The De-Brumby-fication of Tiffany, Continued

Here's Tiffany the day after getting her brumby mane shortened up--and boy, you'd never know it was relatively even-looking when she went to bed last night!

She had shavings down her ears this morning, so I know she must have had some fun rolling in fresh bedding after I went to the house last night.

Kids--you just can't keep 'em from messing themselves up!

I'll say this for Tiffany, she's genetically programmed to grow plenty of hair. At 19 months, she had a mane almost down to her shoulders (at least in the part she hadn't rubbed out during her summer of being turned out). She has enough tail for two horses. Her mother was like that, too.

It almost seemed a shame to cut that mane back, but I finally reached the point where I just had to be able to see what kind of neck and profile it was hiding!

The De-Brumby-fication of Tiffany

When I brought Tifffany (the gray yearling) in from the pasture tonight, I decided it was time to start making her look a little bit less like a brumby. Her mane, a foot long in some places and just a few rubbed-out inches long in others, needed some serious pruning.

I also clipped her bridlepath and associated poll tufts. Until I swept up the hair pile, it hadn't really registered that her head has suddenly become more white than blue-gray. That must have occurred with the grow-in of her new winter coat.

Should be interesting to see what color she turns out to be by next summer.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" From Riley & Me

It's "Thanksgiving Eve," my favorite day of the year...all that food to play with making (and to eat), a four-day weekend, spare time to ride and do barn stuff, and loads of anticipation throughout (the all-important mental vitamin A).

So to send you guys a Happy Thanksgiving greeting, I enlisted the help of my favorite horse, Riley--who's mouthing a few words right here in this picture.

But feel free to write your own caption for him if you want! (I've already written the one that goes, "Mom--paint my fence, please!!")

Comments Wanted for Future H&R Page

In an upcoming issue of H&R, we're planning to run reader replies to the following question:

"If you and your horse were stranded on the proverbial desert island, what's the one thing from your barn you'd want with you, and why?"

If you'd like to participate, email your answer, plus full name, and state, to:

HorseandRider@equinetwork.com

Of course, it would also be fun to have you post your replies here as well, and you can stay anonymous here if you like.

A Good Day for Getting Back in the Saddle

It was a sunny if breezy day today, perfect for a late-fall ride, so I grabbed Tank, Shelley saddled up her new horse Corky, and we took off into the beautiful rolling hills that extend out north of our property.

Pure pleasure! 

And, just what the doctor ordered as decompression from my busted-up/stranded adventure in Montana.

My Knight In Shining Silver Dodge

I've officially been rescued. (See Stranded in Miles City post.) Ed pulled his flatbed trailer 738 miles from the ranch to eastern Montana, arriving around midnight on Friday.  Yesterday morning, he got the Toyota up onto and chained to the flatbed. (Note deer hair in the rim of the tire. It's really a wonder that the deer didn't get pulled under the car and flip it off the road.) Then he drove the whole works the 738 miles back the other direction.

My knight in shining silver Dodge.

Going over Lookout Pass last night was a white-knuckle experience, due to solid black ice on the roadway. Even though Ed's truck has a Cummins diesel with every power-booster chip known to the truck-drivin' community, we BARELY made it to the summit with the heavy trailer load behind us. Just had trouble keeping traction on the ice.

And then, of course, there was the fun of going back down the other side--barely crawling, because it was NO place to be tapping on the brakes. I was glad we didn't have live cargo behind us, shifting weight around the curves.

This is one damsel in distress who's pretty darn glad to be home safe and sound.

Main Street in a Cowboy's Town

Miles City is known as a cowboy town, and it ain't pullin' your leg with that billing.

It's a place where enough cowboys need (and get) their boots fixed to support a cowboy cobbler.

Just up the street, under the neon sign, is Miles City Saddlery. There's another Western-themed store across the street.

A few blocks over, the Range Riders Museum pays tribute to the cowboys of yore.

I've seen horse and stock trailers go by all day long. The long-running Miles City Bucking Horse Sale is a rodeo world fixture.

And, as an aside, I saw the price of gas drop 5 cents a gallon in the time it took me to go over to the saddle shop and back. It was already 10 cents cheaper than on the previous Friday, when I came through here headed east.

Miles City Saddlery: The Silver Lining

Since I've had to spend the day stranded in Miles City, Montana (see my previous post), I decided to make the best of it, grab a cab, and pay a call on the world-famous Miles City Saddlery.

What a great place! It reminded me of the great Western stores of my youth (Phyl, you will know what I'm talking about)--with walls of gorgeous boots and hats, a full line of Western wear and gifts, saddles and trappings like you wouldn't believe, AND a saddlery museum.

Horse-gal heaven.

Here's Diana, a store employee, wrapping up some of my purchases. And, true Western woman that she is, she even gave me a ride back to my temporary motel digs.

Stranded in Montana

So I'm cruising down the freeway last night, headed to Idaho from North Dakota, which of course means crossing Montana. I'm about 100 miles across an 850-mile-wide state, when BOOM--

...a deer leaps out of nowhere and slams into my car. Which is a Toyota. Going at freeway speed.

Not sure which was the bigger shock--hitting the deer, or coming to the split-second realization that I was still on the road, going forward after the impact, and a survivor of the collision.

Ever have such a flood of relief that all your hair prickles and stands on end?

 

Since I was less than a mile from my intended fuel stop in Miles City,  I limped on in to the nearest motel. Though the right corner of the bumper was smashed into and rubbing on a tire, I was too shaken up to care. I just wanted to stop moving and count my blessings.

On daylight inspection, the car proved to be too damaged to be driven the remaining 725 miles home. Thus, I've spent most of the day holed up in the motel, keeping in touch with Ed as he makes the trek, flatbed in tow, to fetch the car, me, and my canine sidekick back to the ranch.

Dang. That section of freeway is lined with anti-deer fencing. But one suicidal one managed to slip through somewhere, to leave me stranded in Montana.

Future Horse Kid? (A Little Too Early to Tell)

Like any doting grandma, I can't resist whipping out the occasional picture of the grandchild. So here's a recent one of our family's Jacob, who just had his second birthday.

He's pretty darn good at mounting and riding the top of the coffee table, and is enchanted by all animals. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens once he's old enough to realize there are horses at Grandma's house!

In the Mail: December's Horse&Rider

Ready to be first-impression magazine commentators and feedback friends?

Here's the cover of December's Horse&Rider, now out in the mail and headed to store display racks. Comments?

More Details on That 30K Horse Adoption Plan

The Washington Post has published more details about Mrs. T. Boone Pickens' plan to take responsibility for the 30,000 BLM horses currently being held and fed in pens, at taxpayers' expense.

Read the followup story here.

An Owner's Moral Dilemma: Input Wanted

A Horse&Rider reader sent me an email today, describing a moral dilemma she's facing and asking for outside input. With her permission, I'm posting her comments/questions here...share your thoughts and ideas in the Comments section.

Dear Juli: I am a 57-yr-old nurse. I subscribe to Horse&Rider and pretty much religiously read it cover to cover. I think I remember articles about grief over loss of a horse. I am having to face the decision to have my two mares euthanized soon. Both Appys, one is 18 and the other 33. I've had them for 10 yrs and although I have not ridden either for about 5 years, I have taken care of them and believe in being a responsible horse owner no matter what. I board as I don't have my own property, so as you know it is not an inexpensive thing. The older girl is failing due to age. The younger is prone to laminitis, is hypothyroid, requires daily medication and must be strictly fed dry grass hay only... NO pasture. I want to let these two girls "go" so I can get another horse that is rideable. I CANNOT afford to board 3 horses. I am in a moral dilemma, I have contacted a university vet school, and they had agreed to take both girls for research. (It is called terminal research and they will be euthanized.) Now I am having second thoughts. Is this morally right? I can face this a little better with the older horse because she is probably no longer enjoying a quality of life. But the younger I feel guilty about, I am too big for her to ride (she is 14 hands at best, and I have gained weight and am 200 lbs) even if she is not in pain from her feet, which almost all of the time she isn't since I feed her dry grass hay and keep up with the medication. I could try to spare her and find another home, yet the rescues are overflowing and there is no family that would be willing to take a horse that you have to keep such strict tabs on and give medication to. Am I doing the right thing? They trust me so, will they "forgive" me if I load them up and drive them to their demise? Can you help me or is there a chat site that can help me think this through further? Thank you so much.

Putting yourself in this situation, what would YOU do? If you were this reader's friend, how would you advise her?

Adopting 30,000 Horses All At Once?

From today's headlines:

The wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens has announced her intention to adopt and take responsibility for all 30,000+ wild horses that are now confined to Bureau of Land Management holding pens.

Read the full story here.

May we each do what we feel we can afford to do.

Twilight-Years Horses, in a Taker's Market

Maybe it's because I never forgot the lessons of "Black Beauty," with its apt depiction of how a horse's fortunes tend to fall as he gets old and is passed farther and farther down the rungs of the horse market's ladder.

Maybe it's because I always felt rebellious over a family creed that insisted any horse be sold well before it was out of its prime.

Maybe it's because there are simply a lot of good old horses (young ones, too) in need of homes these days.

Whatever the reason, I have a soft spot for the oldsters who'll still do their jobs when called upon to do them, and who just need a little TLC to stay comfortably useful in their twilight years. The spot is soft enough for me to have fetched three of them back to the ranch in just the last couple weeks.

I wrote or passed along checks for these horses, checks that ranged from $300 to $600. A couple of people have asked me why on earth I'd pay anything for an old horse, now that the horse world has a taker's market (horses free to anyone who'll take them) as the new level below a buyer's market.

Maybe it's because I'm just not ready to contribute to a newfound horse world in which our tried-and-trues have no more value than to be hauled off for nothing, like busted bikes and junked TVs.

Or, maybe I'm just from another era, same as these old horses.

From Mountain Horse to Pampered Pony

My friend Shelley is someone who takes immaculate care of everything from her house, yard and car, to her personal appearance and the welfare of friends and family.

So it's really no surprise that the first thing she did with Corky, the mustang mountain-outfitter horse she just bought, was to introduce him to the concept of "product."

Beauty product, that is. If you look closely at the top of Corky's rump, you'll see a tube of Cowboy Magic tail conditioner perched up there. Which, I have to admit, totally cracks me up.

Here's a little old gelding who'd surely never had an evening of beauty-pampering before in his entire 28 years. In fact, I'm not sure he'd ever even seen the inside of a barn until last Sunday, when we unloaded him from our trailer and brought him inside.

But, like everything else he's ever been asked to do, he took it as just another matter of course. (I'd been out on the trail several times with Corky in the string, over the course of a decade, and he was always cast in the role of Ol' Reliable.)

Little does he know that there will be more of this pony-pampering to come, from little grandkids' hands on up. Shelley has four grandchildren, including two small girls, so I'm expecting to see some pink in Corky's immediate future.

Pink tail comb, pink brushes, pink halter, pink turnout blanket, pink saddle pad...whadaya think??

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

The whole time Ed and I were on the trek to fetch the two outfitter horses down out of the mountains on behalf of the galfriends who bought them, the gals themselves were practically levitating with anticipation. They raced up to the ranch within minutes of our arrival back home.

Just look at the grin on MaryJane's face as she took possession of L.B. That alone was payment enough for the drive up and down those mountain switchbacks.

If MaryJane looks at all familiar, it's because she's the talent behind MaryJane's Farm, the magazine, and MaryJane's Farm, the real-life organic farm that's a few miles from our place.

In my next post, I'll show you a picture of Shelley getting reacquainted with Corky. Those two are in one or two of my river-crossing photos from a few posts back.

Endings: Being There for a Hard Goodbye

This is a continuation of my previous post.

I know it was hard for Harlan, the outfitter, to say goodbye to the first two horses to be sold out of his guest string. By loading them into our trailer, he was taking a step that helped make his retirement and the closing of his business more real. And besides that, the horses had been his near-steady companions and business partners for many years.

I walked behind him as he led Corky, a

 a 28-year-old roan gelding, down the road toward our trailer. Corky had been in Harlan's outfit for 20 years. I can only imagine the memories that flashed by as he took that walk.

I saw him give the second horse, a 17-year-old bay mare he'd raised from an earlier generation of guest horses, a final scratch on the neck as he gave her a few parting words.

To these horses, getting into a trailer, to go winding through mountain roads, was nothing out of the ordinary. It's part of what they know how to do.

But for Harlan, it was the first (and last) time he'd be putting them into a trailer without being the owner who'd take them back out. That's an experience that's never easy.

No Place for a Flatland Horse Hauler

Yesterday, Ed and I took the truck and trailer up into the mountains to pick up the two outfitter horses my friends Shelley and MaryJane decided to buy after they heard they were for sale.

I took these photos from about the halfway point of a long series of switchbacks. You can barely see a section of white-lined highway below that yellowed grass. That little ribbon of white, to the center-right of the photo, is the Clearwater River down below. We started up from the highway that follows the river's course.

There's not much for guardrails along this puppy, and to make things even more interesting, we encountered thick banks of fog both coming and going.

Needless to say, we wouldn't have wanted to wait much longer in the year before undertaking this drive. Cuz going up was one thing, but coming back down, with the weight of two horses, would not have made snow and ice a good thing.

One of those days to be grateful for good tires and good brakes, and a steady Ed-hand at the wheel.

New Home for Two Good Horses (Girlfriend Power!)

Here is something I believe to be true:

Every time a good horse proves himself to someone other than his owner, he leaves behind a calling card that could get him a later good home.

Such is the case for Corky, the roan gelding in the foreground of this photo, and L.B. (Lightning Bug), the bay up ahead of him. They were the horses my friends Shelley and MaryJane rode on our guided pack trip back in September.

Make that: They were the horses they entrusted with their lives.

So when they heard their reliable (and no longer young) horses were suddenly and regrettably for sale, due to unavoidable circumstances, they knew a great opportunity when they saw one.

They wasted little time and bought the horses. They also bought the horses' saddles, each one broke in peculiarly to that horse's back and range of motion--smart thinkin'. (I didn't get to make it a threesome on this one, as the horse I rode was on loan for the season and is now back with his owner.)

Corky and L.B. have now gotten the horse equivalent of the gold watch for meritorious service--they get to retire from working hard for a living, and get to go live out their days as grandkid horses.

Plus, Shelley and MaryJane  actually got to DO what so many other riders of these horses have longed to do over the years--take them home for their very own, after bonding with them on their great wilderness riding adventure.

Pretty much a win-win deal. That calling card paid off.

Ridin' The Weather Channel Pony Today

According to plan, some of my North Dakota family members were going to take off today at O-Dark-Thirty, driving to Idaho for a visit. But an explosive blizzard has taken any kind of plan out of the picture.

Native Nodaks know better than to leave safe shelter during one of these killer high-plains whiteouts, so the would-be travelers are on hold. No doubt listening to the wind howl around the corners of the house and snuggling back under the covers. (Still, for me, one of the most evocative sounds in the world.)

It's too early yet for me to go out and feed the horses, so I'm curled up with laptop and SBD (Small Black Dog), catching live reports on the blizzard from The Weather Channel while writing this. It's clear that we won't be seeing the family as soon as we thought, and the whole trip could get nixed.

That's the way it goes, though. A lesson you learn early when growing up in a place that gets fierce winter weather: As long as everybody's safe, count yourself lucky and just wait it out.

Gives me more time to get the barn clean (notice I did not say house) before I can expect to get company!

It's November, and the Pasture Party's Over

Having good pasture is a wonderful thing. It cuts the feed bill, eliminates stall cleaning and bedding use, gives horses a way to stay limber without human intervention, and sets up all kinds of opportunity for equine socialization.  I'm always happy to get a long, dry fall that extends pasture season as long as possible--even when we have to feed hay to supplement the dormant grass.

But once it gets to be November--a month of rain, wind, and the vexing change back to standard time (do we not hate it when it gets dark by 5 o'clock?)--I know the pasture party's pretty much over. The soggier the ground gets, the more the horses tear up that precious pasture grass with their hooves, and the less I can expect it to produce for next year.

So I just accept the arrival of another season, and shift my horsekeeping strategy over to a more barn-anchored style. The horses can stay dry, the indoor arena again gets regular use, and I can close doors against the wind and enjoy the benefits of indoor electric lighting.

The Tank Man checked back into his stall-and-run suite yesterday, where he took advantage of a sun break to catch himself a few rays. I don't know if he appreciates having a cozy barn to go to when the season turns darker, wetter and colder--but I do!

Equine Gems: It Rains, Then It Pours

I didn't have to be reminded that yesterday was Halloween, because it was one of those days that seemed halfway paranormal all on its own.

Halfway through the morning, I was still marveling over my great piece of luck in finding a dependable, been-there/done-that kid's horse right in my own neighborhood, and for less than a single month's training on a horse these days. When...

The ink wasn't even dry on my check, I'm sure, and the phone rang with the wife of my favorite outfitter at the other line.

She was calling to let me know that due to unforeseen health problems and other circumstances, including their own age, they were suddenly having to disperse their string of a dozen mountain-savvy guest horses. Said they knew that hardly anyone was buying horses right now, and that they'd been down to check things out for themselves at the same livestock market where I found Keller, the blind Appaloosa in past posts. (They'd even SEEN Keller there before she was picked up and taken to Shiloh Horse Rescue by Mikey. They talked with Janet. Small world....) Decided they didn't want any of their remaining horses to go there, and were going to disperse the horses privately, as best they could.

As my brain struggled to take all this in--I was having a lot of "oh, wow!"s to absorb at once--my outfitter friend added that they had set a price of $600 a head on the horses, buyer choice, even though many are now in their 20s (some closer to 30). She wondered what I thought.

I guess I stammered out something, hoping to at least sound supportive. But to be real honest, I'm still trying to fully work my way through all of that I think. Because there's a lot that could be said, from so many angles, not the least of which, my personal mourning for the end of an era.

Yes, I would like to get your thoughts about such things as the true market value of older, trained horses, most with no papers, in a world where horses are available for free. And yes, I do wish I could just go gather up the whole string of these at once, and dole them out one by one to people who haven't yet found their Rosie. (See my previous couple of posts.)

Resident Kid's Horse: Rosie Gets the Job

It didn't take long for me to confirm that Rosie, the Arabian mare for sale by neighbors, is exactly what I had in mind for a kid's horse. (And is, in fact, quite a bit more than that, with a very high level of under-saddle training that I discovered while riding her in our arena.)

An absolute gem, in more ways  than one. I didn't haggle one bit over the asking price of $500 for this who-knows-how-old Arabian mare. For my purposes, she's the kind of horse that's priceless.

And speaking of some priceless horses, read my post after this one.