The. Best. Ride. Ever.

Friday December 17 2010

I love my horse.

Stormy, the lazy, retired Thoroughbred racehorse took me on a great ride.

I get on him once every couple of months, just to prove I can - but he's usually foot-sore to some degree or another - he's got navicular disease, the severity of which comes and goes - and he usually moves carefully, with little short strides.

He's looked pretty sound the last month, and today when we went out for a ride with Carol and Suz - wow! He positively sauntered along the trail - a long, free reaching stride at the walk, head swinging back and forth, and an easy-moving trot - gone was the short choppy protective jog he does when his feet hurt.


And when he's sound, he's fun to ride. He doesn't spook like these Arabians. He's bold and relaxed and unworried - though he wasn't always so, and at times I thought he never would be. Age (he's 19) and the pursuit of laziness has surely played a part in that. He's also big and solid - 16.2 hands which is about average for a thoroughbred racehorse, but larger than the average Arabian.


Stormy's just doing well all around. Lately, he's even taken to playing, something I'd never seen him do in the 14 years I've known him. (Thanks, Jose!)

Maybe it's just a good cycle his feet are going through, maybe it's not being overweight, maybe it's having a good buddy, maybe it's the cold winter he's thriving on (like me!), maybe he's getting younger as he's getting older. All I know is, this was the Best Ride Ever!

Coalesce

Thursday December 16 2010

I turned the Gray Mare (named Perry) out with the whole herd today... and it was about as uneventful as it could get.

I timed it after everyone had had their breakfast, and it was time for a morning siesta as the sun rays crested the bluffs, starting to thaw the 8* morning and warm up furry horse hides.

Perry and her babysitter Krusty strolled out into the big paddock... and everybody just stood there in a sort of morning sun stupor, watching her.

Eventually, one by one, the horses moseyed up to her to give her the Owyhee Welcome (From most of them: "You're new. Get away.") No serious chasing though, no biting, only one or two squeals; and Perry mostly ignored them.

It's all about the ears - you can watch a horse's ears and pretty much tell what they're thinking.


Perry: Keeping an eye/ear on Jose, but not worried. Jose: Interested!


Perry: wary of Ted. Ted: Doesn't particularly like her.


Smokey: doesn't like Perry!


Sunny: doesn't like Perry!


Rhett: doesn't like Perry!


Perry: keeping an eye/ear on Jose and Batman, but not worried. Jose and Batman: interested!


Rhett: still doesn't like her!


Perry: uninterested. Jose: still interested! (Later I saw him trying to get her to play!)


Give her a few days... and she'll slip in with the herd like she's always been here.

Meet N Greet

Tuesday December 14 2010

You'd think she was a celebrity, the way the herd came running to meet her. I put the new Gray Mare in the small pen where she could meet everybody over the fence. They walked, trotted, galloped up to see her; shoved each other around, squealed, tried to bend the fence rails to greet her.



After that novelty wore off, I moved her to the big hay pen with the other mare Sunny - near the bottom of the totem pole, and the old gelding Krusty - who has worked his way back up near the top of the totem pole.

They didn't treat the Gray Mare much like a celebrity. Several times, Krusty went after the her with his teeth bared. She double barrelled back at him, not really fleeing in fear but just getting out of his way, and giving him What For. Her hooves connected with him a few times.














Then Krusty got very protective of Sunny - whom he normally doesn't pay much attention to - and he kept the Gray Mare away from her, herding Sunny this way and turning the Gray Mare that way, working hard at being a big barrier between the two.






It was a gusty day. It was an exciting day for a Meet N Greet! Wind! New mare! Raindrops! Hurtling tumbleweeds! Jump! Leap! Run! Batman got a wild hair and took off toward the hay pen,

and the four of them ran back and forth along the fence.



After that novelty wore off... I turned Sunny out of the hay pen with the rest of the herd, which left Krusty and the Gray Mare... and Krusty had nothing much to do but eat hay with his new friend the Gray Mare.

Owyhee 'Toons: Leading Dudley

Sunday December 12 2020





...or not!

Twisted

Saturday December 11 2010

Gray. Gloomy. Dreary. Heavy skies. The Owyhee mountains are gone. Can't see the next ridge - it is consumed by the low sky, fog, mist, drizzle.


Too cold to rain, too warm to snow. Sleet. Spitting, stinging drops that prick the eyeballs and numb the cheeks.


Horses are soggy. They sport the Wet Chicken look, though as long as they're eating, they don't seem to mind.


Birds are waterlogged. The Ravens sit silent, holed up in a leaf-less cottonwood tree, feathers fluffed up to insulate against the wet and cold, waiting for a better day to raise a ruckus.

The desert scrub is sodden. Dripping, drooping, dark brown, dull gold.


Water, soon to be ice, fills coyote tracks. The tracks are deep, heavy. Mud cakes to feet, weighing them down.


Predator and prey have advantages, disadvantages. One slip in the slick mud and the prey loses. One miscalculated slip and the predator loses. She loses the energy it took to go after a meal, and she goes without a meal another night. Not many places in the desert sleet to get dry.

I take to the hills, vanish into the murk. Sleet stabbing my face. Mud caking my shoes, water soaking my clothes, minute icicles dripping from my hair, making me laden as the saturated desert.

I love it.

I must be twisted.

Mutt and Jeff

Friday December 10 2010

Not much has changed since Stormy and Tex (renamed Ted by his new owner Linda) became BFFs about a year ago. The Bromance continued through the summer, and the two are still thick as thieves, little Tex bossing his big buddy Stormy around (gently),


protecting him,




eating with him,






rolling with him,



rarely leading him,


and following him wherever he goes.










If one thing might be different, it's that tall Mutt and half-pint Jeff are now BFFAEs - Best Friends Forever And Ever.