Owyhee Sunrise

Monday November 16 2009

How about a Photo a Day (or thereabouts) for entertainment when the stories don't get written?

This is a foggy, cool Owyhee desert sunrise, near the Snake River.

Skiff

Saturday November 14 2009

Just a skiff of snow is all we got after the 80% chance... but it was good enough for Smokey!




Note the hang time.


It was good enough for everybody else too.

Jose and Dudley playing.


Oops! I didn't do it.


Rhett is not sure he should be seen with this snow on his nose.


Stormy getting into the action. Doesn't look fat here, does he?


Half brothers Jose and Kazam.


Smokey has lots of boyfriends already.


Stormy doesn't look fat here either, does he? Admit it, he just looks good.




I could have used a bit more snow this time; I just have to wait a bit longer for the Big Storm.

Fixin' What's Broke

Wednesday November 11 2009

For one thing, I'm fixin' my rib. It's mending... really just annoying now at times rather than anything else. The prescription is plenty of exercise, extra calcium, and no more falling off horses.

For another thing, I'm fixin' Kazam, who broke my rib. The Great Rib Incident really isn't the problem, and didn't really contribute to what needs fixin' on Kazam, although dumping a rider and running 90 miles per hour for home in a panic on that day probably didn't make things any better.

What's broke on him is his self confidence. Though Kazam is Jose's half brother - calm, steady, smart, cool-headed Jose - Kazam isn't quite like that yet. He's sweet and smart and trustworthy on the ground, and he wants to be good under saddle... it's just a matter of translating that trust and self-assurance to riding.

The main cause is his sporadic riding and training. Due to various circumstances, Kazam has been a green horse for years - never graduated any further. Steph got him green-broke a couple of years ago, then he turned up lame, so he had time off. Connie started getting on him again last fall - at the time she had him boldly going out alone... and he went lame again so he had the winter off. Then nobody was around to put the time in riding him. He went to a trainer this summer for a month, then had more time off while I was gone. I started him back later this summer, and while I mostly rode him in company, he always had a traumatic time going out by himself. Then I left again for 2 weeks to Kentucky. When I got back, I rode him for 2 days, then went and fell off him and broke my rib. He had 6 weeks off.

I've started back on him again, and, since his biggest problem is going out by himself, that is all that we do. Every day.

And that's all we will do until he gets so comfortable with it that he dreams about wanting to do it. Some days are worse than others, but every day is better in some little way. Every day, he's a little less scared, or less reluctant, or less spooky; he's more relaxed or relaxed sooner, more able to control his panic. He does, however, know every shortcut home, just in case we get caught out in a heavy fog and I get lost.

This is what happened yesterday:

We were coming back home from a good ride. We crested our Tevis hill where we have a view of home. Kazam spotted his horse herd far up the pasture on this side of the creek - not a usual spot... and he started getting wound up thinking about it - Ohmigosh, the horses are not by the house, they are up there!!!!

He did keep his cool and remain responsive and controllable all the way home, but as soon as I unsaddled him and turned him loose, panic mode took over. He took off cantering up the pasture, over a hill and out of sight, whinnying for his mates.

I turned away, figuring he'd cross the creek up there and join them, but then I heard a mighty roar. Here came Kazam - running back toward the house, 300 miles an hour - ohmigod! - whinnying in hysteria, every thundering stride stabbing his whinnies with panic.


I gasped and my heart stopped: shocking - thrilling - terrifying - exciting - all at the same time. I've never seen a horse run this fast, warp speed, not a Quarter Horse in a quarter-mile race out of the starting gate. (Although I did ride a rocket ship once in the Egyptian desert... but that's another story.) I cringed as Kazam got near the barn, afraid he'd just crash into it. He swerved and shot past it and on down the side of the mare pen, sat on his haunches, spun a 180, started sprinting back up the pasture, dropped and spun toward the creek, leaped over it, and headed for his herd, still whinnying up a frenzy. Ohmigod!

Meanwhile, Rhett was already trotting back in this direction to see what the heck was going on - I could see a collision coming! But somehow they all jumbled seamlessly together and caught the electric current and became one tempest, typhooning back my way, blasting across the creek, cutting the corner of the barn at a tilt to the front pen (Stormy the fat boy much slower behind them, and carefully crossing the rocky creek), where they skillfully whirled and ducked and dodged each other in a great upheaval of dust - bucked, wheeled, reared, piaffed, spun, and head-down-double-barrelled in the air, just because they had four legs and they could. An exuberant herd romp!

And suddenly all was calm. One last snort. Sides heaved. Heads dropped to graze. Like nothing had happened. My heart finally jump-started and I drew breath again. Ohmigod!

This is what I'm working to prevent Kazam from doing under saddle.

On his daily solo rides away from the house, it takes a lot of time and patience. I always have a plan, but I don't always stick to it, depending on how he's doing each day. We never go the same way twice; we never rush; I never force him but rather ask him to do something, and make it so he can only want to do what I ask. Every horse is different, so I'm still learning what works best on him to get the best response. We follow trails and washes, and we ride cross-country. We climb hills, because Kazam is not an uphill horse (yet). We practice opening gates... he is getting almost as good as ranch horse Mac and once-upon-a-time dude ranch horse Stormy. When Kazam stops to graze out on the trail, I know he's really relaxed. When he passes by something scary without letting it scare him, he knows he's done good.

If it takes a whole winter of riding him by himself, that's what I'll do. However long it will take to get him going good is however long it will take.

That's our homework for the Owyhee winter.

Snow Dance

Friday November 13 2009

Is that a beautiful sight, or what?

I do seem to be the only one with this opinion... any Happy Snow Dances I do tend to be greeted with moans, groans, or the trigger-pulling of the imaginary gun in my direction. At the very least you all might get some real Owyhee snow pictures soon. While most people seem to not love the snow, they like looking at my pictures of it.

Now, it's a bit cold for a ride this morning (sunny and gorgeous, but cold), with frost still on the ground and fence rails, and the horses turned broadside to the sun to soak up the warming rays.

But I am going out for a ride, as soon as I pull my clothes out of the dryer, where they are warming up.

To Be (Fat) Or Not To Be?

Monday November 9 2009

Alright, help me out here. Look at that picture up there. Is Stormy fat? I can see his ribs from the side through his winter coat.

Now look at him from this angle.


I think he might be having twins! Maybe he swallowed 2 beach balls. I swear that Princess was not this wide when she was pregnant with Smokey this summer. Stormy waddles when he walks!

Connie says that I'm in denial that he's fat. I'm not in denial; I just love my horse however big his paunch is, and I just prefer to look at him from the side, where I can't see the protuberance.

He was eating 24 hours a day since we put free-feed hay out in preparation for the winter. Sometimes he had his head buried up to his withers in the hay and he didn't even hear me when I walked up and talked to him.

Steph suggested lunging him half an hour every day. Lunge him! I couldn't get him to trot for half a lap around the round pen, much less half an hour, if I tried with whips and electric prods. He is going to start riding again - get him working up a few hills or washes... though with his navicular, that can't be a strict routine. He's in the diet pen too now, getting access to the hay only morning and evening. Maybe when it snows this weekend (!!) he'll shiver a few pounds off.

I agree Stormy is a wide load... but is he really fat? He's not buffalo fat like Dudley was (was! Dudley is still looking good) - Stormy has no cresty neck, no dimpled butt - nothing but a huge sideways belly.

Or is it just all in your perspective? (As in, perspective from a side view, like I prefer, versus a front or back view).

Or is he just a good keeper?

What do you think? What's the solution? Suspenders? Girdle?

(Stormy is a bit peeved at all the scuttlebutt over his belly - he's very comfortable with his body.)

She IS a Freak!

Sunday November 8 2009

Thoroughbred racing skeptic-of-Superhorses that I am, I was impressed by Rachel Alexandra (Is She A Freak?), after she beat all the 3-year-old fillies she could find, the 3-year-old boys in the Preakness and the Haskell Stakes, and older males in the Woodward Stakes this year (the first 3-year-old filly to ever win the Woodward.)

After Zenyatta's stunning performance in yesterday's Breeders' Cup Classic (the first female to ever win it), I'm convinced they are both freaks. Secretariats? Ruffians? No. Freaks? Yes. Zenyatta had the announcers stuttering and sputtering after her implausible win. I couldn't believe her run. I couldn't believe it the second time I saw it, nor the third, nor the tenth (I can't stop watching it - I think it was the third time I got over being stunned, and had tears in my eyes.)

It's kind of sad Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta won't meet, (Zenyatta was to be retired after this race) but then I'm glad they won't. With two champions like this, one should not have to end up being a loser.

As for Horse of the Year honors for 2009, it's sad one will be a loser there. In fact it's silly for humans to have to vote who they think is the better Horse of the Year. It's a moot point. Both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta are champions, both did everything they were asked this year, both accomplished far more than any other horse this year (or many other years), both turned in outstanding performances that would make them Horse of the Year any other year. It's not like the Affirmed and Alydar rivalry, where Alydar would have been Horse of the Year any other year that he hadn't run against Affirmed. They did compete, several times, and Affirmed came out on top more. What does it mean when humans vote that they think one filly/mare is better than the other this year, when they are so closely matched, but haven't run together? Nothing: it's just opinions. By choosing one, our opinions might just be wrong and still go down in the history books. One of them is not better than the other. They are both magnificent champions this year.

Both of them should share Horse of the Year honors.

Period.

(Guess that's why they don't let me vote. : )

Watch the race on Youtube

What About the Indians?

Friday November 6 2009

We looked at the Utter Disaster story from 1860. I just rode over the trail where the event happened near the Snake River. Here in Murphy, the county seat of Owyhee, is a monument for the massacre of the Utter wagon train pioneers, erected by the Sons and Daughters of Idaho Pioneers in 1935.

My question: What about the Indians?

If you have read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, you know the story. If you haven't read it, that's one book you should read in your lifetime. But here's the short of the story:

White man comes to America with the need to discover, to escape tyranny, to explore, (or to explore and conquer), or with noble self-righteous goals of 'helping the poor savages'.

Indians don't always see this noble White intention as salvation. Sometimes they fight to keep what is theirs. (Can this really be surprising.) White Man wants the land. White Man needs the land. White Man has more and bigger guns. Indians die. They lose their land. (Except for the dreariest and crappiest places in America for their Reservations the White Man so kindly and generously gave them.)(Unless the White Man changed his mind and wanted those places too). The End. Epilogue: White Man gets the plaques.

John Winthrop, who led a group of Puritans from England to their new home in Massachusetts in 1630, was convinced that part of their mission was to help the native Indians, who wanted and needed their help.

In 1845, journalist John O'Sullivan talked of America's "manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions." (Ah - now there's much more of the truth - 'We's got too many peoples and no room - so scootch over!').

I get it, Manifest Destiny and all that Hoohaw.

Now, I myself am from Sorbian stock (Slavic immigrants from Lusatia, an area in eastern Germany) - Texas Wends - who fled oppression, discrimination, and religious tyranny in the 1850's; and while my ancestors ensconced themselves in a rather peaceful corner of Texas (very likely the Indians had already been run off), I reckon they would have done the same thing to claim and keep their new home, as did the Whites who moved from East to West, taking over their great new land. So you can say my Euro-White Man ancestors did the same thing - came to the New World for a new life, and everything included in that quest; and they probably would have fought and died for that right. And we would have put up plaques for them.

I seem to have the Vagabond gene I must answer to (I know I'm meant to be in the West), and probably would have done the same thing in 1680 and 1860 that I'm doing now (though I'd'a refused to wear those Little-House-On-The-Prairie dresses, thank you very much), so I would have Manifested my Own Destiny, whoever was in my way, too.

Now, back to Owyhee, Idaho and the Utter Massacre (and all the others):

I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not accusing, I'm not acknowledging this was not a tragedy (for both sides), I'm simply reciting history, and I'm just sayin'.

What about the Indians?