Mindy Lou, April 28, 1984- Jan. 8, 2011

Jet's Paradox (Mindy Lou) & me at WSU in the early 90's.

At age 26 and after 25 years together, Mindy was put to sleep last night. She laid down and didn't want to get back up. Her legs were arthritic and she was tired. Pam, Chuck, Jackie, Bridgitt, Anke and I surrounded her with love and let her go.

Mindy

A wise old soul with a huge heart. You raised 2 little girls and helped us become who we are today, while touching so many others along the way. My life was changed forever the day I saw you standing in the pen with your big eyes and the bottom of your tail chewed off. We made it through junior high, high school, and college together, I don't think I could have made it through college without our midnight bareback rides through the fields while I told you of some tragedy or another, usually about boys. I'm glad you're in a place where there's no pain. I look forward to seeing you again when we can gallop down dirt roads so fast tears blur my vision and the pounding of your hooves matches the rhythm of my racing heart.

Look Ma, Four Legs

...have weight on them. Pain meds please.


WARNING: graphic picture below.

The white stuff is just Neosporin. It's draining really, really well.

At what point?

At what point do people just not want to hear anymore? I know everyone has their limits to how much "stuff" they can handle from someone else. In some ways I feel like I should just start keeping everything to myself, and in other ways it seems to help to be able to talk about it. So I don't know. It's not about sympathy, it's not even 'poor me', it's like things build up to a critical mass and something has to give. I'm lucky to have some friends that don't seem to be too overwhelmed by me right now and are pretty much willing to talk whenever. A lot of the time it's not even talking about my dad, who had a massive stroke the day after Thanksgiving, but just talking. It's good to sit and listen to someone else's day. It really seems to be the only thing that can get my mind off of things.

My old girl, Mindy Lou, is 26. She was my first horse and I got her when I was 13 and she was a yearling. I wrote a tribute to her here. This winter has been hard on her, and she had a bad night on the 23rd where she laid down for too long and her body temp dropped to 94. It's supposed to be 100. Her back legs weren't working very well. The vet said it's up to her to stand up before morning. With an electric blanket and comforters and blankets from Pam's house her body temp got back up to normal and she stood up on her own a little after midnight. She seems to be doing OK, kind of back to just being an old horse, although is going to be in a stall with hand walking until the temperatures warm up. I remember when I was overseas and couldn't sleep I would think about showing Mindy to relax. That point in a class where you've scoped out all the competition in your peripheral vision and KNOW you've won the class. And know that your horse won't take a wrong step, will go through all the puddles, and will do a halt to canter transition if need be. Made even sweeter by the fact that your dad, who knew nothing about horses, got up at 4:30 every horse show morning and hooked up the old orange truck to the 1968 green 2-horse to get you there. And carried water buckets. And mom would show up to "help" although her version of holding a horse was following it around letting it eat hay from hay bags tied to other people's trailers. And that you trained your own horse through a lot of trial and error, and often placed higher than the trainer you took lessons from.

Poor Alexandre had 30 days of stall rest because he was off on his left hind. After 30 days he was let back out into his paddock and re-injured it. It looks like he's back in a stall for but for 3 months this time. Luckily the people that are buying him are caring, patient souls.

Jasper's stall and paddock look like Armageddon. There are bloodsickles everywhere. The stretch of white vinyl fencing is dripping with frozen blood, there's blood on the electric fence, there's blood on the walls and floor of his stall and in his feeder. A LOT of blood. There was not a scratch on him. No dried blood in his nose or cuts in his mouth. He had to have sneezed it out due to the spray patterns on the fence. Hopefully it was just a bloody nose. He was not appear to be in any distress at all. Bright eyed, eating, drinking, playing, and doing his normal running and bucking up and down the fence line when people took their horses into the arena that shares a fence line with his paddock. (The other boarders realllllllllly like that).


Today he really and mysteriously injured himself. He has a huge gouge in his right front arm pit. The vet was able to stick her whole hand up in it. She had to suture muscle and skin. His whole shoulder shakes. He's not putting any weight on it. He rears back, loads his hind end, and hops forward on his good front leg. He's locked in his stall, and I'm going out in the morning to see if he's putting weight on it. If not we'll do x-rays to see if there's a fracture. The problem is that the high today was 17 degrees and the x-ray machine's readout screen doesn't work in these temps. If there is a fracture it would be his Humerus, which is a major weight bearing bone in his leg/shoulder. There wouldn't be anything we could do.

I don't know. It seems like this would be enough, without stuff like my source of income ending sooner than I thought, or my (practically new metal) roof leaking, or the fact I hit a deer with my dad's car and knocked one of the mirrors off. Or the fact that school is starting tomorrow morning. Don't get me wrong, I know I have a lot to be grateful for, it's just that I'm feeling kind of numb at the moment.

And I think I may erase this pretty soon after I put it up.

I haven't been doing a lot of riding lately, but took Jasper out for our first walk in the snow yesterday. He loved it.

Photo Art

The final project for my Visual Communication & Design class was to create an 8 page booklet with a corresponding poster about an event that was important to us. Guess what I did? Besides taking the instructions literally? The photos (except the last one of Jasper rolling) are from the event at Aspen Farms this spring. The poster is the last photo, it's pretty big in real life. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Theme song?

So I was driving down the road yesterday listening to a remake of the song "Lollipop" and it became overwhelmingly obvious that this is Jasper's theme song. Not because of the lyrics but because it's simple, straightforward, and silly. And cute. I am learning to really appreciate these traits.

What would your horse's theme song be?


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Rockin with Roxie

Saturday morning I took pictures of Serena and Roxie jumping at a show. Roxie was a gooooooood guuuuuuurl. Then she came to Jasper's barn to go for a ride. Check out pix of the day here on Roxie's blog. Yes, she really is that big. (The horse, not the girl).




After a month off, Jasper was... BOING.

You know that riding-a-powder-keg feeling? I decided we'd better burn off some steam in the arena before we hit the trail.

hello? brains?

ahem.


Jasper & Roxie. All 8 feet not moving. Push the button fast! This feat was not difficult for Roxie. Jasper's tail is caught in mid-swish and head in mid-bob. But, all 4 feet still so WIN.

The barn manager and the barn owner's daughter were busy setting up a trail course. It included a horse-eating mattress, a horse-eating tarp, and horse-eating streamers. When you jumped the tarp and cleared it with miles to spare (because there is no way in HELL you're putting your little feet on a TARP, even though you've had tarp training up the ying yang after breaking your owner's finger over a TARP), you stop instantly upon landing for fear of getting too near the long flapping streamers. Oof says rider.

The streamers are alive.

They reach out and try to grab yer face.

They try to wrap their tendrils around you.

They shock yer nose with the power of a thousand suns.


After you have firmly made your point about how completely deadly they are it's best if you close your eyes and hold your breath and just go.

Phew.

Riding in South Africa

It's been a while since I've posted anything about riding around the world... since last winter? I think I left off in Thailand which means South Africa is next. Why would I be writing about stuff in the past when the weather is PERFECT for outdoor adventures and we were supposed to be competing in our second recognized horse trials this weekend? Jasper cut his leg, then I got a "touch" of pneumonia so I've basically been in bed for the past 2 weeks somewhere in between going stir crazy and being in the lethargic drug induced state of not caring. I'm on day 2 of antibiotics so things should be looking up soon.

While living in Thailand my (then) boyfriend was a professional photographer and got an assignment in South Africa. I met him in Cape Town for a week or so before his assignment. This is Tower Mountain. You took a very long, very steep gondola ride to the top and then had unbelievable views.

Tower Mountain, Cape Town at the bottom.

When we got to the top, there were people actually rapelling off the side- the longest rappel in the world. The ropes went so far down the mountain you couldn't even see the people at the bottom. In the pic above if you look carefully you can see someone on their way down.


Of course I had to go, and Gordon being a good sport came along too. Here he is on the way down. It felt to me like we must have rappelled at least half way down the mountain. That was a huge error in judgement. When the rest of our group walked back to where the gondola picked them up, I told Gordon we should hike down the rest of the way.

Gordon, being a good sport, agreed after pointing out that there were no trails and the mountain was really steep. The guides could have cared less since it isn't America and they're not used to being sued. So we started off, clamboring over and around huge boulders and sliding down rocks. It was pretty fun for the first hour or so. After the third hour, it didn't look like we were any closer to the bottom than when we started. By the end of the descent all the muscles in my quads were a shivering mass of jelly and I could hardly walk for days.

What did I want to see (besides Cape Town) while in South Africa? Elephants. African ones. At the time I was completely and totally enamored with elephants (still am) and found a wild elephant reserve that we could get to in a couple of days by driving down the coastline. This was a great plan until I was sitting in the passenger's side of a rental car with the steering wheel in front of me. To make matters worse it was a stick- how exactly does one use their left hand to shift? And you have to WAIT to turn right? I got a little nervous and told Gordon he should drive first, being from Scotland, where they all drive on the wrong side of the road. Gordon informed me that he was from Edinburgh- a big city. You don't need to learn how to drive in a city, you take public transport.

Between the two of us, Gordon learning about gas and brake and me helping him shift and me learning to keep from driving into oncoming traffic, we made it to the reserve. People are very nice drivers in S. Africa and very forgiving. And what kept us from seeing wild African elephants for the first time? Horses, of course. Right next to the entrance to the reserve were horses for hire. Gordon didn't say a thing and pulled into the stable. Gordon doesn't ride horses, never has, and man did he get the ride of a lifetime.

It was just the 3 of us, me, Gordon, and the guide. The guide figured out I could ride and that Gordon was a good sport (a recurring theme here) and could hang on. We did a 3 hour ride in less than an hour and a half, walking, trotting, and galloping down the flat parts. The guide and I were both thrilled with how fast we had gone and Gordon was... stoic.

Gordon patting his horse and thanking him for getting it over with quickly.

Me happy that my addiction had been filled for a short time.

The next day we drove to the park and actually went in. We paid our entrance fee and got maps. You basically drove your car around on the dirt roads and looked for elephants. There were no guarantees you would see anything and a lot of the roads were closed due to water damage. We only had one chance since we'd spent the previous day riding and needed to head back to Cape Town the following day. We spent the day driving around, taking in the scenery, but no elephants. The sun was starting to go down, and although I was a little heartbroken was plotting a way back to the entrance when Gordon slammed on the brakes. There before us was this:

HUGE. Huge is really the only word that doesn't even begin to describe this creature. She was coming out of the bushes and onto the road and Gordon backed the car up so fast you couldn't tell he was a new driver. We sat there, mesmerized, and watched her watch us. Then more started to appear. One had a baby. She stopped in the middle of the road, looked at us, and started flapping her ears and making noise. I have never seen a grown man look so terrified. Or swear so loudly. "WHAT DO WE DO?" I told him to turn off the car, turn off the car, turn off the car it's making too much noise she doesn't like the noise but then how do we get out of here?

He turned off the car. It was a car very similar to my parent's old Volkswagen Rabbit, and the minute he turned off the motor the engine fan came on wheezing and whirling away. Again more swearing. By this time we were surrounded by about 10 elephants on all sides and more were appearing. I think at some point Gordon reached over and pushed the lock down on my door, which I found to be extremely funny but was too afraid of making noise to say anything or laugh. The standoff probably only lasted 5 minutes but felt like hours, and just as silently as they came they left back into the bushes.





I think the next country is Spain...