"Most Recent Horse Fallen Off Of" Revisited

I am taking back my answer to #6 on the Horse Questionnaire posted two days ago:

Most recent horse fallen off of: Change my answer to Quarterback, that lovely, slow, sweet Quarter Horse/Draft gelding that no one enjoys riding (except me) because he is so hard to keep moving. Well, I got him moving all right. We were zipping around at a smart trot, when suddenly his head dropped down, way down, as he stumbled hard and couldn’t seem to stop. In one of those flashes where you have an entire conversation with yourself in your head, I thought: “Oh no, he’s going to do a face plant...” but suddenly, he lurched to the left and recovered himself. Like a cartoon character, I kind of hung in mid-air, then hit the dirt as the brain flash continued: “I can’t believe this,” and as my right hip and head struck the hard ground: “Thank God for helmets.”

The other riders halted (ring etiquette). No one said anything, but I know they were probably having their own flashbacks. Riders all know this can and WILL happen. You just hope it won’t be too nasty. It’s part of what you take on when you swing your leg over a saddle, though I confess it feels a little different now than it did when I was 23. And one of those differences is knowing to listen to that little voice in my head that advised going to the emergency room to check out that sharp little pain on the left whenever I took a deep breath. Five hours later, I walked out with a pain prescription in hand and a diagnosis of a cracked rib.

But before leaving the ring, I got back on. And Quarterback got his carrots.

Blogging and Horsing Around

I have not been diligent with blog posts lately. I am becoming a weekend blogger. Each day at work feels like it contains about three weeks worth of tasks to be done. There are many plates to be kept spinning in the air, plus the occasional clean-up of one or two that crash to the floor now and then. This is not a complaint. I am grateful to be working at all. It’s just that by the time I get home, make dinner, take care of a few evening chores, there is not much energy left to write, so I enjoy everyone else’s instead.

A couple of weeks ago, Grey Horse Matters posted a questionnaire that was fun to read and more fun to do. They brought back some good memories of younger years and riding so many different horses:

1. How old were you when you first started riding? In my early twenties. On a whim with a friend to fulfill a childhood dream, we drove to a nearby riding facility and never looked back.
2. First horse ridden: Ratso
3. First horse trotted on: Tuffee (quarter horse/draft cross--everyone’s fave)
4. First horse cantered on: Tuffee
5. First Horse fallen off of: Lady, a Tennessee Walker, for pete's sake. Riding bareback for the first time. Very embarrassing.
6. Most recent horse fallen off of: Never-die Adonis, an Arab worthy of the name.
7. Most terrifying fall: My own TB, Dandy
8. First horse jumped with: Wendy
9. First horse who ran away with you: Buck
10. First horse that scared the crap out of you: Buck
11. First horse shown :!) Dandy
12. First horse to win a class with: Sadly; never won a class.
13. Do you/have you taken lessons: Yup.
14. First horse you ever rode bareback: The Tennessee Walker I fell off.
15. First horse trail ridden with: Trebor (robert spelled backwards)
16. Current Barn name: Don’t have a barn.
17. Do you ride English or western?: English
18. First Horse to place at a show with: Bayern
19. Ever been to horse camp?: No
20. Ever been to a riding clinic? Yes; both in Western & Dressage
21. Ridden sidesaddle? No. Looks beautiful but scary.
First horse leased: Forgot name. A lovely TB mare.
Last Horse Leased: Chip
24. Highest ribbon in a show: Third and as a beginner adult rider,am still proud of it.
25. Ever been to an 'A' rated show?: Oh, no....
26. Ever competed in pony games/relay races?: No but looks fun.
27. Ever fallen off at a show: No
Do you ride Hunter/Jumpers?: No.
Have you ever barrel raced?No but it looks like fun too.
30. Ever done pole bending?: No.
31. Favorite gait: Extended trot
32. Ever cantered bareback?: Oh no....
33. Have you ever done dressage?: Yes
34. Have you ever evented?: I prefer to live long.
35. Have you ever mucked a stall?: Yes. Lots. In fact, I enjoy this work.
36. Ever been bucked off?: Almost.
37. Ever been on a horse that reared: Yes, but stuck.
38. Horses or ponies. Horses, usually; sometimes ponies.
39. Do you wear a helmet?: I do now.
40. What's the highest you've jumped: About a foot.
41. Have you ever ridden at night?: Yes, a long time ago after a few glasses of wine with a horse-owning friend.
42. Do you watch horsey television shows?: Yes, as long as they are not tragic.
43. Have you ever been seriously hurt/injured from a fall?: No, thank God.
44. Most falls in one lesson: One
45. Do you ride in an arena/ring?: Yes
46. Have you ever been trampled by a horse?: No
47. Have you ever been bitten?: Not badly.
48. Ever had your foot stepped on by a horse?: Yup. Broken toes.
49: Favorite riding moment: Riding alone in the early morning in spring.
50. Most fun horse you've ridden: Flying High, who taught me how to canter properly.

Great Blue Herons & Elvis

This Great Blue Heron pair at their nest site is beyond the ability of my camera to capture, but if you peer into left of center, you will see a blue-gray shape hunched over a stick nest. The one on the top right had just snapped a large twig off a nearby deciduous tree and delivered it to its mate, who was busy arranging the furniture when this photo was taken.

My birding buddy and mentor, Suzanne, and I have teamed up in volunteering for a 7-month survey of these birds in our county for the NJ Fish and Wildlife Division, Endangered and Nongame Species. It was our first reconnaissance trip of the four areas we will be monitoring. Only three formal reports will be required; however, I already have a notebook organized to record far more than they are asking for, just because I love doing this kind of thing. You never know if they may want to know what other birds were around at the time, or what the temperature was, or what we ate for lunch.

No doubt you have seen these birds. Great Blue Herons are not uncommon. They look like flying vestiges of Archaeopteryx, the dinosaur from it is believed birds have evolved. It is the largest and most widespread of its family in North America and is usually found in wetland environments. Lucky for us that we are on the look-out for a bird that is FOUR FEET TALL and not a warbler the size of a potato chip.

Being birders, we discovered some rarities during our travels. I am certain NJ Fish and Wildlife would want to know about these:

The rare "Woodeman's Heron. Its weathered plumage indicates it is a mature bird and unusually faithful to the same habitat, regardless of the season.

A Mallard Elvis impersonator...or perhaps a Malloodle?

"What is Real..."

Recently I attended a meeting where the leader was speaking about her experience living in New Orleans during Mardi Gras time. We wore funny hats and boas for the occasion and listened to her description of this annual celebration:

“Everyone of all ages would come out to watch the parades: children, teenagers, young adults, grownups...and even older people too... (pause to clarify) those in their 50’s and 60’s... would come out to mingle with everyone else.”

“Older People?” Those in their 50’s and 60’s? Did this speaker really say that to our mixed audience?

“Sheeeesh!” I muttered. This wasn’t the first time I heard this speaker refer to “older people” and their wrinkles, gray hair and slowness of limb as if they were on some kind of mortal overtime and the earth only belonged to those under 40.

A line from the classic children's book, “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams comes to mind and won't let me go. It is essential to blog this. Right now.

...“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Meditation Medication

Every year it’s the same thing. On some anonymous March morning, I wander into my back yard and stroll around the muddy perimeter looking at dead grass and start picking up hundreds of twigs while taking note of how much more the moss is taking over the shady side of the property. The sky is gray but with a blue tinge to it, and the ground is soft and yielding. My jacket is unzipped.

I stand in front of the fairy garden. It looks undressed without its shroud of snow and ice. A few peanut shells are scattered over the collection of dried leaves, sticks and withered stalks. Then, suddenly, I notice something that wasn’t there last week and gasp.

The Snow Bells are up. The rosy toes of Bleeding Heart have also emerged, like periscopes on a private mission to see if winter is over. Dozens of the tri-fold tips of tiger lilies have sneaked in. All I have to do is stand here and spring just seems to happen. One winter day folds into another, we spend months pulling on winter coats and boots and gloves, we scrape the ice off the driveway, and then all of a sudden, dozens of robins are poking their bills into the dirt and skeins of geese are veeing north, calling and calling. The earth has turned.

Something in me turns over too.

I strike out for my usual 3-mile route around the lake, only this time, when I reach the corner by the market, I turn right and then left up the hill leading into the woods. I don't even think about it, but follow a desire calling from the top of my head. Just walk, down one woodland trail, then another, and another, occasionally resting on a sun-warmed log or lichen-covered rock. There is not a thought in my head. I am just an awareness drifting through the trees, smelling the morning air, stopping in the middle of crossing a creek to let the waves of rushing water wash my soul from head to toe. After four hours of this, I stroll back home.

Ken asked me where I had been so long. I told him I was just outside looking at the trees and the rocks and the birds and things.

“Just medicating, eh?” he asked.

“Yep,” I smiled. “Just medicating.”

Style and Functionality

No one wears chaps anymore. I am disappointed. Fashion minimums exist even in a barn. With a few minor adjustments, I can still fit into the chaps cut for me 30 years ago, even if it feels like my legs are squeezed into sausage casings. I don’t know if it’s just the northeast US that eschews the wearing of chaps or whether the entire horse world has rejected them. I see riders favor “half chaps,” which look like tight gators worn over the lower leg, with paddock boots. The other universal acceptable attire is high boots and breeches. I am already searching for some inexpensive versions of these.

My chaps were custom made for me long ago. Ed told me they would last a lifetime, and he was right. They were cut for me, with my measurements of waist, leg length and width. I even chose the color. They were the first piece of equipment I owned that symbolized my life as a rider.

After much use, the long flaps assumed my shape and wrapped themselves around my legs whenever I swung the waistband over my hips. All I had to do was fasten the heavy duty zipper at the top of each leg and run it down the sides. They were like long-legged slippers. We were, and still are, best friends.

We used to laugh about how chaps would help you “stick” to the saddle, which was considered kind of cheating. I think there is some truth to both. At this point in life; however, I will go to great lengths to avoid a fall off a horse. Even if you are not seriously injured, it still hurts like hell, and an absolute bitch to climb back on. And I don’t know how true it is that “you have to get right back on," as if one crippled re-ride will erase the memory of a hard landing. I have not tumbled often but enough to know it takes several times of getting back on over a period of days before my confidence fully returns. And as an “older rider” I am not sure any fall would not be serious.

But I am not going to think about that.

The sad thing is, my chaps are out of style. I am the ONLY one in the barn who wears them. But it goes beyond style or functionality. They connect me with an important part of my past. A long time ago, at a different and necessary stage in life, I sold my saddles and bridles and halters, gave away brushes and hoof-picks, but kept my chaps. The inside of each leg is no longer a soft cocoa brown, but rubbed dark and smooth and shiny, a tangible history of every horse I ever rode. My chaps are my personal patina of life and passion, witness to my connection, not only to the animal that provided them in the first place, but to every horse who moved their bodies in rhythm with mine. My chaps stick me to a living past and, at the same time, boost my confidence in returning to a powerful presence.

I will be wearing them at my nest lesson this Sunday.

Wordless Wednesday-New (Recession-proof) Home Owner

Not Perfect is Just Fine

What a necessary pleasure it is to enjoy some solitude in the quiet spaces of a rainy morning at home. This is a rare and blessed event. Every cell of my body is soaking in each silent second. I am not even playing any soft or meditative music, preferring the croak of newly arriving grackles and the conk-a-ree of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Weekly riding lessons continue. My strength and stamina are picking up, little by little, so I don’t pull up exhausted after a few rounds of the ring at a posting trot. Sara, my instructor, is letting my little half hour lessons stretch out longer and I don’t limp for two days afterwards. I actually managed to canter twice around the ring on a reluctant lesson horse who wasn't interested in doing anything beyond standing still. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that it has taken this long to push a horse into a canter. The private horses I used to ride were more sensitive to my signals, and there were one or two that would even respond to the thought: Canter. Really, that’s true. But lesson horses have learned lots of avoidance techniques. I don’t blame them but instead am grateful for their patience at the slow recovery of my own riding skills.

Some lessons are better than others but the frustrating ones serve to remind me of my reason for having returned to this beloved, addictive, sometimes tragic and frightening world of horses. As an older, returning rider, it doesn’t matter this time around that my transitions from one gait to another are not perfect, or my circles look more like wiggly ovals. All that is important is to be safe and to handle the horse correctly. Other than those two things, the only judge I will have is the one in my own head, who is learning an important lesson in how to have fun while surrendering unreasonable self-criticism and expectations. As we walk around the ring at the end of a ride, I am filled with the contentment that doing what I can do in any given moment is just fine.

A Few Signs of Spring

Well, it’s been almost a week since my last blog post. I apologize for not checking in sooner. It’s that time of year when I feel as colorless and dull as my surroundings, the time of year when it seems winter will never end, when crusty piles of gray snow are still slumped on the dull landscape. There is not a leaf in sight. Despite a few unusually warm days this week, we still have single digit degree temperatures in the morning.

But outside my open window, a Song Sparrow is practicing its spring nuptials. A Mockingbird has been hopping around in the holly tree in the vicinity of last year’s nest site. A pair of Mourning Doves have been twittering around the deck and looking at each other with bedroom eyes. I hear the Cardinals’ repeated phrase “I need you, I need you.” And a special treat: A Red-bellied woodpecker has been drilling a nest hole in a tree right outside my den window.

The Pine Siskins are still around. Their high-pitched songs can be heard among the chorus of Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles and Blue Jays as they vie for a corner of the oak trees. And I have a sudden desire to go outside....

It's Still Winter

Where's the hosta?

More Pine Siskins

Thistle seed has been flying off the store shelves, and then off our deck railing as scores of Pine Siskins have elbowed their way through our usual flocks of goldfinches, titmice and chickadees to take advantage of feeders that have replaced their failed cone crop in the boreal regions they call home. Some of us suckers who have spent grocery money on seed are starting to wonder, like houseguests who have stayed too long, ummmm...when are they going to go home?

The following is a wonderful commentary by fellow Jersey birder, John Workman, whose warmth, sense of wonder comes through in everything he writes. With John's permission, the following is a post from the NJ Listserv about Pine Siskins:

"...day or two ago, Susie R. asked if siskins were "stocking up reserves" for
the trip back north. They do beef up whenever and wherever they can, even
though siskins might not all fly north for a while yet. These highly active
birds eat a lot because they have to in order to survive in the harsh, cold
north.

In fact, research done in the ‘70s and 80s in Michigan on cardueline
finches showed that Pine Siskins have an amazing ability to withstand extreme cold.
If they are able to remain dry and out of the wind, they can endure
temperatures of 60 to 70 degrees below zero Centigrade (which, if my math is
correct, would equal 76 to 94 degrees below zero Fahrenheit).

This is because Pine Siskins have a metabolic rate that is about 40% higher
than expected for a bird of this small size. Hence their appetites and
their ability to endure nights colder than anything we’ve experienced in NJ
since, say, when the ice was a half-mile thick over Sussex County.

In Quebec, Pine Siskins have been reported feeding at 2:30AM under
floodlights. Survival isn't easy for a boreal bird."

Oops...running low on thistle. Gotta run to my local Weiss Ecology Center and pick up more....