More photos added below! We have a new member of the Star's Rest Band!

We have been looking for calm, gentle horses for the new Center and I had found a listing near Edgewood for a ten year old, 16HH thoroughbred gelding who was kid and beginner safe. I had been exchanging emails with the owner and knew she had rescued him from a 'bad situation' and that he was underweight. When you live with horses as fat and sleek as ours are though, just how underweight a thoroughbred in a bad situation can get can be truly shocking.


He actually doesn't look too bad here but believe me, you can feel all of his bones.

I would guess he is about a 2 on the body condition index and that's after these kind folks had been feeding him and putting weight back on him. I don't know what I would have done if I had seen him earlier in the place he was rescued from. I might be in jail if I had.


Lots of ribs, spine and hip bones.

Mike and I didn't even need to discuss it and we could hardly write out the check and load him fast enough in order to get him home up here on the mountain. The amazing thing is he seems to be completely intact emotionally and mentally. Aside from being a bit pushy, his ground manners are excellent, he is easy to halter, hopped right in the trailer, hauled like a gentleman and backed off quietly. On top of that, he has one of the sweetest personalities I've ever met and loves being touched and visited with.


We'll be working to heal up pressure sores from an unpadded body trying to rest on the ground as well as some fungal skin infections.

He is pretty weak in his hindquarters from loss of muscle mass so we were worried about how well he would make the long trip home and the walk up the mountain. Fortunately he did fine and we settled him into the orchard last night where the footing is soft, no rocks, and a gentle slope that will help to rebuild his muscles. When I went out this morning to give him water, Umber the Ram was bedded down next to him and Mio was standing next to the fence keeping him company.


From now on, he'll have all the food, rest and safety he ever needs.

When we brought him in, I told the Wild Boys that he is under our protection and they needed to watch over him as well. Aside from the usual running around and high excitement, there has been no aggression at all, not even from Griton. They all seem to understand he needs time to recover and they have been happy to stay close and keep him company.


What a sweet face to have ever been treated so poorly.

From what I understand, his Jockey Club name was JJs Dreamer but of course, he will get a new name as part of the Star's Rest Band. Mike is in charge of that and I will let you know when he is officially christened. When I get his teeth checked, I'll look to see if he has a lip tattoo and if he does, I can get his racing record and who his breeder was and maybe find out more about him. In the meantime, his only job is to eat, rest, eat and heal. We are thankful that watchful people are willing to take on the rescue and recovery of abused or neglected horses and we are very happy to be part of this boy's recovery. I'll try to do a weekly update with photos so that you can see his progress.


NEWS FLASH! At 1:30 this afternoon, NB (New Boy) actually stopped eating and looked around!


He even walked over to start getting acquainted with Griton, who was unusually sweet.


And he got a lovely head rub from Mike.


Griton has been so well behaved, he got a good chest scratch.

Just one of the horses.



Umber is doing great in his new solo life and spends the day 'hangin' with the Wild Boys'. Now that he gets his own bucket of feed in the mornings and evenings, he comes tearing down the slope like a giant, smelly furball on legs. It's pretty funny actually.



His comfort zone of approach has gone from about six feet down to about three feet now that he knows I'm carrying a bucket of food for him. My goal is to slowly narrow that down until I can rub his scruffy head for him. After that, a sheep halter and learning to lead. Followed by shearing and neutering in the spring which will hopefully reduce the fragrant 'sheep wind' that follows him around and keep him from getting aggressive. Though it's kind of hard to imagine Umber having the motivation to be aggressive. With Lilly no longer leading him around, he is proving to be pretty passive.



When the former owner came up last weekend we still had some snow on the ground and he told me that he had seen fresh bear tracks coming up our road, stopping at the gate, then following the fenceline up the mountain. I told him that's the first sign of bear being around here that we have ever seen and he said it was probably due to our dogs. I'm thinking that because it was such a dry summer, they probably didn't get enough to eat and came in closer to feed on the bumper apple crop most people had this year. Hopefully, this bear was heading up to find a long winter nap spot and we won't have any problems with him or her. It does make me more cautious about checking out the upper fence though!

And now some (mostly) peaceful breakfast scenes ~










That feeder is MINE!

One Year Today ~ NED



No Evidence of Disease. One year ago today I was still living in a place of absolute, primal fear, waiting to go into surgery for WLE/SNB. Wide Lesion Excision/Sentinel Node Biopsy. Looking back it's hard to believe how numb I was with fear, blindly following whoever led me, obsessively reading everything I could find with my fear jacking up even further with every statistic, every treatment option, every notation of minimal survival rates.

And how am I today, a year after the last visible cancer cells were removed? I'm good. In fact, I'm really, really good. Cancer shook my life to the core and in the process shook everyone and everything around me too but we all weathered it and we are all still here.

Even though I now sit in this central place of peace, feeling more myself than I ever have before, I know that the knowledge of cancer will never leave me. It will be my constant reminder to live fully. To be present in each moment. To never compromise, or delay, or wait for 'a better time'. This is a very good thing and I imagine that only other people who have faced and gotten through a catastrophic place in their lives will completely understand when I say I'm grateful for this experience. Maybe I would have gotten here eventually without cancer, but I think I would have lost quite a few more years to inertia and emotional paralysis. So I will say it...I am grateful for the last year...every single moment of it. And I am grateful for this moment, and this moment, and this one.

A friend shared this yesterday and I would like to share it with you as well:

Message from a Hopi Elder
Oirabi, Arizona, Summer Solstice 1999

“You have been telling the people that this is the eleventh hour, now you must go back and tell the people this is the hour and there are things to be considered:

Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden!

It is time to speak your truth, to create communities, to be good to each other and to not look outside of yourself for a leader…”

Then he clasped his hands together and laughed:

“This could actually be a good time! There’s a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly. Know that the river has a destination! The Elders say we must let go of the shore – push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water. See who is in there with you and celebrate!

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personal, least of all ourselves – for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over! Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary! All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”

I'm afraid the sheep news isn't good.


The complete flock as we first saw them in 2008.

For those who didn't read my update on the last post, the brand inspector called me on Friday and told me that our two neighbors at the bottom of the road had called him to complain about the sheep. That left him no choice but to contact their owner and tell him he had to remove them. He seemed genuinely sorry about this and told me he would stay in touch to let me know what happens to them. I told him Sienna was missing and he thought perhaps the owner had been able to catch her.


The little four horned ewe was killed by predators as she was trying to give birth and the black ewe was shot in the pasture next to the owner's house.

On Saturday morning, Lilly didn't come in either, just Umber looking sad and lonely. Shortly after, the sheep's real owner showed up, a very nice young man who doesn't live far from us. He told me there were originally five, as in the first photo above. They escaped shortly after he got them and he's been tracking them and trying to catch them ever since.


Umber and Sienna when she was just a yearling.

He told me the little four horned ewe was killed by predators of some kind while she was giving birth. He found her body up in the mountains. The little black ewe was shot by someone right in his own pasture next to his house during one of their migrations back to his land. That left the three that we have been harboring since last spring.


The matriarch and patriarch in better times.

With Lilly and Sienna both gone within a day of each other, it is most likely that someone who didn't like them became familiar with their routine and shot them as they passed by. It breaks my heart to think of that...I'd rather learn that they had been food for a mountain lion


Beautiful Lilly last summer.

The owner offered to give us the sheep but I told him as much as I wanted them, we had no pen to put them in. When I talked with Mike via email this morning (he is still in Mexico, back home on Wednesday), he said how sorry he was to hear what probably happened to the two ewes and would have built them a pen if he had known people would do that.


Little Sienna taken this last summer before neighbors began complaining about them.

We came up with a plan to get Umber to follow the horses into the arena and catch him there. But Lilly was the leader of the flock and since she has been gone, Umber hasn't left the horses. Mike and I agreed that we will make a pen for Umber and accept the owner's offer. At least one of them will be safe and how on earth could we ever separate these two friends?

Oh where, oh where has my little sheep gone? Sheep update below!!!



Update! The brand inspector called me yesterday and told me our neighbors at the bottom of the hill had put in a complaint call about the sheep. He is a really nice guy and it was good of him to call and let me know what was going on. The owners of the sheep have been told they must contain them or be fined. I haven't heard for sure yet but the brand inspector thinks they already caught Sienna. Lilly and Umber will be lured into a pen with buckets of feed slowly moved into the catch spot. I will miss them terribly but at least they will be safe...until the next time they escape. He told me there were originally seven of them and two years ago when they first came through there were five, and now only three. It would be good if they stayed somewhere that they had constant protection.

It's looking like Sienna, the little brown and white ewe, might have come to a bad end. She has been missing since yesterday morning and even though I've looked for her, I've not found a trace. All three were here Tuesday evening eating hay with the horses as usual. Then yesterday morning only Lilly and Umber came in, looking tired, subdued, and more cautious than usual.

I drove around looking in neighbors' pens to see if she might have been caught but didn't see her anywhere. The most likely thing is that a pack of stray dogs separated her from the flock and took her down. I know people immediately want to blame these things on coyotes, but mountain coyotes aren't like the ones you see around cities at all. They are very small, about the size of a border collie, and very shy. They might occasionally take down a baby or weak animal, but no pack with other prey available would try to take down a full grown feral churro sheep.

Packs of stray dogs are a big hazard to livestock around here and several winters ago our neighbor in the valley lost three adult llamas and two alpacas in the same dog attack. It was after a heavy snowstorm and the dogs ran the animals into exhaustion in the snow and then slaughtered them. The neighbor tried to get to them on snowshoes with her gun but was too late.

The other less likely option is that a mountain lion has moved back onto this side of the valley. If that were the case, the horses would be showing concern, which they haven't. Since there isn't any livestock being raised on this side of the valley and no deer or elk, a mountain lion would fall way behind Sienna being shot by some neighbor.

Hopefully, it will turn out that she was just separated from the flock and she will show up on her own sometime soon.

Nothing but snow, playful pups, and one horse!
















Nothing like a snow bath...look at the steam coming off of him!

Just a bit of the Mark Rashid clinic.



I’ve been trying to finish this for three days now! I thought I would have it up yesterday but I spent most of the day getting ready for an early fall snowstorm. Good thing I did because we’ve got about six inches of new snow this morning. Fortunately, I think that’s about all and it should be moving out today and I'll share photos tomorrow.

I wish that I could have audited all three days of the clinic because I’m sure I would have seen and heard a great deal more than I did in one short day. As it was, I got to see the foundation work for a number of horses and riders. One of the things that really impressed me about Mark was his ability to adjust his teaching style to suit the rider. One woman was a beginner who was obviously very nervous riding a tall, former three day event horse. The horse was actually very calm and quite kind to her in all ways. Mark was light and joking in his instructions which quickly put the woman at ease and even got her laughing.

Another rider was an older man riding western in the classic ‘feet pushed forward, sit on your pockets’ position. Mark was more straight forward with him, less joking, and corrected his position in a kind and diplomatic way by explaining how it limited his ability to communicate with his horse. I know as an instructor myself that it isn’t easy to quickly grasp how to approach an individual rider. Many adults become so analytical in their thinking that asking them to ‘feel’ something can be confusing and even frightening. Mark managed to easily shift from one approach to another so that each rider quickly became at ease and able to absorb the information.

Mike handing out treats to the inner circle of Griton, Corazon and Llego. All are formerly wild BLM mustangs. By respecting the herd structure, Mike can give rewards without crowding or fighting.

The thing that touched me the most deeply, and something Mark repeated over and over, is ‘consistency, dependability, trust, and peace of mind’. After I went to his website to check out his new book, “Whole Heart, Whole Horse: Developing Consistency, Dependability, Trust, and Peace of Mind between Horse and Rider”, I realized from the description that this idea is the focus of his new book.

J. R. (Jet Reknown) was my 'go everywhere, do anything, keep me safe' horse. He is 30 now and still safely carrying his rider on gentle trail rides after a career as a dressage horse, Pony Club horse and trail horse.

Hopefully, every one of us horse folks has had a horse in our lives who took care of us. One that we always knew would do what we expected, was aware of our needs, and that we could completely relax on. We loved those horses and grieved when they were gone. And maybe, some of us are still looking for another horse just like that. Can you imagine what it would be like for our horse if we were that same kind of trustworthy partner for them?

Corazon (BLM mustang from northern Nevada) is still semi-wild but I have built a level of trust with him that allows me to safely apply fly spray, trim his hooves and any other necessary care, all without restraint of any kind.

We expect consistency from our horses, but do we give it to them? Consistency should be part of everything we do with them from day to day handling, to ground work, to riding. I thought a lot about this and how it relates to our formerly wild boys. Everyone is amazed when they come over if it happens to be feeding time, at how well mannered the boys are. Even when I am here by myself and I come through the gate carrying five buckets, there is no crowding and no danger for me. Each horse has his own feeder and he is never fed in a different one. We respect the herd organization by always feeding them in the order they would feed themselves. As a result, when they see me come out with the feed cart, each horse goes and stands at his feeder waiting for me to make the rounds, no fighting, no skirmishes, just horses who have been consistently handled in a way they understand.

Mike has built such a deep level of trust with Llego (BLM mustang from northwestern Colorado) that he calmly trusts Mike's leadership in any new situation.

Take a moment to think about the people in your lives. Are some of them always consistent in arriving on time, in keeping agreements, in being fair and honest in their relationships? Aren’t those the people we always depend on in times of crisis? It’s the same for our horses. If we are consistent and fair in every aspect of their care, we become dependable to them. They know they can count on us to keep our agreement to make sure they are safe.

Valeroso is a Spanish Colonial mustang from southeastern New Mexico. He is checking out a backhoe after I showed him it was safe.

Consistency and dependability obviously lead to trust. The people in our lives that we know are dependable are the ones we trust with our dearest secrets, with our very lives if necessary. That’s just how it becomes with our horses. Because we have been consistent and dependable with our wild boys, they trust us if we say a situation or an object is safe. When we were having our arena built, I took the boys around and touched each piece of heavy equipment which is our signal that something is safe. After that, any time a backhoe or bulldozer was left standing, you can bet it had five mustangs going over every inch of it!

When Griton (BLM Wyoming mustang) came to me, he was terrified of being saddled and if you got a saddle on him, he was even more afraid of being mounted. After slow, careful trust building, he calmly accepts both now. This photo was taken in early 2008 when I was just ready to begin riding Griton and before cancer brought our work to a halt.

And of course, trust leads to peace of mind, for both us and our horses. If we can become trust worthy to our horses, and they to us, then everyone can relax in a partnership where safety isn’t in doubt. I thought about this in regards to my relationships with Griton and with Mio. I’ve had almost five years to build a relationship with Griton. I helped him to overcome abuse and great fear of both saddles and being ridden. I’ve been consistently dependable and trustworthy for him for an extended period of time now. As a result, together we share peace of mind. I feel a deep sense of trust and connection with Griton, and he with me.


Mio (Navajo Reservation mustang) may look calm in this photo but he was actually quite anxious to be in a new place with strange horses so soon. I had not taken the time yet to build a foundation of trust with him so that he could feel safe with me in a new situation.

Mio has been here only eight months. He made a complete change in environment moving from the heat and wide open spaces of Arizona, to the forest shrouded mountains of northern New Mexico. I discovered that in spite of his gregarious nature with humans, he is actually a quite insecure horse. If he approaches the water trough by himself, he does it with great caution. He slowly moves towards it with many pauses to look, listen, smell and assess the surroundings before he finally moves in to drink. He is afraid of new horses and will act defensively towards them.

It should have been no surprise to me that when I trailered Mio to a neighbor’s after only four months here, no trust built between us and me having lost my own confidence, that he reacted with fear and anxiety. I have not yet laid that ground work of consistency and dependability so what reason did he have to think he could trust me to lead him in a new situation with horses he didn’t know?

I think many of us know these things intuitively and our relationships with our horses show it. Thinking about it on a conscious level is a bit different though. I’m sure there are people out there who won’t agree with the idea that our horses deserve the same consideration as we do ourselves and those are most likely the ones who believe they must be ‘the boss’ to their horses at all times. That approach works for a lot of people because what they want is a horse who is an obedient servant.

Hey look Carmon! It's a bulldozer...cool!

The world seems to be slowly shifting into a different way of looking at horses and I’m so grateful to people like Mark Rashid who are able to communicate these ideas well in ways that even hardcore cowboys seem to get. For most of us, horses are no longer an essential part of working life. We don’t use them for our sole means of transportation. I for one don’t have a herd of animals I’m trying to move from one place to another with my horse, though I might give that a try with the sheep one of these days! Somehow I think that in spite of being mustangs, not one of our horses could compete with a feral churro sheep up here on a rocky mountain.

The point is, for most of us these days our horses are a luxury and a passion. What we want is a partnership that brings us personal and emotional satisfaction. We want our horses to be fun. When I think about the best and most lasting friendships that I’ve built in my life, the ones I could always count on, trust my life to, laugh with and cry with in safety; those friendships didn’t happen in a single day. They happened over time, often years. That’s how my partnership with Griton happened and that is how it will happen with Mio as well - consistency, dependability, trust and peace of mind.