Ch-ch-ch-changes

By Gayle Carline
Author, Horse Owner, Enthusiastic Embracer of All Things New

Okay, that last title is not only not a real thing, it's only partially true. I like new things. New Ariats, a cute new outfit, new gadgets. I had to order a new watch yesterday (my watches tend to fall completely apart and I do mean completely after about a year of sun, heat, horse hair, dirt, sunscreen, sweat, etc) and I'm super excited to see that Amazon box on my front porch.

The sides broke and it stopped working. 

Changes, however, to my lifestyle? Not much of a fan, even when I'm the one who makes the change. Still, at my age, I know that nothing stays the same, you learn to roll with the punches, make lemonade out of lemons, and ask for serenity to accept what's out of your control. 

Of course, wine and chocolate help.

Sorry, I ate the chocolate.

The big change I'm dancing around here is that my trainer is moving to a new facility. It was a long-thought-out, carefully considered decision. She discussed it with all of her clients to get their opinions and their buy-ins. Our current facility has been slowly becoming less horse-centric and more dog-centric, and the new place is only two doors down from us.

Our new tack room - so cute!

I don't blame the owner--dogs are a more lucrative business in southern California. It will be a win-win situation for everyone. The owner can develop the remaining horse stalls and arenas into dog training and kennels, and my trainer can be at a full-on equestrian facility with more opportunities to grow her business.

But.

We've been at the ranch for 12-13 years. Snoopy was born there. Before the owner got involved with dog training, she was my horse trainer. It's still a quiet and relaxing place to hang out while my horse is out playing, or standing in the sun, drying after a bath. In a way, it's like leaving home.

Snoopy's new barn. Frostie will be in a pipe stall behind it.

And while the new place is lovely and has a lot of perks, I know the grass isn't greener. We now have to share resources with other trainers on the property. Compromising will be done. Adjustments (as well as mistakes) will be made. 

I've made the decision to take each phase as it happens. We are currently moving our stuff, bit by bit (no pun intended) to the new facility. This is the "OMG, this place is wonderful and we're going love it here!" phase. We need this phase to keep the stars in our eyes while our muscles ache from all the schlepping.

Once we move in, the "Hmm, this place has too much/too little of x,y,z" phase takes over. It's like piercing your favorite balloon and watching the air seep out. I will accept this and move through it with a glad heart. And wine and chocolate.

How do you handle changes in your life? 



Of course, I had to include the song. It's stuck in my head. Now it's stuck in yours. You're welcome.

Changes and Sadness

                                                by Laura Crum

            We went for a ride in the woods the other day. It is mid-January and much that we saw was dry and dusty. This is unheard of for this time of year. The central coast of California is in the grip of a huge drought. In 56 years of living here, I have never seen a January quite like this. So this is one big change.

            Looking on the bright side of this change, the footing is perfect. No mud. Nothing is slippery. We can do any ride we care to do.

            We decided to ride our usual two hour through-the-forest loop backward. Trails look so different when you ride them in the opposite direction. It would be like a whole new ride. This would be a change, too. Off we went, down the steep hill that we usually ride up, and across the creek.

Henry is such a good horse—the very best.

            Henry will be 26 years old this spring. He’s still going well, but I have cut back on the work he is asked to do. On this ride I noticed for the first time that Henry was a little reluctant to climb the steeper hills. (There are no big hills on this ride, just some short bits of up and down.) I paid attention and on the climbs Henry is stepping short on the right hind. He’s fine on level ground. I’m pretty sure his hock is bothering him. To be frank, it’s a miracle his hocks haven’t bothered him before this. Older QH rope horses almost always have a touch of bone spavin. I will keep a good eye on Henry and we may avoid steep climbs from here on. Another change.

            Though I am accepting that Henry can’t go on forever as a riding horse, it makes me sad to acknowledge that this part of our lives is coming slowly but steadily to an end. My son and I are still riding together on Henry and Sunny, and both horses have been a total blessing. But Henry IS 26. The change is coming.

            We rode through the forest. I snapped a few photos as we moved along. All of them turned out blurry, but you can see how pretty the forest is. It was 70 degrees—just like a summer ride. Lovely under the trees.

            Here we go through what feels like a doorway between two big redwood trees. It’s neat.

            And then I got lost. I know, sounds idiotic. Lost on a two hour ride I’ve done dozens of times before. Sort of like Gilligan’s Island (this really dates me). And I wasn’t truly, exactly lost. I just took a wrong turn and we didn’t end up riding our usual loop backward after all. It’s surprising how different a trail looks when you ride it in the opposite direction. But we found our way back to the truck and trailer eventually and saw some pretty things along the way. Reflections of redwoods seen through Sunny’s ears…

            Everything is changing, all the time. “Change is the very most natural thing,” in the words of Jerry Jeff Walker. A lot of the time things seem stable and we don’t notice the changing. But sometimes things seem to change suddenly, all around us. Like my 13 year old son, who, in one year, is no longer a little boy. And there have been several other changes in our life as a family, all in the past six months. On the surface, some of these changes are not so positive. And yet, maybe it just depends on how you look at it.

            This drought we are currently going through here in coastal California looks like a pretty darn negative thing. But we sure have had some lovely days…and some lovely rides. Can’t help but enjoy this 70 degree weather.

            Henry may be getting near to the end of his time as a riding horse. But he has given us SO much. From when my kid was just turned 7 until now at 13 and 1/2 years old, my son has ridden this good red horse everywhere, and never had one bad experience. How wonderful is that? Wonderful enough to balance some inevitable sadness of loss, I believe. Those good rides will forever be a part of us.

These last few months we have had our fair share of change and sadness. Some people we care about have had some very difficult and unavoidable problems, and some other people we know and thought were our friends have turned out not to be our friends. These things are true and they do make me sad when I think about them.

But my son gave me a hummingbird feeder for Xmas that is made out of an antique ruby red glass bottle. It is beautiful and the hummers love it. The feeder glows like a jewel in the sunlight and the birds whiz up to it in delight. I can think about the sad things, or I can watch the hummingbirds.

I think I will just keep my eye on the hummingbirds.

           

Changes

by Laura Crum

I guess life is all about change. Certainly my life with horses has been about change. About the only constant is that I was always horse crazy. Here’s the first photo I have of myself on a horse. I am two years old. The horse is a pony named “Tarbaby” that belonged to my horse trading uncle. The photo, which sits by my desk, says nothing about my small self. Rather the notation on the back reads, “Pony for Sale.” Apparently the picture was taken to prove the pony was gentle rather than to capture my happiness aboard a horse. But you can see that I’m happy.

Throughout my childhood my parents steadfastly refused my pleas for my own horse. Eventually, at fifteen, I was allowed to buy one with my own money. This horse did not really work out, but I wasn’t discouraged. I kept trying. And when I was twenty-two I bought the first horse I would keep until he died (in his late 30’s). This is Burt, a horse I rode for many years on commercial cattle ranches and showed at a very beginning level in cowhorse and cutting.

Burt was a kind, willing horse. I bought him as a five year old with thirty days on him, and trained him myself. He was the first horse I ever “made.” You could work a cow, gather all day in rough country, corral rope on him…etc. He was a great ranch horse. But in my late twenties I became obsessed with competing in cowhorse events.

Burt was a nice horse, but not the sort of horse I could be truly competitive on. And I had the competition bug. So I bought Gunner, a fancy three year old QH with ninety days on him. I did all the rest of Gunner’s training myself and competed on him pretty successfully in cowhorse, cutting, and, eventually, team roping. Here’s Gunner and me winning the cutting class at our local county fair.

I still own Gunner, he’s thirty-one and happily turned out to pasture. Here we are when he was eighteen, a couple of years after I retired him.

By the time Gunner was retired, I was obsessed with team roping. I bought a half interest in Flanigan, who was a solid seven year old team roping horse, and competed on him for almost ten years. I also rode him on numerous pack trips through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Flanigan was truly a magical horse for me, enabling me to do many things I’d only dreamed of doing. Here I am roping on Flanigan with my friend Sue Crocker heeling on Pistol.

And here we are riding through Kerrick Meadow in the Sierra Nevada.

At this point in my life (my thirties), I really liked training horses. I bought several colts to train and rode some for others. Of these, the one I kept and rode myself for many years was Plumber, a horse I’d known since he was born. I bought him as an unbroken three year old, trained him myself to be a competitive team roping horse, and rode him until he was nineteen. Plumber is twenty-two today and retired. Still sound and happy and living with me. Here’s Plumber a few years ago. Always a very sweet horse, which I think you can tell from his expression.

When Plumber made it clear he really did not want to be ridden any more, I bought Sunny, a steady little trail horse. At the same time I bought Henry, an equally steady horse, for my then seven year old son. The two horses have taken us on hundreds and hundreds of happy rides over the four years I’ve owned them, and have been total rockstars when it comes to reliable. Here we are on a recent autumn day at the Lookout, Monterey Bay in the background.

I know I look mean in the photo, but we weren’t really upset with each other--we had a very happy ride. I am asking my kid why he can’t just smile at the camera, and he is insisting he doesn’t like having his picture taken. My husband, who hiked with us, was trying to get a nice photo in front of our favorite spot. The horses look cute, anyway, and obligingly pricked their ears.

This string of photos does not reflect all the horses I’ve owned, let alone all the horses I’ve ridden. But it does show the five horses who have been my main mounts throughout my lifetime. Burt, Gunner, Flanigan, Plumber, and Sunny. As well as Henry, my son’s horse, who has given us so much. Gunner, Plumber, Sunny, and Henry are still with us. Burt and Flanigan I owned until they died. These photos also demonstrate the big changes I’ve gone through in my “horse life”. From a toddler sitting on a pony, to an active trainer/competitor, back to a sedate middle aged woman sitting on a slightly larger pony. Its been quite the path. Forty years of non-stop horse ownership.

On a recent post of mine about my trail riding (Trail Ride Drama), Fantastyk Voyager commented that I should enjoy my current contented life with horses because it probably wouldn’t last. This comment made me think. Change is inevitable, I know. If nothing else, my son will grow older and I will no longer be riding with my “little boy”. And/or I may tire of trail riding. But more than that, I will some day either be old enough that I can’t ride any more or I’ll be gone. We don’t last forever. This change, too, will come.

At first, this is a sad thought. But the more I considered it, the more I realized that it depends on how you look at it. Looking at these old photos of myself, I knew that in the thick of my roping days, if you had told me that ten years later I wouldn’t be roping any more, I would have been very sad. I would have told you that I wanted to keep roping until I was eighty (at least). But when the change actually happened, it was gentle and pleasant. I lost interest in roping and competing. I was very happy to enjoy relaxing trail rides with my son instead. Might it not be true that when I am old enough that I can only toddle down to the barnyard and feed, this change will feel appropriate also? Perhaps I will be at peace with it, as I have been with the changes that have happened so far.

The truth is I don’t miss the many things I’ve done with horses. Ranching, horse packing, cutting, cowhorse, team roping, horse training…etc. I’m glad I did those things. They were all very happy parts of my life. But I’m fine with where I’m at now. And I’m hoping I’ll be fine with where I go next.

So how about you guys? Any insights on change or growing older with horses? Its sort of the bottom line.