In All His Winter Glory

Jasper has been moved to a pen with an attached barn. He's by himself and I'm hoping with all he can eat grass hay, plus a couple flakes of alfalfa a day, plus Equine Sr., oats, and Cool Calories he'll start to gain some weight. He has one neighbor, a little black Arab named Monsoon, that he keeps an eye on. As in stands at the 8 feet of fence that separate their corrals and watches his every move. All day.

He can trot and maybe even canter a little in his corral, but he can't stretch out. Today he had been in there for two whole days when I let him out in the arena... I didn't cluck once or twirl a rope. I stood in the middle and snapped pictures as he ran himself so hard at the end his sides were heaving with rapid, shallow breaths. It took 30 minutes to cool him out, and he wasn't dry, but man all that running must have felt good.

PHOTO 101

I'm taking a black and white film class at the local community college. We're supposed to figure out how to use all of the manual settings- how to set the aperture and shutter speed and man is it confusing. Then we process the film to make our own negatives, and make prints from the negatives. The prints take me between 1-2 hours each, it's a loooooooong process to get it right. Apparently if you have good (correctly exposed) negatives the printing process is easier because you don't have to go back and correct so much. I'm hoping I get to discover what it's like to have correctly exposed negatives by the end of the class.

I think my scanner has some gunk on it, woops.

My favorite subjects, of course, are the horses...

Portland Meadows, jockeys up...

This one is blurry, partially due to the fact it was taken from behind a chain link fence. Also, the film speed was wrong for a dark, overcast day. I put it in anyway because it tells part of a story.

The finish line. The ground shook, hard to explain the raw power and adrenaline galloping by.

Cardi, owned by Jessica Wisdom

Diamond, owned by Jessica Wisdom.


Valley Chapel Farms

Seaside Oregon

With the enlarger: Focus on owl, focus on reflection.

Riding in Thailand

...was tough. There really aren't horses there, and the only place I was able to ride in the two years that I lived in Thailand was at least a couple of hours away. In 1997 I signed a 2-year contract to teach elementary Art and P.E. at the New International School of Thailand, which was located in the heart of Bangkok. There was a little stable in a place called Khao Yai, and you could stay there and hike or rent horses.

Again, my friends, who did not ride horses were up for adventure and agreed to go on a few rides with me.

With sneakers and without helmets they were ready to set off into the jungle.

Even in the jungle there are things to jump!

My flatmate Linda and I on the second trip.

Living without horses for two years was really tough. I wouldn't do it again. In my second year there, I found out that the stable was having a jumping competition. A showjumping course, and then a cross country course that included getting off and shooting things. I decided to enter and was given a very lazy horse and a protective vest.


I had a choice of doing the little course or the big course. I chose the big one, how many opportunities did I get to ride? Might as well make the best of it. I now wonder if this horse had ever jumped this course. My friends overheard the locals saying that I was fearless. Now why would they say that? The horse was sluggish and backwards. I had to get off and shoot things at one point, which went well, but I think I fell off before the last jump because I was so exhausted trying to get him to go. The jumps were pretty big!

I think I actually got a second place ribbon for the showjumping phase. I took a tight turn that no one else tried and made up a lot of time but took a rail.

Luckily there were things to ride besides horses. Living in Thailand began my lifelong fascination and love of elephants. Linda and I going for a ride in Chaing Mai. I loved sitting on their necks even though their hair was like toothpicks sticking through my shorts.

Linda and I at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

A member of the Longneck tribe and I in Mae Hong Song.

Next country: South Africa. (A short one)

A trail ride in Budapest

Cairo American College is an excellent school, pays it's teachers very well, and has excellent benefits. The teachers who work there have years of experience. It's very hard to get a job there, unless you were like me and walked into a part time gig with no benefits. I was just out of college and didn't "fit in" with the CAC crowd. However, over in Heliopolis was the American International School. Didn't pay too well. Not so great benefits. And full of teachers my age, out to party, see the world, and have a good time.

They became my social group and I was able to tag along with some of them on a trip over Christmas break. We flew to Budapest, Hungary and stayed there a while. Then took a train through Slovakia to spend New Year's in Prague, Czech Republic. Everyone in my group except for me and Brian were kicked off the train in the middle of Slovakia because they were Canadian and didn't have the right stamp in their passport. Man that was a mess.

Anyhoo while in Budapest we all got to choose one thing we REALLY wanted to do. I, of course, wanted to find horses. I think the family we were renting the house from knew somebody who knew someone's uncle's cousin's brother, and a trail ride became possible. NONE of the people I was with rode so it just showed how good of sports they were when 3 of them agreed to come with me. They didn't know enough to be nervous about riding in english saddles.

I was the one with the camera, and it was hard getting shots through all the trees. Here are Kelly and Sandy. Almost all of the trail was winding through these woods. They were giggling the whole time, and not screaming but kind of making "oooo" panicky sounds when their horse would take a big step or something. And then Sandy's horse took a really big step, or tripped, and...



Here is a portrait of a good sport. It was cold and wet. Sandy was SOAKED to the skin in mud, and she just laughed it off. It probably didn't help that Kelly and Cheryl were laughing so hard they were crying. Never mind we were traveling and didn't have easy access to a washer and dryer, and she had to ride home in this guy's clean car.

Adventure, right?


Next country: Thailand.

Bee-yootiful Beaded Horseshoes!

Look what came in the mail today!



They are even more spectacular in real life. Mindy from Always there are the horses made these. I ordered the girly purple one as a gift for my friend Elizabeth, and there was a little something else included in the package for me! Love it!

You can't tell from the pictures but they're done on pony sized shoes and are the cutest things EVER.

THANK YOU MINDY!

(Mindy can be reached at pinkcurlytail@yahoo.com)
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Riding in the Eqyptian Desert- Freedom!

My first sighting of the Pyramids on "Sugar".

After getting fired from my job exercising racehorses in Ireland, I spent a week working for a different trainer and then decided it was time to leave cold, damp, sleeting Ireland. Although I was just planning on going home, my mom told me that as long as I was over 'there' I might as well go visit my uncle who was working in Egypt.

My uncle Keith had been living and working in Maadi, Egypt (an expat suburb of Cairo) teaching Choir at Cairo American College. CAC is a K-12 school for kids who plan on attending college in the States, the student body is a real mix of expat's kids and locals. When I got there I found out I could substitute teach and make $50 a day. (Even though I SWORE I would NEVER set foot in another classroom after my student teaching experience). Fifty bucks was a lot of money at the time and I ended up staying from January until school got out in June. In June I accepted a half-time position the following school year teaching elementary P.E.

One of my favorite parts of Egypt, and the reason I would return in a heartbeat, was riding the incredible Arabian horses through the sands of the Sahara Desert. Endurance? Check!!! We would drive through the complete mess of traffic that was Cairo- cars, busses, donkey carts, and motorcycles packed like sardines and constantly honking and fighting for space on the road. There are no lines on roads in Cairo, everyone drives with inches of each other.

Once you get over the bridge that goes over the Nile things thin out a bit. You drive by the Sphinx and the Pyramids down the last dirt road before the city ends and the desert starts. Along this road are stable after stable of horses for rent. All of the stables have 2 letter names, like "FB" stables or "MG" stables- usually the initials of the owner.

My friend Barb and I drove out to the horses and on the recommendation of a friend rented horses from FB stables. You ride out into the desert, then gradually work your way to the right until you see the Pyramids off in the distance. Just ride towards the Pyramids and then complete the loop back. There are no roads or trails.

Cario

The Sphinx is always being repaired.

How big are the blocks that make up the Pyramids? This big.


Zeeku! This was one of my favorite horses, and I pretty much exclusively rode him the first 6 months I was there. One of the best parts about the desert is that there are no fences. Or trees. Or anything else that you would have to watch out for in a full-on gallop with tears streaming out of your eyes.

Zeeku.
Look at all that galloping space!



Baby camel making ungodly noises. Some of the stables in the background.

Cairo American College campus. It was surrounded by a high concrete wall and 'protected' by Egyptian soldiers with guns.

My second year and one of my second grade P.E. classes. Swim unit.


The all-day ride to Sakkara. It was 3-4 hours one way. At first when we would do this ride a guide would come with us but after a while they let us go on our own. I have absolutely no sense of direction and it was disconcerting to me to not have a guide. We rode under power lines for quite a while.

One of my friends rode a new horse that the stable hadn't named yet. When she was done she said that she'd been through the desert on a horse with no name...


A boy holds some of the horses for us at Sakkara while we eat lunch and explore the step pyramids there.

My friend Mike on a feluca ride on the Nile- relaxing! Just don't touch the water.

Aseala and her groom Abdu Nabi. Oh Aseala. I ended up leasing her my second year in Egypt. She was one of the most amazing horses I have ever ridden. Her endurance and speed were beaten by none. Often we were asked to race while riding, usually friendly "you wanna race?" type deal. She blew every single other horse out of the water.

This was the area where there were more hills and varied terrain.

Aseala jumps over the sand bank.

One of my favorite pictures ever.

Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

The Red Sea has some of the best snorkeling in the world. In Dahab (little hippie town) I rode a camel into the water much to the owner's aggrivation. I could only get him to trot for a few steps at a time.

Me and Bob Marley.

Life on the Autostraud- the main highway to the Airport.

Donkey cart.

Mom comes to visit! Just leaving the stables. The little mare they gave her (because she was a beginner) was slow and stubborn. We ended up switching horses half way through and mom had a great time walking through the desert on Aseala.

Donkey

Aseala
It was really cool riding at night because everything was dark and the horse's shoes would send off sparks when they stepped on the rocks.

Next country: Hungary! (A short one).

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