The New Hole in Our Hearts

Today's one of those days where you wake up and instantly feel the weight of having something to mourn. We lost a family member yesterday--the grey Arabian whose name was Najah--and the reality of that's going to hurt for a while. Ed held his lead rope as the vet put him to sleep, granting him ease from some cause of acute kidney failure. By sunset, he was carefully tucked into his freshly dug grave, and I'd put a lock of his long white mane into a keepsake box with his picture on its lid. This will be my first morning to go to the barn and not see his beautiful and trusting face peering out from his stall. It's not every day that you know you'll need Kleenex, just to feed the horses.

We'll remember him as our most perfect horse (all 13.3 hands of him), the one who never did a single thing wrong, who never gave even the slightest cause for irritation or frustration, who was almost human in his ability to please and bond with those who looked after him. I'll always be grateful for the years he shared himself with us, and for the chance to have known such a special horse soul. Like Ace, my beloved gelding who rests beside him out in the pasture, Najah was a blessing beyond measure.

Now he gets to be our second equine angel. And we get to find a way to mend the new hole in our hearts.

You Know You're at My House When...

...you walk in and inhale a smell that's a cross between that of a somewhat musty library and that of a tack room. The library odor comes from all the books and magazines, many of them half a century or more old, that line shelves, stack up on tables, and assert themselves wherever else there's room. (Can't be a writer without references, right?)The tack room scent issues forth from such items as the trophy saddle displayed in the family room, to the antique saddles and bridles I've collected for years, to the 50-plus pairs of vintage cowboy boots that somehow insinuated themselves into my domain. Add in the ranch dust carried in by four sets of doggie paws, and you get that distinctive aroma familiar to most horse nuts and probably disdained by those who subscribe to, say, Architectural Digest.

You also know you're at my house when you spy the kitchen counter desperately in need of replacement, and the gleaming aluminum horse trailer within sight of the kitchen window--the one whose price tage would've replaced that kitchen counter many, many times over. You know you're here when you see the piles of people laundry, not yet dealt with, and the stacks of freshly cleaned and neatly stacked horse blankets ready to go back to the barn. You know you're peeking into my closet when you see one lone skirt, purchased sometime in the 1980s, and at least 20 pairs of stiffly starched, new-style jeans lining the closet's rod.

You know it's my fridge when you open the door to find little in the way of fun snacks, but a veritable arsenal of syringes, needles, and bottles of emergency equine meds. Another dead giveaway: the prominently posted list of phone numbers for every vet and vet clinic within a 50-mile radius.

There's no sign at the front door stating, "Horseperson Within--Enter at Own Risk." Why would I need one? You'd know what kind of person lives here the minute you opened the door!

On a Mini-Escape from the Ranch

On a mini-escape from the ranch and its routine duties, I'm posting from the circa 1915 cabin that Ed, my husband, and I use as--well--our place to go for mini-escapes. It's in a tiny, end-of-the-road town at the edge of the Clearwater National Forest, and a great place to slow down and collect one's thoughts. Not to mention, it's only about 45 minutes away from home. For a horsekeeper, that measure of proximity is important. I couldn't get the R&R value out of this cabin that I do if it were much farther away from the needs of our horses. I know I can get back there fast (relatively speaking) if I have to, and as any horsekeeper knows, the mind gets a lot of ease from that.

Which brings me to a subject I've never seen addressed, whether in the print-pub world or in the cyber-stream of forums, message boards, e-lists, bloggers, etc., that I tip my toes into.

The subject: How do those of us who keep horses at home GET AWAY from the beloved critters without feeling worried, guilty, harried, and otherwise stressed about their welfare?

If you're in this group, you know what I'm talking about. The human kids can go to Grandma's, the canine kids can go to a kennel if need be, but what do you do with 4.4 horses? That's the average number of horses owned and kept at home by the typical reader of Horse & Rider magazine, most likely a midlife woman who also holds down a job. (I fit this description perfectly. You?) So why don't we all come right out and admit that it'd be great if we could just "send the horses to camp" for a couple of weeks each year? What makes it so taboo to confess that we sometimes need vacations from the very animals around which our lifestyles spin? And what could we learn from one another's experiences in this deal?

Would love to get your thoughts--especially since it's snowing hard, to keep me right here in front of the woodstove for the next little while. As long as the dial-up connection holds out, we can remain in touch.

How Many Ways Can You Say "Wow"?

I just got back from the 52nd annual Scottsdale Arabian Show in Arizona, which I covered on assignment for Horse & Rider. My impression? Beyond "wow." I'd been to this show before, back in the 1990s, and am astonished by its growth since then. With a record number of 2,800 horses at this year's event (enough extra ones compared to last year to require installation of 42 additional portable-barn setups), and all the extra people who came with them, this show made its own history. I'm glad I got to check it out, because in its current stage of popularity, it really has to be seen to be believed.

"Horse show" is actually an inadequate phrase for describing this event. "Spectacle" is more like it. With classes underway in half a dozen arenas, barns transformed by carpenters, landscapers, florists and caterers, a trade show with over 300 vendors, herds of stunning horses and hordes of "civilian" spectators who each ponied up $10 for admission (some 250,000 of them over 10 days), the show offered more to see and do than a person could take in over a single day. Add Arizona's glorious February weather, and you have plenty of reasons why the Scottsdale Arabian Show is as different from the typical horse show as the Arabian horse is from most other equines.

If you've ever thought about a winter visit to Scottsdale, take my advice: Go in February, when the Arabian show is held. And tape down your socks. Otherwise, you stand a good chance of having them be blown off.

Another New Grandmother--Me

Yesterday, with the arrival of Jacob Andrew for my daughter and her husband, I joined the one in three Americans who are now grandparents. Naturally, I was ready with the cowboy-boot booties and a desire to locate the perfect pony. I also had more than a few thoughts about future effects on the horse world from the current burgeoning rate of grandparenthood. I'll share some of them with you in future posts.

Right now, though, I'm going to go practice callling myself Grandma Juli. (Does that sound as strange to you as it does to me? It's definitely a identity shift that'll take some getting used to.)

The Circle of Horse Friends

Most of my Saturdays are regular old ranch-chore days, but last Saturday was special. I was able to join the circle of horse friends who came forward to help the area horseman who lost his barn, equipment, and several horses to a fire. (See my previous post.) We all showed up at a local fairgrounds to participate in a benefit show, drop off donated goods and envelopes of cash, and offer our condolences and support.

Besides helping someone survive a tragic loss, I think we also got some benefits of our own. A big one: Having an action-oriented way to deal with our own feelings in the wake of the fire. There wasn't one person there who hadn't thought about losing his or her own horses in a fire and been horrified by the mental picture. With the exception of those whose horses DID perish, there wasn't anyone there who didn't feel a sense of guilty relief because it hadn't happened to them. And there wasn't one person there who didn't experience a sense of pride over the way horse people come together in a crisis to give aid to one of their own. That tangle of emotions found an outlet that soothed many troubled hearts.

Some folks find it difficult to be in the presence of the bereaved. Others know what it's like to be the bereaved, and therefore understand the healing powers of the simplest supportive act. That's one of the things you come to learn from living through a tragedy or crisis of your own: You don't think twice when it's time to help someone else get through his.

One Spark Away from Tragedy

My day started yesterday with horrific news: A trainer friend, one who sometimes rides my horse for me, lost his barn and seven horses--ones I thought of as equine friends--to a fire that consumed the structure beyond rescue within minutes. He lost his own stallion, as well as horses owned by clients. Five of the surviving horses are being treated at a nearby vet clinic for related injuries, and all his gear and equipment for making a living is gone.

The fire is believed to have started near the water heater that provided washrack water to the barn. With all the combustibles so common to barns--hay, bedding, dust, cobwebs, wooden framework, and the like--it only takes one little spark, or a few wet and overheating bales of hay, or a pile of oil-soaked rags, for a tragedy like this to occur. I know a little something about it firsthand, because my parents' horse barn incinerated itself in my college years. Probable cause? The aforementioned overheating damp hay.

I had a deadline to meet yesterday, so I couldn't do what I wanted to do--drop everything and rush to hug my friend. But in between hammering out article sentences and paragraphs, I used my considerable means of desktop communication to help rally the support of other horse people. I wasn't the only one. By noon, crisis funds were set up at area banks, benefit schooling shows had been set up for the next couple of weekends, and empathetic fellow horse owners were gathering up spare tack, horse blankets, bales of hay, stable equipment, etc., to provide to our wiped-out friend.

I won't go into barn-fire prevention tips here--you can get those with a simple Google search. Suffice to say, if there's any little fire-prevention chore you've been MEANING to "get around to," please go out today and get it handled. As I know all too well, each of us is only that one little spark away from a barn-fire tragedy of our own. And trust me--you never, ever want to see one.

Inflationary Prices of Horsekeeping Staples

First it was last summer's hay crop that ended up in short supply, and at higher prices. Next, we got handed higher prices for grain (see one of my previous posts about that). Now it's a shortage and price jump (if you can even locate a supply) in wood-related bedding--shavings, sawdust, chips, and stall pellets. That pretty much spells inflation in prices of every one of our staples.

When I add it all up, the numbers clearly tell me that my costs have risen enough--just from the factors above--to be the equivalent of having one extra horse to support per month. I don't have much choice but to pass this bad news on to my friends who board their horses at my ranch, and to tell them that their boarding fee HAS to go up. Nor can I avoid taking the required hard look at my own little herd and decide who needs to be first to go. (Which begs the next question: Go where? If a horse-owning lifer such as I is starting to feel priced out out of her passion, how must the cost of horse ownership look to someone just now thinking of joining us? And if I'm feeling pressured to reduce my horse numbers, why wouldn't other established horse owners be feeling the same thing--and be wanting to sell instead of buy?)

This isn't going to be a long post. Instead, I just want to put the rising-costs subject out there and ask how it's affecting you. Your input isn't going to change the bad news on my monthly bill from the farm-and-ranch store, but it might at least make me feel like I'm not the Lone Ranger.