New Years Resolutions and Desires

Wednesday January 2 2008

HORSES:
DIEGO:
To keep looking cuter than everybody else no matter what I do. To not have to work beyond standing still and wearing a bonnet and saddle and necklace. To get lots of hugs and lots of carrots because I am funny and cute. To keep rubbing my mane in the sagebrush so I always smell very good and M buries her head in my mane with more hugs. To be fed grain.

FINNEAS:
To be worshipped. To get lots of attention. To have my way in everything. To not have to be ridden away from the house onto the trail (though once I'm out there, it's kind of fun). To get lots of kisses. To have Connie come visit me and ride me. To get lots of carrots dipped in molasses. To get all the women. To be The Ultimate BIG BOSS. To be fed more grain.

MAC:
To be retired. To find my Nebraska ranch home. To find cows and ride herd (if I must work). To not be eaten by those Horse-Eating Monsters hiding in and under sagebrush. To get more carrots. To be fed more grain.

PRINCESS:
To be treated like the Princess I am. To have M always scratch my hairy itchy neck. To get more carrots. To be fed grain.

DUDLEY:
To remain slim and cute while eating lots. To eat lots. To get into as much mischief as possible. To escape from every pen I am in. To be remembered as the famous Equine Houdini. To be in the circus or Cavalia (those Lusitano stallions have got nothing on me!). To get more hugs. To get more carrots. To be fed grain.

QUICKIE:
To not get caught. To get more carrots. To be fed more grain.

DOGS:
QUINCY:
To get M to take us on walks twice a day. To get to sleep inside on the couch every day and night. To eat more horse poo without getting caught. To get more dog food.

AUSTIN:
To get M to take us on walks five times a day. To get to sleep inside on the floor every day and night. To catch a rabbit. To eat more horse poo without getting caught. To get more dog food.

GIRLIE:
To get M to take us on walks ten times a day. To get to sleep inside on the couch every day and night. To be petted till I explode. To catch a deer. To catch a rabbit. To bite horses when nobody's looking. To eat the cat. To eat more horse poo without getting caught. To get more dog food.

KITTY:
To not get eaten by Girlie.

ME:
To ride more. To eat more. To touch a (live) Raven.

THE RAVEN II:
What more is there, after you've climbed Mt Whitney, ridden 3000 endurance miles, sat on the Royal Yellow Carpet, ridden horses around the world? Well then, just to do more more more!

Good Bird Day

December 31 2007

Without trying today, I saw: a bald eagle, 2 red-tailed hawks, several kestrels, ravens, and magpies. The bald eagle was impressive (and not so common around here; we mostly have golden eagles), and the flashy, iridescent, long-tailed magpies are entertaining to watch - sometimes they like to play around and on the horses.

But of course it's the Raven that I'm obsessed with. Who wouldn't be, with all the history and mystery and myths of Ravens down through the ages and different cultures:

In Norse mythology, Odin, the father of the Gods, had two Raven informers, Hugin and Munin.

In Celtic mythology, Branwen, Goddess of love and beauty can take the form of a white crow.

In several Pacific Northwest Indian cultures, the Raven is revered as the creator of humans, or the one who found the first humans in a giant clam shell and let them out; the stealer of light (he stole the sun from a greedy man, and put the sun, moon, and stars in the sky for humans); a perpetual trickster, and a storyteller.

In Arabic, the Crow is "Algorab." My friend Maryanne in Egypt lives right by the partially buried ruins of an ancient sun temple, Abu Ghorab. It is rumored to be one of six sun temples, only 2 of which have been discovered so far. Abu Ghorab means "Father of Crows." In Egypt, crows are a nuisance to the farmers. Farmers try to scare them away or shoot them, so the clever crows hang out during the day at the trash dump and other places away from humans, and in the evening they fly one by one to hide behind the sun temple. There they wait until the call to evening prayer, when they fly into the orchards at the edge of the desert to roost, because they know people are at their prayers. : )

In several cultures, the Raven and crow were originally white.

In Australian Aboriginal legends, the crow turned black after he wrestled with a hawk (they fought because the crow would not share his meal, as they had agreed to do) and rolled in the black ashes of a campfire, which never washed off.

In ancient Greece, the White Raven was a sacred bird and messenger of Apollo, the God of light, sun, music, poetry, and fine arts. (In some myths, it was a crow.) But, due to some mischief the Raven got into, as Ravens are wont to do, (depending on the tale, either narking on Apollo's wife, or mistress, or it didn't fetch water quickly enough for Apollo), Apollo flew into a rage, as Greek Gods are wont to do, and turned his white Raven to black.

And I came across this nugget from this spring: a clutch of white Ravens were abandoned by their parents and rescued in a churchyard in England: www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461265&in_page_id=1770

Any Ravens I see here at home in the canyon, I think one of them must be Hoss, one of the baby ravens the neighbors Linda and Mike and Carol raised last year. Especially when even I can get fairly close to him without him being very concerned. Maybe he's a distant descendant of one of the Ravens in myth and legend, comfortable being around people and Gods.

Then there's always the Raven II, popping up at random places.

Alert

Saturday December 29 2007

Strangely enough, the dogs weren't barking, but the horses were on high alert. All pointed up canyon, all heads high and ears pricked sharply forward. A cougar perhaps??

I grabbed my binoculars and searched from the porch. I heard a shot up-canyon - oh, hunters. But that wasn't it; the horses did look that way also, but it was something else more to the east that had their complete attention.

Finally, through the trees, climbing the southeast ridge - 2 cowboys herding two late winter strays. Carol had seen the two cows up the canyon yesterday and called the local rancher. The cowboys had ridden out with a couple of cow dogs, found the cows, and were now heading down toward Oreana in tow of their probably hungry and thirsty strays.

I ran for the camera - first focused it on the horses who were still riveted on the western scene on the hillside, then on the procession.

Princess was most excited, running around then stopping to stare, her long neck stretched like a giraffe and eyes wide. Mac and Finneas watched with interest, but Diego, he knew what cows were. Not so excited by them after his close encounter a few weeks ago. Old hat to him now.

Four Minutes

Thursday December 27 2007

That's all it took for Dudley to escape from his new pen this morning when I put him in with Quickie.

It was, however, not his fault, it was the fault of the Skibunnies.

For three minutes he was sniffing, trotting, bucking, rolling, romping around his new, bigger, wood-railed pen (out of which he escaped twice the first 24 hours after he arrived a few months ago) now reinforced with an inner electric fence.

Minute four he turned on the turbos, making a sprint across the pen, something he hadn't been able to do for months in his smaller pen. Coming to the fence (about the same spot he'd broken through before), he put on the brakes. But he forgot to factor in the ice-and-physics calculations that affect the stopping time in two inches of snow when the Skibunnies slip skis on your feet when you're not looking. Or - maybe he did! You never know with Dudley. He always has the most innocent look in his eyes, even as he's trying to unlock his gate or bulldoze down a fence rail, and looking right at you while he's doing it!

He stopped moving, 4 legs outstretched in front of him, which on dirt would have skidded him to a stop; but his body, a big freight train (though now a hundred pounds lighter!!), kept glissading on top of the snow, as if he had skis on. He slid right through the electric tape and 2-rail fence, popping the rails off as if they were matchsticks, and spun a donut 180 - rather artfully, I might add - coming to a stop facing me, (with my mouth hanging open and his eyes really wide), with the electric fence tape wrapped around his head. He ducked his head, the tape came off, and - wheee! Off he wheeled on a good gallop that he hasn't had for several months in the big pasture.

I let him go have his fun - couldn't have caught him anyway for a while, and ran to put the other 2 rails back up to keep Quickie in the pen and grab the electric tape out of her way. Dudley had a great old time, running around all over the place, dashing by his smaller pen and tossing his head up at it in disdain, kicking up snowballs, and romping around when the other horses joined him. He then took to exploring everything he'd seen over his fence for months. I left him out there while I repaired the fence, because he didn't go directly to the hay pile.

Since he's lost so much weight - he has defined hipbones now! - I let him graze a while at the hay pile before catching him and bringing him back into his big pen with Quickie.

I'd chalked up this new record four-minute escape to an accident, but, come to think of it - maybe Dudley DID know what he was doing when he skied through the fence. The more escape stories I hear about Dudley from when he was younger, (and he's escaped 4 times in the last 2 months with me now), the more it makes me wonder. I wonder what tomorrow will bring from the equine Houdini?

What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

December 26 2007



It's difficult to peel myself away from 'home' here in Idaho, because I worry about the horses when I leave, even though for this short trip they would be in the competent hands of neighbors who'd come feed and check on them twice a day. Finneas is recovering from a near-leg-ripping-off injury, and dieting Dudley is in the middle of dismantling and redecorating and escaping from his pen, not to mention the other 4 horses roaming around looking for barbed wire fences and GOK what else to get into. What might happen without me hovering over them!? And oh, the dogs! Their world comes to an end if they don't get out for their daily Walk - God forbid they'd go on their own romp in thousands of miles of acres to play in, without me. The dogs probably would not even leave the porch while I was gone!

But I'm glad I got talked into leaving Idaho 'home' for Christmas and going Home. Which is Seattle, though I've rarely spent much time there of late.

In Seattle I did the family holiday tradition things: had a great time with family (as did the Raven), had a glimpse of civilization (shopping at a mall 2 days before Christmas), ate the best Thai food in the US (Thai Tom, a little hole in the wall in the U-District), watched the Sound of Music, got a little Christmas Day snowstorm, and went to a concert with, and hung out with, my 4-time Grammy-winning friends, the Blind Boys of Alabama. Really, they are Grammy winners, and really, I am lucky to be their friends!

And what do you know, while I was gone from Idaho, life went on: more snow fell, Finneas' leg continued to heal, Dudley took a break from redecorating, nobody escaped or got hurt. The neighbors kept things running smoothly, so I didn't have to spend all that time worrying about the horses after all. With them getting their meals twice a day as usual, I wonder if they even noticed I was gone.

Just Call Me Studley (by Dudley)

Thursday December 20 2007

To all of you out there who were calling me Fat, Chunky Monkey, Buffalo, (DIEGO!), all I have to say is just look at me now!

I am slimming down so much M can now make out where I was hiding my hip bones! My neck crest is shrinking and I don't look like so much like a Percheron stallion or a big fuzzy triple marshmallow. And anyway, I was not Fat, I am just Big Boned. Well OK, I did have SOME extra padding all over.

It's been a lot of painful sacrifice, let me tell you. I am stuck in a pen, which is NOT something I would recommend for anybody. I only get fed twice a day because I am on a diet, which is something else I would not recommend. I have been so hungry at times I could explode. I get a lot of flexercise right before my two (measly) meals a day, because I get so hungry and mad and excited and impatient as soon as I see M coming, that I run around and back and forth in my pen and I buck and crowhop and leap and rear and spin and run some more! And since I have lost weight, I can jump pretty high now, without all that bulk to heft in the air. I also learned from my mama Quickie to throw my head in a big circle. It gives my crest a specialized workout, so it's trimming down, not to mention I look pretty handsome when I do it because it tosses my mane and forelock in the air which then falls carelessly over my eyes.

Diego had been coming up to my fence and calling me a Buffalo, and teasing me about him being able to eat at the hay bales all day and night. Well, I've noticed that his little belly is getting to be pretty big around while mine is shrinking! When I am Slim and Cute and I get let out of my pen I am going to chase that Diego down and sit on him! Even when I'm Slim and Cute I will still be bigger than him, but that's just because I am Big Boned.

Sometimes I have someone in the pen with me to keep me company, or, like now, Finneas is penned up next door because the big Dork got his leg caught in a fence while squealing with the ladies next door, and he has to heal for a while. So misery loves company.

But even with company I really get bored in my pen, especially after I finish my food and have nothing at all to eat. I have some toys - M gave me Diego's necklace, which I've pretty much flattened, and she gave me a cone to play with.

But my favorite toy is the pen itself. I am studying up on how to break out again. I've already escaped confinement 3 times. The first time I was in a bigger pen and I led Princess on an escape twice in the first 24 hours after I got here in November. Once I shoved open a gate, and the next time I just pushed a board off the fence by leaning on it, and we just hopped out. I got out of another gate in this smaller pen by shoving it open. M couldn't figure out how on earth I did it, she said it would have taken a bulldozer to get it open. Yea - a bulldozer or a Buffalo! Then there's one gate to my pen that M had to latch, then tie triple to make sure I won't get out. Well, I can stick my head through the gate, and I work on trying to get those knots out. I'll get them one of these days.

I've also started working on dismantling the wood rails on one side of the pen. I was pushing the upper rails off, and M would have to hammer and tie them back on. Well, now I pull the bottom poles off and eat them. I pulled two rails off today, and started shredding one to pieces and eating the splintered wood.

M wasn't too happy with that and so she brought me another cone to play with. I humored her and messed with it a while, but I was waiting for her to go somewhere else so I could go back to working on eating the fence down.

Sometimes I am sad because my diet is SO hard and I am SO bored, and I know M feels guilty, so sometimes I work it with the sensitive look, blinking my big brown eyes and looking soulfully sad. Sometimes she caves and give me a little more food. Sometimes she comes in and spends time with me, brushing me and giving me lots of hugs. She tells me I'm a Whole Lotta Horse to Love, and she calls me handsome Studley instead of Dudley. It almost makes being stuck in this pen on a diet worth it.

Horse Queen of Idaho

December 19 2007

No, it's not me, but today's history lesson looks back at someone who, a hundred years ago, was a day's endurance ride away from here.

The "Horse Queen of Idaho" was Kittie Wilkins, born in Oregon in 1857, lived in Oregon, Washington and California before coming to Owyhee County in her 20's. She was partners with her father and brothers in the ranching business, eventually taking over the horse business from her father. Theirs was one of the largest horse ranches in the world at the time, the Wilkins Horse Co, on a ranch near Mountain Home in the Bruneau Valley.

Kittie was known as an excellent horsewoman (this was sidesaddle back then, mind you), riding the range with her buckaroos, helping during the roundups, and breaking horses.

The horses they raised were a mix of Morgans, Hambletonians, "Black Hawks," French draft horses (including Percherons), and mustangs. They were sold all over the country, with Kittie eventually taking over all the sales. Every year she'd load up hundreds at a time onto freight trains with a few hands, and she'd conduct all the sales and even ride the horses for demonstration in her stylish riding clothes.

Her horses sold to farms and ranches and the US Cavalry; some ended up in Buffalo Bill's wild west shows.

Her opinions on horse slaughter: "The killing of horses for food, which has lately been introduced in this country and in some of the foreign countries, is an enterprise that I cannot too severely condemn. No lover of the most beautiful animal ever created will ever submit to having him killed and eaten. I would almost feel like a cannibal should I attempt it."

Kittie's father died in 1904, leaving the running of the ranch to Kittie and her mother. When kittie's ma died in 1917, Kittie was 60, and apparently lost interest in her horses and ranching, as the car came into being, and horses weren't worth much anymore. Herds of horses were shipped off for chicken feed and rustlers made off with many others.

The "Horse Queen of Idaho" died of a heart attack in 1936 at 79, her obituary reading, "famous Idaho stock grower who once had a herd of 4000 Broncs."

The vacancy for new Horse Queen is still open. I'd apply, but I'm having a hard time keeping up with just 6 horses, and none of them buck.