smellshorsey

Back from Carolina's Region Pony Club Camp

We're back from five days in Tryon, N.C. at the Pony Club Carolina's Region summer camp. I love this photo, which I took on the cross-country course at FENCE. I don't know this girl but her horse was green and he jumped off of the bank jump like a happy five-year-old child who'd just discovered jumping off the side of the swimming pool. I love how he seems to be flying through the air with the mountains in the background.

Lily was also in this group of five girls and horses. It was mercilessly hot. Two of the five had to drop out due to the heat. I probably would have dropped out but moms aren't allowed to drop out. Here's a photo of Lily and Markus over the same jump. This was Lily's first time ever doing a drop bank.

Now here's one of the many, many cool things that happened at camp. See the woman whose back is to the camera? That's Sarah Hansel, who was one of the excellent instructors at camp and who has a personal connection to Markus, Lily's new horse. Sarah used to show him for the woman who had rehabbed him after his slab knee fracture at the track when he was four. She would have been an incredible instructor for Lily even if she didn't know the horse, but since she had a history with him, she was able to give extra insight -- and confidence -- to Lily.

Lily's lesson on the cross-country course with Sarah had Lily completely aglow. She said, "That's the best time I ever had in my life doing anything!"

I've never been so hot and tired as I've been over the last five days. But it was worth every drop of sweat and every pound of Tryon red clay that won't even wash out of our whites with bleach.

More to come.

One Trendy Style Horse People Can't Wear

It's hard to be a horse person and to dress stylishly. For one thing, all the money for style goes to buy horse blankets to replace the ones that the horse thoughtlessly and gleefully shredded. And then there's the horse food. And the riding lessons.

There's also little reason to spend good money on any clothes that don't look good covered in green slobber. Or clothes that can't stand up to a good bleaching.

But then there's another obstacle for horse people who want to dress fashionably: the fashions themselves. I do believe that I would start to crib if forced to wear these cute (I guess) capris from Ann Taylor.
Is it just me? I see these pants -- I feel the ties brushing on my legs. FLIES!

I cannot and will not wear clothes that feel like I have flies crawling on my legs. Because most of the time, I do have flies crawling on my legs, and I'm constantly stomping and slapping at them.

I have a bathing suit cover-up with fringe on the bottom. One of those island print thingies. Very cute. Had to give it away. Fringe on bottom = FLIES on legs.

My TB mare, Lucy, has the same problem. I put a fly sheet on her last summer. Although she wears a blanket all winter with no problem, she was convinced that the lightweight mesh fluttering around her was FLIES. It made her crazier than before. So, since Buddy's fly sheet had arrived missing pieces (I eventually ended up getting a credit for it but haven't shopped at that particular Internet horse store again), I just let him have hers. Which he tore up.

The flies are bad already. I know I'm a little late, but I'm starting the horses on feed-through fly control, I'm hanging fly traps (pew!) under the eaves of the barn away from the horse end, and I have (probably foolishly) ordered new fly sheets that cover from ears to tail. And then I found these cool fly leg wraps and have ordered them, too. Last year's fly masks are in usable condition, so at least I didn't have to get that.

Of course, we're running through fly spray like crazy. And we need to figure out why the fans in the barn aren't working.

But wear fashionable clothes that have ties that feel like flies brushing my legs? Forget waterboarding -- that would be torture!

That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing Part III

This is the third (and I hope final) part of a series about people who let their horses loose and call it "grazing." I call it "Loose Horse!" Click for Part I and Part II.

Sometimes I see things that aren't there when I go to feed the horses in the morning. Like no horses at all (they're behind the barn) or three horses where there ought to be two.

But no, on this particular early Sunday morning there were actually three horses out there. Two inside my fence, one outside. They were having a nice visit. A very exciting visit. How was I going to catch this stray horse -- and whose was it? It was a nondescript dark bay.

So I called to Lily to come help me. She was asleep but she came out quickly, grabbing a handful of carrots from the refrigerator to tempt the stray horse. Note: carrots don't rattle, so they offer no temptation to a stray horse. Use feed in a bucket instead.

Anyway, the mare took flight when she saw us. And we ran after her trail, our horses providing a background of whinnies and thundering hoofbeats. We lost sight of the stray mare, but saw where her hoofprints had torn up several neighbors' neatly tended turf. We followed her trail across our block and across the next street, where I saw a man I'll call Rusty working in his yard. Now, Rusty has two horses. I've seen him ride one of them in twelve years. The stray horse was in his yard, grazing. I called out, "Is that your horse?"

Rusty said, "Yes. She's fine. She's just grazing."

"But she's loose," I said.

"That's fine. I let her out all the time to graze. She doesn't go anywhere," he said.

"She was just at my house," I said.

"Oh. I didn't know she'd do that," he said. "That's never happened before." And then he thanked us for following his horse.

The very next morning I got a phone call from the neighbors behind us who keep elderly QH gentlemen. "I don't know what your new horse looks like, but there's a horse in my yard," she said.

For all I know, it could be mine. Markus is an incredible jumper, and Lucy has jumped one pasture fence before, though not here (she did it with me riding her at another farm, but that's another story). So I went outside and did a head count. Both of my horses were in the pasture. So I got back on the phone and told her to call Rusty, which she did. Of course it was his horse.

So -- surprise -- two days later I hear a stampede. Rusty's two horses are racing around the outside of my pasture while my TBs are racing around the inside. Rusty's paint walking horse is winning, but don't tell the Jockey Club. Rusty's horses are keyed up beyond getting caught, not even with a rattling bucket.

Two doors down some teenage boys continue to play basketball even though there are loose horses flying through their yard. I thought that was kind of funny. The horses must have passed through their yard at least three times. The boys never lose their concentration, they keep on playing. Wow. Wonder if they can do that in math class?

Another neighbor comes out with a golf cart and wants to know if the horses are mine. (I have a dark bay and a chestnut -- there's only one paint in the neighborhood and that's Rusty's. Non-horse people aren't very observant.) No, they're not mine. They belong to Rusty. So Golf Cart #1 goes off to Rusty's house, and then, finding no one at home, goes out searching for the horses. 

Lily and I grab halters and run toward Rusty's house. It's a long way and I'm out of shape. We lose sight of the horses, but since this is daylight and after work people are outside and several different men working in different yards all tell us which way the horses have gone. Each one says a different direction, which only means that the horses have been running around for a while. Each thinks he just saw the horse and we should follow the way he's pointing. So we ignore them and go to Rusty's, hoping the horses have gone home.

Golf Cart #2 drives up with two women in it, one is Rusty's wife, Delilah. I don't know the other but she is the driver and is dressed in pajamas at 6:00 in the afternoon and is wearing socks but no shoes. Delilah looks done in.

"Your horses won't even come when we offer them food," I say.

Delilah answers, "That's because they broke into the feed stall and ate every last bit."

"You'll need to have the vet come pump their stomachs when you catch them," I say. "They could founder."

Delilah doesn't look too interested. So Lily adds, "They could get crippled. They could die."

Delilah says, "Good." (She doesn't really mean this -- she's just had it with the horses.) "I told Rusty we need to get rid of the horses."

We see them gallop by and they head of toward the sunset but this doesn't look like a happy ending. Delilah has given up and is ready to go inside.

I feel like shaking her. "If they get hit by a car, somebody could get killed," I say. She doesn't answer. Her son was completing his senior project when their computer crashed, and she'd been trying to recover his files when somebody called to say her horses were loose. I can tell she feels like this has nothing to do with her. These are her husband's horses.

"Rusty called me and told me to catch them," she says. "I can't catch them."

"If they get hit by a car and someone is killed, you could be sued," I say. "You could lose everything. If you can't catch them, you should at least call the sheriff so they can try to keep people from driving in this area."

She's still not motivated, so Lily and I head for home thinking that maybe they'll come back to see our horses. Golf Cart #1 has given up and gone home, shaking his head. Golf Cart #2 doesn't know what to do. And Delilah has turned into a statue. 

My friend and hay supplier drives by. He sees us carrying halters and leadropes and stops to ask if we need help. "They're not our horses," I say. "Rusty's horses are out."

He looks disgusted. He was going to help if it was us with the problem, but now the picture has changed. "Rusty's horses get out all the time. Rusty feeds them, but that's it. I don't know why they have horses." And he waves and drives off, his noisy diesel nearly drowning out our thoughts.

When we get home there's a neighbor I've never met standing in the road. "Are those your horses?" he asks. "I've already caught them once today but they got away."

I explain that they are Rusty's horses. And while we're talking to him and introducing ourselves, Rusty's horses -- the paint walking horse and the retired trotter mare -- come flying by. They are unfit, foaming, wringing wet and heaving to breath. But they're not ready to stop. We try to outsmart them, to pen them, to corner them. The area is too big with too many obstacles. Finally, the trotter mare flies by Lily and Lily manages to snag her halter. It scares me to watch from way across the field, a strange horse going too fast and too close to my daughter. But Lily has done it. And with help from the neighbor, she's able to put a halter and lead rope on the paint, who, by the way, is named "Monster." And is actually pretty cute.

Monster and her friend are jazzed up so we walk them back to Rusty's with difficulty. Lily is wearing Rainbows (translation: expensive leather flip flops that advertise her mother's extravagant and foolish love for her), bad shoes for working with strange and agitated horses. But she comes through it all with ten toes.

"Mom, these horses are about to drop," she says. "They need to be hosed off and walked."

"And to have their stomachs pumped," I say. We know none of this is going to happen. Delilah is mad at her husband and worried about her son's senior project.

"What should we do?" she asks. I don't really know. We're supposed to be at a dinner party in town in 45 minutes. We're not dressed and it's a long drive. In fact, we are sweaty and covered with horse sweat. But that wasn't the question. The question was about the horses, and I didn't know what to do.

Delilah is the one who needs to call the vet. Or call Rusty and get him to call the vet. Or do something. Delilah calls Rusty on her cell phone. Then she tells us, "If you don't mind, could you tie them up to the fence posts?"

Wringing wet, blowing, foamy and full of grain. I might be slack, but Lily is a good Pony Clubber and she says, "We can't do that. They're too hot. They need to be hosed off and cooled out."

Delilah looks like she's just been told to push a rock up a hill for eternity. "How do you know that?" she asks.

"That's what you know when you have horses," Lily says. Ouch. But she's right. And Delilah never claimed to know anything other than that she didn't want horses or to be out here with us.

"We'll hose them off," Lily volunteers. Delilah gets the hose for us. I'm worried about Lily's toes in her Rainbows. We hose off both horses but they're still too hot, still blowing.

"Now they need to be walked until they're cool," Lily says. We walk them for a little while, Delilah walking beside us. She's obviously not the fittest person and carries a lot of extra weight. A lot. This escapade has been difficult for her physically. It has possibly also done her some good, as would walking the horses but I didn't just say that.

The mare I'm walking has quit blowing, but Monster has not. I can't keep walking her. We need to go. And here's that fine line you don't know which side to dance on -- you know what needs to be done, you've told the responsible person what needs to be done. If they don't do it, then what do you do?

This isn't abuse. That would be different. This is more bad choices and ignorance. I say again I think she should call the vet, and she says there probably wasn't that much food in the grain bin. Lily says that Monster needs to be walked. Monster's continued blowing says she needs to be walked.

Delilah appreciates all of this, she really does. For some reason, maybe her fitness, maybe who knows what else is going on in her life, she just doesn't have it in her. She keeps marvelling that Lily knows how to do all these things (basic horse ownership stuff like how to tie them and how to hose them and how to check their general condition), and Lily tries to answer somewhat delicatedly that these are the things you know if you own a horse.

I say we need to go. Lily says that Monster can't be left like this, that Monster needs to be walked. She looks at Delilah. Delilah says, "Okay, I'll walk her. At least until you can't see me anymore." And we all laugh. Sort of.

The neighbor driving Golf Cart #2 -- the one wearing her pajamas and socks -- offers to drive us home. We accept. She drives us through her yard, where we meet her husband and get to see his bonsai collection. It is huge and beautiful. We have a nice chat. I'd like to see her again and am glad Monster introduced us. She tells us that she puts on her pjs as soon as she gets home from work, and when she saw the horses loose she jumped in her golf cart without thinking. I like that in a person. She takes us home.

When Lily and I get inside our house, there's a voicemail from a neighbor from down our street. "Your horses are out. That big brown and white one was in our yard." This neighbor is very particular about her lawn and flowers. I know she was not happy to have her turf churned up by galloping hooves.

I just wish she was particular enough to notice that I have no flashy colored brown-and-white horse in my pasture. Wasn't me. Our horses are solid colors, and they graze inside the fence.

That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing Part II

Maybe I'm unusual, but I think a horse belongs either tied up to a trailer or safe inside a fence.

This is Part II to a series I'm calling, "That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing." You'll find Part I here under the title "some people are even stupider than me."

Okay, I'll admit it. One day I did turn Lucy out in the back yard -- under my supervision -- because I didn't think she'd go anywhere with Buddy screaming for her from the pasture and me sitting in a chair reading and keeping an eye on her. There was so much grass, so much grass. How could she think of leaving?

It all went well for about ten minutes, with her grazing in the tall grass that has overgrown where our garden should have been, but then with no warning she trotted off to visit the elderly geldings that live behind us.... And I took off after her.

Thankfully, I had my cell phone and called my daughter, Lily, to come help me catch her.

"Mom, are you stupid? You just turned the horse loose?!?"

"Well, yes, but I am right here."

"And she's at the neighbor's. You're just reckless." She always says I'm reckless. I'm not, just a combination of foolish optimism and being slack.

Anyway, it wouldn't have been a big deal if Buddy hadn't made it one. Lucy was just visiting, but then Buddy's screams made her down right alarmed. Listen to him scream! What must have happened while she was gone visiting the neighbors? Lordy, there must be wolves, bears and pigs after her! Alarmed over whatever she imagined was happening, she trotted back and forth through the bushes. And I was beginning to have some good imaginings of some bad stuff myself.

But all it took was one good rattle of the feed bucket and she was back home, nose in the bucket. My stupid exploit was over. Lily returned her to the pasture, lecturing me the whole time. I haven't done something this stupid since. Well, not that I'm going to tell you about.

So, while I'm about to call the kettle black, I'm also the pot. Part III tomorrow.

Some People are Even Stupider than Me

And yes, I know that should be, "some people are even stupider than I." But when you're talking about stupid, good grammar is optional.

Okay, first you had me with my horse tangled up in the hay net in the trailer, even though I knew better. Then you had the other people at the horse show.

Unbelievable as it may be, there are people even stupider than I am. I was walking around the show grounds when I saw two loose horses. Not what you need at a show with so many children, green horses and wild riders. So I yelled to the announcer's booth that there were two loose horses, which when I pointed, they could clearly see. They stopped the show temporarily and announced that there were two loose horses.

Two women at the concession stand yelled out, "They're not loose. They're grazing."

Yes, they had brought their horses to the show and turned them loose, like dogs, to roam around and graze at will. I thought I'd seen everything.

Maybe I'm doing things wrong. Fencing is expensive and hard to keep up. Maybe I should just turn my horses loose. If anybody gets upset, I'll explain with a smile, "No, Buddy isn't eating your rosebushes, Mrs. Campbell. He's just grazing."

The two women did wander over to their horses and catch them. The horses were a bit underweight and could have stood some more grazing time, and the women could have stood a little more time away from the concession stand. They put lunge lines on their horses, and more or less tied them out from their trailers.

Maybe I should have given them my hay net while they were at it.

Let Me Tell You Why You Shouldn't Buy My Horse

Buddy is a beautiful, delightful horse. I feel like I'm trying to sell my dog. I act like I'm trying to sell this big ugly goat.

Buddy is a big handsome guy. He is sound and healthy. Buddy has a good mind and has excellent bloodlines. Buddy is a gentleman and a great fellow. He's only for sale because he has informed me (without the use of a Horse Communicator) that he doesn't wish to comply with Lily's dreams of jumping higher and going further. So, as I've said before, he's for sale.

And I'm not the best one to sell him. In fact, I'm sure I'm the worst. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning in a stew, fussing over the house and barn (with no visible change) so that it would look like a place that would have a nice horse for sale for when my potential buyer comes.

 

And then, the potential buyer who was coming to try Buddy called and said that after sleeping on all the things I told her about him, she just didn’t think she wanted him. She thanked me for being so honest.

 

I cannot help myself. I tell everything I know, especially the bad things, even if they’ve never caused a problem (she was concerned about an injury he had before we got him – an injury that has given us no problems).

 

So, rather than come look at my horse whom she knows everything about, she’s going to go instead to look at the horses offered for sale by a man I believe to be unscrupulous. I know him from when I had another horse and boarded at a stable where he worked. I believe that he certainly will not tell the whole truth about his horses, and here I’ve lost a potential sale because of my overabundance of honesty.

 

I have to believe that God will find Buddy a good home and that I’ve done the right thing, but it doesn’t feel like it.

 

My lost potential buyer asked me what I knew of the man she’s going to see, and she told me she knew that he had a very good reputation. I said I didn’t know anything about that, but that when he was a farrier, I had to quit using him and use someone else because he was unable to shoe my horse. I didn’t tell her about the suitcase of beer he brought with him and would drink while he worked on the horses. I didn't tell her about other things. Maybe he's cleaned up his act. I don't know. I said that I couldn’t speak about his reputation as a horse trader.

 

So, I’ve been in one kind of stew and now I’ve gotten in another kind. But I’ll be all right.

 

I’m not good at this buying and selling of horses. I find it quite stressful. I got several very excited e-mails from another potential buyer that I think I ran off by telling her absolutely every bad thing I know. Not the good things. Anything that could possibly be wrong. I have a compulsion to do that.

Why don't I tell people all the wonderful things about this horse? He is very special. Is there something called being too honest?

Probably I'm not being too honest -- I'm probably being too negative, and no, it's not because I don't want to sell him, though deep down I probably don't. But we have to, if we're going to get a horse that will do the things that Lily wants to do. I want him to get a good home and everybody to live happily ever after. Us. Him. His buyer. Our new horse.

Another prospect is coming next week to look at him. I think I'll excuse myself and let Lily and her teacher show the horse. That is, unless I talk to the prospective buyer again and talk them out of coming. 

Buying and Selling Horses

I finally got Buddy's web site put together and have listed him on two horse classified sites. The phone has started ringing. And I'm looking for a horse for Lily.

Which are the best horse classified sites? Where should I be listing him?

I thought to link to his site here, but I've got my phone numbers and all that other personal info. on the site and I'm trying to maintain some kind of privacy with this blog. If you're interested in an 11-year-old Apx. QH/TB gelding that does English and Western and is the sweetest horse you've ever seen, leave me a comment and I'll contact you and send you the info. and web site link.

I don't really want to sell Buddy. That's like selling your dog. And Lily is even worse about selling him. A teenager at the little show we went to last weekend found out Buddy was for sale and was dying to buy him. Lily didn't think she was good enough for Buddy and I almost had to lock my daughter in the trailer because you just can't say those kinds of things to a prospective buyer. Or to a stranger. Or really, to anybody. (She was only saying them to me about the girl but I was afraid she would be overheard.)

The teenager rode him and the funniest thing happened. When she asked Buddy to trot, he started limping. He'd just done three jumping classes and several flat classes. He wasn't anywhere close to lame. I stood there in wonderment. Lily said, "See? He doesn't like her either. He's faking so they won't like him."

After about eight lame steps he returned to normal, but Lily is convinced (and I'm wondering myself) if this wasn't a protest. Fortunately, the girl's father already has four horses and though the girl's instructor and the girl loved Buddy, we haven't heard a thing.

Then somebody else who'd seen him at the show asked us to bring him to their farm for a woman I know slightly to try. So that's what I did last Sunday. Lily rode Buddy first so that the woman, who has had several bad experiences with her own horse in the past year and has lost confidence, could see that Buddy is a fun, reasonable guy. Lily then took him out in the field and jumped a bunch of log jumps. Buddy was a saint.

Then the woman, whom I'll call Rebecca, got on Buddy. They did great. I could tell that something was bothering Rebecca, though. She wasn't in love. I told her she could take Buddy on a trail ride with her friends, which she did. Buddy wanted to get in the front but she had no trouble keeping him back. He didn't have a problem when other horses rode his rear-end. He didn't mind the cows. He tried to tippy toe around the water but he was still okay. And he didn't have any problems with odd objects or the activities of people on nearby property.

Rebecca and her friends reported that Buddy had been great and that they really liked him. BUT....

When Rebecca and I were away from everyone she confided in me. "You know I've had my horse, "Wifebeater" (name is made up), for many years. I don't think I'm ready to get another horse," she said. "Even if I'm afraid to ride Wifebeater."

She is a really kind and sensitive woman who takes excellent care of her horses. I wish she would buy Buddy. He would have a great forever home. And he would treat her better than Wifebeater has.

"I can't imagine going into the pasture to catch another horse while Wifebeater looked on," she continued. "It would break my heart to see his face."

My heart was beginning to break. I wanted her to buy Buddy.

"I really haven't resolved my issues with Wifebeater," she said. "I had a horse communicator out to help." She made it plain that she didn't really believe in horse communicators, but still, she had paid one to come out.

"The horse communicator talked to Wifebeater. It didn't help with the problems we've been having. But Wifebeater did say it was all right if I got another horse -- so long as it wasn't another male horse," she said.

So Buiddy was perfect but the wrong gender to suit her old horse? I wish I had thought to say, "What do you care what Wifebeater thinks? He's treated you terribly. You deserve a nice horse who'll be nice to you." But I didn't think to say anything because my thinking apparatus had frozen up.

Pony Club Rating in the Cold, Cold Rain

I haven't been blogging because I've been spending the past two weekends at Pony Club things. Last weekend was Lily's rating day. Rating days are expensive, so Pony Clubs don't have them but once or twice a year. The clubs have to pay for the raters to come, so our club combined with the one in Aiken for our rating day to cut costs.

And once you've got it all scheduled, you go ahead and have it -- no matter what the weather. So we went to Aiken last weekend for one miserable, cold wet day. The temperature hovered between 37 and 44. The rain poured.

One drenched mother said, "They ought not even test them and should let all of us go home. No kid would have shown up in this weather if they weren't sure they were going to pass."

Alas, they didn't shortchange any phase of the testing. We left home at 8:30 a.m. and got home at 6:00 p.m. Lily passed her rating and even said she had fun but had never been so cold.

It's warm today and raining. There was a horse show. We didn't go. I stayed in bed and was so grateful to be warm and dry with nowhere to rush to. Lily's working on her science project.

She decided to postpone her birthday celebration and go to Pony Club Quiz Rally next month instead. She's making new friends at Pony Club and told me, "Mom, if you go hang out with the other mothers, you'll probably make friends, too."

On the next warm, dry day, I will.

Lily's First Foxhunt

I had my camera. It's probably still in the truck. Lily went on her first fox hunt yesterday and I didn't take a single picture.

However, I do think I did everything else, from taking cookies and hot chocolate for the other Pony Clubbers to getting us there on time, even if we had to load the horse in the dark, and even had all my stuff for writing my novel with me. I'm doing NaNoWriMo, and yesterday was the first day. I managed to write over 1,000 words while waiting for Lily and Buddy, and then I got the rest of my goal when I got home.

Lily went cubbing (fox hunting with young hounds before the official opening of the hunt season, which is on Thanksgiving Day). Neither she nor Buddy had been before. They didn't think it was fast enough but would like to go again.

We had some teenager-related issues the night before. I had told her to get everything ready by Thursday, as I don't like to do a mad scramble the night before an early morning. I told her that the cubbing attire was "informal," meaning she should wear her tall boots, show coat (the only one she owns), a ratcatcher shirt and her one choker with a stock pin. She thought informal meant casual.

Finally I said, "informal" means cocktail dress. "Formal" means ball gown. You have to dress up for this."

"Why?" my teenager-living-dangerously asked.

"Because fox hunting is very traditional," I said.

"That's stupid," she said.

"I'm sorry. That's the way it is. You're supposed to dress in a certain way."

"Will they let me ride if I don't?" she asked.

"Probably," I said. "But they'll think you're a hick." I couldn't think of what else to say. Our culture has gotten so far away from the notion of what it appropriate. Even church is casual dress. That's fine -- if that's all you have or if that's how you most feel worshipful, and I'm glad I can wear pants.

Back to the fox hunt. Now, she'd given Buddy a bath, had cleaned him as if getting ready for Madison Square Gardens. He was dressed in his scary lycra stuff under his blanket (and my vote was that it was too cold for a bath, but I was not polled until after the bath). But she was completely neglecting herself.

This is the girl who can spend hours trying on the right nearly identical T-shirts for school. Of course she couldn't find her choker. And she brought the riding jacket she outgrew two years ago, not the one we got her for last Christmas that fits. Fortunately, we were able to borrow a jacket. And I think at least she "gets it."

For those of you who think hunting is cruel, all I can say is that I have hunted with the Camden Hunt off and on for decades and I was never, ever on a hunt where they caught anything. Not one cricket. No fox. Just some hairnets left snagged in trees, some of them mine.  I am happy about this no-catch thing, as I have no quarrel with the fox.

I waited in the club house (cold!) and worked on my novel. I went outside to warm up by walking around in the sunshine, and was surprised to see a friend of mine back early. Her horse had caught his hind shoe crossing the railroad tracks and had fallen! My friend and her horse were miraculously all right. Very scary. The horse somehow caught his shoe on the tracks, and when he tried to pull his foot free, he fell, tearing off his shoe and throwing his rider into the crush-and-run. They were both very lucky.

She did have the presence of mind to tell me how Lily and Buddy were doing. She said, "Well, of course Buddy started bucking but Lily rode through that. They're doing fine and having lots of fun."

It's a good thing Buddy is cute and not mean. I guess I'd buck if I could and if I felt so very, very good about being out on a cold morning with the hounds working in the distance.

They crossed the train tracks more than once. One time when they were about to cross a freight train came by. Lily said that Buddy was "mildly interested."

That's one good thing about having F-16s roar over your pasture on a regular basis. A train is nothing compared to that. But you never have to worry about tripping over their contrails.

Maybe next time Lily goes hunting Lucy (my out-of-shape TB) and I will go. After I finish my novel, I just might aim for that.

Forever Home

White Horse Pilgrim and Pony Girl have interesting posts going on "Forever Homes" -- buying a horse and keeping it until death do you part. It's something I'd rather not think about, because I'm not sure I'm able to do it.

There are so many good reasons to have horses, and to do everything you can for your children to have that experience. There are also good reasons to go to college, pay your mortgage and save money for retirement. Sometimes owning a horse can make these other things almost out of reach. Horses take time, money and space.

When we started keeping horses when Lily was little, I bought her a one-eyed Shetland pony we named Arthur. He cost less each month than the cats to feed. I cannot say the same of Buddy and Lucy. Nor was he ever lame, required fancy shoes or anything other than a move into Equine Senior food.

It is a painful thing to sell a horse. I can't believe that I sold the best horse I'll ever have, Jack, when Lily was two and I couldn't imagine ever riding again. I thought I'd keep him forever up until she was born. How could I let such a horse go?

I'd let someone I trust lease him while I was pregnant and when Lily was small. When he came back, I almost wept to see him. Then I didn't want to see him anymore, because I knew that I couldn't do with him all that needed to be done. He was talented and liked his work. I'd be lucky if I had time to feed him. All I could figure that would happen to Jack is that he'd sit in my pasture and AGE.

I was seeing too many people (my parents) and old dogs and cats age, and I couldn't  bear to watch the horse of my dreams, the horse of my life, start to go downhill, too. There are some things that are too much to face all at once.

(My post-partum depression went on for a few years.... can you tell?)

So, I called a friend and former instructor, told her how much I wanted for Jack, and she came for him. He spent two nights in my barn. My horse I called my Gift from God, because he was better than I could afford and better than I could ever be. She took him to a fancy A-circuit barn run by famous people, and they sold him. I don't know what they got for him but when I heard what they were asking I was flabbergasted.

Of course, he didn't vet out. He had navicular changes but was not lame. But I still got a decent price, and I'm sure they did, too.

And I have to hope and pray that anybody who would pay that much for a horse would do right by him. I intentionally did not find out more than the bare facts about his buyer. I didn't want to ever be able to find him again. (Picture the scene at the end of Casablanca, only it's Jack getting on the plane and I'm Humphrey Bogart.)

Will I keep Buddy and Lucy, like the neighbors behind me with their five aged horses, one of whom requires an air conditioned stall? I'd like to think so. My heart would break to look out of my office window and see an empty pasture. There would be a hole in my morning if I didn't hear Buddy neighing for me to hurry up with that breakfast stuff.

But the sad fact is I can't make promises of any kind. All I can promise is to do my best by them.