say that).

And, there we sat.

As I was drinking in the sunshine and the quiet peace of being on my horse's back as he casually grazed in the pasture with other horses about 100 yards away, it occurred to me that:

• I was sitting on Cheerios


• bareback


• no bit, not even the hackamore, just a rope halter and lead line


• in the 10-acre pasture


• surrounded by other horses

...and not the least bit afraid.

That, my friends, is HUGE.

TESTING...
OK. I think I've finally fixed the issues with my template. This is the test to find out...

A Bit of Horse News

FINALLY. A day with horses.

Thursday was sunny and gorgeous with 60-degree temperatures. Not that I'm a fair-weather horsewoman; but it was a good motivator to get me out of the house and away from the sorting nightmare for a bit. Besides, the farrier was coming.

Shaveya received a great report. After a year and a half of careful barefoot trimming by an AANHCP-certified practitioner and a complete dietary overhaul, my beautiful little Paint mare has finally developed the deep concavity of sole that she needed. No wonder she's been cantering around the pasture rather than barely able to walk two feet. She finally has good feet!

I'm so glad that I followed my gut rather than listening to the naysayers. So many told me to put shoes on her to "protect" her tender feet. My gut said, this is wrong... pounding nails into her foot can not be good for her hoof wall..." I know what repeated nailing does to the integrity of drywall—logic told me it would be the same with the hoof: it would eventually weaken the hoof wall and cause more harm than good. Thankfully, the barn doesn't allow hind shoes. I say "thankfully" because it gave me the excuse I needed to search for non-shoe alternatives. I just said I wanted to treat the whole problem not half of it, and shoeing only the fronts IMHO would only solve half the problem.

Others thought she was "done". Wouldn't ever be rideable. Probably had navicular. Likely that she'd have to be put down.

All untrue. Since discovering Jaime Jackson's methods based on the wild hoof model, I've found information backing up my instincts, and have learned that pretty much every problem can be solved with the right trim, NO shoes, and the proper environment, diet and exercise program. My mare is living proof of this.

Shaveya has insulin-resistance. It's like being a diabetic. Too much sugar makes her feet hurt, plus someone chopped her too short and at the wrong angles so she had heel pain and a thin solar base. Basically, her P3 (coffin bone) was too close to the ground. It's like quicking yourself when you trim your nails too short. It was especially apparent on soft ground such as grass or sand. She could walk fine on gravel. Isn't that the opposite of what you'd think with a horse with sore feet? The reason, as I discovered while taking a two-day Pete Ramey hoof care clinic this summer, is that the soft ground allows the hoof to sink in and the ground surface comes into contact with the sole whereas the harder gravel surface provides support so there is less solar contact.

In addition to the trim changes, her diet was changed. All sugar was removed. That means no more SWEET FEED!!! No molasses. Do you know how many horse products, treats and whatnot, contain molasses? ALL of them! She's been on a strict diet of whole oats mixed with Purina 12/12 and Braggs Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. She also no longer gets chemical wormers. I use a product called N.O.M.S. Powder that is a natural method of killing worms. It works. She also stays off the grass early in the spring when the sugar content is highest. After mid-summer it's okay for her to graze again. She grumbles a bit about being banned from grass (grinds her teeth) but it's for the best. If she eats early grass she goes lame.

Cheerios is also on the diet. His hooves were already good except for the quarter crack on the right front. That's all changed, too. He blew a huge abcess last fall in that same hoof at the coronet band. Eventually the abcess site grew down and met up with the crack to form a T. It looked AWFUL. About that time, I stopped leasing him and got him back under my control. I put him on the same farrier schedule as Shaveya and changed his diet, and the crack is gone. His hooves look even better.

OK, this is boring talking about medical stuff. The fun part: playing and riding! I played with both of them a little bit, then turned out Shaveya and saddled up Cheerios. A couple friends met up with me around 4:00. Yes, it gets dark early. But we went out anyway on a sunset trail ride, which was fun and a little creepy being in the woods at dusk. It was pitch black when we were coming back down the lane but the ride was good. We didn't see any deer. Well, we didn't actually SEE anything because it was too dark. LOL!

What tickled me the most was something that happened when I first was bringing him in for his trim, down the lane from the pasture. There are two mini-ditches in the grassy area that borders the lane between the pastures. They are so small it is easy to step over them. However, I got it into my head to see if I could ask Cheerios to jump them even though he could span them with back hooves on one side and front hooves on the other and not have to stretch. The first time, I stepped across one then sent him over (directed him to cross). I sent with a bit of energy. He tilted his head at me, then jumped it lightly. Yay! At the second one, I paused. I looked at him, then I made a big show of hopping over it. He hopped right over it, mimicking me. Such joy. After trying SO HARD to communicate with him in so many sessions and getting nowhere, to have him just mimic me like that without any forethought or serious work was hilarious to me. Can it really be that easy?

Sometimes, the Good Lord blesses you with a moment like that, to remind you that sometimes what you think is so difficult to accomplish is really very simple.

And Happens, And Happens...
It happened. I'm alone. I'm an orphan.

It's been a little over a month now.

Mother succumbed to her illness at 11:42 AM, Saturday, September 30, 2006. She'd been in the hospital with weakness for a couple weeks. They'd done surgery to implant chest and feeding tubes to help her feel more comfortable and had every reason to believe she would go home the following week and be blessed with several more weeks or months ahead. Mid-week following the surgery, her urine output diminished. She ended up suffering the same fate as Dad: renal failure. Complicated with a compromised liver, her body was unable to handle the toxins coursing through her. There is a condition that I think is called hydroencephaly (something like that) where the toxins swell the brain, causing confusion and eventually coma. I was with her from Friday morning when she was still coherent until she died. Over the course of 24 hours, she gradually stopped responding to stimuli and slipped into a coma. She left us peacefully, almost unnoticed, it was so subtle. I held her hand until the very end.

She was laid to rest next to Dad on October 3rd.

The unanswered questions will remain that way. Funny how you can't think of what to ask when they're right there, but later, when it's too late, odd questions pop into your head. The more I analyze our relationship, the more questions arise. Realizations such as perhaps her own mother reacted to her dreams and ideas much the same way she did to mine. Mother only just started telling me the "dark side" of Grandma. Apparently, Grandma was controlling and manipulative. Hmm.

It's occurred to me that Dad was the one I should have gone to for advice, but that I often wound up talking to Mother instead. Dad was so reticent. Dad was like NPR; Mother was Monday Night Football on a widescreen at a sports bar. Conversations would begin with me "listening" to NPR, soft, quiet, soothing tones. Then someone would turn on Monday Night Football, and drown out Dad with the noise. Dad would discuss things with me but Mother would always interject and eventually override him with sheer volume and exuberance. And Mother was always quick to jump in with HER opinion, which soon became YOUR opinion, because there was no getting around it once she'd made up her mind.

I've realized that all of my decisions were made for me by my Mother.

I would go to them needing help researching an idea. Say, college majors or career planning. I'd go to them and present my initial idea: "I've been thinking of majoring in fibers in college, getting a BFA." Before I could even spell out reasons why or present any data to back up my reasons, Mother would jump all over it. I'd state my sentence. Dad would open his mouth to say something, and Mother would blast out "Why? Why would you want to major in that? I thought the whole idea of going to college was so you'd be able to get a job at the end. What can you really do with a major in fibers?" Dad's mouth would clamp shut and my defensiveness would begin to rise. The further the conversation went, the more defensive I would become, because every attempt to support my claim sounded feeble, and she'd jump all over that, too. Pretty soon I felt like an idiot for even suggesting it.

She could have reacted differently. She could have shown polite interest, listened to my reasoning, and then allow ME to make the decision. Even if she didn't agree. She could have phrased her objections more positively. Example:

REALLY BAD:
"Don't be ridiculous. Nobody ever makes any money doing THAT. What are you going to live on?!? We can't support you forever!!!"

BAD, BUT MORE PALATABLE:
"It's very difficult to survive on an artist's salary. You'll probably have to get another job outside of that to support yourself"

BETTER:
"Well, you've certainly chosen a challenging career, but if you work hard enough, you'll probably do all right"

MUCH BETTER:
"Well, you'll have a bit of a challenge, but you're smart, capable, and talented and I have faith that you'll do well"

At least she could have said it's gonna be a challenge, but give it a shot and see where it goes.

But she didn't. She usually blasted me before Dad even had a chance to speak. For some reason, I had many conversations alone with Mother with Dad elsewhere, but not as many with just Dad. Mother was always there, to the point that the prospect of a few hours alone in the car with Dad on a road trip was agonizing to me, because he was SO difficult to talk to. It's hard to talk to someone who remains silent and doesn't say what's on his mind. Like driving with a rock. His mother never let him talk. Funny, neither did Mother, come to think of it. Wonder if that's why he married her? Because she was "familiar"?

That's what my mind has been occupied with today. Where will I go from here? I have a few ideas I'm tossing around. For now, I'll stay put. The house where I'm currently living (theirs) is paid off, free and clear; my house will soon be gone; once the Will goes through Probate, there will be a tidy nest egg for me. There is time to decide. Time to grieve and time to heal.

To everything, there is a season. My parents' season is finished.

My season has just begun.

Life Happens


"Life Happens."

Pat Parelli often says this to people who find themselves sidelined from their once-obsessive PNH studies for a time, whether it be due to illness (human/equine), loss (same), school, work, family, or other events. Many people set up a goal planner—such as, "I'll finish Level Two by the end of this year, Level Three by 2008, get accepted into the Professional's Program in early 2009 and start my third horse at the same time, and by 2012 I'll be working as a 3-star Instructor". Ta dum.

Then life throws a curve—or five—and those goals get scrapped... because "life happened".

Well, life certainly has happened to me. Can it really be three years since Wildflower and I passed Level One and received our coveted red string? It seems a lifetime ago now. And Wildflower's been gone since March 2005. I had to start over, so I bought a new mare (Shaveya) rather than give Cheerios a whirl (wasn't quite ready for him, I thought), then Shaveya immediately went horribly lame—forcing me to face my fears and make Cheerios my new Levels horse. I thought, "ok, I'll be delayed for a few weeks while I bring him through L1", and adjusted my goals accordingly.

Then life happened yet again, and HARD this time.

Forget Level Two. For now.

Dad fell in December, broke his hip and shoulder, spent two months in a nursing home, recovered fine, came home, had about five good weeks, then began the spiraling descent that ended with his death on June 7th from bacterial pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and good old "old age". He was 88. I don't think that's old, really. I thought he'd be around another 10 years because he was hardly sick a day in his life, unlike Mother, who has always been ill with something or another and survived breast cancer in the 1950's far beyond the doctor's predictions (she's still alive and 86 years old).

So Dad died after a harrowing six months during which every one of my goals was pushed not to the backburner but completely off the stove and into the fridge because somebody had to take care of Mother and step in to handle the finances and household management, and because I'm the only close one, that somebody turned out to be me.

Dad was buried June 13th with full military honors. He was an Air Force Captain that had served two tours of duty, and a well-respected college professor. After the funeral, Mother and I discussed the possibility of my moving in while we adjusted to our New Reality without Dad.

A month later, Mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer of the esophagus, spread to the liver, and given a very grim prognosis. I moved in immediately. My goals moved from fridge to deep freeze. My horses have been languishing among the lush grass with rare visits from me. My saddle has a thick layer of mold on it, and my carrot stick is rotting (not really... just feels like it... carrots... rotting...). About the only success I have to show is that I've ridden Cheerios a handful of times now in the woods, on the trail, saddled but wearing only the Parelli Hackamore. No bit, no bridle—in between it all, we forged a relationship strong enough that I feel safer communicating with him in a "skinny rope bridle and lead rope" than a leather and brass bridle with a piece of iron between his teeth. I've also taken Shaveya on two trail rides, when her lameness abated temporarily, and she was fantastic.

What the future holds, no one knows. Mother's prognosis is "three months to three years, it all depends". We're focusing on years rather than months, but living with the awareness that it could be less. It shifts priorities. People have said, "be sure to ask all the questions you ever wanted answers to, while you have the chance". The interesting thing is, Mother and I have had so many heart to hearts in my lifetime with her that I find I have no unanswered questions left. Or, the questions that she has not answered yet are questions she never will answer, because her personality and way of thinking is such that she'll never be that forthcoming. Confused? I can't ask her why she behaves the way she does because she firmly believes "no such thing". In her mind, she's right, or fine, the way she is. Her character flaws are not visible to her and unless she has a brilliant wave of insightfulness (not likely, knowing her), they never will. My job is to accept her, flaws and all, and love her until she leaves me.

I had more questions for Dad than for Mother, but he was another story. I asked. I really, really tried to dig it out of him, but Dad was very reticent. Opening him up was... harder than getting the clam to spit out the oyster. It was sometimes painful to try to have a conversation with him. Mother told me that Dad's mother never let him talk, so he learned not to talk. She claims he opened up to her... leaving me to think that he only opened up to those he trusted implicitly, and that Mother was one of the rare few he trusted enough to open up to. He was a great father, though. A kinder, gentler, more sympathetic and conscientious man one will never meet. He provided well for us, took great pride in all of us, and his wisdom and intelligence will carry us through till the end. Still... I mourned more for the loss of the relationship I thought we should have had than for the one we did. Then I accepted it, finally.

I was with him moments before he died. He was in the ICU, in renal failure, and they were having trouble keeping his blood pressure up. His dying wish—though I didn't realize this at the time—was for me to "take care of Mother and make sure she's all right". Of course, Dad always said that to me in those last months—it had become our routine. I thought nothing of it, yet as I always did, I reassured him again that I would. His breathing was labored and his eyes were looking at something past my shoulder (what, I don't know). I said I'd go see how she was and that I'd be back in a little while. He said "OK". I turned to leave his room, intending to take a break and go check on Mother in the waiting room. I was at the doorway when something made me pause. I half-turned back and called over my shoulder, almost like an afterthought, "I love you, Dad".

Dad called out feebly "I love you, too".

While I was downstairs calling my sister to tell her she really ought to consider coming in tonight rather than tomorrow, Dad coded. When I returned, I was being paged to ICU. They got him back. They prepared to put him on a ventilator. He coded again. They couldn't get him back. At 3:31 pm, he left us forever.

I'm still not used to it. But I feel blessed that I was able to see him, conscious and coherent, one last time before he left. What better way to say goodbye than to say "I love you"? I'm trying to remember every day to tell Mother I love her, too. Just in case she forgets. This has been by far the worst year of my life, losing Wildflower, then Dad, then being given Mother's prognosis. I've moved out of my house, I'm selling it, and my life has dwindled down to playing caregiver 24/7.

One day, it will change again, and I will be alone. Where I'll go from there, I don't yet know. How this will ultimately change me, I also don't yet know. I only know that I'm still here, and that I will somehow find the courage and strength to go on, after life has finished this round of happening.

Where HAVE I Been?
Saturday, August 6, 2005

Well, I have to find my "code" for this blog so I can keep it consistent... but first, my apologies. I've been VERY lazy. Considering it has been almost a full YEAR since I trailed off in the middle of a posting...

Here is a brief summary. Details to follow in actual lengthy posts organized by their actual past dates, since I actually did have the foresight to write quite a lot of material intended for this blog. I just didn't bother logging on. Pity.

Firstly, the Big Event that lead to the trailing-off was that I received a phone call out of the blue that changed my life. I'm adopted. I've been searching for my birth family, to no avail, for years. On that particular day, my typing was interrupted by a female voice with a strong Southern accent asking for me by name. Figuring it was telemarketers or bill collectors, I suspiciously asked who was calling and what this concerned. Imagine my shock when the voice gave a name and said "We think you might be our sister".

Fast forward to spare the details, but yes, she was indeed ONE of my biological sisters, I've been found, and I've met my birth mother and sisters. My birth father passed away seven years ago. Well, we think he was my Dad, anyway. There is a small chance he may not be. I have four full sisters, one full living brother, one full dead brother (died at 9 months), a half brother on the maternal side, a half sister on the paternal side, and at least one half-brother on the paternal side. With respect to the paternal side, we all don't know just how many more half-siblings might turn up. *ahem* Anyway, it was a good experience, albeit highly emotional, not what I would have expected, they are nice people, I got a lot of answers, and I feel more complete than I have in my entire life.

I also found out that my long-held suspicions were correct. I AM Native American. My a-family has had a good laugh at my expense in the past, saying their is no way I could be Native American due to my coloring (dark hair, green eyes, light skin) but as I've pointed out, I'm not quite the same shade of "light" that they all are and I've always tanned a different color (reddish). I've always suspected I was a little NA, maybe at best 1/16th if I were very lucky.

Turns out I'm one-eighth. My mother's grandfather was 100% Cherokee.

There's a chance that percentage may be greater. IF her ex-husband was indeed my father as she claims, and IF his claims were correct, then I may also be part Blackfoot. Of course, my b-Dad was the type who liked his liquor and liked to tell tales. So that could be false. But the Cherokee part is accurate. I've seen photos. My gg-grandparents were most undeniably Indian.

In other news (back to the topic of horses):

1. Wildflower passed away March 2, 2005. It sounds like a sad cliche, but she broke her leg and had to be put down. It was the worst possible kind of fracture on the worst possible limb. There just wasn't anything medical science could do.


2. I bought a new mare in May to be my partner and re-named her Shaveya. She's a sorrel/white Tovero Paint, a Medicine Hat, with two blue eyes. They are sacred to the Indians.


3. Shaveya turned up very lame a month later and is on pasture rest and being subjected to lots of medical investigation and treatment, so...


4. Cheerios has become my new PNH partner. Yes. You read that correctly.


5. Cheerios and I went on our first trail ride in July. In the PNH hackamore. Yes. You read that correctly.


6. I am no longer afraid of Cheerios at all. Yes. You read that correctly.


7. In April, I spent a week at the Florida Parelli Center with a leased horse.


8. In January 2006, I'm leaving for a six-week stay at the Florida PC. With Cheerios.


9. I'm also going back to school to get an MBA.


10. I'm still unemployed, living off my parents, have five cats now, and am probably going to sell my house and move back in with my parents for a while after returning from Florida. Since I'll be going to college in my hometown, if I can get accepted into next July's full-time MBA program, I won't want to commute, and the burden on my parents is beginning to show.

This world is organized around money. He who has the cash controls everything. He who does not is controlled by he who has the cash. I'm tired of being controlled by others. If and when I get another crap job, I want to be able to use my cash for my own purposes without presenting it to a committee for approval first. WHEN I win the lottery, this will no longer be an issue.

Happy blogging, all.

Decisions, Decisions!

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Sunday, September 12th, Part One:
Seems I'm still catching up on this blog with old news. In brief: after determining that Cheerios was healthy, it was time to determine whether or not to keep him. I've been toying with selling him for a couple years now. Obviously I must not want to sell him very badly, because he's still here. :wink: About a month ago, I went on a trail ride with Nora, the lovely girl who has been leasing him for the past year or so. She and Cheerios get on quite well, being that they are both redheads LOL. I'm happy with her as a leaser (lessee?) because she's very considerate of Cheerios as well as of me. She's even taken over his farrier appointments, which for the unemployed (me) is a great help. So we went on this ride, great ride, feeling good, and when we got back, I decided it was time to try riding him again. I'm sure I posted last year when I rode him around... yes, the day Nora first came out to test-drive him. That was at the trot.

Well, this time, I got up to a canter. Without fear. TA-DAAAA!!! Yay, me. Still having stopping problems. He stopped by almost slamming his head into the barn. We have a LOT to work out. His trot, however, is still awful. I tried sitting it. Hey, I can sit Wildflower's fast trot, albeit uncomfortably (I'd rather post that speed), so I figured by now, thanks to all the Fluidity work I've been doing, I'd be able to handle his trot.

Not.

Riding his trot is like riding a jackhammer with a stutter. An even trot is 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2. His trot is 1-2-1-2-1..2-1-1-1..2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1--1--2-1-2-1-2-1-2. Very jarring. It would help if he could trot an even rhythm, then it would just be about his up and down bounciness. But he has both going at once. Bounciness plus lack of rhythm (must be a white boy inside LOL). So it's darn near impossible to ride.

My observation at this point is that:
1. He was a green four-year-old when I bought him (and I was neon green as well)
2. He'd been taught basic commands (this means walk, trot, canter, halt, back up, and stand still) but just enough so that he'd be saleable (like using the Berlitz method to learn a language before your trip overseas)
3. Then he'd been trained to chase cows (roping horse)
4. He'd never been schooled in how to carry/balance a rider for long periods of time

Part of that contributed to my fall waaaaaay back in 2001; and the fact that nobody's known enough to be able to teach him how to carry himself with a rider for longer than two minutes is the other part. I still don't think I know how to teach that, but I have an idea that flatwork, aka the Circling Game, might help.

After that ride, I decided that although I was now relieved to know I could ride him without fear (at least in the safety of the arena), I no longer wanted him because he wasn't fun to ride (aka smooth, even, relaxing). So I'd made up my mind I was OK with selling him. At least, I was using that to justify selling him, which I was being pressured to do by my parents. I've been unemployed for almost 28 months now with only brief respites (six weeks at my old job last year and three weeks on a work-for-hire project last month) and up until June, I had my housemate's contributions along with whatever freelance I pulled plus my parents' contributions allowing me to survive. Without the housemate, and with limited freelance, it's been up to my parents to help, since Unemployment Compensation ran out years ago. They aren't interested in supporting two horses, especially when I'm not even using one. They'll allow me to keep the one. So it's been very upsetting to me. I don't want to sell because I truly believe that with enough PNH under my belt, I'll be able to help him finally and build a great relationship and have TWO amazing horses to ride. Then I can learn roping and cutting and start living my dream.

So I was all set to sell, resigned to it. Even had a potential buyer lined up, who'd actually contacted me about it. My ex-housemate's sister (XHS) who is also my hairdresser. We hadn't even negotiated prices yet. I figured it was only fair to give Nora the opportunity to buy him. When I explained the situation to her and the possibility of XHS buying him and continuing to allow Nora to lease him, Nora countered with the offer to take him on as a full lease. Well, gee, if the two biggest repeating costs are being handled by the leaser, then I have no reason to sell except if I want or need some fast cash. The only worry ahead is shots in the spring, and by then, who knows where I'll be?

Cheerios has been given a reprieve.

Sunday, September 12th, Part Two:
Now We're Getting Somewhere...

With Wildflower, there have been significant improvements made. Not without a few bumps in the road, however. Since deciding to amp up the progress in Level Two in preparation for the Bruce Logan clinic in October (did I mention I'd signed us up?), we've had an interesting, frustrating, rewarding month.

Originally, the clinic was advertised as a standard Level One & Two clinic format, meaning he'd be there for four days, and days one and two would be a Level One clinic, days three and four would be a Level Two clinic. By "standard", I mean that anyone studying that particular level is welcome regardless of how long they've been at it or how much they know. Clinic formats are as follows:
• "Intro to Level #" means it's appropriate for the very beginners in that level who have been at it for a couple weeks (say you just passed Level One and are just beginning to use the 22-foot line in Level Two) or for people who've never even tried playing the games (Intro to Level One), have nary a clue, and might have just brought their horse blindly in and bought the equipment a half hour before the start of the clinic.

• "Level #" means it's appropriate for those who have been playing with that Level for awhile and it's to help fill in the holes in your education and answer questions.

• "Adv Level #/Intro Level #" means that you're near to assessing out of the Advanced Level and/or just started the next level up.

Uh, more later, I just got a life-altering phone call... a good one, no worries... more later...

Horsey Musings

Friday, September 3rd:

In case anyone is looking for a goofball fly mask:

http://www.wildhorsestuff.com/

Horse Lessons
Don't know whom to credit for this, but it's cute...
All I Need to Know in Life ~ I Learned From My Horse

1. When in doubt, run far, far away.
2. You can never have too many treats.
3. Passing gas in public is nothing to be ashamed of.
4. New shoes are an absolute necessity every 6 weeks.
5. Ignore cues. They're just a prompt to do more work.
6. Everyone loves a good, wet, slobbery kiss.
7. Never run when you can jog. Never jog when you can walk. And never walk when you can stand still.
8. Heaven is eating for at least 15 hours a day... and then sleeping the rest.
9. Eat plenty of roughage.
10. Great legs and a nice rear will get you anywhere. Big, brown eyes help too. Beautiful mane and tail will get you everywhere.
11. When you want your way, stomp hard on the nearest foot.
12. In times of crisis, take a poop.
13. Act dumb when faced with a task you don't want to do.
14. Follow the herd. That way, you can't be singled out to take the blame.
15. A swift kick in the butt will get anyone's attention.
16. Love those who love you back, especially if they have something good to eat.

Old News

Really, really old news.

Friday, September 3rd:

So. It seems I left out a few important items. So I'll try to catch y'all up. And by golly, the text better look the way I want it to!

March 09, 2004
Cheerios:
I went out to the barn last Saturday to visit my long-lost horses and had a blast playing with Wildflower in the round pen like I was another horse. At feeding time, everyone came in, and I went to see Cheerios in his stall. I went to scratch under his chin and he pulled away. I found out why. I felt bare skin and a bump. The bump was bloody and gross. I thought maybe it was a bite from another horse, he is second in command and they battle all the time out in the pasture. Erin and Kathleen (barn managers) got a spotlight so we could look... he has something growing there and it must itch cuz all the fur's rubbed off. It's a little smaller than a grape. They weren't sure what it was. With that lump on his shoulder that he's had since I bought him, I got worried and figured it's vital that he be checked out. I hope it's nothing, but I had the vet look at it. She was coming out Tuesday anyway for another horse, so I split the farm call (yay).

Well, Dr. Laura Schmidt looked him over. She wasn't sure what the thing under his chin is either. Might be something got up in there and it got infected; might be a benign sarcoid tumor. She said to use hot packs once a day for 10-15 minutes for 10 days and see how it looks at vaccine time (the 20th). So I have that lovely duty every day, drive 20 minutes out, 20 back, 20 to get the hot water and the Epsom salts and sit there holding the sponge on his boo-boo. (Cheerios is not the type to stand still patiently.)

She looked at the lump on his shoulder. It's been worrying me since I got him but O'Desky, Speiss AND the vet I used for the pre-purchase exam whose name I have long-since forgotten have looked at it and blew it off as an old scar or nothing to worry about unless it grew. I've always had my doubts. Schmidt opted to aspirate it to see if she could obtain any cells to send to pathology to test and rule out things. She wasn't expecting anything, wasn't even sure she'd be able to get any cells at all.

Surprise, surprise. She shaved a patch, sterilized it, and stuck the needle in and all our eyes grew wide when this stream of thick yellow goop came pouring out. She got the syringe on it and filled up the whole thing with yellow cloudy fluid. She handed that off to her assistant and squeezed the lump for a good few minutes as the stuff just poured out of him and slid down his side. I almost lost my lunch and I have a pretty adaptable stomach. Blech. Has it been this way for three years?!? I should have followed my first instinct and had it biopsied right away, I think.

Cheerios handled it all pretty well, though, but he got a little antsy as she squeezed. The lump is still there, draining it hasn't diminished it much. The vet thinks it's probably somewhat painful and may have contributed to his tendency to buck halfway into trail rides because the saddle rubs up against it and doesn't let the saddle sit completely square, which would put pressure points on his back; or it might be painful in his shoulder when he moves. She reassured me that it could be something we just need to lance and drain and he'll be fine after that, or it could be something more, like a sarcoid tumor as mentioned previously, which is kind of like a cyst (not cancerous) but would require dragging him up to Michigan or something to have it removed because that would be more involved than what can be done in the field. Non-committal on a diagnosis until the bloodwork came back.

Schmidt got the bloodwork back today and it's inconclusive. Because no bacteria was present in the fluid, it's not an infection response. The cells in the fluid also do not conform to the typical cyst. So she is still not committing to a diagnosis, but it's looking like a tumor of some type. She will be out next Friday to do another biopsy around the outer edge this time rather than in the middle. He might need to have a little bit of tissue removed.

Since I began daily Florence Nightengale rounds, the thing under his chin is looking better each day, that's a plus. He's eating and otherwise seems fine; I think he just wants attention! LOL! You know horses. "I'm feeling lonely... I think I'll come up lame today with no diagnosable explanation... until turn out, of course, then I'll kick, buck, and run without limping." Or, "Nobody's feeding me cookies... I think I'll scratch my chin, get a splinter, and grow something on me to worry my owner."

Wouldn't put it past 'em! ;-D

I guess it's just my turn to worry, fret, and play nurse. Having escaped the first three years without doing so, I guess I've been pretty lucky. It's probably nothing (on both accounts) but I'll feel better knowing officially.

March 31, 2004
Update on Cheerios' condition—based on an inconclusive needle biopsy (no bacteria present, not consistent with typical cystotic fluid), and a subsequent tissue biopsy on him. More gross gunk, a few "particles" that were added to the sample, three stitches and three staples later, and the results were:

"connective tissue, some fat, and mild lymphocytic steatitis"

Which all adds up to nothing. No cancer, thank god. Final diagnosis: he suffered an injury to the shoulder at some point (yeah, before I bought him) and when it healed, for some unknown reason the fluid had nowhere to go so it just collected. Most of it drained out from the biopsies so he's looking better. The good news is, he has a clean bill of health. The chin thing cleared up on its own.

Not much news to tell! The second biopsy produced "connective tissue, some fat, and mild lymphocytic steatitis" (lymphocytic = white blood cells, steatitis = inflammation). This was late on a Friday. The vet said the good news is it doesn't appear to be anything cancerous or fatal; however, she still isn't sure what to do about it and has to talk to the pathologist further about the results. The next day, they got their shots and he got his staples removed and is healing fine and the lump is smaller (well duh, half of it drained down his side). That was March 20th. I called last Friday to see what she'd found and she's still waiting for the pathologist.

So I guess he's not in any danger of dying from it!

The weather here is grey and rainy all week. I'm dying for a nice sunny warm day so I can go play with horses. Jonesing now.


April 16, 2004

Well, I had a great day with Wildflower yesterday, even got to ride a little (in the round pen, not the arena or woods). The surprise of the day was when I tried doing mounted liberty work (that means I am riding her but I'm not using the reins to guide her, just my body language) and got her to easily sidepass, turn, and change gaits WITHOUT EVEN TOUCHING the reins (they were looped around the horn), it was like Dances with Horses or something!

May 1, 2004
OK, is it just me, or does the idea that someone is SELLING their L1 submission video strike anyone else as wrong?

There was a link at the top of my blog in the ad banner advertising "Parelli level 1 'pass': You can see a successful level one submission. Now available on video."

http://www.wranglerjayne.com/pages/901556/index.htm

Of course, curiosity got the better of me and I visited. It just seems... WRONG.

But she's in Australia, so apparently the American copyright laws specifically prohibiting (under penalty of prosecution) the teaching of PNH material (is this video considered "teaching"?) by anyone who is not an official PNH Endorsed Instructor doesn't apply to this Wrangler Jayne person. I'm confused; what is this person's affiliation with Parelli? I don't see anything on either the Parelli site or her own listing her as an Endorsed Instructor, yet her program seems frighteningly similar to PNH and she mentions Parelli in the blurb. Is this really OK or is it not? Is it just a fine line between legitimate and not? Is on the up-and-up?

May 27, 2004

Had a wonderful day with Wildflower yesterday—after the last session, I was doubtful bc she was distracted the entire time I was there and it was awful! Whinny city. I gave up thinking I had any savvy and figured all my Level One training was bs. But yesterday was different, better, and we went on a short trail ride. Fun. Felt good. VERY very sore all over today.

June 3, 2004
I think I need a clinic. Wildflower is getting bored (and so am I) and she's starting to rewrite the games lately. Eeesh. I hate that. Plateaus. You get everything going well, then it falls apart again because you think, oh, now that she does that so nicely, I can back off and I don't have to Phase 4 her anymore. So she "plays you for a sucker" ;-) and forces you to and you feel bad about it. At least, I do. :-(

A friend of mine attended a Level 2/3 Camp across the woods from me. It would have been perfect for me, because I wouldn't need to trailer. There was just one thing stopping me from going. The FF. Because it was HER clinic, at HER barn, meaning she'd be in charge of making everyone's lives miserable (if she hates you or has no use for you). I wouldn't dare even audit. In fact I was really honestly out of town that weekend. My friend had a pretty good time regardless, except she found a couple of things seemed unsafe. Rather, there was some animosity growing due to a conflict of opinions. Apparently, my friend's saddle was a tad loose, so she bent over while mounted to tighten the girth and got called on it as being unsafe, must dismount first. The fact that my friend got called on it in front of the entire class and auditor group was mortifying to her. I know part of that was amplified because of the smug disgusted looks that were likely emanating toward her from the FF.

At the end of the clinic, they all posed for a group photo, and half the class plus the instructor stood on their saddles. My friend did not. The fact that they did that unsettled her, and she questioned the safety of that maneuver (privately). My response was:

Well, as you can see from your "unsafe" thing vs. the Instructor's "unsafe" thing, nobody's perfect, and everyone seems to do whatever is within their comfort zone, occasionally forgetting to think first. True, there are risk factors involved in staying mounted while tightening your girth, but we've all done it. Me included. Even after passing L1. But we also know, it depends on the horse. You just gotta know what's under you. I can get away with that on Wildflower because I know her temperament. I know she's very UNlikely to react badly. Most often, I dismount first but I've done it before. I certainly wouldn't assume the same on someone else's horse, even if they said it'd be ok they do it all the time. Yeah, maybe it was best to just nod and say to the Instructor "You're right, thank you" or apologize or something and keep your feelings about it to yourself. ;-) But I hardly doubt that the Instructor holds a grudge. Who all stood on their saddles? I know we're supposed to be able to stand on our horses by L3, right? OK, so maybe that was ok, if the ones doing that were all in L3... not L2... but I'm betting some of them aren't in L3 yet, am I right? (—FF being one of them)

But it's the same thing—it's as safe as you think your horse is. I personally wouldn't have done that. Even if I could have, out of respect for the other people around me. Some of those horses might have freaked. Think about it. Predator alert! One time when I was brushing Wildflower in the barn, we were right below the hay loft by the ladder. Erin had just gone UP the ladder to the loft. Wildflower didn't even pay attention. But when Erin started coming DOWN the ladder, Wildflower freaked badly (mountain lion! mountain lion! mountain lion!). I learned something that day. Probably no L2/L3 horse would think much of that, but there may have been that ONE horse who would have freaked seeing a human standing up on a horse next to them.


I think that's enough for the moment.

Eating the Elephant...

...one bite at a time.

Thursday, August 5th:
Figured out where the problems were with Wildflower. First, I was too agressive with her, starting around Phase 2 or 3 instead of Phase 1 and not allowing her a fair chance to respond. So I softened up this time.

Well, I softened up a little too much. I was giving her good Phase 1 and 2... but not being consistent with going to Phase 4 when necessary. Not only was I hesitating to go to Phase 4, but I was being so inconsistent. What I mean is, if I was firm (yet kind) about going to Phase 4 while we were working on that particular Game, say the Driving Game on the FQ for example, I was wimping out when I asked for a FQ turn when it wasn't the Game.

Say she was facing me, and now I wanted to move her over to the fence so we could do Sideways. First I would need to reposition her so she was facing 90 degrees away from me, facing the fence. Then I could proceed with Zone 1-Zone 4 down the fence for the Sideways Game. Well, since she'd done a great job with responding to the Driving Game earlier at Phase 1 finally, I eased up when I asked her to move her FQ away from me toward the fence. So I'm going Phase 1... Phase 1... ahem... Phase 1... nothing. I kept up Phase 1 then Phase 2 until finally, out of sheer annoyance with me, she'd move reluctantly.

My problem was losing sight of the fact that even when we aren't specifically isolating that Game, I still need to be consistent with my Phases EVERY TIME I ask her for a response using a Game's technique other than the Game we were currently playing. What I should have done was ask her to move her FQ away from me toward the fence with Phase 1... and if she didn't move soon enough, go Phase 2, 3, 4 in quick succession until she DID respond, being mindful to pull back on the Phase when she mentally began the shift and not being afraid to go to Phase 4 if she ignored me.

So this session was more helpful to me than her, I learned more than she did.

Friday, August 6th:
Having studied the L1 video over and over and studying the first L2 video over and over then reading the Stage 1 booklet very very carefully and taking copious notes (which I brought to the barn with me), and having compared this information to the previous night's session, I set new goals for myself, one being to go back to L1 Games and tighten up everything that was wrong. Make sure both of us are clear on what each Phase feels like, get the responses to happen at Phase 1 or 2, and make sure I am clear on my positioning. Break each Game down again, step by step, and make sure each step is where it is supposed to be. Clean it up. Stop being lazy. Now that I'd studied my lessons, I knew what needed fixed, I recognized my lazy spots, and I set out to fix them.

Part of what I'd done the previous night touched on this, which is why I was in too-soft Phase 1 land. However, we did have some success in re-teaching her the Games. I was very conscientious not to push her, but to stop when I got the appropriate response from a Phase 1 or 2, regardless of how far the response went. If I got a nice mental response and turn in the right direction off of a nice Phase 1-2, I stopped there.

Some of the Games were beautiful. The Yo-Yo Game has really improved, and that's because I spent a couple sessions with her focusing on it intently (this was before my study sessions began). I knew Yo-Yo was the precursor to Bring Back, and both are precursors to Changing Directions during Circling, and since that was my next mission, to teach the change of direction and I was having trouble, I went back each step until I isolated the problem. It was our Bring Back. It was sloppy (on my part ) and hesitant (on hers). So we isolated that, and discovered the Yo-Yo was the source. It was sloppy (on my part) and hesitant (on hers) (see the pattern?)

She would yo-yo backwards fine, albeit dragging her feet, but wouldn't stop until she ran out of rope despite my wanting her to stop halfway. Then she wouldn't come in. And when she finally did, it'd be all the way in, right smack into my personal space, despite my wanting her to stop three feet away. Isolation time. Be more obvious in my body language. Use all the Phases if necessary. After a little while, she began to understand that when I pivot my feet 90 degrees from her position facing me, spreadeagle my legs, stand so that I'm leaning towards her, point my finger, grimace (mother in law face) and wiggle my finger, it means back up. When I relax my face and posture, and return to my original position facing her and stop leaning in, that means stop right there and wait. When I curl up a little, smile, and motion to her to come in (open hands face up rolling toward me waist high or a wiggled "c'mere" finger), start approaching me and stop when I change back to relaxed mode.

Now, it's improved in a few short days to where we've progressed from really lousy beginning Level One Yo-Yo to my being able to ask her to back up over a pole, bring one front foot forward over the pole and stop, with the front legs straddling the pole.... then ask for the other front foot to come over and stop... then one hind foot... now back up hind foot and one front... and so on. I'm controlling individual feet. In just a few days, by isolating the Game step-by-step.

That's what we did Thursday, with the other six games.

Friday's goal was to find the balance between too soft and too hard. It began to gel. There was still some variation over the line; sometimes I got a little too hard and sometimes too soft, but the responses were becoming more like the end of L1 beginning L2 where they should have been last August after we passed. Again, I made sure to stop when I got a good response.

Unfortunately, I had to teach her not to run off the moment I remove the halter. She braced the moment she felt me untie it. I made her wait... tried to slide it off slowly but she bolted off. I considered waving it away, then thought, no, that'll teach her to do that. So I walked over to her, disengaged her, and put the halter back on. She wasn't happy about that. I lead her back to the gate. Told her all she has to do is wait for me to tell her when to go... and we wouldn't have to do this again. She waited... as best as she could, and snorted off when I told her to go. Well, it was progress.

Saturday, I got trapped in my bedroom when the doorknob broke, and almost missed Bullriding at the fair. After trying to MacGuyver the door for 45 panicky minutes, cursing the fact that I procrastinated about installing a phone in the room, cursing the fact that my cell phone and keys with garage door opener were on the kitchen table downstairs, cursing the fact that I'd locked the front storm door to keep out burglars (and the key was on the table), fearing broken bones should I try crawling out the window onto the garage roof and jumping to the driveway pavement below, and being very very pissed off after all the hard work I'd done restoring the room and painting the door, I finally resorted to kicking a big hole through the damned thing so I could get out. When I returned from the fair, I removed the doorknob (the rod between the two knobs that turns the latch had worked its way out of the inner knob), and used duct tape and a scrap of banner vinyl I'd scammed from my former employer last fall during a short-term project and covered the hole to prevent uninvited midnight cat visits. The hole is still there. One of these days, I'll get around to buying a new door and knob set.

The bullriding was great; a few big injuries, but they all walked away (stiffly). The highlight of the evening was when the Roman Rider performed. This 17-year-old girl, Dusty Lynn (wish I could remember the name of the trick riding group she rode with), rode two horses at once, bareback, barefoot, one foot on each horse, around the bullriding arena at a fast canter. She changed foot positions, switching between horses; she did the splits sideways across their backs; someone set up six poles in the center, and she rode between them serpentine style, then rode with one horse on either side of the poles and the line of poles passing beneath her crotch (so she was straddling them, had about three or four feet of air between the horses). Then, she did it again, but this time they were lit on fire! So she straddled flames! Then, as if that wasn't enough, a guy ran in and set up a long piece of PVC tube vertically from the corral fence to a support. I thought, "no way... she's not going to JUMP that way, is she?"

By golly, SHE DID! Clean as a whistle, cleared a two-foot jump that way. I'm still looking for my jaw. I figure, she'd qualify to be Parelli Level 8 or something (I just looked it up, and Levels 7, 8 & 9 are True Unity, which involves more than one horse). That alone was worth the price of admission. Even my dad was impressed.

Sunday, August 8th:
Scary day at the barn. I set out to improve even more and was hoping to get in some riding time. Well, that all went to Helena Handbasket. First I got waylaid by Nora (Cheerios' leaser), some young girl who had on a Parelli shirt and is studying Level One (finally, like-minded people), Beth, and others. Had to chat with the gang, ya know.

Just as I got up to collect my horse and begin, something awful happened.

I rounded the corner into the barn. Someone wondered aloud where Erin (barn manager) was; another said they were out on a trail ride... "and here they come now, I can hear hooves". Yeah. Then suddenly we all could hear hooves. Loud, thundering, full-on galloping hooves. Heading for the barn. Shouts and screams. I dropped my stuff on the ground and shot back out the door as Dublin, Erin's big half-draft mare, came barrelling down the lane and round to the front of the barn, with a saddle dangling under her belly.

Not a good sign.

At the same time, there were screams and shouts and a loud whomping sound. Chaos and commotion. Six had been on the ride and four came back mounted, and two riderless horses charged to the barn (one being Dublin, the other, Erin's other mare, Roxy). I ran out in front of Dublin to slow her down and she did but went round to the other side of the barn. Someone took charge of catching her. Another grabbed Roxy. That's when I saw, over top of the gravel mounds, the sight of Erin, face down in the grass beside the lane, and realized she'd fallen off.

I think I said "Oh My God!!!" and that alerted someone else in the barn, I think I might have said something like Erin's fallen or something, and a couple of us rushed over to her to see if she was ok. She wasn't. She wasn't moving, she was crying, she was moaning in pain and I said "DON'T MOVE!!! Just lie still!" and the rest of the riders came up, except one was missing. One lady turned to go find her daughter, who had been riding Dublin. Erin had been on Roxy.

Apparently, they'd had a great ride, were in good spirits, feeling a little keyed up, and the girl riding Dublin (Rachael) decided to canter down the lane along with two other young girls. Rachael noticed her saddle slip to the right a little, and tried to shift it to the left to counter balance it. Didn't work. It had loosened up or something had gave way. The saddle started to go, Rachael along with it. Rachael was thrown, at a canter, and landed on her back. Dublin realized there was a monster attached to her belly (the saddle), and panicked. Roxy heard her coming up behind her; Erin turned to say "slow down a little on the lane" and Dublin rushed Roxy, who spooked, and whirled, and launched into a panicked canter herself. Erin, already off balance from turning to look back, went flying when her attempts to pull back and stop Roxy failed. From what she said, she fell and rolled, landed on top of her left arm. Now, it hurt terribly to breathe.

She protested about us calling 911 because she isn't insured. But all of us were worried, about broken ribs puncturing lungs, internal bleeding, concussions. She took a long time to get up after reassuring us that the only thing that really hurt was her side. Her friends finally convinced her to go to the hospital. She went well past her golden hour, though.

Karen (another boarder) was there, and together with Nora, we organized the feeding ordeal. We grained all 38 horses, provided supplements to the appropriate ones, brought them in to eat, spread hay for the geldings who would be in the mud lot at night, hay for the mares confined to the arena due to sand colic, turned them out, and closed up shop while Erin attended her injuries. Rachael got off easy with a sore back.

By the time we finished, it was 8:00. I escorted Wildflower to the round pen anyway, and made good use of the hour of daylight remaining. For all the awfulness of the day, our session was wonderful. I upped the ante and requested L2 solid Phase 1 responses and was very consistent every time I asked for something. Politely persistent in the proper position. We only got up to the Circling Game because I chose to teach new parts of Circling.

First, though, I worked on winning the Friendly game. Stay relaxed, and work up to flogging the ground really hard, see how much she can take before her head goes up, back up one step and back off a little on the pressure until her head comes down, keep it up until she drops her head and relaxes. Then quit. Wait a bit. Begin again. I got some results. Onto Porcupine... well, it still takes a lot of Phase 3 & 4 to get her response. So I pushed that a bit more than usual. Got really firm with the Phase 4, I absolutely insist that you respond when I ask. When I began getting quick responses at Phase 2, I stopped that Game.

Onto Driving. Same thing. Asked politely, and went to Phase 4 if necessary. One big problem: a new tendency for her to move forward, even when I am up by her head driving the FQ. I changed one thing from the way I'd been doing it, and that might have confused her. What I used to do is place the non-driving hand on her withers and drive with the other hand. That got a good pivot. I took the wither-hand away bc that's not the way it's done in the videos, and I need to be able to use that hand at her girth line for individual feet later on, so I've been placing it there for Porcupine, and not using my non-driving hand at all unless I'm Driving with the stick held horizontally up by her face. If I'm Driving with the stick rolling toward her, that other hand is hovering either by her neck or her girth.

So I switched it up. I held the rope in that hand and backed her one step, then drove. Back, then drive. Back then drive. Well well, there's the pivot I've been looking for. When I got the pivot and a step or two, I stopped. Her HQ pivot was sucking too. She's supposed to disengage off of a look, in a 361-degree circle. Same problem. Swing around a few times, then move away from me. Or she'd move a step or two, stop... step or two, stop... so I had to correct that. More use of rope to indirect rein her while driving and insist she continue until I rubbed. It improved, so I stopped.

Yo-yo: more work on over the pole. That game's good.

Circling: worked on my Send, her Allow (not stopping or changing gaits until I asked), and the Bring Back (which is beautiful). Worked on getting her to trot into me on the Bring Back. Majorly improved the Send. Then, I taught her Change Directions. She did pretty well on that, so I didn't push it, left it with a good try on both sides. Next I taught her Change Gaits. Trot to walk first. One side was good very fast, the other took a while. She has the tendency of wanting to turn into me when I request the slow-down. Fixed that, enough to where I could move on to the Trot-Walk-Trot change. Quite good at picking up speed off of very little suggestion. Slow-down got a little better. Once she did a nice execution on both sides, when I got what I wanted, I stopped. That was it.

I let her sit for a bit, then gave her back and belly a good scratching. I lead her to the back pasture, and told her to remember the other day, that she needs to wait for me to tell her OK go. She started bracing as I untied. I had the rope around her neck for support. She pulled as if to leave. I pulled her back and said "waiiittt...". She sighed. Harrumphed is more like it. I took the halter off painfully slowly. She jigged slightly. I held fast to the rope. Told her, wait for the signal or we'll have to do this again. Slowly lifted the rope over her head. As I got to her ears, she leaned hard to bolt and I pulled her back. Once she harrumphed again and relaxed slightly, I took the rope off... and she waited, braced. I waited a brief moment, then turned away from her, took a step and said OK, GO! And off she went. At a trot. Not a gallop.

Progress.

What, No Title?

What, No Title?
There is something very, very wrong with my blog now. They've changed something in the coding, and now my fonts are the wrong size, the leading is wrong, eccch, and the Title, which I have enabled, doesn't seem to want to come up. (I think I'm changing the body font to this one, Lucida Grande, because it seems to be easier to read.)

I am clueless (or rather, not in the mood to phuck with it) about how to fix it.

So, bear with. Eventually, I will have my formatting back to normal.

Procrastination

Procrastination
Well.

I can't say I've been too busy to post, just too lazy. Hey, it's summer! What do you expect? Ohio weather alternates between blisteringly hot and humid versus autumn-like coolness, and the dishrag days tend to add to the laziness factor.

It occurred to me that it's been a year (actually, a year and two days) since Wildflower & I achieved our Official Level One status... and we are only scratching the surface of Level Two! Shame on us. Shame on me, rather. I'm the one who has to crack the bindings on the pocket guides and study the material before teaching it to her. All the horse has to do is put up with my fumbling and try to respond.

OK... momentary digressions from the subject: I hereby give up trying to use the appropriate punctuation marks for contractions (an apostrophe, or ’ which naturally posts as a question mark, not the curlicued superscript comma it's supposed to be) rather than succumb to the default which appears when you hit the " key (quote marks key) on the keyboard. Does it really matter if it's—er, it’s—a proper apostrophe, or the default... which is the designation for the measurement of a foot? That's right. As in, five feet eight inches tall, or = 5' 8" tall. It's just such a bitch to have to hit Shift Option footmark for every single contraction! I give up. Foots it is.

I must continue to digress. I'm bored with the look of this site and have discovered a new wave of blog templates that include gorgeous graphics, even animation, more like websites than just an online diary. Being a designer myself, however, I'm dissatisfied with the current offerings in weblog templates. Oh, there are some nice ones out there, but they aren't "me". No. I want something more personalized. My colors. My design. My graphics. Found out it's not as easy as it looks... I might actually have to learn some code to do it. When I find one, you'll be the first ones to know.

Back to horse chatter... mostly, I focused on trail riding this spring. A little bit. Not as much as I would have thought. But that was partly due to home issues messing up my life. Without going too far into it, let's just say that you can know someone for 10 years, think you "know" them, then find out you don't really know them at all—and now they are a complete stranger. It gets scary when that stranger happens to be living under the same roof. My stable, harmless, unflappable, ex-bf-turned-platonic-housemate-for-financial-reasons-only completely changed his spots one night, and showed me a side I think I probably knew subconsciously was always there, lurking beneath the surface... but never believed it.

Long painful story short, he overreacted to something I said, claimed I'd insulted him (I didn't, still not sure how he wove an insult out of an innocent offhand comment), blew up while riding home from the grocery store with me, banged repeatedly on my dashboard, ignored my requests to stop destroying my car, scared the bejeezus out of me, and hit me, punched me hard in the arm, when I swatted at him to distract his destruction. Told me "don't ever hit me bitch because I will hit back!" Then refused to leave the car (following repeated demands to do so from me) once we turned onto my road and demanded I take him home. I said "Sorry, I'm not going home, you can get out and walk from here if you don't want to go where I'm going," and turned around and headed for the highway.

At the top of the overpass as I was entering the turn lane for the interstate, he reached over and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Played keepaway with them. I got them back by placing his arm between my teeth and growling as the warning to drop them or I'll bite. (I meant it, too. I would have gone straight to the bone if that's what it had taken.) Threatened to do it again if I got on the highway. I told him "You will not touch me OR my car when I am driving ever again" and proceeded to enter the highway. When he calmly and smugly informed me that now I was kidnapping him and I'd be in big trouble if I didn't take him home right now, I drove back to my house because I didn't really know if he was bluffing or if he really had a case and that was the last thing I'd need.

I told him he no longer lived at my house, to get out tonight and pick up your stuff later. He unloaded the groceries in silence, then went up to his room and went to bed. That's right! What part of "get out tonight" did he miss?

The next day, he played hooky from work (his excuse: I was the crazy one, and he was worried about what I might do to his stuff while he was gone!), slept in half the day, then informed me that his hitting me was in self defense, and that I deserved it.

I'm no psychologist (but my sister is), but I know the mindset of an abuser when I see it. Why I didn't see it nine years earlier, I'll never know. Probably because he is not the obvious kind, he is the more subtle kind that plays it so close to the line that he barely crosses it... leaving tons of room for doubt. Are those comments deliberate snide insults designed to belittle me, or is he just not very sensitive and doesn't realize some of his "jokes" aren't funny? He never gets mad during arguments... he's only blown up a handful of times in ten years. Yet, I've been branded a "raving bitch" because when I get frustrated I tend to express my opinions and frustrations loudly at the top of my well-trained singer's voice instead of quietly.

When he said "you're just lucky it was me in the car with you and not my dad, because he wouldn't have stopped with one punch!" I realized how bad it was. It clicked. I asked if his dad beat them up. He said pretty much, yeah, a lot. So here he was, the victim of an abusive father, and in ten years of what I'd thought was friendship, following a good solid year or so of being a very intimate couple, he had never told me this. Oh, I knew his dad was a Grade A asshole, mean, nasty, belittling, and that nobody liked him at all, but I thought it was all bark and no bite.

I was so wrong.

Unfortunately, as was becoming quite clear, I was also the victim of long-term emotional, mental, and now physical abuse from him, and in my state of blindsided confusion, I was unable to reach out to him as a friend; I was only capable of seeing him through angry eyes. It may take years before I can put this behind me.

That was May 10th. I suffered a long, eggshell-walking month trying to get him moved out. I managed to win a deal with him—first time ever!—and bought out my share of the Roland VS-2480 recording equipment we'd co-purchased three years ago before he realized what he was losing (because they don't make the hard drive version anymore, they come with onboard CD burners now and he wanted the removable hard drive version, used... which doesn't exist except on eBay, and he refuses to buy sensitive equipment off eBay). He finally got all of his stuff out by June 14th. I immediately took a vacation to my sister's, and came back to discover my neighbor's cat's kitten's situation. That's another story, but the end result of that was that I now have five cats. Three biguns, two littleuns. Total poundage: 52.73. My cats weigh, individually, 23 lbs., 12.13 lbs., 11.6 lbs., and 3 lbs. each for the kittens.

Somewhere in the middle of June I went to a new doctor regarding some female issues and was prescribed Wellbutrin. Interesting drug. Not sure what it's doing to me emotionally, but it has helped me overcome the 3 AM anxiety and the worry loop (wake bolt upright at 3 AM, in a panic, unable to get back to sleep from all the worry in the cyclic worry loop), and the bonus benefit is that it has totally killed off my appetite. I started this year topped out at 187. I'm down to 174 and losing, since June, in part because of the South Beach Diet (not strictly adhering, just adjusting my own eating habits) and in part because of the drugs. The slogan should be "feel great, look great".

By the second week of July, I rediscovered my motivation, and began more frequent trips to the barn. We had some great sessions, some OK sessions, and the last one was... well, awful as far as teaching goes, but great also because I discovered how good her "stick-to-me" game is and how good our BringBack at Liberty is getting. I've also discovered big major gaping Holes in my L1 knowledge base.

For example, I'm sending her wrong on the Squeeze game. No wonder she gets confused! The Send position for Circling is, you're facing the horse, and you spread out your legs, turn in the direction you want her to go and point and look that way. The Send for Squeeze... well, imagine we're in a round corral and there's a barrel lying on its side scooched up next to the fence. I'm standing lined up with the barrel facing the fence. She's supposed to squeeze between me and the fence and over the barrel (jump). Beginning position, the horse is off to my right.

What I've been doing:

1. Facing the fence
2. Opposite shoulder (side she'll land on) parallel to the fence
3. Point to where I want her to land

What I should be doing:

1. Face the horse
2. Opposite shoulder perpendicular to the fence, meaning my body forms a 90° angle to the fence
3. Point to where I want her to land

Oooooooops.

No wonder she looks at me funny before hesitantly taking the jump.

So I've spent the past few blisteringly hot dishrag days in front of the fan reading my L2 pocket guides very very carefully, step by plodding step, and watching not only the first L2 video several times (taking copious notes and pausing the tape when necessary) but also re-watching the L1 video several times and pausing at every step of each game to study Pat's exact positions.

The interesting thing is that everything on the video looks different now that I'm in L2; I understand why the Games are so important, and I now see very clearly how critical it is that you get the positions and steps right at L1 before tackling L2, because L2 builds on those steps. They truly are the foundation. Nobody understands what that means until they see the L2 tasks and it clicks in. The reason you put your left hand at the nose (Zone 1) and the right hand at the girth (Zone 2/3 cusp) for Porcupining the FQ is because in L2, you will alternate those hands to ask the horse not just to move the FQ around, but to move the far leg, then the near leg, and be able to control which leg goes first! I imagine by L3, maybe by the end of L2, you're not even touching the horse, you're just using the hand signals developed off of the original L1 Porcupine Game to ask your horse from 12 feet away to move the FQ away from you.

I've been kind of lax about it, because nobody ever pointed that out in a clinic. Suddenly, I'm paying closer attention to exactly what Pat demonstrates, and trying to think ahead as to what that might develop into down the road. (That must be a sign of increasing savvy.) I think that should be demonstrated in the clinics. The instructor should say, "I want you to practice it this way (L1 style) for now, but be very particular about hand placement because when you get to L2, you will use this same position to communicate to the individual legs [demonstrates], and later in L3 (or at Liberty), you'll influence the horse using the same positions from 12 feet away—so it's vital that you, and your horse, understand the Zones and how to influence them at L1 before moving into L2 and L3."

So I waffled for a month or so about signing up for Bruce's L2 clinic in Cincinnati in October, despite being offered a ride from the director of Serenity Farm (the therapeutic riding center for whom I designed and maintain the website) because I wasn't sure we'd be ready. Turns out it's an Advanced L2/Intro to L3 clinic. Yikes! I spoke with his business manager, Jen, one of the Cleveland NEON gals, about requirements for being in that level of a clinic. PNH doesn't specify much except that you are able to ride at walk trot and canter and are Official Level One (or have a large percentage of the tasks passed) and are currently studying L2. She went over some of the things Bruce emphasizes in his clinics, and my mission is to cram for the next two months.

Well, I'm pooped. That's enough of an update for now. My new year's resolution: to update my blog more frequently, as in daily or after every session/horseday. That way I won't forget a thing!