Happy Autumn!

 

Happy Autumn, everyone! What a beautiful time of year. Things are hopping around here. A new grandson was born last week, and is just so perfect and tiny. They're coming over today for lunch and hugs.

I had my weekly lesson with Tumbleweed yesterday, and it went very well. We are still working on what it means to get him balanced in his body. Being a young horse, these are new muscles for him, and it is important for me to help develop them. First, however, I have to see what I'm supposed to be developing, and Regina helps me with that from the ground. When he's using his whole body, his attention and focus are so much more engaged, too. 

Yesterday, we focused on two new goals. The first was pointing my belly button the direction I want his foot to go. Regina wanted me to envision my belly button pointing towards the exact spot on the ground where I wanted to see his foot land. This slight, straight twist of the torso (not down) is very effective. I had him in vertical flexion at the walk, loose rein, twist, then leg, and follow up with a rein slap if he didn't respond. 

The second issue she addressed was my rein/neck cue for the turn. I had been laying the rein on his neck and using my leg, but she wanted me to bring the reins up to my opposite shoulder and hold until he figured to move off of it--towards the shoulder. At the beginning, Tweed didn't know what the cue was, and he backed up trying to figure out if that was the answer. Regina told me to hold it, hold it, hold it--and allow him to struggle, but as soon as he moved off of it for the turn, quick release. We did that over and over until all it took was the slightest movement over towards my shoulder, and he knew it meant turn. The turns were so much more balanced. 

Our hour went by quickly, and she wanted to end on that positive note, but I always like to have him open and close the gate for me to get back to my trailer. Tweed decided he wanted to get over to Regina for some friendly trainer/horse bonding time, and when I asked him to turn (with the rein cue we'd just worked on,) he resisted to go the opposite direction toward Regina. We had a little bit of waiting and backing again, but finally he decided to make the turn, and walk over to the gate to open and close it with me. (Ha! The lesson is over when it's over, and it's not always over when we think it is!)

I'm going to have new sand brought in for my outside arena and put together a small round pen in the center so that we can have lessons at home soon. The equestrian area closes down for the winter around mid-November. 

Regina has a philosophy that whatever note you end on each season, that will be where you take up in spring. She never puts away a horse until the training has ended on a positive note. She has seen over and over again the horse's amazing ability to retain that information, if it's solid, and start up where they left off.

Winters are always a surprise around here, so we will keep going until we can't, and keep ending on those positive notes, both for Tumbleweed and me.

Resilience

I finished reading, The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable Life of a 109-Year-Old Man, by David Von Drehle. The book is written as part biography of Dr. Charlie White, the 109-year-old man, and part life advice for David Von Drehle's own children when they grow up. The theme is resilience and, to a lesser extent, resourcefulness, which was definitely displayed by Dr. White as he adapted to 109 years of world wide, earth-shattering changes. A very fascinating life, and I highly recommend this book.

It got me thinking about my own circumstances, with this unexpected, shocking divorce my daughter is going through. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but sometimes it does, indeed, kill you. 

Resilience.  The concept struck me as the exact thing demanded in this season of life.

I ordered two books on the subject, one of which is, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom For Living A Better Life, by Eric Greitens. I'm only four chapters into it, but it's very interesting. He wrote it as a series of letters to his friend and former SEAL team member.

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship, and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength – if we have the virtue of resilience.

A couple days ago I got a health warning from my Apple Watch. The health app was tracking my steps and weight, and it had detected a new trend. Warning!

Yes, I had become a bit paralyzed, doing the bare minimum, and putting everything I have into my daughter and grandson. Yes, I had put on a few pounds, not really caring about eating healthy. But life got complicated. 

The flowers I had purchased in June, the month this started, remain unplanted.

Hey, at least they're still alive!

The Rio I over-wintered last year is thriving. I have several pots of it around the house.  Kudos to last year me!

That's a good example of taking advantage of the better seasons in life. They may come back to bless you in the harder ones.

For the last couple of weeks I have been moving again, playing the guitar, and eating healthier.  One of the meals my daughter found on Pinterest, and we cooked together, is Honey Siracha Salmon Bowls. We're making it a hobby to find and cook healthy meals now.  That's a good start towards rebuilding.

Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

Yesterday, I had a lesson with Tweed down at the park with my trainer Regina. She and I have continued to meet every Friday, through all of this, but Tweed broke a splint about a month ago, and so we spent two of those weeks evaluating and coming up with a healing / resting plan. Since he has been sound again, we have started work.

The last time we met, I was really out of it: stressed, tired, and doing only the minimum. Regina sensed it and didn't push us too hard. I didn't even mount up that day, because my head and heart weren't in it. 

Yesterday I was fully present and, SURPRISE, so was Tumbleweed. It's amazing how sensitive they are to our moods. We had a wonderful lesson where he progressed quickly through the round pen work and right to saddle work. 

We're still working on vertical flexion, softness, and when to release.  We worked in the round pen, and then she had me do the same work out on the trails and around obstacles both at walk and trot. The ground was uneven enough that he had to pay attention and carry himself, but not so uneven that he tripped. Regina was really happy with Tumbleweed. She thought his attitude and willingness was just wonderful.

I left the lesson very happy.  

The great thing about being horsewomen is that even when life is thrown off the rails, and all you want to do is sit around, or hide away in your fear, the barn is calling you, the horses are calling you, the relationship is demanding that you show up and take care--and that ends up being a huge blessing over and over and over again.

When people hear the word resilience, they often think of bouncing back. If you look up resilience in the Merriam Webster dictionary one of the first definitions, you’ll find "this capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation, especially if the strain is caused by compressive stresses, also called elastic resilience." Resilience as elasticity. 

Life‘s reality is that we cannot bounce back. We cannot bounce back because we cannot go back in time to the people we used to be. The parent who loses a child, never bounces back. What’s done, cannot be undone, and some of what life does to us is harsh. Resilient people do not bounce back from hard experiences, they find healthy ways to integrate them into their lives. In time, people find that great calamity met with great spirit can create great strength.

Healing is a long process. I wish it wasn't.

Even though I know that seasons like this often result in a better place on the other side, you still have to do the work of getting to the other side. Dr. Charlie White lived to be 109, and probably would have lived longer, except that he was ready to go on his birthday. He said he wanted to live to see 109, and he did. 

One of the most naturally resilient people I have ever known is my husband. He could write his own book on it. He has spent the last 20 years devoted to accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. Like most resilient people, he is a man of action and intellectual strength. Every day when he has free time, he is out in the barn happily working on the tack room. (When he has down time, he is reading a book.)

I believe there is a part of our brain (and spirit) that experiences happiness, and we can practice tapping into and activating it. We can become experts at activating it and living in that space longer. 

There is another part, however, that is pulling us the other way--toward sadness, fear, bitterness, loneliness, anger, and anxiety. I suppose that is a survival extinct gone awry. 

I'm starting to see life as a battle between those two existences. One path leads to death, the other to life. Living forever is not a big priority for me, but living better is. If, after this season, I have come closer to that goal, this will have been yet another crisis point turned into an overall benefit, even a blessing.

I'll write more about resilience in the coming months, and as I get further along in my study and experience. 

Trails and Trials

I accomplished a major goal I had set for myself last year, climbing up Schweitzer Mt.

When I chose that as my goal, we immediately set out walking and hiking, no matter the weather: wind, rain, ice, or snow. The intention was to keep moving during the bad months in order to be fit enough for the climb by early summer. Though it started out as my goal, my husband is such an intimate partner & friend, my goal became his goal. It morphed into our goal.

But life got in the way, our world was turned upside down, and the structure of our walks and hikes, completely broken up with supporting our daughter through her very painful divorce, all but disappeared. 

We poured our energy into helping her, and our grandson, and it left very little energy, or time, for climbing mountains. Now that I think about it, we were climbing mountains, but emotional ones, rather than physical ones. 

To be honest, I'd forgotten about my goal. It had been subsumed with this other, bigger, need. But my daughter had taken time off for what would have been her 8th wedding anniversary, and she decided to go on an adventure. She loaded up her son and she drove to the coast for the week, all by herself. She wanted to experience the healing power of the ocean and escape, just for a small time, the place, the city, where all the chaos was happening. Her departure left us with a free week. 

When I remembered my our goal, and saw the opening to attain it, I also realized we hadn't been walking and hiking as much as we had hoped to prepare for it. However, I figured, worst case scenario, we could abandon the climb and go back down. We at least needed to try.

So, we packed up and headed to Schweitzer to tackle the 2,000 foot ascent in 2 1/2 miles. It was very doable, training or not, but I wanted it to also be fun and not torture.

Well, the first part of the hike up was, indeed, torture.

We had taken a wrong path and it went straight up the mountain. My head got light. Muscles fatigued. And my Apple watch recorded my heart rate at SLOW THE HELL DOWN!

We stopped and rested to catch our breath, which gave me a moment to open the All Trails App. It showed the nature path we should have been on versus our present location, way off the nature path. The only way to get back onto it was straight up even further.

At that point, I wanted to take plan B, go back down the mountain and quit. Hadn't my summer been hard enough without adding the hike from hell onto it, too? Wasn't my goal to make it fun? This wasn't fun. This was suicide by heart attack.

My husband encouraged me to keep going, which only pissed me off and made me want to quit even more. But then he used reverse psychology and told me we SHOULD quit, and that he wanted to turn around, right then and there, and go back. 

That stopped me in my tracks. How dare he try and keep me from my year long goal! The nerve of the man! 

That's all it took, and I was charging up the hill like a wild thing, (Apple watch be damned!) trying to make my way back to the nature path that winds a bit gentler up metaphor mountain.

Once on the nature trail (photos above) it was all, Happy Days Are Here Again.

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again
All together shout it now
There's no one
Who can doubt it now
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again
Your cares and troubles are gone
There'll be no more from now on
From now on

There were huckleberries to eat along the way.

And a lucky penny!

There was even a smiley face before our last and hardest ascent.

And at the top, wine and cheers.

A selfie at the summit.

If you climb up the mountain, as a bonus, you get a free ride down on the ski lift.

I had gone to the mountain that day praying for wisdom about our current trials and wanting to see God, like my own dad had said he did on one of our hikes together when he was still alive and about my age now. 

I came back with answers about both, about why my dad was able to see God's hand so powerfully in nature, and about how these major life trials are like those difficult mountain trails. 

Look at how similar those two words are--trails and trials. Not much separates them.

Wild Fires & Miracles

Several fires swept down on us last Friday. We were surrounded by them, and they were devastating. 

My brother's house was threatened, so he took refuge at our house with his family and animals. He had been out shopping with his wife, about 20 miles away from home, when they came out of a store and saw the smoke.  My husband had been working in the barn, and he called me to look outside. The smoke was dark and massive.  My brother's daughter, my niece, was at their home, and she texted them that a Level 2 evacuation had been ordered. 

We had 35 mph winds that day and extremely low humidity, so the fire swept quickly into the town of Medical Lake (about ten miles from us), which houses a very large state hospital (it's the hospital my husband worked at when we first moved to Spokane) My brother's community is on the outskirts of Medical Lake, (about 7 miles East) next to Silver Lake. Because of the wind direction, the fire made its way quickly through the town, and to the area of my brother's house, wiping out almost everything in its path. As he evacuated with his dog, cats, wife and daughter, they saw lines of cars backed up trying to get to safety on other roads. It reminded us all of the Maui fire because it had moved so swiftly, with so little time to react.

The last I heard, 200 homes and structures were destroyed and one person died. Some animals were trapped in the homes and also died, but I haven't seen how many. My daughter's friend lost her home, and she had two dogs that perished. They lost everything, even the cars parked outside.

My brother's house was saved by two miraculous events. The first was his neighbor, a Mennonite man. We had seen video of him out plowing a fire line around his farm with a wall of fire and smoke heading directly for him. Well, he also plowed a fire line around my brother's neighborhood, and the flames came right up to that line, but went no further.

The second thing that saved his house, which continued to be threatened from flying hot embers as big as your hand, was that USAA sent their own fire truck to his neighborhood. It is a military retirement community, and many of the homeowners had USAA insurance. That fire truck and crew battled the embers all night and saved the homes there. They remained on duty until the threat lifted, many days later. 

I guess there is a third thing, an unexpected heavy rain in August, which is very rare for our area. The rain came through yesterday, which allowed all the evacuations to be lifted and my brother and family to return home.

That was called the Gray Fire, but there were two others burning at the same time. One of them was North of us, the Oregon Rd Fire in Elk, WA. I have a good friend with a breeding operation in Elk. She has two stallions and a number of brood mares and foals--20 in all. She and her husband had built a thriving farm and her daughter, husband, and grandchildren lived there, too. They were able to evacuate all the humans and animals with the help of their community, but lost their home and barns.

Their escape was harrowing. Two of the horses wouldn't load and my friend had to walk one out, and to safety at 11:45 pm, in the dark, with a fire behind her. Her daughter and son-in-law followed her and the horse, Dash, to make sure they weren't hit by a car. The cameras at their house went dead at 12:30 am, just 45 minutes after they left. My friend walked that horse 7 miles to safety. A couple days later they found the other horse they'd left safe in a pasture that by miracle had remained unburned.

While the rest of the country has experienced extreme heat this year, we have had a mild summer, but we were in a patch of days that were hovering around 100 degrees. I will be interested to know what started these fires and if any of them were a result of an arsonist.

On another note, I worked with Tweed on the new breezeway today. He was cautious walking onto it, but then walked nicely to his stall and went in. I don't have to take him down the breezeway to access his stall, but I do want him to get used to it.

I've been keeping the brick clean with my new handy-dandy leaf blower. My husband bought me a little one, but I replaced it with a bigger one that gets the job done much faster. 

The weather has turned mild--highs in the 70's--and it's as if we never even had raging fires surrounding us. We had been completely smoked in, the worst air quality in the US and low visibility, but now the skies are clear. 

To say this has been a crazy summer would be an understatement. 

More Progress, and On to the Next Phase

The wood has been placed into the stall fronts, feeders attached (I LOVE them!!), and the hay doors installed. 

The main stall doors have a top portion that swings down, which is nice if you like to pet your horses and interact with them, like I do. They are tall enough that I don't think a horse would try to jump out, but I still wouldn't leave them open at night with Epona or Tweed (especially Little Miss Jumping Jack Flash Epona.)

The hay doors are convenient. I swing them all open at the same time, feed, then shut them at the same time.

Yesterday was the first day they were allowed into them.

Tumbleweed did NOT trust the new floors, but I eventually went into the stall and encouraged him little by little until he felt secure on them. 

When I went out to clean them today, I could tell who felt the most comfortable by the amount of manure in the stalls, and Epona won that contest by a lot! She made sure to poop in every corner, and every nook and cranny.

I will say, cleaning the stalls was MUCH easier, and I think wood shavings will last a lot longer.

I said I love the feeders, and I am not kidding. They are built to last and have two small pockets for supplements on the sides of the larger bin for hay. The stalls seem much bigger with them in it, and I don't need grain buckets.

Here are some photos of the Stall Grazers, and it gives you a perspective of how roomy the stalls still feel.

1st stall

2nd stall

We're shifting our sights to the tack room now. We need two doors, one to the room from the outside, and the other to the breezeway. We're also installing a window to look out on the breezeway.

That's the loveseat and table I purchased at Farm Chicks two months ago. We like to sit in there and imagine it's already done.

The measurement for the room is 12' X 18', which isn't huge, basically like a stall and half, but it will be cozy.  We split the difference with the existing stall so that it could be used for foaling or for a horse that needs more room.

We went to our local door and window store, and started to get ideas about what we might want so that we can start to sketch out a plan.