Want to Come Ride With Me? August, in Idaho!

The countdown's underway for my favorite area horse event--the 11th annual Apalousey All-Breed Trail Ride and Dutch Oven Dinner, August 8-10 at George Hatley's ranch outside of Deary, Idaho. (Same site as the horse-driving event I recently posted on--it's about 25 miles east of Moscow, Idaho.) This is a benefit for the Appaloosa Museum & Heritage Center, and I set aside vacation time every year in order to attend as a rider and volunteer.

Yesterday, I had the chance to tape a segment about the ride for an area TV station. As I told the on-air host, there are three ways to participate:

* As a rider. Bring your horse, put him up in one of the permanent pipe corrals at the site, and set up a camp for yourself on the beautifully wooded grounds. Saturday's ride is about 5 hours long, plus a lunch stop, and Sunday's after-breakfast ride is a little over 2 hours. Terrain is a mix of forest and meadows, and not too difficult for a young, old, or green horse.

* As a non-riding camper. A number of attendees come just to spend a relaxing weekend in their tents or campers, and to chow down on the fabulous Dutch oven dinner hosted by the museum's board of directors and friends. This is outdoor cooking, at its finest, and each cook tries his or her best to make sure you don't go hungry.

* As a Saturday-night dinner guest only. The meal is preceded by wagon rides behind George's team of Belgians, and augmented by a silent auction for all kinds of fun and useful stuff.

Sure would love to see you, and ride with you if possible. For further info, call the museum staff at 208-882-5578, ext. 279. Tell 'em I sent you!

Economic Lessons for Kids

I've long been fascinated by the differences between generations, and by the way in which social conditions during one's upbringing affect adulthood attitudes.

So it occurs to me that the kids being brought up right now could well have a very different attitude about money than ones brought up in, say, the 1990s--when U.S. household income rose, on average, for eight of the decade's 10 years, and when consumer spending by children and teens reached an alltime high.

If you're still at the child-rearing stage of life, what lessons ARE you teaching about money--particularly where horses are involved?

Some Glimpses of Idaho Horse-Driving Fun

Whenever possible, I keep the third Sunday in July open on my calendar, so I can attend George and Iola Hatley's annual Sunday drive and picnic. Sometimes I catch a ride in George's four-seater wagon; sometimes I bring a saddle horse and tag along with the vehicle drivers.

This year, I had the opportunity to bring family guests from North Dakota. My cousin Stephanie and her two granddaughters got to sample one of my favorite slices of rural-Idaho horse life. (That's Steph and one of the girls in the photo taken from inside George's wagon.)

Just a few photos from a fun and relaxing day!

George Hatley's team of Belgians leads the the way on the annual Hatley Sunday drive and picnic.

A great way to tour the northern Idaho countryside--under shade, via horsepower, and with a fine view.

The Sunday drive was all in a day's work for this sturdy little Norwegian Fjord horse and his owner/ driver.

Tag, I'm It: 6 Things You Don't Know About Me

Regular blog reader Stephanie has tagged me on the subject of "6 Things You Don't Know About Me." Here goes:

1. I come from a long line of horse people on my father's side. My great-grandfather James Smith farmed with horses, and was the local lay "horse doc" in his part of rural North Dakota. His son and my grandpa, Francis Smith, often went along with him in the buggy as he went to treat horses, and picked up a lot of what he knew. When I was growing up, we always called Grandpa before we called any vet. He raised ponies before he got into Appaloosas, and gave each family of grandchildren a pony of their own. My dad, Jim Smith, raised and showed horses, and was a popular horse show judge. My three brothers and I were all active with horses as kids; one brother, Mark Smith, still raises and shows horses.

2. I was first published when I was 8 years old, with a little story and accompanying drawing that I sent in to "Appaloosa News." That is also where I got my first fulltime job at a horse magazine, after graduating from college.

3. My early education was fairly unusual, in that I went to a small-town school with two and three grades to a teacher's room. When the teacher worked with one grade in her room, the kids in the other grade sat and studied. This meant that you more or less went through each grade at least two times, because you couldn't help overhearing the other class's lesson as you were sitting there. The school went up to eighth grade, and I never had more than eight kids in my grade.

4. I put myself through college, with the help of a scholarship I earned in a contest sponsored by the North Dakota Newspaper Association. My winning article was about the horseman who helped bring the National Finals High School Rodeo to our town. (Notice the one-track mind on journalistic material?)

5. My first college degree was a BA, with a double major in journalism (no surprise) and Russian studies. This is because I didn't set out to work on horse magazines. I wanted to become a foreign correspondent. When I got the "Appaloosa News" job, I thought, "OK, this will be a fun thing to do until my real career comes along." Little did I know that it would BE my real career. I also have a BSEd degree, emphasis secondary education with an English major.

6. My personality type, based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is INTJ. Which means I'm introverted (I), intuitive (N), a thinking-based decision maker (T), and a judger (J) who prefers order and conclusions to open-ended, always-evolving stuff.

One of My Jobs on a Horse&Rider Photo Shoot...

...is to get horses' ears up for the photographer. So here I am, doing the deal, at the shoot we just conducted in southern California.

"Ears up, please!" This is one aspect of my nag-mag work that usually stays behind (or in front of) the scenes. Photo by Cappy Jackson.

Horses are different in what they'll react to, so we have quite the ears-up arsenal in our little bag of tricks. Some, but not all, will prick their ears when they hear grain rattling in a bucket. Others can be teased into the ears-up position with a handful of grass, or from the rattle of horse-treat cellophane. (You can always tell which horses are used to getting hand-fed treats when you bring out the horse candy.)

Other stuff we'll try:

* An empty plastic water bottle, which makes a funny sound when you squeeze it repeatedly.

* A stick horse that whinnies when you squeeze the sound box in its ear.

* A mirror, held beneath the horse's nose so he can see "the other horse."

* Leading another horse in front of the photo-subject horse.

* Mylar tassles at the end of a stick, shaken and fluttered for the horse to see.

* Any kind of kid toy that makes odd noises.

* Recorded sounds of a stallion teasing a mare (works great on most breeding stallions). We call this device the "ear-o-matic."

* A broom, used to sweep the dirt right under the horse's nose.

Just a little behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to bring you our favorite horse mag!

Off Topic: "I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Bowl!"

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the general topic of Horse Talk, but I figured you might get a kick out of it anyway....

I snapped this photo of our new puppy, T.L. ("The Lone") Ranger, after he found the big dogs' food bowl and helped himself.

Fortunately, he didn't bust. But he looks like he could have!

For the record, Ranger is half Welsh Corgi, and half Queensland Heeler. Short of leg, long of body, built-in mask, and one funny little camper!

Some Old-Fashioned Horse Fun

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to partake in a type of horse fun most people never get to do nowadays. As they've done every summer for nearly 40 years, George and Iola Hatley hosted their annual "Sunday drive" and picnic for folks with horse-drawn vehicles. Horseback riders were welcome to attend as well. I found a spot on George's four-seater wagon with shade roof, drawn by his team of Belgians, and settled in for a 2.5-hour tour of his ranch's woods and meadows.

Turnout was smaller than in years past, but there still was enough of a crowd to ensure a great potluck lunch, complete with ice cream and homemade fruit toppings.

There is something really, really relaxing about sitting back behind a harnessed horse or team, chatting with fellow passengers, passing the snack basket, and letting the world go by at a measured clip-clop. It's a wonderful antidote to electronic multi-tasking, that's for sure.

By the time I got home, my mind was so happily slowed down that I had to catch a snooze before starting in on my evening chores. Refreshing!

Spook Factors and the Economic Boogeyman

I almost hate to bring this up, for fear of adding to the negative feeding frenzy. But I still can't help but be fascinated by the way runaway psychology is affecting the horse-world economy at present.

People have gotten caught up in trading pieces of bad news. It's become the starting point for conversations when horse folks get together--a replacement for talking about the weather. Collectively, we're like the horse that spooks as he walks by the mailbox, because the horse in front of HIM spooked beside the mailbox. React first, look closely later, if at all.

To be sure, economic news in general isn't very rosy. But isn't it possible that we may be magnifying the boogeyman, just by keeping him in the spotlight?

I've now run into people who haven't even TRIED to sell their horses before advertising them as free. I know some who've stayed home from this summer's horse events simply because they've convinced themselves that no one else will attend, either--so why bother? Others seem to be spending entire days online, singing that "Woe Is We" song over and over and over to anyone else who'll listen.

At some point, doesn't it all becomes self-fulfilling, like the way rumors can ignite a run on a financial firm and end up causing it to fail?

I don' mean to gloss over any of the real issues we all face. It's just that I have to wonder:

What would happen if we decided to celebrate what we still have, instead of lamenting what we don't?

Horse Notes From Southern California

Yesterday, I wrote about the "mental vitamin C" that comes from experiencing contrast. Today, I'll do some elaborating, based on my just-concluded trip to southern California on behalf of Horse&Rider. The "my world" relates to life in rural north Idaho.

BOARDING COSTS
Their world: $450/month and up.
My world: $250-$300/month.

FUEL:
Their world: $4.58/gallon for regular unleaded.
My world: $4.16/gallon for regular unleaded.

MANURE REMOVAL:
Their world: Placed in Dumpster, fee paid to haul it off. Can't be spread on barn owner property.
My world: Composted and recycled on our land as fertilizer.

BOARD + TRAINING:
Their world: $1,000 and up, up, up.
My world: $600.

HORSEKEEPING
Their world: High horse density in areas where zoning permits; a horse is lucky to have a 12x24 space to live in.
My world: Most horses live in pastures on ample acreage.

LABORERS
Their world: Largely Hispanic; Spanish-English dictionaries kept in barns.
My world: DIY (or hound the kids to do it).

Care to add your own comparative notes, based on where you live?

Back at the Ranch, and It's Good to See Green

I had good intentions of blogging while on my California photo shoot--really, I did--but I should have known better. The writing brain, and the photo-shoot brain, are not compatible. Especially when they both have to be functioning at the very early hours of the morning.

So, forgive my absence, if you will, and I'll continue to work on recharging my depleted energies.

One thing I'll say about going on the trip, it really loaded me up with mental vitamin C (for contrast). Contrast, if you ask me, is one of the musts in a healthy life. It's definitely the antidote for same-old, same-old.

For instance, in SoCal (north and inland from San Diego), the prevailing colors--of earth, buildings, even the lower half the sky--are browns and tans. Horses, when you see them, are kept in high-density environments, like 50+ horses on a 4.5-acre boarding property. It's almost impossible to get away from all the people, and the traffic they create.

Back home in my corner of the Northwest, the croplands are still vibrantly green, the sky is clear and very blue, horses graze in roomy pastures, and people are relatively few. Traffic? That's a hay truck going uphill in low gear.

I appreciated being there, because everything seemed so different, and now have equal appreciation for coming back home.

I'll share some further thoughts and insights in later posts. For now--it's just good to see green!

On the Road Again (Or Should I Say 'In the Air'?)

OK, campers, after a perfectly blissful July 4 weekend (riding time, gardening time, cabin-stay time, etc.), I'm back at work, heading to a Horse&Rider photo shoot in southern California. I'll be meeting up with Team H&R's Bob Avila today and tomorrow, and working with some other folks later in the week.

It'll be a Long Time No See Episode for Bob and me. We used to live about 30 miles apart, in Oregon, and since he trained horses for me (and trained me, too), I used to see him at least a couple of times a week. Now it's been closer to two years between face-time visits. That Idaho-to-California distance isn't something we can pull off like we did back in the days when his barn was in the next county.

If only I hadn't had to get up at 2 a.m. in order to get to the airport on time! Brutal--that's the only word for it.

Not the first time I've dragged my sleepy self out of bed to ride with Bob, though. Once upon another era, I used to get up at that hour in order to get schooling sessions at shows, when the arena was free. And I don't think I ever did beat Bob to the barn from the hotel. He was always there, freshly shaved and in those impossibly starched jeans, by the time I straggled in.

The guy's something of a tough act to live up to. But as soon as I get off my second airplane of the day, I'll be giving it another of my best shots!

It's Official: I'm No Longer Young Enough for DIY Hay

OK, so our hay is baled, out of the field, and stacked for the coming winter. That's the good news.

The not-so-good-news: I've had to officially declare myself out of the pool for the manual-labor aspect of moving hay. The ol' body (of 1953 vintage) made it very clear it wasn't going to make it to the end of the project.

It's a sorry day when the born farm girl gets outworked by the city-raised guy she's married to. But what can I say? He's 8 years younger!