Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Good morning Central Oregon, after a rare rainy day. Hope that on this damp morning-after everybody feels as good as the early Robins chirping beyond my kitchen window.

Yesterday, I hauled the horses about 20 miles to our sport-horse veterinarian. We left the east side of Bend in a thin rain that got heavier approaching Tumalo, and finally, turning onto the Old Bend-Redmond Highway, became downpour. I hauled slowly on that two-lane and relatively busy roadway, and looking through the rear-view mirror felt sorry for vehicles lined behind my rig. Too bad, because with a load of horses, I’m a slow-goer.

The vet watching Rosie trot in circles saw how exercising has improved her trotting strength and footwork. In walking, however, she still tends to lift her left rear leg high, and in moving forward brings that left hoof too close and nearly in front of her right rear hoof. He performed a second full chiropractic workup, and suggested that her tendency to lift and cross that rear leg stems from an uneven pelvis, which has affected her hips. He focused on adjusting her hips and pelvis, says the conditions are old, difficult to adjust, and so, Rosie will receive a monthly chiropractic work-over. As hoped, he gave the go-ahead to hitch, and slowly re-strengthen her to the drive.

Afterwards, he watched Sunni move and assessed her leg strengths, again this time diagnosing slight hock pain, especially in her right rear. He suggested continuing to drive her, and watching for problems. Alternatively, he felt it okay to medicate and avoid potential signs of overwork pain. During the past months, I myself experienced a first-bout of arthritic knee pain and felt powerful relief from an injection. So yesterday, I opted for hock meds. The vet, on injecting her right hock, showed that it was releasing fluid, which confirmed an inflammation. Later on arriving home, Sunni happily bounced around and faux-kicked more than usual. I surmised she felt real good.

Moving forward, I’ll continue driving Sunni 4-5 times weekly. I’ll start hitching Rosie for strengthening work in the dry lot. These horses will keep me highly focused on improving my driving-handling techniques.

I had been planning, in a few weeks, to take Sunni to Washington State, for a multi-day training event and driving competition. But now, it seems more sensible to continue working routinely with the horses, and delay competing until we’re physically stronger and more capable of meeting higher demands and pressures.

Dear Friends, hoping you enjoy horses enough to continue riding with me. Diana

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Those expressive eyes, now soft, and her perspective relaxed. Maybe visualize me standing nearby, holding her lead rope and seeming as unworried as she. But neither of us is completely calm. She’s alert to her surroundings, something unexpected instantly could energize her. That possibility and because she’s much bigger, keeps me attuned to her energy levels.

The piece of leather floating beside her eye is the headpiece tail of a breakaway halter that she’s worn for years. The halter’s a bit too large making it simple to slip on and off her. A breakaway halter is designed, in case a a tied-up horse should fall or rear, for its leather to snap apart, freeing the animal and thus avoiding a bad injury or broken neck. This type of collar particularly is recommended for horses being transported by trailer.

The pictured horse is Rosie. Since her harness is easy to put on and take off, I often use it on my other horse, Sunni (she once had her own breakaway that became lost). The other day, Sunni was wearing Rosie’s halter and tied, while being tacked up and prepared for pulling a cart. This event usually is quiet and calm, but suddenly Rosie galloped noisily across the dry lot beyond Sunni’s vision.

Sunni tensed and stretched to look around but was hindered by driving blinkers, and picking up more of Rosie’s vibes, her energy increased. Rosie was spotting in the distance new horses being moved into a usually empty corral, and was focused, her body tense, her energy high. And Sunni picked up on and responded physically to every bit of the drama.

The usually compliant Sunni ignored my calming efforts, and needing to be with her herd tried pulling backwards, but couldn’t get loose. When she attempted to rear, the breakaway leather snapped and set her free. She paced the paddock fence, and like Rosie stared into the distance. It would be necessary to pause and wait until their energies dropped.

When finally Rosie moved away but still watched those distant horses, Sunni calmed a little. I put her into a backup halter and with a long lead lunged her several minutes, to work off any remaining edge. Once she seemed very settled, I finished tacking and hitched her to the cart for our drive.

Over the years that I’ve used breakaway harnesses, none ever snapped. Thankfully, this time it did, for otherwise Sunni might have hurt herself. After she brought me home from our drive, I searched storage areas for her missing breakaway harness, and now by switching it around, use it with both horses. Soon, we’ll receive a supply of newly-ordered breakaways, and in the future, Pimmy, too, will wear a halter that can pop apart.

Dear Friends, we must always be alert to all possibilities, good and bad. Diana

Monday, May 13, 2019

I’m a nearly lifelong city gal who never went camping, rarely hiked, didn’t much get into sports, and slightly feared the wild outdoors. This began to change after I retired to Central Oregon, and especially after acquiring a couple of horses. Horseback riding in the mountains offers great opportunities to see and focus on learning, real-time, about wild nature. Only recently though, have I begun pausing to look around even more closely at nearly invisible natural elements, and there’s quick and easy help to learn and in as much detail as desired.

Egged on by a plant identification app that I recently downloaded, I’ve obsessively been photographing little greens in my pathways, wanting to learn if they have true names and somehow are worthwhile. To my great surprise, my small acreage is host to many interesting sprouts, among which are Horseweed, Field marigold, Common sunflower, Burrobrushes, and Wild Spinach. Some of these are useful as animal fodder, some are medicinal. Who knew!

That began my growing involvement with available apps designed to identify and explain. I’m discovering myself more curious than I realized about elements of nature that I previously ignored. The other day, upon spotting an unusual critter solidly perched on the door screen, I searched for and found an app for identifying insects.

These identifier apps include photos of possible variations of whatever one sees and show geographically where species commonly abound. My app illustrated many variations of subfamily Plume Moths. A search of the internet revealed more variations, and related moths among the species much fancier than the one on my screen door.

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Just so you’ll know, the Plume Moth has 162 known and described species in North America, north of the Mexican Border. From now on, upon spotting a little T-shaped resting insect with lobbed or divided wings, you might recognize the Plume Moth.

Another chapter is ahead on this journey taking me into a larger world. I’ve downloaded another app, designed to help explore the universe and capable of identifying stars and constellations. I’m eager to journey into the sky and play, but interacting with what’s overhead means being awake nights. I’ll have to await a restless night, which shouldn’t take long. Meanwhile, I have the option of listening to soft music and gazing at this app’s screen, and letting the Hubble Telescope transport me into a star-studded sky.

Dear Friends, the enormous universe offers much, beyond wildest imagination. Diana

Sunday, May 12, 2019

It’s here again, Mother’s Day, and I thread back through the years to remember my mom as more than a series of shadowy vignettes. She was a pretty woman who matured during years that offered to the world movie stars that seemed beyond-gorgeous. She like many women in those days modeled herself after the most popular glamour looks. She grew up in the early and mid-parts of the 20th Century, when men were programmed to take care of “their women”, and my mom throughout her life expected no less.

I was her third daughter and the many years separating me from older siblings suggested that my birth was an accident. During my infancy, an automobile accident caused the death of our father. Growing up with two nearly adult sisters, I considered myself physically as too little, less beautiful, mentally lacking their smarts, and least likely to succeed in life. Except that my mom always believed in me and encouraged most of my aspirations.

Mom’s been gone nearly 20 years. I remember her as gentle, loving, and very headstrong. In those days, people tended to talk too little about themselves–really talk, I mean. What now are common discussions about ourselves, as youngsters and how we’ve evolved, only developed around mid-century when people began understanding psychology, after which “talking personal” gradually became a staple. Looking back, I wish I’d been more interested and able to press my mom for whatever more she might have remembered about her own early childhood, her immigrant parents, and for sure, lots about my dad. But kids tend to be in the present, and not until we ourselves get older do we start trying to make meaningful connections between what’s long past and its impact on the present.

Sometimes, looking into a mirror, I glimpse one of my mom’s expressions or maybe just the look of her eyes. For an instant that’s a jolting vision and I miss her terribly. After all, she’s the one person who tolerated all my ideas and moods, handed me a few dollars when needed, and firmly believed I’d accomplish anything to which I set my mind. None of that changed during her lifetime.

Nobody is perfect, and motherhood is a huge responsibility that some manage better than others. My long relationship with mom had lots of ups and downs, but on reflection it mostly was good–for if successful mothering relates highly to loving support, she offered lots of that.

I wish I could write about my mom from the perspective of my own motherhood, but I didn’t become a parent. Most of my understanding of the role, I learned from my mother. And to sum it up: even now, and long beyond her lifetime, the best takeaways from our relationship continue to support me.

Dear Friends, have a lovely day. Diana

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Who ever heard of a Monkey flower or a Blue-eyed Mary? Well, if you’re not already familiar with those tiny blossoms, they’re abounding in surrounding deserts and also taking root in sandy spots on our own properties.

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I’m guilty countless times of passing by or stepping on such plants without noticing. Well, that’s not exactly true, because when a single little spot of color catches my eye, I often pause to look and wonder about it. The thing is, my mind usually is on my dogs, running loose, and I’m focusing on handling my stop-action camera to capture their activities. Also, my camera hasn’t a lens that effectively captures little bitty things close up, so I don’t look for tinys.

That is, until this week while hiking with Elaine (my visiting friend from Eastern Oregon) and our dogs. I noticed that Elaine often paused and used her cell phone to take close ups of miniscule objects. Wondering what she was seeing got me looking more closely at little things, and again noticing the intrigue of occasionally sighting a single, tiny and vivid red blossom on our trail or nearby.

For awhile, we’d been discussing the social impact of improved facial recognition software. That got us wondering if there exists an available plant recognition software. Back at home, I played around, downloaded an app, and went searching for tiny plants. I found a couple near my mailbox down by the street and rooted in sand. I had to bend very low to photograph them, and Voila! The app informed me that I’m host to a bitty bunch of Monkey flowers near an even-more bitty bunch of Blue-eyed Marys.

Suddenly, I realized that all those formerly stepped-on or ignored plants had names, were real things! “Yes,” said my friend while downloading the cool app, “the desert is more alive than many people realize.”

We visited a nearby, public mini-garden to photographed plants. Our app revealed each plant’s identity, its natural locations, the appropriate nurture and care for it, and included information about and pictures of its family relatives.

Dear Friends, this has changed my world, it’s bigger, more colorful, lots more fun. Diana

Friday, May 10, 2019

It’s an adventure tramping along in an open setting with a pack of dogs. My visitor, Elaine, and I were accompanied by six dogs–my four mostly Border Collie types, and her Kelpies, their new friends. We counted often to be sure all were staying with us.

The dogs have such different personalities and styles. My Border Collie, Miles, could be anywhere, he streaks into and out of the area but always knows where his family is and tracks us. My hound dog, Ranger, and mini-Aussie, Louie, dependably stay nearby, as does the lovely Osix.

Elaine’s dogs are trained to a “T”. They’re experts as livestock herders, and as trail-trackers in search and rescue operations.

On this day, the dogs simply mixed it up and flew.

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While the dogs ran circles around us, Elaine and I used our cameras to capture desert flora and fauna. As she says, and as we recorded, the desert is alive.

An outing with dogs is more than an opportunity to walk, which alone is very healthy, but it’s also a chance to study the environment–colors of mixed shades, unusual tree and root shapes, natural rock structures, and of course, the teeny-tiny living and often overlooked little beauties.

Elaine earlier posted a photo on Facebook that included my picture, without tagging me. The site emailed me, that their facial recognition system had identified me in that photo, and requested my permission for its use. I’ll expand on this information to learn if Google’s recognition system is able to match these tiny flowers to their official names.

Dear Friends, have a lovely day. Diana

Thursday, May 09, 2019

I took the horses over the hill for training, to return us to a summer work routine and to tune up my handling skills. We worked hard during a couple hours of long-lining and driving practice, and now for sure, again are in action.

My friend, Elaine, an excellent horsewoman, visiting Bend for several days, accompanied me on the trip. She observed as Megan, our trainer, took the horses and me through steps associated to driving a horse.

We began with me handling Rosie through long-line ropes. Almost daily, I’ve trotted Rosie in circles, using thirty-foot ropes to guide and control her movements. The goal is to strengthen her muscles after recent adjustments intended to improve her gaits. She had a full chiropractic work-over by our sport-horse veterinarian and corrective shoeing by our capable farrier.

I’m new to the process of long-lining a horse, and realized only yesterday, as Megan instructed me to handle Rosie differently, that there’s more to long-lining than I dreamed. She coached me to reduce vocal commands and instead communicate with Rosie using the ropes. To my surprise, each step Megan introduced resulted in the exact response she wanted from Rosie. I practiced controlling the horse’s gaits, speeds, directions, and learned that long-lining skills can initiate and reinforce many training goals.

In Sunni’s training session, she pulled a carriage with the three of us in it. Megan guided me to drive Sunni in turns and circles, and directed me to handle the reins correctly, to keep the horse moving at appropriate gaits while keeping her body balanced. Intellectually, I recalled these techniques, but over winter not having practiced, needed coaching to refresh my handling of a pulling horse.

I’ve decided to enter Sunni in a couple of competitions–one in Washington State in June, another in Oregon in July. This motivates me to keep raising our learning goals bar and to make sure Sunni stays in top physical condition. I want to drive Sunni in the dressage and obstacle courses, and want us capable of addressing those challenges with few or no errors.

I was hoping for Elaine’s approval of the horses’ progress and training regimes. She and her mom had raised and trained Sunni from filly-hood, and Elaine had a significant role in Rosie’s evolvement to maturity. Yesterday, Elaine expressed pleasure with the horses’ progress and our work with Megan.

Dear Friends, this will be a busy summer, thanks for riding along. Diana

Wednesday, May 08, 2019

This is a morning for loading the horses and heading over the mountains to Lebanon, located on Oregon’s west side, to begin this summer’s training. My horses are doing reasonably well and such a trip isn’t because they particularly need training. No, it’s for their mom, me, I need more training.

You’d think a left-handed person finally could get into her head which way to turn when someone says “go right” or ” turn left”. I become lost and fail such commands, unless clearly, someone also points me in the correct direction. You’d think a person who’s worked with horses for about 10 years, as I have, would have learned much about how to handle them for desired results. Well, maybe I get block-headed, for lots of situations become perplexing, and it’s upsetting when expert advice and assistance isn’t available.

For the next few days things will be different, for luckily, an animal training expert is close at hand. My friend Elaine, who hails from Eastern Oregon, is in town. She grew up with horses, and in fact, used to train my horses, knows them well, understands their quirks and can explain how to interact more effectively with them. I describe my mare Rosie as being a little on the “hot side”, sometimes challenging. In Elaine’s experience, the first and most important key to training an animal is to understand its basic nature, and then use that knowledge while working toward specific goals. She has practical tips for handling Rosie, also stressing the importance of correcting an animal firmly but with kindness. Our conversations have manage to relight my dimmed recognition that understanding an animal’s basic nature, and incorporating its natural ways of perceiving and reacting into a training plan, likely will achieve the most preferable outcomes.

Today, will initiate a higher baseline for this summer of working with my horses, as we benefit from the help and advice of two fine trainers.

As to my confused left-handedness, oh well.

Dear Friends, understanding an animal’s nature means understanding our own. Diana

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

This surprise-to-me snapshot appeared recently on Facebook, posted by an on-line friend whom I met while horse-camping in 2014. This cute donkey had been shipped to me a year earlier from Eugene, Oregon. I had mixed feelings about taking her on, as I didn’t know one end of a donkey from another, and had inquired about her mostly from curiosity. But Pimmy needed a new home and that’s all a dedicated group of rescue folks needed to step up to the plate and simply transport her across the mountains to me. So, one fine day, there I stood beside a donkey, holding her lead rope and wondering what next to do with her.

Fortunately, a year later, by the time of this photo, Pimmy had become a keeper, and with me often seemed like a family dog. She had proved herself to be a completely sweet and so-smart animal, had bonded with my horses, imitated their actions (e.g., when a horse rolls in dirt, Pimmy rolls, too), and followed them everywhere. So, on a summer weekend, she came as part of the family to spend a couple of days at the Giddyup Trail Horse Camp.

I’ve written before about how cool an animal is Pimmy, but not about the general curiosity she attracts (e.g., this photo). Back here at home, sighting a donkey on my property causes some drivers to tap their brakes for a confirming look, occasionally one turns toward my barn to ask about her. She’s my first choice when deciding which animal will march with me in parades, for Pimmy generally is unflappable in a crowd, affable with curious folks wanting to touch her, and usually as the only donkey among various animals attracts extra attention.

All that said, training a donkey is different from training a horse. The burro is smart, knows what’s wanted, but doesn’t see any reason for doing. A horse on the other hand more quickly starts doing what’s asked. My dream for Pimmy is to give her a job by teaching her to pull a cart. I’m busy with horses and haven’t concentrated enough on her education. Even without formal education, she’s a kick, a pleasure to have around, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.

Dear Friends, if you’re curious, a burro and a donkey are one and the same. Diana

Monday, May 06, 2019

As much as I dislike having to face the periodic drudge of cleaning large water troughs, it’s lovely upon completion to see how much the fresh water “sparks joy” in the horses. They drink by dipping their noses way into the water, and they play by lifting their heads while holding mouthfuls of water, and turning to me so that their holdings stream directly onto my shoes. Ah, yes, joys of spring.

It’s mostly heavy winds blowing dust that fouls trough waters. In my horses’ dusty environment high winds often swirl strongly around their water sources. Another trough pollutant is algae which collects on the inside bottom and inner walls. Ours is a chilly environment that’s mostly mosquito free, except during occasional brief and very hot spells, when their larvae might be seen floating in the troughs. To combat some of these pollutants, my troughs house an effective weapon: goldfish!

Years ago, I added a few “feeder fish” to the troughs. To my surprise, not only did they thrive (they’re now six and seven years old), but they’ve performed the significant cleaning work of consuming algae and mosquito larvae. They’ve managed to dodge plunging horse muzzles, and birds that perch to refresh themselves, or simply to dunk and soften their catches. Some of my “throw-away” trough fishes have grown into real beauties with impressive colorations and large, flowing fins. As is my habit with pets, I’ve become fond of them.

So, when the trough waters are too fouled and cloudy to see through, for reassurance that the fish are alive and well, it’s time to do the deed. That is, if our weather is warm enough for me to stand out there slightly muddy and partly soaked. The job has rewards, first by revealing that all the fishes are alive and well, and next, by the pleasures of seeing the horses eagerly dip in and play with very fresh water.

Dear Friends, some elements of country-living are very cool. Diana