Storms moving in today…

And were we ever glad. The last few days we have hit the low 90s which is about as hot as it ever gets here. With humidity in the low teens and steady light winds, everything dries out fast, especially your sinuses and eyes. For the first time this year, I’ve had to deep water the garden twice a day just to stay ahead of the dry out factor. I have to laugh at what a weenie I’ve become though. In Texas, this weather in July would be considered a cool front! The temps dropped pretty dramatically today and we’ve had thunderstorms moving around and over us all day. It has smelled and felt delicious and I’m hoping this might even signal that the end of horsefly season is getting here.

Butterfly on violas.

Like all couples, Mike and I have our ups and downs, times that we are closer to each other and times when there seems to be some distance between us. No matter what else is going on with us though, we always seem to agree on this place where we live, and about our horses. As I mentioned recently, Mike and I hiked our thirty acres to the north of where the yurt is, looking at where we can put in a training trail and obstacle course. Mike saw me get excited about the possibilities and of how many natural elements we have for an excellent trail training course for both horses and riders. A few days later, he told me he had been thinking about how maybe we could start a school where we held clinics and workshops for that sort of training and maybe even make an overnight in the national forest part of it. Mike is a graduate of the NOLS – National Outdoor Leadership Schools and has wanted to take their horse packing course for several years now.

Look at this new little cutie! Heirloom Roses put all of their minis on sale this spring, right about the time we lost Ellie. I ordered a memory rose for each of our lost pups and this one, Autumn Sensation, is to remember one of our first and most senior greyhounds, Cody. He was twelve when we adopted him and lived to be fourteen.

What Mike didn't know was that last spring, before a series of major health issues consumed me; I had been researching the possibility of something very similar. I was very excited by how successful my adult rider teaching experiment was going and had been contacted by people from other parts of the country (and even world) who were interested in coming and working with me and with our mustangs. It felt like something I would want to do and I had already started collaborating with my old friend and instructor, Susan Gueaneau Mishal, on developing a series of videos and later books for that project. The name we came up with for that venture is From Thinking to Feeling ~ a mind, body and spirit path to riding in unity. © Carmon Deyo 2008. That was also when I started the Wild Hearts, Willing Spirits website which has been sadly left without any additional developed since last June but which will eventually house all of the information on this program.

My beloved Country Dancer once again.

After researching costs, creating spreadsheets, and deciding just how invested I wanted to be in it, it was clear that this idea is something that could work. As a retirement business it would allow Mike and I to do something we love. The most important thing would be to plan it so that this multi-purpose school would never consume us and beat us down the way Black Horse Design did.

This little lovely is Artic Sunrise. She is Ellie's remembrance rose who just opened her first blooms today. Artic Sunrise is a mini ground cover rose that will only cover about fifteen inches but be covered with these beautiful tiny blooms. I ordered this one just a few days after Ellie left us.

I am thrilled to discover that even though we never talked about it, we once again arrived at the same place on a future that involves us both. Now when I finish getting things wrapped up with the transfer of Black Horse Design greyhound jewelry to Greyhound Companions of New Mexico, I will be able to move back to researching and planning a venture that will not only be good for us, but will maybe let us share with others some of the knowledge and experience we both have.

Marigolds, lavender and bug.

In a couple of years we will have our 'real' house built and the yurt will become a guest and clinic house. We will be adding a hay barn that will also have several roomy stalls and runs for people who want to bring their own horses to work with. The Wild Boys will always be very important instructors who will aid us in teaching people how to 'speak horse'.

Rose trio.

There is more that I want to do but they are things that aren't easy to express here in this short synopsis of something we are still exploring and working our way through. There is part of my history that I don't talk about much, partly because it is private but also because many people don't understand that aspect of me. I'm thinking it's time for that particular piece of self to come forward again, regardless if people judge me as something other than stable because of it. God knows there are enough other reasons to judge me as unstable so why hide out!

Prickly pear blooms.

I’m excited about this and looking forward to hopefully being able to get some things in the works as soon as next year. There are legal aspects to explore since this would be a retirement business for us, and a lot to do and build to get ready for real classes and workshops that involve more than my patient group of friends and neighbors who are willing to be my test subjects. Right now I’ll be buried in spread sheets, planning, fund seeking, legal inquiries and all of the other things necessary. I’ll keep you posted. This is going to be something special, both for people who want to learn the nuts and bolts of riding, and those who want so much more than that with their horse.

Let's get this over with!

Lilla from Rhymes with Vanilla gave me this cute blog award. Like her, I have absolutely no idea what it means. I don't want this to sound ungrateful because I do love that people think this blog is worth an award; but after five or six times of being asked to list interesting things that no one knows about you...you run out of stuff! I'll give it my best shot though and as usual, I'm going to break the rules and not pass this one on to anyone specific. In my mind, everyone out there with a blog deserves the 'Honest Scrap' award! So take it and run with it if you have a desire to.

So here goes, ten interesting things no one, at least on the internet in general, knows about me.

1. I was my mother's last child, born in Fort Worth, Texas at Carswell Air Force Base and the only one of her children born with my father present. His commanding officer ordered him to go to the hospital when my mother went into labor.

2. I was conceived in Alaska while my father worked on the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line. My siblings told me they would have liked me better if I had been born in Alaska because it was the biggest state

3. Since I left home at 18, I have never been without at least one large dog.

4. The first horse that I bought for myself (for $100) was an 18 year old Tennessee Walker who had been trained as a jumper. His name was Carrigan's Fancy and he was an even bigger butthead that Griton.

5. I used to own a house in Geronimo, Texas and it was the only house in town with a palm tree in the front yard. Of course, 'town' was stretching things back then.

6. I didn't learn to drive a car until I was 19. How did I get around? Those were the days when it was relatively safe to hitchhike. I went to college in a small town in the mountains in northern California and used to catch a ride to campus with the snowplows.

7. Willie is our 6th greyhound and last night while I was doing the dishes, he stole an uncooked t-bone steak off of the counter that was waiting to go on the grill. I rescued it, washed and dried it, cut off the chewed on part and had it for dinner. Willie was severely chastised. Things like that don't bother me at all and in fact, our childhood motto was 'a germ a day keeps the doctor away' which might explain why I have such a good immune system.

8. When I was a senior in high school I worked part time as a sales clerk for .75 an hour. That job gave me enough money to leave home and put myself into college.

9. I went to college with George Strait and knew him personally back in the early days of 'George Strait and the Ace in the Hole Band'. That was when they played at Cheatum Street Warehouse in San Marcos every Wednesday which was Ladies Night. He was always a good husband and father and a very shy kind of guy who never fooled around.

10. I am one of the only people I know who stayed on the same career path from the time I was able to answer the question of what I wanted to be when I grew up...a cowgirl and an artist.

Okay! I'm done! Please don't ask me for any more interesting facts because it just took me an hour of sitting and staring into space to come up with these. I've got another post I'm working on which will go up later today.

Following Doctor's Orders

I had planned on taking the video camera down to the arena tonight to get a little clip of Mike working with Llego and to ask him to take one of me on Mio. Of course I left it sitting on the mounting block up in the tack area.

So this is what you get...be sure to turn your volume up.

How about a general update?

Yummy cactus blooms.

I just saw my primary care doctor today about a pretty darned intense pain I've had in the left side of my pelvis for about three weeks now. I was pretty sure it was a new set of nerve pains associated with a degenerating disc and vacuum disc syndrome. My acupuncturist is also an RN and felt strongly I should get the opinion of my doctor to see if I should have a pelvic exam.

Country Dancer is back! Starting wave II of her summer bloom-a-thon!

I just had a clean PET/CT scan on April 30th which was six months after one done in November 2008, both looking for distant metastasis in bones and organs and finding none. Two clean PET/CT scans with no changes in eight months, so I really wasn't worried about this new pain being cancer. As a responsible patient though, I made the appointment and went in.

Morning Glory

After talking about it and examining me, he agreed that it is new nerve pain associated probably with the next disc up and since I've already seen a spine specialist, we'll just continue on continuing on. When he asked me what helped, I told him riding my horse and would he mind giving me a prescription for that? He is a horseman himself and got a good laugh and said he would but he didn't think our insurance would go for it.

The lovely shading of Robert Clements.

Now our minds are relieved even if they didn't need to be and since I can pretty much control this pain through meds and 'Aw shoot!', riding, all is good. I've had so many years to practice with chronic sciatic nerve pain on the right side, I imagine I'll get used to pelvic pain on the left side. Learning to deal with neuropathy through my upper body over the last four months makes me a pretty evenly distributed pain package now!

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - Anonymous

On a sad note...I've waited to write about this till we were absolutely sure and after a month there isn't much doubt, Lio the cat is gone. The last time I saw him he was headed up into the rocks, tailing after Nicodemus. We have had loose dogs roaming around plus it's the time of year that the coyote families are teaching their young to hunt. I'm afraid Lio probably fell victim to one or the other. We miss him and feel very sad about it, especially Coli. Fionna does not miss him.

We really miss you Lio...there were far too many losses this year without adding you to the list.

I've been thinking again...

I know it's dangerous but sometimes necessary. This post should go up over at Wild Hearts, Willing Spirits and eventually it will be expanded and honed and posted over there along with the one about losing and regaining your confidence with horses. They are both pretty much tied together and until I get them sorted out, you will have the benefit (or boredom) of my musings over here.

This is what the deck looked like on July 6th last year. I'd like to skip that part this year! I think Mike had just brought home the water garden and we were trying to figure out how to set it up on the deck when it was intended to be buried in dirt.

Now why am I sitting here writing this today, Independence Day, when Mike and I had planned to take our horse boys out for their first hike together, to begin the mental part of working on an obstacle course/training trail we are going to build? That's easy...it's pouring down rain! I mean POURING down rain. I think this is probably the third year in a row that my prayers have been answered with soaking rains on People Try to Set the Forest on Fire Day. So here we are, curled up in our recliners with rain coming down and thunder all around us, dogs cozy in their beds, and me typing away.

The thirty acres of land that we don't live on is going to provide a wonderful opportunity to build a trail and obstacle course on it with natural features you would run into in the forest here...including big hairy sheep! In addition to the natural rocks and up and down terrain, we will build a wooden bridge and other things you might need to negotiate on a long ride.

Several people whose blogs I read daily have recently made the hard decision of realizing the horse they have and love, is not really suitable for them (HorseCentric, Laughing Orca Ranch) and that horse should move on to someone else. In one case (The Horseshoeing Housewife), the horse made that decision and seems to feel that running free in the desert is better than partnering with a human, even one with the skill and patience of a saint.

Star and I when he was around six on an endurance conditioning ride in the Santa Cruz mountains.

This all got me thinking about the emotional expectations we tend to put on our horses, myself certainly included there. I had a great horse, Star, who was also a total pain in the ass. That didn't matter and I loved him beyond reason anyway, in spite of the constant opinionated arguments, the airs above the ground just for the joy of it, and the fact that as a gaited horse I could never really ride him with anyone else because his flat walk was six miles per hour. Still, he was my brother in hooves and I loved and respected him for who he was and didn't expect anything more or less from him. In spite of all of his faults and eccentricities, I loved him and was furious with him when he died, much, much too young.

There was a period of time that I lived in northern California and bartered board for myself and Star in exchange for labor. There was a young woman trainer at that barn who taught the lesson program and also took horses in for training. This young woman allowed her emotions to be entirely too involved in what she was doing and it had a big negative impact both on her students and her horses. She measured herself too much in the successes and failures of her students and that is putting way too much pressure on young kids. Riding should be fun for them, not something that makes them a failure in someone else's eyes if they can't get it exactly right.

A child's parents can pull them out of a lesson program and find a better one if that child has stopped experiencing joy in riding. Not so lucky are the horses. This woman had a lovely big thoroughbred who was her own horse. I think his name was Coda (notice I remember the horse’s name and not hers?). He had chronic lameness issues mostly due to his conformation of being short backed and long legged which caused him to constantly overstep with his back legs, shearing the heels off of his front feet. This is something that can be corrected if only the trainer will take the time necessary to create softness and strength in the back so that the horse is capable of what is called in the dressage world 'self carriage'. This means the horse is capable of coming through with his back to lift his front end, along with the weight of the rider, up and out of the way of his back feet.

I don't remember her name and I'm tired of typing 'this woman' so let's just call her Jane (no offense to any Jane's out there who aren't 'this woman'!). Shortly after I moved to that barn, Jane brought her horse in from what had been about a three month pasture turnout to heal from his last injury. Instead of slowly and carefully working on suppling and strengthening him, she went right back to jumping without any conditioning or training time. In a matter of weeks, he was once again going badly and displaying the emotional issues of a horse in constant pain. I was walking between the barn and the house one day when I heard her screaming from the arena, 'You break my heart! You just break my heart!' as he once again pulled a front shoe and sliced his heel off. At that point, crying and in a fury, she pulled his tack, shoved him through the gate to the pasture and hit him with the rope as she yelled that she was going to sell him and would never get on his back again. I thought 'Good. Maybe he'll have a chance now.'

The connection between Mike and Llego has been clear from the first time they met and it has been beautiful to watch. You wouldn't think an untrained BLM mustang would be the ideal horse for the novice rider but in this case, it is. Llego's calm intelligence combined with his complete faith in Mike is the perfect combination.

The point of all of this is that if our happiness lies in believing our horse will somehow 'fix' us, or that in somehow 'fixing' our horse we will find happiness, or success, or recognition, or whatever tag you have attached to riding and having a horse, then everyone eventually gets hurt. The weight of a rider combined with the weight of those kinds of expectations is just too heavy for any horse to carry. Our happiness shouldn't be derived from the horse; it should be shared with the horse. For Jane, her horse had become her image of success and her world with that horse had closed down to where nothing else was acceptable. She couldn't see that she might not be the best rider for him, or that he might not be suited physically or temperamentally to be a jumper. It's all about getting ourselves unstuck from expectations.

Besol was a 'project' horse we saved from a downward spiral due to unintentional riding abuse. He is a sensitive horse with neurotic behaviors who was being over-ridden with an extreme bit by a large novice rider in a saddle that didn't fit. After facing down cancer in 2008, I didn't want to spend years rehabbing Besol, I wanted to enjoy riding and our horses right now. So we found a place for him in a riding program through a rescue we respect. He is doing well, I got Mio, and everyone won in this situation.

I have great respect for the two women who have sadly but wisely come to the conclusion that they and their horses aren't right for each other. This means that everyone gets a new opportunity...the riders to find horses better suited to their skill levels and the kind of riding they want to do, and their horses will get a chance to excel with riders more suited to their personalities and abilities. It's a 'win/win' for everyone because when riding stops being fun for either you or your horse, no one wins.

Me and my dream dressage horse, Cody, in 1984.

I learned this lesson in a very hard way when I was in my early thirties and found my ‘dream’ horse. Cody was this beautiful, tall thoroughbred who had the elegance, strength and purity of gaits to be exactly the dressage horse I wanted. I didn’t even have him a year when he nearly cut his foot off in an accident and though I fought hard to save him, I eventually gave him the mercy of euthanasia. My dream was shattered, or so I thought, until I realized that I didn’t have to have a horse to prove myself by competing with him…I could have a horse just because I love having horses.

From that moment on, everything I felt about horses changed and I began to honor them for who they are as individuals, not who I wanted them to be. I also began to develop a reputation of ‘buy high and give away’ as I would bring a horse into my life, then sell or even give them away when I found exactly the right person who they really belonged with. Sort of a matchmaking service between horse and rider!

Do I still have expectations of my horses all of these years later? Of course I do, but they don’t have much to do with my own identity anymore. I expect my horse to keep me safe and to be fun to ride. Following my own personal taste, I want them to be sensitive to the riding aids and to move freely and well. I want them to be safe on the trails and respectful of my safety and of other horses and riders.

Since I am always the one on the other side of the camera, this may be the only photo I have of me and Mio for a while. That's alright, I really like this one.

I no longer need a giant horse at least 16.2 hands tall who can be successful in the dressage show ring. Nor do I need an exceptionally attractive horse. Color means nothing to me nor does breeding, especially since we fell in love with the characteristics of wild mustangs. What I want is a horse I can relax on and take in the scenery on a trail ride; one that I can head into the arena with to do a little dressage for fun, not competition; a horse that I feel a bond with and with whom I share a joy of companionship.

Pretty Mio has settled himself in well with the rest of the herd and is proving to be exactly the horse I needed at this point in my life.

So far, Mio gives me all of these things plus, he has the added bonus of being pretty which was not something I was shopping for. He also happens to be my favorite shade of dappled bay and that nice blaze and pretty white socks in back were an added surprise. The point is, I wasn’t shopping for looks, I was shopping for a horse who filled my current needs. The only requirements I had besides being well trained for trail riding, safe, and good with other horses, was that he be a gelding, a mustang, and between 15 and 16 hands tall because I am six feet tall. The ‘pretty’ stuff was just the icing on the cake.

None of this has changed how I feel about my grey horse, Griton. I was putting entirely too much pressure on Griton to ‘save me’ from feeling so lost and terrified of cancer last year and this. He tried, but the big butthead is accident prone and has only been sound a few months at a time since we got him four years ago. First he injured his stifles not more than six months into ownership which is still a chronic problem. Then he injured a front foot resulting in abscess after abscess.

Handsome Griton showing off his current soundness up in the rocks headed towards the bluff.

He is currently sound and has been since around March but I never know how long that will last. This spring when I tearfully let go of the idea that he would ever be ‘that horse’ who carried me safely down trails and played with me in the arena, everything changed about our relationship. It is still as strong and close as ever, but the burden of carrying me has been shifted to Mio. And Mio is just plain fun and completely sound. Griton won’t be going anywhere because he is as happy as a sheep loving butthead can possibly be here with his ram, his herd, and us, and he certainly isn’t invested in whether or not he will ever be a riding horse! Since I have released him from that pressure, he has seemed to relax more and has less need to shift his own stress to annoying the other horses. I love that big butthead and would miss him terribly if he weren’t here.

So what was the point of this long, meandering post? Love your horses because they are worthy of love. Be realistic when you choose your horses and don’t be taken in by a pretty face, a pretty color, a breed or a sad story unless you have the experience necessary to change that sad story. Choose the horse that you can be happy with NOW, today, no waiting, get on and ride!

Unless of course you are one of those folks with the experience and the desire to raise and train a youngster, turn a green horse into a finished horse, or save a project horse from going down hill. Just figure out what you are good at, what you want your horse to be good at and grab the one that fits and if you make a mistake, let it go. Find the right home for that horse and start looking again. Eventually you will get it right and then you can ride off into the sunset softly singing…

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
gaze at the moon until I lose my senses
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't..... fence me in!

Lyrics by Ella Fitzgerald ~ Don’t Fence Me In

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm hoping these are the only fireworks we see up here today. We've got glorious sunrises and tonight we'll have the Milky Way as our favorite fireworks display...how could anything made by us mortals be better than this?

As always with this holiday, we'll be hanging out up here, hoping some idiot with a lighter doesn't set our world on fire. They are kind of promising us a rainy day which is always a blessing for us on holidays connected with fireworks...funny how different our wishes are from most of the rest of the USA!

Morning Glory

Have a great day everyone! Eat too much! Laugh too much! And enjoy life!

El es Mio!

I haven't had a horse who nickers when he sees me and leaves the herd at a trot to join me since my black horse, Star, died. I think I must have known when the deal went through that this horse was going to be special to me. I walked around saying 'He's mine!' so many times that I named him that. His first owner must have been a good horse person who created a strong bond with Mio, otherwise it would have taken much longer for him to come to this place of choosing to be with me over his herd.

I've been a little off today, headache, body pain etc and I just now noticed that the barometric pressure is going up. After being pitiful and hanging out in the recliner most of the morning, I got myself together, took some drugs and headed out to do some chores like replacing the batteries in the fence chargers. Mio joyfully joined me and followed me from place to place to see what I was doing. When we got over to the water trough, I 'drank' with him and about then Corazon and Llego showed up so we all drank together in a moment of bonding. I know, the water is green. We've been having an algae bloom and I'm slowly getting it under control. I can almost see the fish in there now!

Mike has been working to desensitize Llego to plastic bags and similar noise making items. Llego headed back to the gate with me, walking beside me with his nose touching the grocery bag filled with dead batteries. He just knew there would be a treat in it for him!

Mike has been working under the deck clearing out sand that has accumulated under there from runoff. This is step one in getting ready to pour the concrete foundations for putting in flooring and generally finishing things off under there. Willie was convinced Mike was digging out that nice, damp, cool space just for him.

'You wouldn't really shovel me up, would you?'

'I guess you would.'

'Sigh...the things I have to put up with.'

Temporary kitty abatement plan. I'm covering the pool with netting at night plus the scat mat is armed and in front of it.

Not the greatest photos yet, but this is the plainer of the two shubunkins. The bright orange feisty one is still hiding out.

Our cute little busy body fantail.

Now doesn't this make you think of hot summers as a kid, raiding your grandmother's garden for ripe tomatoes warm from the sun? Soak it up and let the joy come in!

Sheep Update & More

Another bit of glory in the morning.

The other evening an older man found his way up here, not an easy thing to do, looking for the sheep. They don't belong to him but to a friend he was helping out by seeing if he could locate them. It turns out they are supposed to be living in a pen the other side of the first ridge to the north of us. Unfortunately, the man who is supposed to be caring for them had a stroke several years ago and isn't managing those things too well.

A lovely cactus bloom. Doesn't it look like it's made of jelly?

This man told Mike that Umber, the ram, is actually quite elderly and probably won't be with us too much longer. I commented this evening about how sad that would be for Griton but still I hope Umber gets to live out his life up here, free and happy with his equine buddy.

Sweet Happy Child

When I went back and looked at that group of photos I took the other day, I could see how gray Umber's old muzzle is. Since Lilly and Sienna have no interest in the horses, and Umber only has eyes for Griton, and likewise Griton is only interested in Umber, this odd relationship doesn't appear to be a 'sheep' thing but truly a bond between two very different beings. I said if we start catching them sleeping together, maybe we should worry.

Lovely Louise Clements

But back to the visitor. Since we don't mind having the sheep here and with mountain terrain like ours, he didn't seem to think that anyone would be interested enough to come up here and try to capture an old ram and a couple of ewes and it sure wouldn't be easy to herd them out. So for the time being, the sheep are legally here. Yay! Who could ever want to break up a romance like this, especially now that we know one of the parties is an elderly ram?

Such a touching photo of two very different beings who have grown quite attached to each other.

I know, everyone has said they love the rose photos but there are many, many other things beginning to bloom in the garden now. I will have something besides roses to show for it soon and some of those flowers will be pretty amazing. Plus, the last and most favorite of my rose bushes, Deep Secret, has finally made buds and I will be blessed with it's beauty and fragrance again soon. Deep Secret is a hybrid tea rose and it had a rough go of getting through the winter which is why it is so far behind the others. The scent of this rose is so strong that you can catch the fragrance of even the earliest bud from ten or more feet away. You will love this rose!

Robert Clements with its glossy polished leaves.

We brought home three new fish today...two shubunkin goldfish and one tiny little calico fantail. I knew the fantail probably wasn't a good idea but I couldn't resist! One shubunkin is very colorful and was also the most aggressive fish in the tank ~ good survival skills. The other one we chose doesn't have much coloring but looked to be very healthy. And last was the busy body little fantail that was into everything. They are currently hiding in the rock labyrinth with a netted kitty snack abatement system over the pond. Hopefully tomorrow they will feel secure enough for photos.

I truly love these columbines...

And lastly for what turned out to be a very busy day, I have a great new haircut and it wasn't done by Griton. ;) I went from waist length curly red hair when Mike and I met in 2000, to hair that has gradually gotten shorter each year and is now a just above my shoulders, naturally curly cut that I absolutely love. Maybe in the next day or so I'll feel secure enough to take some photos along with the fish.

and I love their oddly graceful seed pods just as much.

It's been a long day. I may be great at living in solitude up on the mountain with the animals...not so great at being around a lot of people in town on a long errand day. I think I'll head up to bed.

Butthead Soulmate Indeed!

'Hey Dude! How ya been?'

'What's that? You want me to work on that hair again?'

'Let's work on the top here a little.'

'How about a little off the side too.'

'And a little off here under the chin.'

'Hey! I've got an idea for this top knot.'

'Just a little bit more.'

'Dude. You really need to try a little shampoo once in a while.'

'So what do you think, Carmon?'

'I love you man!'

'And I love my new do!'

'Oh Pops...you make me embarrassed to be a sheep.'

(I took at least twenty more photos as this love fest was going on. It was very hard to choose which ones to publish!)