Horses and Writing (Now)

                                                by Laura Crum

            That’s what this blog is supposed to be about. I have deviated—A LOT-- from the theme, I’m afraid. My interest lately is all about what counts…what in my life is worth focusing on in the light of mortality. Ever since my husband died, my life has changed in many ways. And most of all in the sense that I only give my time to what needs to be done to take care of our little life here, and to what I do out of love. I still love my horses and I still write—I think these things are part of what counts for me. So I can give an update on my horses and my writing, I guess, if anyone is interested.

            Since I’ve owned horses all my life and I don’t dump them when their using life is over, I have (no surprise) a bunch of old horses. My horse property accommodates four horses easily, five is OK, and I’ve squeezed six in at times (not good). The way I feel these days, four horses is plenty. So I have my retired horse, Plumber (26), my son’s horse Henry, still a good walk/trot riding horse on level ground at 27, though no longer comfortable climbing hills, and my Sunny, somewhere between sixteen and twenty and still sound and a good trail horse.

 And I also keep my friend Wally’s Twister—19 and still going strong as a team roping horse. I’ve promised to take care of Twister just like he was my own if Wally dies. I don’t plan to acquire any more horses. My Gunner lived to be 35, and at that rate I have a lot of years of horse care ahead of me with these guys.

            All of the horses I have here have been with us many years. I broke Plumber as a three year old, and trained him to be a rope horse. He carried my son and me when my boy was little, and took good care of us.

 Sunny and Henry took us on hundreds and hundreds of trail rides and gathers for seven straight years—on the beach, in the hills, and in the mountains—without one bad moment.

             We owe these horses and I am glad to repay them by giving them the best life that I can. But my interest in riding isn’t very high right now. I’ve ridden a couple of times this spring with my son and we both enjoyed it. I’m still not drawn to make much effort in that direction. Our horses seemed to enjoy being ridden after such a long break, and I think they would be pleased if we rode a little more often, but I just don’t have the emotional energy to devote to this pursuit.

            Don’t get me wrong. I loved to ride and I’m so glad that I spent many years horseback. I don’t regret it at all. But I see now that the space and freedom that I had to give my energy to exploring horseback pastimes came a great deal from the content and security I felt with my husband. Even though he was not a horseman himself, he supported me (financially and emotionally), and his support gave me the freedom to enjoy my life with my horses in the way that I did. Thank you, Andy.

           

            My energy now goes into tending the garden (by which I mean not just the veggie garden but the entire property), making sure all critters are well cared for, and that my son’s life stays good. There just isn’t any energy left over for other pursuits. So though I sometimes feel sorry for the horses, and think they look a little bored, I have to tell myself (and them), life isn’t perfect for any of us right now. And their life is pretty good.

            They have plenty of room to run and play, they get fed grass/alfalfa hay three times a day, there are shade trees and sunny spots and soft ground for rolling, shelter from the rain, and plenty of equine companionship. Their feet are trimmed, they are wormed as needed, and we get them out to be groomed and to graze as much as we can. All of them are at a good healthy weight, pasture sound, and seem to feel fine. There are many worse lives that they could have as older horses.

            So that’s my horse life. Not too exciting perhaps, but I do enjoy having the horses here, I am grateful for the many years of reliable riding service each horse has given us, and I plan to take good care of them all until they die. This is what love means to me when it comes to horses. And they give me back love in return—just by their presence in my life. The nickers when I come to feed, meeting me at the gate to be caught, the soft sound of hay being chomped as I sit in the barn, the look, smell and feel of these big, gentle creatures. The willingness to carry me on their backs any time I choose to ride. Horses are still magical to me.  I can’t imagine living here without horses.

            As for writing, well, I still write. Like the horses, I can’t picture my life without writing. I don’t write novels these days, but I write these blog posts and I keep a journal, and I have written several memoir pieces. I posted one of them (My Life With Horses) in installments on this blog, and I have finished another one (Ordinary Magic). I’ve begun one about my husband’s life. Not sure what the ultimate goal/fate of these pieces is. I wrote them to please myself, but some of you said you enjoyed the Life With Horses story, so maybe I will eventually put the others up on this blog. We’ll see. You can let me know what you think—if you’re interested.

            I’m often asked if I’ll write more novels. The short answer is that I don’t think so. I wrote twelve novels in my mystery series featuring equine vet Gail McCarthy, and a dozen novels was always my goal for that series. If you are interested in my thoughts about horses and life in general, I wove many of my insights into this mystery series, which covers twenty years in the life of one woman—and took me twenty years to write. Serendipity. The series also covers different aspects of the horse business that I’ve been involved with—from cutting and reined cowhorse competitions through ranching, team roping, horsepacking in the mountains, breaking and training young horses, and trail riding here in the hills and on the beaches of the California coast. Not to mention raising a child with horses. So if you’ve enjoyed my blog pieces I think you’ll enjoy the novels, which are readily available on Amazon.

            And yes, that last bit was blatant self-promotion. I don’t bother with this sort of thing much any more. I don’t really need the money and I understand (from the little bit of local fame that I’ve experienced) that the admiration of strangers isn’t something that I need or crave. But the truth is that I DID put a huge amount of creative energy into my books—any little insight I ever had about life and horses got added to one book or another. My husband and son make appearances in the latter part of the series, and many friends and acquaintances have turns as villains, victims, or suspects. (I often cast people I really like in the roles of victims or villains because if a victim or villain is not a truly interesting character, the story will fall flat.)

            Anyway, for those who read my blog posts or have friended me on facebook—if you like my writing here I’m pretty sure that you’ll enjoy my novels. If you read on Kindle the books are very inexpensive. And if you don’t read on Kindle, I was able to buy the first book in the series for a friend (used hardcover in perfect condition) for less than four dollars on Amazon.

            The series begins with thirty year old Gail McCarthy beginning to practice as a horse vet in Santa Cruz, California, and ends with now fifty year old Gail deciding whether its time to retire from practice. Every single book has lots of horseback action and all the details were drawn from my life spent with horses. The order—for those who haven’t read the books and want to read them in order-- is:

            Cutter (cutting horses)

            Hoofprints (reined cowhorses)

            Roughstock  (roping and endurance)

            Roped (ranching and roping)

            Slickrock (horse packing in the Sierra Nevada Mountains—and overall reader favorite)

            Breakaway (trail riding and training a colt—also the darkest of my books)

            Hayburner (breaking a colt and finding a partner)

            Forged (trail riding on the coast and marriage)

            Moonblind (TB layup farm and pregnancy—non-moms don’t usually like this one)

            Chasing Cans (barrel racing and raising a baby—non-moms same as above)

            Going, Gone (an auctioneer and trail riding in the hills)

            Barnstorming (yet more trail riding and life choices)

           

            

My Life With Horses--Part Twelve (and a Free Book)

                                                by Laura Crum

            Here is where I must play catch up and add in all that has been left out. Because I have told the story of the seven wonderful forever horses that came to me, but left out many other parts of my life with horses.

            My first forever horse, Burt, was turned out for many years in a friend’s pasture, fifteen minutes from my home. He was joined by a motley collection of horses, two that I took because they were sweet old rope horses that deserved to be retired (ET and Gray Dog), along with Wally’s great old heel horse, Pistol, who was retired due to arthritic changes, plus another horse of Wally’s that I had trained who crippled up due to EPM in the prime of life (Rebby), and the last colt I ever trained (Danny), who tore up his stifle joint in a freak collision with a pickup truck. Danny would have been euthanised by his current owner, but I took him back and rehabbed him and eventually he was sound enough to be a pasture pet. I had Gunner turned out there for awhile, too. So at one point we had six or seven of these pasture pets.

            But life moves on. Pistol grew too sore to be comfortable even on painkillers, so we had to euthanise him when he was 25. And eventually Burt died of a massive stroke at 35 years of age. ET and Rebby were both very hard keepers, and as they got into their thirties and late twenties respectively, it became impossible to keep them at a good weight in the pasture, even with tons of supplemental feed. And Wally and I were both getting overloaded trying to take adequate care of all the horses we were responsible for. A couple of years ago we made the difficult decision to euthanise Rebby and ET and bring Gunner home. The pasture owner kept Danny and Gray Dog for her pets, and they are still doing well there.

            Wally is eighty this year and, like me, has decided he no longer wants to ride young horses. He gave his young horse, Smoky, to a good home that had already taken a previous horse from him, Lester. And Smoky and Lester are happy, useful riding horses to this day with owners who love them. Wally’s gray gelding, Twister, has been living with me since he bought the horse as a six year old. (Twister has definitely "whited out" as he aged.) 

            Twister turns 17 this year and he is the last horse Wally has left, and will probably be the last horse Wally owns. I have made a commitment to keep and care for Twister until he dies. I owe it to the horse and to Wally. Twister and Wally accompanied my son and me with Henry and Sunny, on many, many expeditions. So Twister has a forever home with me.

My gold, silver and copper horses.

            Today I have five forever horses living with me on my small horse property (five horses is the maximum number I can have here). My own Gunner, Plumber and Sunny, my son’s Henry and Wally’s Twister. Flanigan and Toby the pony are buried here, and Burt is buried in the pasture where he lived for his last ten years and where he died.

            Gunner is 33 and still doing well. 

            Plumber is 24, retired, and sound, perky and happy.

            Henry is 25 and my son rides him a couple of days a week, mostly at the walk and trot. Henry is still perfectly sound and shows no sign of weakening. 

            Sunny is going strong. I think he may be nearly twenty years old. He has no papers and when I bought him he was said to be 10, but the vet said he had “funny” teeth, and could have been as old as 15. So who knows? But he is sound and strong and I ride him a couple of times a week on average. 

            Wally is recovering from knee surgery currently, so Twister, whose usual job is team roping horse, is getting a little downtime. Twister is sound and strong and doing well at 17 years, and Wally is already back to riding again and will be roping soon. Here's a recent photo (taken on 4th of July) of Twister and Wally along with my son and Henry on Wally's first ride post knee surgery (exactly one month after the operation).

            As I’ve known for awhile, if I keep taking good care of these forever horses (which I plan to do) there is a chance that in five years or so, I’ll have five older horses that are not ridable for anything more than puttering around—and no place to put a younger riding horse. And that’s OK. Its Ok because I love these horses and am deeply grateful for all the hours of happy riding time that every single one of them has given. I don’t in the least begrudge becoming their caregiver as they get older. Yes, I like to ride, but I have achieved all the goals I set myself in my life with horses and my mind and heart are both full to the brim with everything that horses, and these horses in particular, have brought to me. If there is more riding to come, that’s great. And if there is not I take complete joy in spending time with my horses and connecting through them with all the wonderful things we have done together. Time past is as present as time present when I am with my horses.

            I will add that it is important to me that every single one of these horses are good horses who have been great riding horses. None of them EVER purposefully dumped or harmed a human (to my knowledge). And yes, this matters to me. It is not my calling to babysit a herd of rescue horses who never had a partnership with humans, and would be happy to kick your block off or dump you on your head. It’s my pleasure and privilege to reward some fine horses who are richly deserving of a happy, peaceful retirement after their long, steady years of good service. And who are now, as they always were, a true pleasure to be around. I will feed them three times a day, and brush them and doctor them as needed, and ride them lightly if it seems right, and turn them out to graze and live happily with them in my garden. 

            As with my horses, so with my novels. I set out initially to write an even dozen, and that goal has been accomplished. People have asked me if I will write more, and the truthful answer is that I don’t know. The novels cover twenty years in the life of horse vet Gail McCarthy—she is 31 in the first story (Cutter) and 50 in the last installment (Barnstorming) and it took twenty years of my life to write the books. Gail goes through many of the life changes that I have gone through in the course of the series. My husband said, upon reading this series of posts, “You need more anecdotes.” Well, the anecdotes are all in the novels. The names have been changed to protect the innocent—and the guilty—but most of the things I describe in the stories, really happened in some form or other. I wove the events of my life into my books. (Oh, and just by chance, this series of posts about my life with horses is also twelve episodes in total--serendipity.)

And yes, its possible that I could write more about Gail, but its also possible that I won’t. And either way is fine with me. As I said about my horses, I’ve achieved the goals I set myself and I am happy and at peace with where I am now.

There are those who ask, what’s next? Well, I don’t know, and I am OK with not knowing. I may have many more adventures ahead of me, or I may live a peaceful, fairly solitary and hermitish life from now on. Right now my focus is on raising my young son. My life is good and I love every minute of it. I spend as much time as I can with my husband and child and our critters and garden. I try to enjoy the present moment fully. I don’t ask for more. And I am very grateful for all that I have. I will always love my horses, and if luck favors me, I will always live with them.

I know that there are some who will consider this a sort of “do nothing” life. There are those who think one must have goals and be working hard to achieve these goals for life to have meaning (both with horses and in general). There are those who think one must be busy to be happy. I am not in this group. I feel I have been plenty busy and productive in my life, and I have achieved pretty much every goal on my “bucket list.” It’s my intuition that moving on to a more contemplative stage at this point in my life is a good thing, not a bad thing. If you want to read more thoughts on this subject, I wove them into the last book in my series, Barnstorming. This book somewhat tells how I view my own future, as well as how I see Gail’s future.

Finally, I am deeply grateful for all my readers. And so, I’d like to offer a gift. For the next five days, Cutter, the first book in the series, and always one of the most popular titles, will be FREE as a Kindle edition. (Starting today, July 7^th, and going through Thurs, July 11^th.) Hoofprints, the second book, is currently on sale for 99 cents. So right now, for less than a dollar, you can read the first two books in the series. The remaining ten books are available for just $2.99 each as Kindle editions. The order is Cutter, Hoofprints, Roughstock, Roped, Slickrock, Breakaway, Hayburner, Forged, Moonblind, Chasing Cans, Going Gone, and Barnstorming. Click on the titles to find the Kindle editions. And for those who have read some of these books, I would be eternally grateful (really) if you would post reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. These reviews mean a great deal to authors nowadays. A huge thank you to those who have already done so. And I very much hope that you enjoy my stories. Cheers--Laura