So far so good

Yesterday I left around noon. Stopped in Richmond for a yogurt and a coffee. That was a challenge, trying to find something nutritious at a gas station stop. Everything is either white flour or sugar, it seems, in your average gas station. I found some lonely little yogurt cups tucked behind the pillar of a refrigerator, looking almost like they were ashamed to be in such company.

I drove down to Waitsfield after that, where a nice man had been waiting for me for a long time to show me the car. Brent looks like a younger version of Cordell. He was there with two small children. He told me the car in question was called "Ellie." He said that his daughter specifically requested that I know that. So we sat down in the car, a Volvo 240 from 1989, and he started telling me all about it, and then he said, "The only things that don't work are the air conditioning and the cruise control." I sagged. Either of those was a deal-breaker. Note to self: Always ask what's wrong with a car before going to see it.

So that put my day off rather a lot. I had been thinking of trying to get to Boston to see Elaine Bulman, but she didn't return my call that I left at her work. My guess is that she wasn't even in yesterday; she's usually pretty good about returning phone calls. So I decided to head for Manchester, VT to do a little shopping at the outlets there.

On the way down, I started recording a quasi-book on my cell phone. This became tedious, so I stopped at Radio Shack in Rutland and bought a portable recording device, headphones with microphone, and some batteries. Then I decided it was too late in the afternoon to go to the outlets in Manchester and headed west on Route 4 towards the New York throughway (Route 87).

As I drove along I recorded whatever came into my head. I'm thinking that a sort of mini-book about traveling--traveling away from all the hurt of the past few months while traveling further and further into my own past--would while away the boring moments of the trip. I talked a lot about my very recent ex-boyfriend's life and my own experience of him, and tried to examine how I got into the situation with him I was in until yesterday morning. It was a good exercise. Clearly people are complex. Everybody, and every relationship, has light and dark sides. But my main error was--as always--that I didn't believe in myself. Maybe this trip will help.

I stopped at a Japanese restaurant and ate spring rolls and won-ton soup and drank some tea. The bill was less that $5.00. So far so good in the saving money department.

I got to Lake George and discovered, lo and behold, outlets! So I stopped at Orvis and Brooks and was directed around the building to the next shopping center over. There I found the boots I was looking for and a sort of black cat-suit that I planned to wear under a summer dress to convert it into a hip winter outfit.

I got on the highway, then, and went south, chatting all the way to my recording device. It was very, very windy--leaves blowing all over the place so loud I coul hear the impact recording on the sound track as I talked. It got dark and a bit spooky.

I got off the highway at New Baltimore and found a tiny room (feels about the size of a large Christmas present) in a Best Western. I watched tv, ate out of the snack machines, and talked to Oliver and Dad on the phone. I like this hotel. the people are friendly and they look like North Country people (the women wear neither bras nor makeup).

And now I'm ready to set off again going south. I'll call some of the friends I'm going to visit today after nine or so.

Changes

Chiron's Grove has had to shut down for economic reasons.

I have been grieving about that & about various family court things for the past several months. But now that the dust has settled, I'm looking for a way to rebuild my life.

Chapter One: Breaking up with a wonderful man who nevertheless drags me down. Check.

Chapter Two: Peruse Facebook and make a list of friends to visit with the next five days that I have off from all parenting and dating obligations (due to the breakup listed above and to the fact that the boys are with their father this weekend).

Soon after I woke up this morning, I decided to capitalize on my new-found freedom by visiting friends who are far enough away to require more driving than your average bored 13- and 10-year-old would want to sit through to see. I made a phone call to the Mennonite-Your-Way people and am awaiting an email with a list of hosts in the towns I'm targeting: Boston, Philadelphia, the Lancaster area, and Harrisonburg, VA. Boston has grad school friends, Philadelphia and its environs has relatives, Lancaster has high school and college friends, and Harrisonburg has an old and much loved roommate. I hope that by getting in touch with people from way back I can get better in touch with myself and thus answer the question that burns after the kind of upheaval I've been through: How shall I then live?

Now that Mother's Day is Over--Brothers' Day

This is dedicated to my brothers, who don't consider that sisters count as women, but hey, it's a MANtage.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Getting Close to April 15th

The hose was too short. The pump was broken so it was running all the time. What to do?

Meg

Meg and Magic on a long trail ride. Meg is a good horse to put new riders on in the ring and intermediate riders on for the trail. She LOOOOOVES the trail!

Meg ahead of us on the left.

Meg's beautiful eye.

When we first got her, I couldn't ride her because I'd just had shoulder surgery. She's so beautiful!

Math Magic Trick

I posted this before but couldn't get the videos to load. Now they should work.

Math Magic Trick, Part II

I cheated and kept the camera on a bit because they were so CUTE!

Math Magic Trick, Part III

Mikey will solve this difficult math problem in SECONDS. It's magic!

Too Hilarious!

This one's for you, guys.

The Reality of the Heart

Alex and I rode Meg and Cocoa (Chiron's Foxtrot, pictured above) the day before yesterday as part of their training for the Mud Ride coming up April 25th & 26th. Anna came along on Dante. 

It was raining. Nobody cared.

Picture the action of a Saddlebred Morgan cross. If you can't, I'll tell you what you need to know: they have shoulders that are sloped way backwards, unlike other horses. This causes a few things to be different. For one, they hold their heads very high. Those shoulders are set so far back and slope in a way that pulls the neck and head up in a beautiful, muscular arch. For another, they can reach very high with their front feet. Again, the shoulders are out of the way so they can have amazing action going on in front. Key word: Drama. And also, when you ride this type of horse, you sit further back so that you aren't limiting that wonderful shoulder action. But this means that you can't just plunk up and down on the post. You aren't landing on shoulders that are supported by legs when you post--you are landing on the weakest part of the horse's back. It is necessary to be a good partner for your horse that you ride smooooothly.

I have never done this before meeting Cocoa and getting him to the point of being ridden (after a good year & a half of effort because he was PSYCHO HORSE whe he first got here). The first time I rode him at the trot I couldn't figure out why he bounced me back up into the air each time I tried to land it. Alex said, "Stay up longer. Stay up for two."

"Two what?" I asked, going th-thud th-thud th-thud all the while.

"Two--you know, two! Two of the things you do when you post?"

"What, like go up on the right going forward, touch down, then (th-thud) go up on the (thud) left going forward?"

"WhatEVER," he said, losing interest.

Teenagers, I thought. What's the use of having a bloody talented kid working at your farm if he can't tell you what makes him great? (Hi Alex).

I thudded around a bit more, then went in and did the research.

Next time, I was ready. Treeless sheepskin saddle--my favorite, favorite saddle of all time. Sit the wrong way--instead of ankles, ass, & head in a line, sit like you're on a Harley. Davidson, I mean. Feet way forward, trust your body to stay on. Square those shoulders. Notice the extra leverage across the reins to the head--wow can you ever keep that horse in a line sitting so far back. Hands up, chin up, smile.

And it was magical. Sitting so far back, I could use rear haunch power to propel the post. It wasn't up-down, up-down any more, it was glide up&forward, relax, up&foward, relax. No banging on his back. And then he cantered. Glorious! He kept his head up--he reached dramatically up so high and forward it was like he was reaching to gather the whole land and sky under him for the next bound forward. That rear was right under me, propelling him with incredible power, and yet--there I was, in the midst of all this drama and action, hardly moving at all. Sit back, I reminded myself. Head up, chin up, smile. 

Just then we moved up on Meg, who was doing an ordinary horse canter, and Alex. I turned my wrists for extra elegance, straightened my shoulders, liftd my chin a little more, then turned only my head sideways and smiled at him as we passed. "Bye-bye!" I sang.

"You...!" he said, startled, but just then we were in the zone and he--he just wasn't. He was riding an ordinary horse. We galloped handily past. But I felt like I was sitting in a rocking chair.

Truly this horse needs to be ridden side-saddle by a beautiful woman with long flowing skirts, a  a tailored cut jacket that emphasizes a shapely bosom, a completely unnecessary riding crop that just serves to show off how steady the hands are, and an elegant hat set at a rakish angle.

What's particularly wonderful about this horse is that, even on the dirt roads of Charlotte, clad with dirty barn clothes and a cheap knit hat, drenched and dripping, I am that woman. 

Reality on a horse is always the reality of the heart.

Story on a String

I love coming across objects that tell a story.

Two days ago, Elizabeth and I were exercising Teddy and Memphis. Danny and Mikey were at home and had been told not to let the dogs follow us. We went about three mils and as we came up over the hill to the driveway, two happy black dogs came bounding up onto the dirt road from the farm's entrance. "How did they get out?" we both said, and then we noticed the long blue baling twine each dog had attached to her collar, and laughed.

Danny and Mikey had been in the house with the dogs when the dogs started to bark and howl and whine to go outside. Danny became afraid that Molly (Elizabeth's dog) wanted to pee, but he wanted also to follow directions and keep her at home. So he found some blue plastic baling twine and tied it to the back door and to Molly's collar. Then Shadow wanted to go out too, so Danny tied him out beside Molly. And of course they both broke free and were running around dragging their blue strings behind them when we came home.

I had to laugh, thinking of how the string carried its story to me. Danny's earnest fingers had left a sheen of meaning around that string.

This got me thinking of other things that tell vivid stories. A wet towel on the floor. Lipstick on a glass of wine in somebody else's house.  Jars of applesauce in the freezer. Stitches on a hand-made quilt.

What are your favorite things that tell stories?

Killing Chickens

We didn't get to (let's call her) Penny's until about 12:30. Her friend Kathy was not pleased because we had been due about an hour and a half before that. Why we were so late could fill another blog post, but none of it is my business to talk about & so I'll stay silent on that subject.

Penny has an injury to  her knee that makes it painful for her to walk around and causes her to lose her balance on occasion. She also has a farm to run, with everything from ducks to Belgians living on about an acre. Once when I went to Penny's house, she was out back, and after I walked in the front door I found myself looking down this wolf-dog's throat. His name is "Fang" (yes, that's his real name). Fortunately, Penny also has another dog who makes it his business to protect people from Fang. That is why I still have a throat. I stood frozen just inside the door, unable to leave because dogs like Fang see retreat as proof that they are the winners and attack full out, and unable to go further into the house because that would have enraged him to the point that the other dog would not have been able to hold him off. After about ten minutes, Penny happened to walk back inside and she called him off.

The meat chickens, our business of yesterday, live(d) in a chicken coop about the size of a large bathroom. Because of Penny's injury, the chicken coop hadn't been cleaned in at least a month. It was filled with a clay-like combination of chicken excrement and sawdust. The sun was shining on the chicken coop and the smell was overwhelming. Danny held his nose, then started to gag and walked quickly out. Alex and I held our breath and looked at each other. "We can't work in here," we said simultaneously.

I looked around for Penny, but not finding her, we started moving the apparatus outside: the table made of a 4x8 plywood sheet and two sawhorses, the plucker, the buckets for blood and entrails, and the cone. We were halfway finished when Penny came out of the house. "What's this?" she demanded. Alex got a look of fear on his face. I quailed inwardly, too. Penny angry is one of the scarier things life has to offer. She is not tall, but she is strong and she has a voice you can hear from the other end of Charlotte.

I walked over to her. "Penny, we can't work in there."

"Why not?" she demanded again.

"Because the sun has been shining on the chicken coop roof and warmed it up in there. The smell is awful, and the floor is slippery."

"I wanted all the mess in one place! That's how I had it planned out!" She had talked frequently during the previous several days about how she had it all figured out so that it was "user friendly" to get the chickens through the process. I felt bad for her.

"I know--but the last time we did this, it was so cold that we couldn't smell anything."

"Fine!" she snapped. "Let's not do it. It's too late in the day anyway!" She continued shouting. "I've had it!  Just leave it alone! I don't want to do this any more!"

I just looked at her. "Penny, don't be like that. We're here, and I know it's late, but honestly I do my best. I have my own farm to run," I explained, feeling oddly guilty about that fact and resenting feeling guilty.

Alex said, "Let's get started."

We both turned and walked into the chicken coop and started hanging up ropes so we could dangle the chickens by their legs to make them sleepy & calm prior to killing them. Then we got some extension cords and hooked them up to the plucker and the scalder. I started catching chickens and hanging them up. 

I first selected a mild white meat hen who was sitting unflappably (ha) on the ground like a forgotten white soccer ball. 

She beat me up.

"Do like this!" said Alex, annoyed as only a teenager can be with my ignorance. He grabbed a chicken by the leg and used his forearm to shove its head down. As soon as the head pointed straight down, the wings stopped beating. Wrinkling my nose at the overwhelming stench now augmented by a close view of chicken anus, I took the chicken from him and tried to find a way to hold it by the legs, tie a string around them, and avoid being beaten or scratched. Somehow I managed it, but only because I was wearing the Vermont equivalent of a suit of armor. I tied the string to a nail in the roof and left the chicken to hang there. She flapped around a bit and then hung still.

I tried not to breathe as I picked up the next chicken. White feathers spotted with the chicken excrement/sawdust mixture. Flapping wings beating on me and flinging said mixture in every direction--on my clothes, my face, in my hair, sometimes in my eyes, and once, perilously close to my mouth. Claws scratching and clutching and digging into my hands (I had to leave my gloves off so I could tie the strings). I swore and stuffed her head down with my forearm, then tried to ignore what I had to touch and smell and see as I tied strings around the bird's legs. Another one done. I hung it up and looked for the next one.

I spotted another deceptively calm white hen, reached gently under her and grabbed a leg. Something squished between my fingers and I said involuntarily, "Ugh."

Alex glanced my way. "You all right?"

"Yeah, it's just disgusting. How did you and I end up getting stuck in here?"

He laughed. "I know."

Poetic justice, I guess, I thought as I pushed the hen's head down and started trying to get the baling twine around the shit-covered feet.

I heard intense squabbling behind me. "One down!" said Alex cheerfully, tossing a chicken head into a bucket. Now here is where you might want to close your eyes. I'll tell you when it's over--look below for bold lettering. 

We both watched as the hen flapped around on the end of the string. Blood went everywhere, mixing with the chicken shit and sawdust slime on the ground, spattering our clothes and our faces. 

"Maybe we should use the cone," I suggested.

"I don't know how to use that thing," said Alex. "At home, we have a chopping block and an axe. You grab a chicken, put it down and hold it stretched out. One chop and you toss the head one way and the chicken the other way. Somebody else grabs the chicken and keeps it from bruising itself."

"Ah," I said. "Penny doesn't have an axe." 

"I know," said Alex, "I already asked her. And she doesn't have a chopping block, either." He looked at me, the gore-covered knife hanging dripping in his hand.

We watched with loathing as the chicken slowly stopped flapping around. Usually when a chicken is flapping around so much, you hear it screaming, "Buck, buck, buck, buck buuuuuuck!" It was weird to see this one making the same visual kerfuffle without the sound effects.

In the end a large puddle of blood lay shining on the wet, clay-like chicken shit floor. We left that chicken to drain out and I caught another while Alex killed the next one. 

It's safe to read now. 

This routine continued. I deliberately didn't watch whenever I knew Alex was making a cut. I noticed a metallic element to the odor.

After another 5 chickens, Alex said, "This knife is dull. I can't kill the chicken with one cut."

Stop reading again.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Would it help to use the cone?"

'I doubt it." He started on the next chicken, and this time I watched to see what the problem was. What I saw made me almost sick enough to vomit.

Alex stretched out the chicken's neck, sliced at it, and opened up an artery. He made another cut, and then started to hack, and it took maybe three more hacks to get the chicken's head off.

"I'm sorry!" he said, noticing my face. "It's this stupid knife!"

He looked as upset as I felt. "Here, let me have it," I said. "It's not your fault."

"I know, but I hate doing it like this!" 

It's safe again.

"Can I try one?" It was Alex's little cousin, watching through a window.

"NO," said Alex, firmly. "You stay out of here." He sounded so much like a kid talking to a youner relative that I wanted to tell him the same thing. But Alex comes from a tough family of chicken and turkey savvy Vermonters. His gruesome task may have bothered him, but he wouldn't lose sleep or have nightmares.

I, on the other hand.... But I wasn't going to indulge myself. Looking at the situation dispassionately, the chickens were just plain going to be losers today, more so than I would have liked. Penny was hurt and couldn't try to walk on the slime; James the expert chicken-killer was not available; Kathy was a grey-haired birdlike woman wearing a wool dress coat (no help there); our only other two helpers were my son Danny and Alex's ten-year-old cousin. I didn't want Danny even watching what was going on in the chicken coop, much less helping us. Furthermore, Penny was spending hundreds of dollars a week feeding her various animals. She couldn't do the work herself and so they either went hungry or she was relying on people like her neighbors to feed them, and Lord knows each one of us was maxxed out just trying to tread water. Turning those chickens into food, and doing it that day when Alex and I could be there to help, was the only intelligent choice to make. And I'm sorry, little chicken ghosts, that you couldn't die more gently.

The only comfort is that chickens are horrid creatures. A chicken is basically a limbic system with claws, feathers, and a beak. No higher-order thoughts exist in chickens' minds. They are pure impulse. Witness the fact that...

Cover your eyes again.

...the ones who were waiting to be chosen not only displayed no fear, but they were drawn to the already-dead chickens and pecked at their bloody necks and at the blood on the floor. They pulled on the gore hanging down from the severed necks, and I have to tell you that once I saw that, I got over my distress at the fact that we were killing the little bastards.

Okay, it's safe.

Time wore on slowly in that horrid, stench-filled coop. (I now understand why "cooped up" came into common useage to describe a claustrophobic feeling. It is truly awful. Chicken stench is second only to dog stench in obnoxiousness.) But there we were until the job was done: I grabbed, tied (sometimes Alex had a minute to help me tie the strings on), and hung, Alex did the same, but also cut them, and whenever his knife's edge wore down I went and sharpened it. After a little while I stuck the sharpener into my ski pants belt loop like a light sabre, then took the knife, wiped it on some snow outside, leaving a trail of gore, and then sharpened it and gave it back to Alex. He grabbed and tied whenever I did that.

About halfway through, I realized that the little red chickens among the white ones were difficult to catch. "We probably should catch these little guys before we can't crowd them in with the slower ones," I said. I snatched at one.

Air.

What the...? I could have sworn I had it's feet! I snatched again, and was again handily avoided. The next one left a tail feather in my hand. But finally I cornered one and caught it. It flapped and scratched and dug a sharp set of claws into my index finger, puncuring the skin and drawing blood. "Ick!" I said. Germy little cretan bird! 

I handed him to Alex. "He's Next," I said. 

He looked at me and laughed. "What'd he do?"

"He gave me a puncture wound."

"You better get a band-aid," said Alex.

"Penny, you got band-aids?" I asked.

"What?" from outside.

"Never mind." I just wanted to finish and get the hell out of there.

So, grimly, we worked. The smell got worse as the manure was kicked up, flapped around, and mixed with blood and gore. 

I hated every minute in that chicken coop.  Usually, no matter how bad your minutes are, if somebody asked you, "Would you rather live those minutes or die a few minutes early and skip them?" most of us would say we prefer to live that life, our lives, at almost any given moment, even the painful moments. But that time in the chicken coop I would trade.

Finally, the last chicken was dead and hanging. We emerged into the dying sunlight for the next step--cleaning the birds.

Our table was set up in the middle of all the animal pens. The wind came through, and though the day was unusually warm (37F), wet hands became quickly extremely cold. But you could warm them up with each chicken.

Each chicken was first dunked in the hot water the scalder kept warm. Unfortunately, the scalder had a short, which meant that if you tried to put a chicken in it you got a shock. So Penny used the baling twine that was around each chicken's legs to dip it into the water and bob it up and down for a few minutes. 

Then the chicken went to the plucker: a machine that looked rather like a music box, and worked on the same principle, except the drum was of course much larger--the size of a toaster oven--and the little knobs sticking off of the wheel were rubbery spirals. The wheel spun rapidly and somebody would hold a chicken by the legs and let is ride along on the vibrating rubber thingies, turning it and adjusting it so that the rubber thingies could drag the feathers out by the follicles.

After the de-feathering, the chicken came to the table to be "cleaned." First, you cut a slit on the right side of the neck as it faces you, and take out a little pouch full of food that was attached to the skin at what you might think of as the chicken's shoulder. Then you flip the bird around and cut horizontally just above the anus, or about and inch and a half up from the tail (the bird is lying on its back). Then you reach in and grab the entrails and pull, trying not to break them and you pull them out in a big gobby mess. That's when your hands get warmed up.

The innards should end up lying on the table attached still to the bird at the anus. You cut that out and discard the tail and whatever entrails you don't need for soup.

Danny enjoyed this part. I gave him a whole set of entrails and he examined and dissected everything he found: kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, spleen, and gizzard.  "I found the left ventricle!" he would say, or "What's this called?" holding up the spleen oozing its green pigmented fluid.

Just as the sun was going down, we finished, shivering and exhausted. I had taken one break to go home and get Mikey. I tried to eat a little before I went back, but although I was hungry, all food looked like the product of horrible processes, and I couldn't stomach anything except a few carrots.

We gathered up the hose, disposed of the entrails, threw the bad chicken carcasses to the wildlife (those with infections or that were otherwise uneatable), put the plucker on the porch, and got out of there. I felt by then like Dante escaping from the lowest pit of the Inferno.

At home, I wanted a drink, but I had to feed my horses and Cow. I was shivering as I went back out to the barn and gave out grain, hay, and water. I also felt contaminated with chicken blood. Danny stoked the fire and Mikey started emptying the dishwasher. I had two cases of chicken carcasses with me for cutting up and freezing, so after dinner and after the children were in bed, I came back downstairs and started cutting the birds into pieces for freezing.

I did about ten of them before my hands started to swell up. I had a few painful cuts that needed soap and water and a night's rest to fight the rampant bacteria that was in them. So I poured ice over the chickens that were in the house, made sure the lid was secure on the ones that were outside, got a class of wine, and finally sat down on the sofa with my laptop. I chatted with an old friend for a while, then gave it up and fell into a reddish-tinged sleep in which the images of the day flickered across my mind and made me jump awake a few times.

I went and listened to my children breathe, trying to put it all into place somehow. Death in life, life in death. I feel the dot from the ying and yang image in my own chest, the tension of death and life and how I live on the edge of a blade, pulled both ways, for the brief time that God inhales once and then I wave to my carefully balanced children as I finally fall.

I found my glasses and went back to bed with a book. As I lay in bed I heard the coyotes start singing, probably over in that big meadow I like to gallop across and where if I ever fall off, people will not find me unless they know me really well. Why are they singing? I wondered. Must be a rabbit.

An owl hooted. "Who cooks, who cooks, who cooks for yoooooouuuuuu," he sang, with a dying fall. If music be the food of love, play on, I thought, ridiculously, not knowing that the next day I would find in the driveway the duck's carcass that he had eaten only the head off of, in his fastidious, owl-like way. Owls like brains and they like what they can reach down a carcass's neck--that's all. I wish they would invite the bobcats for dinner, at least, instead of leaving so much to go to waste.

After a long while I fell into another restless sleep that lasted until morning. 

a bit of the daily

So far today: fed and watered all the horses, then put the hose away. Took about an hour and a half. Went to Mikey's class and helped with a big project. Got to know some of the other children in the class. The boys in this class are kind & intelligent. Mikey and I talked some with Isaac about how his family handled the recent death of his grandfather.  I helped Owen make a hay rack and helped Mikey with his cleaning up.

Home to rearrange the horses so that Moon & Beauty could have a little time outside. Moon is a stud, so this is tricky. Can't let him near any mares, especially mares in heat. He was quite well behaved this morning and I put him in the ring with Teddy and Cow. Moon seems to like Cow.

Got an email from a friend & so had to go and pick up some stuf that belonged to me. Now that's all in the car and needs to be unloaded, sorted, and cleaned. It's saddles, bridles, saddle pads, boots, jodhpurs, lead ropes, halters, buckets, feeding tubs, a big wagon, a pony harness, and so on. It's good to have it back at home here.

In 1/2 hour I go to meet the boys at the bus stop, spend a little time with them, and then go to pick up Alex at his house so we can get hay and start cleaning and organizing the tack. We also need to ride.

Then I'll be taking Alex home and starting dinner. Not sure how to do both at the same time. After that, the boys & I will relax in front of the fire and watch Lost on abc.com.

No time, really, to ride, but if I see an opportunity I will take it.

Bella Healthy

Bella is the big horse nipping at a fly. You can't see her real well, but you can at least see that she isn't bony.

She's a great horse to ride bareback when she's at the right weight.

A (Hopefully) Rare Visit to the Soapbox

Rather than spending her time gathering money to pay for Bella's and Rosie's vet fees and giving my friend back her board money, the owner of the farm the two horses were staying at has decided to go on a mud-slinging campaign against yours truly. Every unfounded rumour spread by horse people (horse people are a catty lot, go figure) is being spread about me now.

It doesn't matter very much. Anybody who owns a horse is going to have another person who owns a horse saying nasty things about them. And everybody who owns horses has friends who think they're great. The same is true here. The owner of that farm has many happy clients and many people learning excellent skills from her. And the horses that I saw at her farm yesterday, when I went to check while I was deciding whether or not to report her to the police, were on the thin side, but basically fine. I think Rosie and Bella were unlucky because they are special: in Rosie's case, she is an enormous horse (a Percheron) who eats surprising amounts of hay, and in Bella's case, she was, until a few weeks ago, a nuring mother. Just try nourishing a growing foal without becoming a bag of bones.

However, no matter how you look at it, the two horses came away from her stable undernourished and neglected. Either they are both sick, in which case the stable owner ought to have noticed, or they were not fed enough. It seems unlikely that both horses would be sick enough to drop hundreds of pounds over the course of the last few months without other horses being infected or without any other symptoms. The vet hasn't been here yet, but I think we will discover that they become well with a simple course of adequate nutrition. 

The moral of the story: If you have a horse at a stable, be careful in these hard times, because perfectly decent people are cutting corners and are missing things (like that two out of the twenty-five or so horses at the facility are not doing well). You have to watch out for your own horses, no matter how much you are paying to have them cared for or how prestigious the barn is. (The barn in question has enjoyed a decent reputation, with only the normal amount of rumours surrounding it, up until now.)

The stable owner messed up. She is not a bad person, but she made a mistake, and it has hurt two innocent creatures and the people who love them. Other good people will make mistakes during hard times. We all need to support each other, but also when we do mess up we have to admit it and try to make amends.

From here on in, my focus is to get Bella and Rosie back to their glistening, happy, radiant selves.

Poor Horse

I am so upset that I had nightmares last night about yesterday's events. My friend and neighbor brought her two horses, Bella, who has been here before, and Rosie, who was with Bella at another stable, back to Chiron's Grove. They had been gone since last summer, when my friend brought them to her house so that Bella could be there when she foaled. Subsequently, she moved Bella and Rosie over to another stable. 

Here's what happened. 

My friend and I walked up to the end of the driveway to lead the horses down from the trailer. The stable owner and her mother were parking up there as we walked up. They opened the back of the trailer and the door flew open. We could see the two blanketed horse's rears. The stable owner walked up to the front of the trailer and undid the lead ropes (both of them!) and then backed Bella out. Bella knows how to back out of a trailer, so she did fine. Then Bella swung around and faced me, and my jaw fell open. She was gaunt and glassy-eyed.  

I gasped. "She's awfully skinny," I said in an undertone to my friend. 

Just then Rosie, who is a big black 3-year-old Percheron, tried to turn around in the trailer and half backed, half fell as she tried to get out. She slipped, reared right up over my head, and started to flail as I jumped out of the way. Her body suddenly came slamming down right where I had been standing. "How did she get loose?" I snapped, now twice annoyed. Nobody said anything, but clearly the stable owner had untied both horses and then left Rosie unattended in the trailer while she backed Bella out.  

Fortunately, Rosie seems to be okay. "Seems" is an important word because horses are delicate and can crash later if their stomachs get twisted after a fall like that. I'm happy to say that we have seen no problems so far.  

My friend and I led the horses down the driveway, and I said, "I'm really surprised by how Bella looks. Look at her neck! She has no fat deposits along the top of it." My friend said she wanted to take their blankets off and having a look at them, but her daughter was at home sick so she couldn't stay. She saw them settled and happy in the paddock with the other horses, but then she had to leave.

 

I went into the house for my camera. I kept thinking about how very skinny Bella looked, but it was scary to go out there and remove her blanket. I knew it would be bad. Finally I had worked up my nerve and went back outside. 

Camera in hand, Elizabeth and I started unbucking the blankets. When we removed Bella's we both gasped. What we saw is in the next post. And from then on, the day was a blur. First, Bella and Rosie obviously needed food. They drank about ten gallons of water between them. Then we brought Bella (who was in the worst condition, though both horses look terrible) in and gave her some grain. Both are now on a diet of lots of grain & hay, with grain every six hours and hay around the clock.  

And I called the stable owner. I'll spare you the details of the conversation, but in the end I went to her barn and inspected every horse on the property, taking off many of their blankets and checking that they had clean water. All of them look a bit underweight, but none look as bad as Bella or Rosie. Bella and Rosie have good reason to be thinner, though. Bella just finished nursing a foal, and Rosie is huge and requires more food than most horses.  

The stable owner has so far not taken responsibility for what happened. She has many excuses, none of them convincing. She has not offered to give my friend her money back. My friend reported her to the police and I am waiting for them to come here to see Bella and Rosie. My friends have also notified reporter friends of theirs.

Beauty's Bag Last Night vs. This Morning

Horses at Chiron's Grove Part I: Chiron's Foxtrot

This is Chiron's Foxtrot. He's half Saddlebred, half Morgan. He is just learning how to be ridden. Obedient, flashy, engaged, smart, respectful of people. Dominant in the herd. Loves to play with babies and ponies. Chestnut with white blaze and white snip on his nose. Has a powerful, ground-covering extended trot that he can maintain for hours. I want to use him for endurance, but several people are interested in him. I'd like to see him go to Tina, who is an excellent trainer and will take good care of him. We're working out the details and hopefully can make it happen. But if that doesn't work out, I really want to ride him in the April Mud Ride, a 15-mile competitive trail ride. There are two days for that ride so I want to take two horses, and it would be great if he could be one of them.

Alex

We have a new trainer at Chiron's Grove, Alex Coyle. Alex has studied horse training with Clinton Anderson and Pat Parelli. He is an avid and highly successful Gymkhana rider, though he rides not only Western, but English and some dressage as well. He has successfully trained dozens of horses and also made his mark as somebody to go to if you want to find a mount to suit your needs. He has a knack for matching people with horses. 

Alex's stallion, Moon, is a gorgeous, well balanced, gentle registered paint champion. He is homozygous black, meaning he will never throw a red offspring. He is currently standing at stud here at Chiron's Grove.

Currently Alex is working on training our horses, but he will also be available to train other people's horses here at our training facility.

We are excited to be working with him. He has already begun whipping this place into shape and helping to stuff the barn full of hay. There is never a dull moment around him.

Missing the Children

It's one of those "long haul" times when the children are with their father for 5 days. I miss them. Marc allows phone calls only at 6:30 Thursday and Sunday nights. I keep thinking about them, though.

Poor Mustang

He's aching pretty much, according to the vet. He's very sore behind the withers, possibly from that fox-hunt where he got out of the trailer by backing underneath the butt bar and smacked his withers pretty hard. Also, he has a triceps muscle that isn't in great shape, and that is probably what Cordell found when he was shoeing him. He's on r&r for about a month. Randy (the vet) did an adjustment on his back that seemed to help his soreness on top. He massaged the sore muscle and taught me how to do some stretches.

Bad news: no riding Rocket for a while. Good news: I have other horses to ride and they will benefit.

Isis

Isis, daughter of Scotland's Golden Moon Beam, arrived this past Thursday. Some of you remember when her sire died. We didn't know that Bella was pregnant until after he was gone. His daughter was born 4 months ago. She, like him, is  a palomino. She looks exactly like him!

Pictures to come.

Scrub-a-dub-dub, three--wha?

By the time the sun set tonight, the ducks were on a downward spiral. They drank a little, but then went back to huddling down on the ground trying to keep themselves warm under their feathers. It's hard to see a duck's feet on the cold hard snow in winter without shivering oneself. I walked over and picked one up--no objection. I carried him into the house and put him in the bathtub. He began to drink the tepid water even before I set him down on it! I went back out for the other male, and then picked up the smaller female and brought her in with her friends. Look at the water shaking around them! I could hear their claws on the bottom of the tub going clickety clickety clack as they paddled for no real reason. Their eyes were wide open, unlike when they were outside wincing. They began softly to talk to each other, little chirpish squeezebox-like caressing syllables comparing their happiness at having suddenly found themselves in Heaven.

Muscovie ducks originated near Moscow. However did they get through those harsh winters? Nature has no mercy, no commitment to making an individual of a species happy as well as able to procreate before she dies.

What about us humans? Are we like Muscovie ducks able to survive a harsh environment with misery as a daily diet and survival the best goal? Does our fate differ from country to country or habitat to habitat?

Maybe that's why so many cultures have stories about a paradise lost. Maybe we all carry a sense that at some point we will be picked up from the harsh cold that has us cringing and calling up our best resources to bear it and placed in someplace with warmth and plenty and a cessation of misery.

Many of us see death as the magic messenger that frees us and shows us the way to Paradise. Some of us strive to detach, to cease wanting, to "live in the moment," because only by taking moments one by one can we bear them at all. It's almost like we were not meant to bear life, but we must, and to survive it (as it were) we must place ourselves in blinders so that it doesn't come at us all at once. Maybe that's why we invented time, the ordering of events, so that we could bear the weight of life.

I envied the ducks today. As I carried them I realized that my mittens had gotten layered over and over with dampness from trying to water the livestock and let them drink their fill before their buckets froze over. Each layer of dampness froze without drying, until my hands were each encased in balls of ice. Oddly, my insulating ice balls were warmer than the air around me!

Not long after, a friend pulled into the driveway and got out of her car and dug right into the task of comforting our frozen friends of the outdoors. She held gates for me, helped me break hay bales open and keep track of the twine, encouraged the 4-month-old filly to follow the herd to the barn, lifted heavy buckets up high enough so that the precious water would not be kicked over before it froze into a block of ice. Our lungs hurt and our tears froze on the rims of our eyes before they had a chance to evaporate (or fall). Our chins locked us into odd word formations as the muscles in our faces stiffened. I did not expect my friend, but she came to see how we were all doing. Her presence was to me what my gentle lifting hands were to my ducks. She showed me a warmth and sustenance in her caring companionship.

Maybe that's all any of us can do. I lift ducks, my friend lifts me. I lift my children, and they someday will probably find themselves astonishingly lifting both their parents. My neighbors are grieving and I bring them home-made pasta. I have shoulder surgery and my friends feed the horses. It's all the same.

It's all about helping other beings find Paradise.

Horse Doings

Rocket: doing five miles per day. In great shape, but gets sweaty. Needs a trim so he can cool better. We should be ready on competition day (January 24th, 25 mile competitive trail ride).

Jack: Starting to look more like an adult pony. Just too cute. Loves to play with Rocket.


Memphis: Doesn't have enough to do. I need to find a rider for her. Any small people who are good riders out there? She can carry up to 120 lbs easily and actually does fine with a little more. We had her pulling a sled the other day. She seemed to love it.  And the kids? Well, look at their faces.

Dante: Limping. Probably another abscess. He is with Cocoa over at Clark's right now.

Cocoa: Beautiful. Hasn't been worked in about a month & so has the Ali attitude again. 

Ed: Did a nice job on a trail ride the other day. Four miles mostly at a jog. What an easy horse to ride! Needed a firm hand to keep moving, though. Balked for Van.

Meg: That girl has so much potential! Loves her trail rides. Needs to work on organization such as breathing with her footfalls and keeping her middle straight when she canters (she goes all sort of diagonal and bendy when she canters). 

The rest of us:

Mikey is sleeping beside me. Has plans for the morning, wants me to wake him up at 6 when I get up. Got a new PSP game for his trip to Montreal next week. Cracked me up earlier today trying to find reasons I shouldn't stop to chat with people when I meet them out & about the world.

Danny was happy to be home but got cranky pretty quickly & maybe didn't have a good dinner because he needed one. Who knows--he's  a pre-teen and the way they take on food is jaw-dropping (for me, too). He had a smoothie & a kid cuisine. 

Lucy: tried to go on our ride today but got tired by the time we were at Magic & Alan's & Elizabeth's. She snoozed with them until I came back for her.

Shadow: actually did go along for the ride. Tried to take a short cut by going through Lewis Creek! I couldn't stop Rocket quickly enough & when I finally did & we went back poor Shadow had swum through the fast, icy, swollen creek to the side we were on, then hove himself out while I watched helplessly from the road.  His little head sticking up out of the water was one of the most touching things.... But after all he did it & was fine.

Mimoka: went home with Van. All five of her.

Midnight: doing better. Has only Shadow to play with but seems pretty happy to be dragged around and mauled by a big slobbery puppy.

We lost one duck the other day. Sad. The poor thing got locked in the grain room & I'm not sure how long it was in there.  Maybe two days. I found it only after it was weak from hunger & thirst. It was too late, though. It didn't recover & was dead by morning. I feel terrible for it.

Me: I have a cold. Going to sleep.

Mikey's funny thing today

Mikey: Mommy, why do you have to chat with people every time you stop to pick something up?
Me: Because it's good manners.
Mikey: Sulkily. Why do we have to have good manners?
Me: Because good manners are the oil of society.

Pause.

Mikey: Why does society need oil?