About the Black Horse

Our business, Black Horse Design, was named in honor of a big, black Missouri Foxtrotter horse named Star's Black Lacquer. The first time I saw Star he was only about a year old and even though I didn't need another horse, I knew he and I belonged to each other.

From the very beginning Star was a completely self aware being...he was charming, opinionated and always challenging. He seemed to resent having been born into a horse's body and he especially resented that dogs came into the house and he couldn't. If it weren't for his weight, I probably would have let him in.

For the first thirteen years of his life, Star traveled around the country with me and always adapted to wherever we happened to land. He was what I have always referred to as a 'benevolent alpha,' a horse that took charge of any group he joined without ever needing to fight for the position.

In his youth and pride, Star was a stunningly beautiful horse and people often drove in off the highway to ask if he was for sale. I would always laugh and say he wasn't for sale at any price because he was my brother. This is a photo of Star and me when he was just six years old and we were camping with friends in the Santa Cruz mountains of California.

Star was fifteen when we moved to northern New Mexico and he loved it here. He had developed ringbone in his front feet and had been basically retired for a few years. I learned about the therapeutic aspects of a proper barefoot trim modeled after wild horse feet and began to work on bringing him back to soundness. By the time we moved the horses from the purple house in the windy canyon up to our own mountainside, he was completely sound and happy.

While we were returning from the east coast in October of 2003, Star became very ill. We managed to get back in time to spend several days with him before he died from what was probably an aneurysm. I had always felt Star's presence like a light inside of me and I knew it had gone out even before our vet called to say he was gone. My last and best memory of Star was from a day I had climbed the mountain to check the upper fence. Star had led his little band up to follow me. I was standing on a bluff above them when he suddenly spun and bolted back down the mountain at a full gallop with his boys running behind. His mane and tail were flying as he jumped logs and boulders. He was sound, strong, healthy and filled with his own great sense of self. That is how I always remember him.

Star's Black Lacquer

April 13, 1987 - October 23, 2003

Thoughts on wind...

I figure I should indulge myself in these musings now while I can. In another month the insanity of running a small business will take over our lives again and my entries will probably be something like 'Finished jewelry today.' When Mike and I met he was still working in the oil industry and he occasionally laughs about calling me up and asking what I was doing. My consistant reply was...'finishing jewelry.'

Here in New Mexico wind often seems like an unwelcome guest you can't quite get to leave even though it is constantly moving. If it is less than 40 mph, the official meteorological term is 'breezy.' There have been times when I thought I would be knocked off my feet by a breeze. When the weather guys finally admit to 'wind,' it can mean micro bursts of up to 90 mph up here in the mountains.

Our first year here we rented an old adobe cabin in a small canyon while Mike worked on building the deck for the yurt. The woman who owned it was depressed and thought painting the entire thing light purple would make her feel better...it didn't.

Before we moved in she told us to be sure to not park our truck facing down the canyon because the wind would pick up rocks and break our windshield. We were skeptical but followed her instructions. During that first winter a windstorm came that lasted at least 24 hours and would indeed have broken our windshield had the truck not been parked behind the horsetrailer.

It was impossible to put hay out for our horses in the usual pen area (seen at the front right of the photo) so we allowed the horses to come up into the area to the right of the cabins so they would have a wind break. I checked on them throughout the night with a flashlight and they were lined up in a row, butts to the wall, trying to grab hay before it went into the next county. A double wide mobile home had just been moved in a half mile down the canyon and part of its roof wound up in our yard. We don't miss that purple house in the windy canyon at all.

We chose our land well and we are protected by natural wind breaks here on the mountain. And those Mongolians who live on the Russian Steppes did it right when they invented yurts - the wind wraps around us and continues on its way leaving us intact. This is Mike and his Cuervo standing on top of the bluff behind us that helps keep the winds at bay.

This bluff is known by the locals as Cougar Point. We renamed it Cuervo Point to honor Mike's brother in hooves who left us on September 17, 2005.

Snow...sort of.

We did get some snow last night, about two inches, and lots of wind, but no thunder or lightning. The snow was gone by noon except a few spots in the shade. It's not at all unusual for our weather forecasts to be way off because we have to rely on one weather forecast for the entire state of New Mexico. After you live here a while you realize you are much better at guessing the weather than the weathermen. For instance, there is a peak above and behind us to the west that is about 8,300 feet in altitude. During the summer monsoons if the wind and thunderclouds come from any other direction you can just go on about your business. But if you see clouds sliding over the ridge behind us, close up the house and cover the hay because it is going to rain.

The summer before last we had rain almost everyday for weeks and weeks - highly unusual for high desert. After years of drought, mushrooms appeared everywhere in the forest. It was amazing to go out everyday and see new ones. One that completely astounded me started out looking like a white ostrich egg emerging from the ground. A day later the outer white skin split revealing a pale gold glob that resembled a pearl the size of a grapefruit. I had to take photos or no one would have believed it.

This is another one that appeared under a rock we walk by several times a day -

Living here is like that, little miracles everywhere you look. I am the same age this year as my mother was when she died from breast cancer. It has caused me to look at things more closely and with a tenderness that reflects the life my mother missed. I told Mike this summer that of all the dreams of places to be I had for myself through the years, none could even come close to this mountain in New Mexico we live on.

Thundersnows

Yes, thunder and lightning can happen in a snowstorm and believe me, if it's electrical, it will happen in New Mexico! For the first time in four winters here we have had zero snow. Now the weather here has been beautiful...sunny and unseasonably warm; but what that translates to is a devastating fire season next summer. Having survived the Oakland Hills fire in California in 1991, I tend to be a little anxious about fires. Our intrepid weathermen have predicted a storm coming in from California tonight that will mix thunder, lightening and snow. That should be interesting. As dry as it is right now, with lightning and high winds I doubt I'll have a restful night.

I'm not sure what the plan for today is yet. We still have so much to do up here on the mountain. We have been on the 'build as you can afford it' plan which means we have done without a lot and live in what many would consider a primitive way. Mostly we are enjoying the fact that today is a postal holiday and while we have a few orders that need shipping, we don't have to be racing to the post office! Life here is nuts for us from September through, well, December 21st which is the last day we can promise shipping in time for Christmas. From now until the first of February when we start getting ready for North Texas Irish Festival, we can actually feel like we have lives. So I suppose I should glory is this beautiful day while I can.

Evening...
Well we decided today might be our only window for a while to fix an insulation problem with the yurt. We bought this yurt from Nesting Bird Yurt Company and along with a few other problems, the roof insulation was not cut evenly which left insulation gaps which you can see in the photo below as a light area above the support cable. The warm air inside the yurt would hit the cold outer skin causing condensation which then ran down the interior walls leaving them often quite wet in the winter.

Nesting Bird went belly up and the assets were bought by Ranier Yurts. With the demise of Nesting Bird our warranty was as good as dead too. To our surprise, Ranier agreed to provide us with correctly cut strips of insulation to wrap around the yurt under the roof outer layer and hopefully fix the problem...we saw this as a sign of their business integrity. Unfortunately, when we put the insulation in today we discovered we were short, oh, maybe fifteen feet which leaves us questioning their mathmatical skills.

This probably doesn't sound like it would be a big deal, but it took us all day. The inner and outer wall layers had to be disconnected from a cable so the roof could be peeled back and the new insulation taped into place. Taking the walls down and putting the insulation up wasn't too tough and Fionna the cat actually thought walking through walls was a cool trick. The real problem was putting it all back together...the outer wall fabric is heavy and getting it back up and snapped back onto the cable was about all we could manage at the end of the day. I'm just grateful Mike has really strong hands as I could never have managed it.

Christmas Day...2005

For those who don't know me, I'm Carmon Deyo and my husband is Mike Dibble. Together we are the sum total of Black Horse Design www.black-horse-design.com where we design and handmake jewelry. I started the business in 2000 and now almost six years later, it could not function without Mike's superior skills at fabrication and his consistant design sense. My sincere hope is someday he has the time to pursue his own creative dreams.

We moved from Austin, Texas to a small town in northeastern New Mexico in 2001 and have never regretted it. We live on the side of a mountain at about 7,600' in a mixed ponderosa pine and fir forest. Sharing our lives are three mustangs, two greyhounds and two cats. Yes, it's isolated here but we like it that way!

Mike and I met at the end of 2000 and married in 2001 shortly before we moved to New Mexico. Both of us are introverts by nature and were very concerned about living together in a small space. We didn't need to worry...we can stay silent all day and so far have successfully lived in a small leased adobe cabin for a year, a 7' x 12' tent for a summer, an 8' x 30' 1950s trailer for a winter, and finally our 30' diameter yurt.


You can see a photo story of our yurt construction by visiting our webpage at www.black-horse-design.com/GrowAYurt.html . The thing that still amazes me is Mike built the whole thing virtually by himself and it's the first serious construction he has ever done. People continually ask us how living in a yurt is during the winter and last spring we got to tell them. Here is a photo taken March 2005 after a snowfall of more than three feet. That's our truck buried there to the left... :) The good thing about New Mexico is snow like this doesn't last long and this was all gone within ten days.


This is my mustang, Corazon de la Tierra (Heart of the Earth) trotting to meet me during that same snow storm. I'll be introducing each of our horses later but you can read their stories at www.black-horse-design.com/BLMmustangs.html .

Speaking of mustangs, it's time to give the mustang boys their Christmas breakfast. I wish you all the best of the season.