Testing, Testing: Trying Out a Kid's Horse

We have a temporary (maybe permanent) new resident here at the ranch. Her name is Rosie, she's an older Arabian mare, and we have her on trial for a few days as a potential resident kid's horse.

We don't happen to have any resident kids. But we are of that age when both we and many of our friends and relatives have grandchildren and other young'uns eager to have some horse contact when they visit us. And ever since our Arabian gelding, Le Najah, passed on over a year ago, we haven't had a horse quite suitable for the job. Riley and Tiffany are too young and rambunctious, and Tank, even though he's almost 30, is still too much horse for some adults, let alone little kids.

So far, Rosie is passing scrutiny with flying colors. She's quiet, well-mannered, trailers well, and is very, very broke. She's already had at least two families of kids to bring up. One family outgrew her (she's barely 14 hands, just like Najah), and the current family's kids have lost interest in riding. She appears to be in good health (the vet comes later today to give her the once-over), and she seems perfectly content to be in new surroundings and with new people and horses.

She doesn't come with papers, so there's no history on her pedigree or exact age. What we see is what we'd get. But unless she throws up a big surprise in the next day or two, I think there's a good chance she could be here to stay. Bonus that she fits perfectly into all of Najah's gear--which I found myself unable to part with after he passed on, even though it doesn't come close to fitting any of our other horses. (Tiffany outgrew his halters and blankets months ago, and she is still just a yearling.)

Interestingly, both she and Najah came from pastures less than 5 miles from our ranch. Just goes to show that you never know what might be hidden in plain sight over at the neighbors!

Other Highlights From Visiting Arizona

Ed and I spent last Thursday through Sunday in Arizona, on a rare mutual trip away from home. What put the trip into motion was the chance to see Tina Turner on her final tour. (See the previous post.) But that wasn't the only fun thing we got to do.

In fact, this is where we return to our usual topic, Horse Talk.

* We got to stay with a longtime horse friend, Christy A., in the Scottsdale home that she's decorated to perfection in Western style.

* We met Mikey, our blind-horse-rescue co-conspirator, at a saloon in Cave Creek for lunch. She brought her little girl Mercy along, and it was fun to get to know both of them better. I think Mikey turned a few heads in her dress-up clothes.

* We went to dinner with Al Dunning, one of the 12 members of Team Horse&Rider. Al was fairly close to civilian that night, in a ball cap instead of his cowboy hat, and treated us to a great meal and an evening of good conversation at a Mexican restaurant.

* We indulged in some Western retail therapy, which is easy to do when you're in Cave Creek. It's a speciality of the town.

* We did a bit of horse-ranch sight-seeing while tooling around in the rental car. I'm always fascinated by horsekeeping setups in the desert!

Off Topic: A Night With Tina Turner

After hoarding our tickets since early last May, Ed and I finally got to go see the one and only Tina Turner perform live, in Glendale, Arizona. I don't know how many people that particular stadium holds, but it was packed to the sold-out rafters with Tina fans.

Great show. Not only does Tina draw a crowd, she knows how to play to one and send everyone in it home happy. Just a supreme talent, all the way around. "Simply the Best," indeed.

Remember the days when arena glow was created by people flicking on cigarette lighters? Now the arena glow comes from cell phones, put in camera mode.

More on the Arizona trip later!

Back from Dallas, Now Off to Scottsdale!

This is your jetsettin' journalist, checking in between junkets. The Horse&Rider powwow in Dallas was great (we have some great material planned for you in 2009), and now I'm packing up to go to Arizona in the morning.

This is going to be one of those RARE times when Ed the Beloved goes along, too. (How rare? Well, it's been a good 10 years since we've been on an airplane together....)

We'll be seeing some horse friends and doing a bit of Arizona tourist-type stuff, but the main reason for this trip is to celebrate our 15th anniversary with tickets to see my live-performance idol, the one and only Tina Turner.

Think there's no possible horse connection there? Think again! Here's Tina in a music video she did while riding a horse; click on "Simply the Best" to open.

Now, if only I could sing and dance as well as she rides the horse....

See you back here in blogland when we return.

Hot Off the Press: November's Horse&Rider

This morning, I'm packing for a flight to Dallas, where the editorial staff of Horse&Rider is meeting to map out plans for 2009. While I'm gone, I'll give you the opportunity to comment on November's issue; here's the cover.

A few insider comments about the issue:

* The cover horse is among the contenders for this year's National Reining Horse Association Futurity. We spied him at a photo shoot last May in Texas, where he's trained by Carol Metcalf. Carol's one of the women who definitely holds her own against the guys in the sport of reining.

* Working with all-around star Charlie Cole, also of Texas, I wrote the article blurbed as "10 Tips for Your Next High-Point Victory." Charlie, who's helped guide more than one horse to the AQHA World Show's Superhorse crown, is an undisputed voice of authority on the subject of winning all-around and high-point titles. If you compete, you should get a lot out of this story.

* The "Rate Your Horse" article covers Linda and Pat Parelli's "Horsenality" system for pinpointing a horse's personality traits. I'm very, very interested in how the differences in human personality affect attitudes and behaviors, and will be curious to know what you think of the November H&R article after you've read it.

I'll check back in for your comments while I'm at the mag meeting. They're enormously helpful to us, so fire away!

Life in the Mag-Worker Time Warp

I'll be the first to agree that working on a horse magazine, like H&R, is a very fun way to make a living. You get to talk and think about horses all day, and get paid for doing it! You get to meet fabulous horses and interesting people, and also get to enjoy the pleasures of seeing your work in print.

There are some occupational hazards with this gig, though, and here's one of them:

Unless you're posting material online or answering e-mail, you never get to work in real time. Instead, you exist in a time warp. You're always way out ahead of today's day, month, even YEAR on your calendar.

It's also likely that you'll be juggling more than any one month's material at a time. Today, for instance, I'll start writing material scheduled for the January 2009 edition of H&R. I'll look at page proofs for the December issue that's about to go to press. I'll work up material to be posted online, as tie-ins to the November issue that's about to come out. I'll communicate with freelancers about stories due well into next year.

Summed up: I'll live way out ahead of today, as I've done every working day for the last 34 years.

Just one more reason why I love to be with horses in the flesh. As opposed to the printed ones that make up my career, the real ones are all about "be here now."

Without them as my anchor, I might just drift off into Editorial Futureworld, and never make it back!

Epilogue: The FEARLESS Blind Horse Rescue Saga

Last month, in multiple posts, I blogged about Mikey, the reader who drove 2,400 miles to rescue an abandoned blind horse. Here she is in her rig with the FEARLESS plates, pulling out of the auction yard with a sightless mare in her trailer, heading for Shiloh Horse Rescue south of Las Vegas.

Here's how the mare, now named Keller (after Helen Keller), is getting along:

* She's settled in very well. She's out of quarantine and living in a corral set up especially for the needs of sightless horses. She has two other blind horses there to keep her company in a mini-herd environment, and gets her share of attention from visitors--which she soaks right up.

To keep up with Keller's activities and see photos of her progress, go to Shiloh's Web site, click on Daily Blog, and enter Keller in the search box. The folks at Shiloh remember to include her progress from time to time. Or, click here to see her sponsorship page and numerous photos of her in her new surroundings.

Ongoing thanks from here!

Remember Mister, the Raffle Horse? An Update

Last spring, I did several posts about Mister, the yearling that was the Appaloosa Museum & Heritage Center's raffle horse for 2008. After spending about a month with us (I serve on the museum's board), he became one of two live-exhibit horses to spend summer and most of fall living in the pasture behind the museum.

Last Friday, I was on hand to witness the drawing of the winning ticket for Mister. It belonged to Klaus and Jeanne Lueppen of Attica, Michigan, who purchased tickets on more than one occasion throughout the raffle period.

I'm glad I was there to see the drawing with my own eyes, or I wouldn't have believed this next thing: The Lueppens also won the museum raffle horse in 2005! From all the hundreds of tickets in the drawing bin, theirs got pulled out twice.  How amazing is that?!

Congratulations to them for their second strike of lucky lightning.

The Big Topic: (Change) and How It Looks From Here

Although any big topic deserves to be looked at in a big-picture way, I'm going to begin my contribution to the CHANGE subject the way most people do--by talking about the personal. I'll give you a partial rundown on how changing economy>changing priorities>changing spending>changing behaviors>sweepingly changing times of our day is affecting how Ed and I operate our horse life.

* A year ago, before this summer/fall's worsening horse-market drop, we sold down from six head to three. Right off, that cut our basic horsekeeping costs/time-need expenditures in half.

* We hayed our 10-acre horse pasture for the first time, and put the resulting tons of hay into the barn ourselves instead of hiring a crew.

* Ed hired himself and his flatbed trailer out to make deliveries for an area hay grower. He took his compensation in the form of the remaining hay we'll need to get through the winter.

* I made the effort to sell seldom-used horse gear and clothing--and am still at it, now working my way through my massive stash of winter horse blankets.

* We turned all the horses, even the coddled/pampered one who'd been under a barn blanket most of his life, out onto pasture for the summer. Which has stretched into the fall. Even though we now have to feed hay every day to supplement the waning grass, we've saving bedding, electricity, and stall-cleaning time by leaving all horses outside the barn as far into fall as we can. Our current feeding/cleaning setup is the very basic one you see in the photo above. Hay gets fed from one cart; manure collected from the chowdown area goes into the other. 

Yeah, I've had to say goodbye to a certain gelding's once-dazzling haircoat. Which means horse shows are out of the question right now as well. But when change gets big enough to change priorities as well, then changed behaviors are bound to be next.

And since I doubt that any of us knows anyone who isn't changing SOMETHING about how he runs his horse life, I'm thinking that the buildup of change velocity is bound to produce a pretty big wind, fixing to blow up against the horse world's barn door.

What impacts do you predict?

The Big Topic: Horse Life in a Time of Change

In my previous post, I made mention of how horsepal and H&R contributor Patty B. and I spent considerable weekend time discussing how the flurry of change--on nearly every front--is likely to affect the horse world. We're still discussing it, via e-mail, now that Patty's back home from her visit. (Photo is of Patty with her Aussie, Pearl.)

With her permission, I'll share some of what she sees coming:

"On the big-world level, my gut tells me we'll separate ourselves into two sects: Those who'll thrive during change, because they don't fear changes to the status quo and in fact embrace the chaos of uncertainty; and the hunker-downers, who'll cubby, burrow, bail, and bolt toward their own personal safety net. As this segment struggles to comprehend their changed state of being, divorce rates will rise, substance abuse rates will rise, debt rates will rise. We're seeing this already in foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.

"On the horse-life level, the marginal owners and some of the newbies will be the bolters--I'm seeing that already in my own horse circles.  Longtime, deeply committed horse people, even the rich ones, will find alternative ways to enjoy the horses. On the bigtime-show level, some of the uber-rich will find other things to do with their horses--not because they can't afford to play, but because it's no fun to be queen of the three people left showing in a class as opposed to being queen of 30!

"Others, those of standard lower-to-middle income, will find cheaper ways of feeding, and will let some areas of horse care slack--extending farrier visits, skipping vaccinations, and so on. Some will reach the point of having to choose between horse needs and human needs, and will hope in the meantime that they don't need car repair, medical care, etc. I witnessed this during the deep recession of the early '80s."

Please feel free to join the discussion. It won't be quite the same as a weekend at Juli's cabin, but you're invited to chime in nonetheless.

Greetings From a Small-Town Street Corner

Lately, I've been working (and playing) from the cabin Ed and I maintain in a miniscule north-Idaho mountain town (pop. 156). H&R contributor Patty Brumley snapped this photo at a street corner as we were out strolling with canine companions.

Our escape-house is in the kind of town that keeps its lights on by catering to outdoor enthusiasts--hunters (obvious from the non-P.C. sign), fishermen, hikers, ATV and snowmobile enthusiasts, horseback riders, and the like. At the general store, you can buy worms, whiskey, and white-chocolate-covered huckleberries, all at the same counter.

The place is low on pretension, absent of trendiness, barren of retail-therapy opportunity, and defunct in cell-phone service to boot. So to my way of thinking, a relaxing locale for another brainstorm get-together with P.B. (Check back in April's archives to read about our meet-up at a regional horse show.)

The Big Topic (almost always with a horse-related slant):

* Impacts and effects of living in a time of accelerated change--on every front. 

More on that in a future post.

But feel free to chime in a slice of The Big Topic in the meantime. You can pick the slice. Name a change-in-the-world big enough to have had some impact on how you're conducting your horse life. And if you're up for it, divulge any changes in thinking that you may have experienced lately.

Could get interesting.