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!

Back to Reality: Haying Time

At right: Our pasture timothy is down and curing. Picture me out here on the weekend, hoisting bales of hay.

I came home from my mini-vacation to face one of summer's realities: haying time. That's been a June-July fact of life for me ever since I was a little girl.

While the town kids rode their bikes around town (on pavement...lucky them!), the brothers and I would be running the hay rake, bucking bales, and filling up the hayloft for the upcoming winter. While the town kids cooled off in the public swimming pool, we sweated from our labors and fought the itch of hay dust.

Although the equipment is considerably more sophisticated, haying time is still about sweat and itch. Ordinarily, we have our hay delivered by a grower, and then muscle it into the barn ourselves. But this year, we're adding something new to the stockpile-hay chore, by cutting and baling the timothy produced by our horse pasture.

In the past, it didn't make economic sense for us to do this. Local hay was cheap and easy to obtain, whereas the cost of buying or renting hay-making machinery was high. But now things are different. The hay we purchased last year for $140 a ton (up from $75 a ton in the late '90s) is going to cost $250 a ton. The difference more than pays for the cost of cutting and baling our 10 acres of pasture grass. Every ton of our own timothy that goes into the barn is a ton we won't have to buy.

We will, of course, pay another kind of price--the one of the sweat and itch!