And then I come home from a wonderful lesson and I am filled with love, a love that pushes out silly things like concern over money or worries over retirement (I’m never retiring anyway so Ha ha ha!!! I find myself thinking about retirement and money almost all the time these days because I’m doing [...]
I want to thank everyone for the good words of support and encouragement as I transition from Gabby to Moe. You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em, which is what my mom said when she retired from teaching at Michigan State University, and I’m glad I didn’t endure (horse-wise) [...]
We lost a horse yesterday. Chip started to colic the day before, but it passed and all seemed well. Then he went down yesterday all of a sudden. One moment, everything was fine as a small group of us rode horses either in our lesson or just riding in the indoor arena. Then there was [...]
Gabby’s problems remain mysterious. We know we do not have a fracture or a major degenerative joint disease. We might have a bone infection of the withers. But it’s up in the air because if that’s the case, they’re seeing the problem a lot earlier than usual. She’s supposed to come home today and will [...]
I am . . . disturbed. Violently annoyed. Pissed off. REALLY pissed off. I am stomping around looking for someone or something to blame because it seems like a lot has changed for me in the last week but it’s so …. so …. so damned intangible that I can’t touch it (intangible things are [...]
The Art of Conversation with The Horse (or in this case, Gabby), is just today for the very first time ever begining to make some sense to me. I know that you have to ride every minute and you’ve got to use the aids correctly and you’ve got to pay attention, but it wasn’t until [...]
My startle reflex has provide countless minutes of amusement to the kind of mean people in this world who suck. Folks who don’t suck get the idea after they see me jump out of my skin after they addressed me when I was engrossed in something and then make it a point to give me [...]
Had another breakdown in my lesson tonight, but it was small and manageable. Stalker was full of beans since he’d had no turnout and was pawing the floor with his left front hoof as I groomed him and tacked him up. So that made me tense and Leah could really tell. Leah could tell exactly [...]
Sometimes, with this horse-thing-jones-monkey-habit, I feel like I’m in love, like when I was a teenager and had some big huge crush on someone — or like when I was an adult and had a big huge crush on David Duchovny. The Duchovny thing helped keep me sane in a weird sort of way so [...]
. . is a very handy book written by Gincy Self Bucklin. The subtitle is “What your horses’ ‘bad’ behavior means and how to correct it.” It’s one of the many books on horses published by Wiley and I’ll let you use your own judgement about obtaining a copy to read.
There’s a section in the [...]
