Summer Riding and Reading

                                                by Laura Crum

            Now that I’m finally done with the long saga of “My Life With Horses” (everybody heaves a sigh of relief), I thought I’d catch you up on what I’ve been doing lately. For those few who might be interested, I will collect the “My Life With Horses” posts into a brief memoir, which will (eventually) be up on Kindle.

            So, lately we’ve been riding (no big surprise there). Our old friend and boarder, Wally, has recovered from his knee surgery and is back to riding and roping. Here he is on the trail with my son, as they give their horses a breather climbing up the big hill. Wally turns eighty in a week or so, so his fast and uneventful recovery from knee surgery is both impressive and inspiring (to me, anyway, and perhaps to all of us older riders).

            I love riding this dirt road through the redwood forest in the summer. The shade under the trees feels like a drink of cool water on a hot day, and the dappled light is lovely. The road climbs, sometimes steeply, sometimes gradually, until it reaches the top of the ridge. It is private land where we have permission to ride and we seldom see anyone else.

            My son and Henry as we ride along the ridgeline. 

            Riding single track trail through the forest on the way home. My “ear photos” are pretty predictable. Beach photos in the winter and the forest trails in the summer. Riding through the redwoods is strictly a summertime pleasure—its dark, dank and muddy under the trees from the first major rain until it dries out sometime in late spring. So I ride here as much as I can in the summertime, when it is absolutely magical. Lately we’ve been up here a couple of times a week.

            Sunny and Henry, our very relaxed trail horses. They are just the best.

            We’re also riding at the roping arena with our friends a couple of days a week. My son helps bring up the cattle with our friend Mark.

            Henry gets to chase a steer.

            Wally’s first run post surgery. Mark heading, Wally heeling on Twister. And yes, Wally roped two feet.

            So that’s my current summer riding life. And then, there’s reading. “What are you reading right now?” People ask me this, in real life and on the internet. And on this blog we often talk about our favorite “horse books,” (not just our own books). Right now I am reading a couple of lovely novels that were recommended by my friend Funder (at “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” over on the sidebar). In my family we read aloud to each other after dinner (we don’t own a TV) and these are the books I’m reading to my husband and son this summer (having read them previously myself).

            “The Hero and the Crown” and “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley are our summer reading fare, and they are truly delightful. Both books are fantasy, about an imaginary land called Damar. Being fantasy, everything, from people to horses to other critters, is a bit bigger than life. The people are heroic (or really dastardly) and the critters, including the horses, are a bit more noble than your average real life horse. (And lets face it, we don’t meet many real life dragons.) Nonetheless, the horses ARE believable in their context as war horses; Robin McKinley has definitely spent a good deal of time with horses and is able to create believable equine personalities. Lovable ones, too.

            I have to say that the courage and intelligence displayed by the horses in the books remind me very much of the courage and intelligence displayed by my own horses, working cattle and climbing through rocky passes in the mountains and what not. I’m pretty sure my horses would not be up for facing off a dragon, but I have faced off a charging bull on a tough cowhorse and the equation isn’t so very different. Robin McKinley’s horses are real to me.

            I like fantasy, if its well written, and these novels are exceedingly well written. Both feature a very strong female protagonist (which I believe is this author’s specialty), and I take great pleasure in reading to my son of young women who are strong and courageous and smart and self-aware (he loved Brave—if you want a Disney equivalent), and I am hoping he will internalize this version of the ideal female.

            More than this, the descriptions of the landscape and climate of Damar are deeply evocative, and I will admit that this is perhaps my favorite part of writing—both in my own books and the books of others. I love description that can make you feel that you really ARE in the particular world of the book—the sights and scents, the chill of the air, the hot desert wind…etc. I am criticized once in awhile for too much description of landscape, plants and weather in my stories, but I have no criticism for this aspect of Robin McKinley’s books. I love it. I can picture Damar as if I’ve been there.

            There is one confusing thing about the two books. “The Blue Sword” was published first, but “The Hero and the Crown” comes first in chronological order, making it a prequel. THTC is actually set several hundred years (I think) before the time of “The Blue Sword”, which is a tiny bit confusing overall. The Damar of “The Blue Sword” bears a certain resemblance to India during the time of the Raj, and THTC doesn’t have this tinge at all, making the two stories very different in feeling. I wasn’t sure in what order I wanted to read them (to my family), but settled on THTC first, as that was the order in which I first read them myself, and is the chronological order. (Funder agreed).

            And finally, these are great books. Really exciting, really engaging. Not since I first read Tolkien and the Harry Potter series have I been so taken by a fantasy novel as I have been by these. If you’ve read them yourself, please chime in with your thoughts. And if you haven’t, well, if you like fantasy (at all) and horses, give them a try. Perfect summer reading.

            There you have it. My summer riding and reading. And I hope everybody else is having an equally happy summer, and enjoying those lovely views “between the ears.” If you have any summer reading to recommend, give it a shout out in the comments. Cheers--Laura

The Has Been

                                                by Laura Crum

            Yes, I once used to be a pretty handy cowgirl. And my good horse, Gunner, would really watch a cow. Looking through my old albums yesterday, I came upon these photos. They made me smile, remembering.

Gunner and I cutting cattle at the family ranch. Do we look determined or what?

Roping on Gunner at my uncle Todd’s arena.

Gunner winning the cutting at the county fair.

            But these photos were taken maybe twenty years ago. Today Gunner is grazing peacefully on the lawn, as I rub his neck and scratch his withers. And we’re both happy in our has been status.

Gunner at 32 years.

            Gunner put in ten solid years as a competitive horse. I broke and trained him myself. I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished together. But what does it mean now?

            When I talk to my various horse friends, both in real life and on the internet, they are mostly pushing towards some goal. A competition they want to enter, a clinic they want to take…etc. Whether it be dressage, endurance, cowhorse, roping or just horse training skills, they want to progress as horsemen. And me? I don’t.

            Alone, it sometimes seems to me, among the horse people I know, I am content to putter down the trail on my solid horse, riding with my kid, knowing that my skills are, oh, about one-tenth what they were back in the days when I was training and competing. I still have the thoughts and opinions I developed over those years, and my ability to read a horse is as good as it ever was, but my ability to execute—not so much.

            I don’t train horses any more. I don’t even ride young, green horses any more. I don’t compete. I don’t cut cattle or rope cattle these days (though I still gather cattle and move them from here to there on horseback). I only ride solid horses. I am, in fact, quite happy to ride what my friends teasingly call my “plug.” And Sunny is, in fact, a laid back little plug of a trail horse. Guess what? I like it like that.

            I enjoy the relaxed tranquility of my horse life today. I delight in the freedom from anxiety and pressure, in the peace of it all. I ride two or three days a week and enjoy it very much, but if I had to choose my favorite aspect of horses now, it would be having them with me here at home, taking care of them, seeing them many times a day, turning them out to graze. Just what I do with my retired horses. The sight of a horse’s pricked ears at dawn means as much to me as anything.

            Don’t get me wrong—I love my trail rides on Sunny, riding along with my son on Henry. But my absolute favorite thing is just living with horses. And I take endless pleasure in the fact that I don’t feel any pressure or anxiety surrounding the horses any more, something that I wasn’t aware that I once felt until after it was gone. I still remember the day, not so many years ago, when it dawned on me that an inevitable tension, that had always accompanied my interactions with horses, had disappeared. After some thought, I realized that the tension had been a product of underlying anxiety. No matter how much I loved what I was doing, there was a basic anxiety composed of the stress of training unpredictable young horses, and the desire to do well at various events. With that removed, I found a whole new level of peace and joy with horses.

            Nowadays I ride without goals, other than to enjoy the ride. I don’t put much pressure on myself or my horse—we’re both relaxed. And it makes me happy. I think my horse is happy, too. Just looking at the beauty of nature from a horse’s back is more than enough for me.

            Sometimes I can’t help comparing myself to others and I always laugh ruefully. I’m the has-been. I’m not accomplishing much of anything. Then I think back to the twenty-plus years in which I trained and competed relentlessly, and I shrug. Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt, or rather, belt buckle. I’m happy I spent those years achieving my goals. It leaves me free. If I hadn’t done all that, I think I would always wonder what if? What if I had pursued my goals?

            But I did pursue those goals, and achieved the things I set out to do. And now I don’t need to do those things any more.

            I’m not sure how this appears to others. At some level, I don’t really care. I’m doing what I want to do and it makes me happy. Maybe it seems as if a has-been shouldn’t be giving advice about horses (of course, when I do, you are all free to ignore it). Maybe I seem as if I’ve given up, or am just lazy. That I ought to try harder. Some have said that my life seems enviable, though I don’t mean to cause envy. In fact, my life with horses would be pretty boring for many of my friends.

            And there are days when I do question myself. I wonder WHY I don’t want to do more with horses now. I have many friends my age and older who are still competing. And some days I feel a bit lonely and isolated, disconnected from my horse friends who are still caught up in the passionate striving to improve as horsemen—whether it be for competition or for its own sake. I can no longer share in that camaraderie to any great degree.

            So, I sometimes wonder…are there other horsemen like me? People who have accomplished a fair amount with horses in their life, and are now content just to enjoy a relaxed ride from here on out. Or am I some sort of aberration? The truth is I don’t much worry over this—I’m happy with my life as it is. And I am very grateful to have (so far) survived a life spent very much on horseback with no serious injuries…and a continued joy in riding and horses. Not to mention the immense delight of sharing my horseback time with my son for about eleven and a half years now (yes, his first ride was at six months old, in front of me on my great old horse, Flanigan). So I’m Ok with being a has-been in the eyes of others (and for that matter, myself). But I am curious. Any other lazy has-been horsemen out there? Anybody else happy to just putter down the trail?