horseshit

it's very difficult to run a riding club in an economic downturn. some months ago, i agreed to go onto the board of the riding club where sabin rides. i was assured that it was very pleasant and there were no politics and no bad blood between any of the board members. herein lies my first mistake - i believed that.

the first meeting i attended was presided over by the then-chairman, a man i had never previously met. he didn't greet me or ask me to introduce myself or even explain why i was in the room. he then proceeded to say that everything to do with the budget and various agreements regarding the leasing of the facilities and the contracts with the riding teachers would be taken outside the meeting by him and the people involved and that we on the board didn't really have to concern ourselves with that. whew, what a relief that was. not.  then, he verbally attacked the wonderful and down-to-earth woman who owns the stable itself - yelling at her, condescending to her and generally being a complete ass.  i wrote a little bit about it here, in a rather obscure way. i left the meeting wondering what i had gotten myself into.

not long after that, that chairman "resigned" with some encouragement from some of the other board members. and a lot has since come to light about how much he was hiding about what bad shape the club was in economically. these clubs are independent quasi-public associations and while the club gets funding from the municipality, it also has to fund itself - through lessons, membership fees, distribution of trash bags to households (a "job" it does for the municipality twice yearly), selling scratch lotto tickets, holding horse shows and running a kiosk (that sells a lot of french fries) at the horse shows. but these clubs are often riding the ragged edge and only barely making it.

i agreed to be "horse responsible" - since i grew up with horses and most of the others involved on the board are just supportive parents and not really all that horsey. so, it falls me to make agreements for borrowing horses, selling the ones we have, buying new ones, making agreements for the students who have the right to ride the lesson horses on the weekends (they can pay extra and do that), and the general day-to-day health of the horses. sounds reasonable enough, right? well, that too i was wrong about.

of course everyone and their dog has an opinion. and there is a great deal of pressure to make new horses magically appear with absolutely no financial backing (do you have any idea how hard it is to find a free horse?). and don't even get me started about the sniping, the backstabbing, the rumors and the standing and loudly talking about horse problems in front of parents and students.  and there were supposedly no politics involved in this job.

what i've learned is that people will invent politics where none need exist.

modern equine methods

we moved our horse matilde a couple of weeks ago from the neighbor's place to one of the stables where sabin is taking riding lessons. she had developed a strange habit of carrying her head up and her neck in a very uncomfortable position and we wanted to be able to ride her more consistently (in an indoor arena) and we wanted others to be around to help out.

we knew this behavior wasn't normal for matilde. while frisky, she has been a lovely pony with a good way of carrying her head. a friend suggested when it began to get really bad that we have her teeth checked, so we did that. the vet came out with his big tooth-grinding machine and floated her teeth, tho' he did say he didn't think they were too bad. around here, people often get their horses' teeth floated once a year.

as you can see from the photos, things didn't really improve after the teeth were worked on. we began to wonder if her saddle was bothering her and in lieu of an expensive new saddle, we got a gel pad to place underneath and raise the saddle into a better position. sabin liked it better, but i'm not sure if matilde really noticed and she continued off the bit and with her head up in the air, making it difficult for sabin to control her and have a decent lesson on her. tho' sabin is admirably brave and doesn't get scared or thrown off.

a horse massage woman was coming to tend to some of the other horses at the stable (the advantage of being at a stable) and an appointment came available, so i decided we'd try it. matilde was visibly distressed by the massage on her right side (we'd already noticed she didn't like going to the right in the arena and on the lunge line) - stamping her foot and wiggling around, trying to mash the massage woman up against the wall. and the massage therapist suggested that we call the equine chiropractor.

it crossed my mind that the massage woman (who is a bit of a snob and was rather disdainful towards us and everyone else whose horses she treated) and the chiropractor were in league, but i could see that the horse was blocked on her right side - hardly wanting to turn her neck in that direction at all and so i swallowed my own preconceived notions about chiropractors (often people who couldn't manage to get into real medical school and not coming near my spine!) and called her. she was able to come already the next day.

meeting her, i was immediately put at ease. she was an actual veterinarian, specializing in chiropractic treatments, acupuncture and in floating teeth (will have her do it next time). matilde took to her immediately, looking curious and interested in her and was very much at ease and trusting of her (unlike how she was with the massage therapist). the chiropractor gently felt matilde's neck, did some gentle manipulations and stood up on a block to crack the top vertebrae - so gently that neither matilde nor i even noticed. but matilde was instantly relieved!

we got some exercises to do with matilde's neck and she's on the road to recovery. while it's not completely better yet - we have to retrain her neck muscles, after she was holding it wrong for months (we didn't realize!) - she's definitely better already.  she needs another massage or two, now that the bones are back in place. but things are going in the right direction and already the first time we rode her after the treatment, she was a different horse. sabin's instructor has suggested a laser treatment instead of another massage from the snotty horse massage woman and i'm going to try that this week.

i think of all of the horses i've had over the years and how there were probably all kinds of things we could have corrected with the right treatment rather than brute force and a severe bit. but we just didn't know any better. i'm really glad these treatments are available now. it's quite amazing to see what a difference it's already made. and it's really great to be around a community of really nice people who love horses - we've already learned so much and benefited a lot from being at the stable.

wordless wednesday - a leggy brunette

it's all about the horses

it seems like a few people were rather surprised by the "preparing the house for sale" post yesterday, so i thought i'd explain. a number of months ago, husband and i began talking about what we could do to change the way we live...to live closer to nature, to eat more locally, to have a bigger garden, to generally behave towards the planet in a kinder, gentler manner. in this connection, we began imagining buying a big farm place with enough space for at least one other family and we even did some of our thinking through writing over here.

well, things have progressed faster than i imagined. we were serious about this from the beginning, but in my mind, it was several years away. but then we began to ask ourselves why it should be. why wait? and we started to look at places with potential. places which have room for a big garden and room for a horse (or two). and we found out that they're out there and they're even affordable. and although we don't have the bit sorted out about sharing it with another family, the possibilities are there.

so, since we have to sell our house before we can buy one (or that's what we should do anyway, to be prudent), we've decided to put it up for sale and see what happens. right now, in our area, houses are taking an average of seven months to sell, so it's likely that this sale isn't just around the corner. which is actually quite all right with me, because i love this house and all we've done to it and i love my blue room (which will be recreated in some even more fabulous form at the new house) and to be honest, i haven't really had enough time with it yet.

but sometimes, you have to follow your instincts and your heart. and it feels right to move in this direction. i grew up with horses and sabin began riding back in february (you can see lots of pictures of that here). she's a natural talent and i want her to have a horse too. of course, you can have a horse and board it at stable, but that's not what we want. we want our own place with our own horse(s).  and maybe a few chickens so we can have eggs. and a big garden. and maybe a little café/craft shop, where you can have a coffee and learn to make a quilt or take an art journal course or buy some really special fabric that's not easy to get other places (see, B, we are thinking along the same lines).

and because writing is the new praying, it seems to all be happening...but i do think i'll schedule a couple more blog camp dates so we take full advantage of the blue room before it's gone, at least in its current incarnation, so do stay tuned for that announcement in the near future...

* * *

just another note to clear up some confusion...we live in denmark. i work in norway. and husband is half-swedish. :-) does that make things any clearer?

what a weekend...

saturday we hosted a party where all of the parents from sabin's class were invited. everyone had to bring a course and since we were hosting, we only had to provide snacks and a welcome drink, plus coffee and a bit of fun from the liquor cabinet at the end of the meal. i did up my famous stuffed bread and we made a warm spiced apple cider, since we started out with everyone outdoors on the deck to take advantage of the glorious weather. they could choose to spike it with calvados or a marvelous cinnamon-vanilla snaps (you can guess which i chose). we figured a good glug of liquor to start off would relax everyone. along with a little puzzle game, it seemed to do the trick.

i'll admit i hadn't really been looking forward to the party all that much. i had suggested an abba theme, where we all dressed up 70s and played abba music all evening and drank fun retro cocktails, but the less daring members of the party committee vetoed the idea as soon as my back was turned (tho' not to my face, of course). i figured that since all we really had in common with these people was breeding at the same time, the party would be short and everyone would go home by 10:30 or so. my dread was slightly confirmed when the first guests showed up not fashionably late, but unfashionably 15 minutes early. sigh. i was afraid it was going to be an awfully long night.

but people had gone all out on their assigned dishes and when we started off with a beautiful salmon herb roll artistically arranged on my marilyn monroe plates, followed by another spectacular creamy herby roll with scallops and shrimp, i cheered up considerably. main courses were a beautiful spinach quiche with a grilled eggplant salad, lamb kebabs and a fresh tabbouli laced with succulent red kernels of pomegranate, and a gorgeous spicy, lemon grass and coconut milk thai dish. for dessert, an apple crumble and a chocolatey ice cream cake. in all, a brilliant menu. and there's nothing like good food and plenty of wine to ease the flow of conversation.

it was well after midnight before the first guest left and nigh on 3 a.m. when the last ones departed, so i think it was safe to say it was really a successful party and despite my reservations at the beginning, i had a great time. less successful for me the next day after all that wine, but life is short and you have to go to extremes sometimes.

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sabin and lizette

on sunday, while i took sabin to her riding lesson, husband was industriously preparing the outside of the house for the filsning it's going to have (i don't know what that's called in english...it's when you cover the bricks of your house with a thin layer of mortar and sand). part of the preparation involved getting rid of some cords on the outside of the house. one of which happened to be our live internet cable and not an old cord at all. and he snipped it off at the ground. which, you can imagine, made him very popular. he must have begged and pleaded, because TDC came out already this morning and fixed it. i think he knew his very well-being depended on it being fixed quickly, so he worked some kind of magic.

sabin and felix

sabin really jumped for the first time at her saturday lesson. she was riding felix, an oldenburg. he must be at least 17 hands tall and has the most beautiful gait and he eagerly jumped for her. you can see the big grin on her face in this shot. she was so happy that she got to jump for real that i just had to share this picture. our resolve is even greater to get the farm with space for horses. (hence the whole thing with preparing the house for sale.)

i'm a little bummed that i missed a day of posting, but it wasn't all bad to find out that i still existed, even when i wasn't online. catch you the rest of this week from norway.

#1 - Susie, horse trainer extraordinaire

this week i'm writing each day about a person, place or thing that has had a big effect on my life. i'm going to be leaving aside parents, sister, husband and daughter because those are a given for having had a big effect and writing about that effect would be way more typing than i should do with the angry nerve in my left hand. 

so, i start with susie.  

i grew up showing horses. i think i was sent into the showring with merrylegs, my little dapple grey pony, clad in the cutest little red and black pants, at about the age of 4. i had no idea what i was doing but it was a halter class so no real harm could come of that. merrylegs was a good pony and i walked out with a big shiny blue trophy (that's no doubt still somewhere in my parents' basement). probably just because we were so darn cute.

i graduated from local shows to quarter horse shows and even had a few years in the rough and tumble rodeo world (as rough and tumble as 4-H rodeos can get)--what i most recall about those was a vast quantity of mud. then, we got paints and pintos and started going to the state association shows.  

we did it all--from showmanship to english pleasure to western pleasure, trail, reining and western riding--even barrels and poles if we were going for the all-around award. i had a lot of horses during those years...bee's star bar, i'm a susie bar, jolene, keelo kandy, tickleweed, spooky, skip's galley lad, top hand, switch, chilli's hot stuff, kitty, ted, suzie q, fred and especially sary (more about her later).

at the black hills pinto shows, i first encountered susie. she was a trainer, showing other people's horses and doing it well. she was dressed smarter than anyone else and in the black hills pinto association, they had settled on their number at the beginning of the year.  aside: you always have a number on your back when you show, since the judge doesn't know you, so you can be called on when you win, of course. :-)  susie's number was 222 and she had made beautiful versions of it in oval and heart shapes in black or green to match all of her outfits. i was in awe. and so wanted to be 222 at any show where susie wasn't there.

she also showed paints and her own mare, diamond h pansy, was my very dream of a horse (i eventually owned her sister, diamond h suzie q). susie was showing her at the same time as i showed skip's galley lad. i think one of the horses susie showed was the association's all around horse the same year (was in 1982?) that i was all around youth with skip's galley lad. 

but it wasn't until i got Indians Adversary, a handsome bay tobiano mare, that i actually started to work with susie. it was a dream come true for me! the folks sent me to live with susie out near the black hills (263 miles from home) for that summer. i actually slept in the living quarters of the big horse trailer that summer, since susie and her husband and son lived in a little trailer house and there wasn't really room for me. 

i learned so much--not only about handling my horse, but the whole spectrum. i probably grew up more and got to know myself better during those 3 months than at any other time in my life. i wasn't allowed to be the little snot hot-shot who was there to work with the trainer. no, a big part of what i did was muck stalls and move bales and sacks of grain. i got up early to feed. i learned to appreciate the soothing sound of a horse crunching grain in the early morning and the quality of the light and quiet that an early summer morning has.

i got kicked by a horse named TJ and had such a solid hoof-shaped bruise on my leg that you could read the brand of the shoe in the bruise. i learned about medicating and worming horses that needed it. and i worked with not only my own horse, but some of the others susie had in training. lunging them and hosing them down after a workout. in short, i really learned about hard work and how it was essential to achievement. i did that by soaping saddles and cleaning equipment, as well as by training for hours every day with my own horse.

we showed all over the upper midwest that summer--hauling off somewhere every weekend--colorado, wyoming, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma, and of course south dakota. we changed flat tires (two on the trailer on the way to longmont). we laughed. we sang in the car--dead skunk was especially popular. we ate junk food and great food in nice restaurants. we were dog tired at the end of days. we drove hundreds of miles. and we won lots of ribbons and points. i achieved my youth championship and my mare beat the world champion in one halter class in wyoming. i had moments of pride and moments of disappointment and i learned from susie to handle both gracefully.

when we were at home, susie taught me to make chinese food. i learned how to cut out a new pair of chaps. i upgraded my show clothes under her influence--she always had style where that was concerned. i learned so much that summer--all of which has translated into a life lived unafraid of trying new things and acceptance of the hard work that goes behind success. it was the experience of a lifetime.

there were other summers that i was back there with other horses, but none really could compare to that first summer i spent with susie and my horse sary. the picture below is from one of those later summers:

that's susie seated on the director's chair in the middle.

my sister on king frederik on the left.

suzie q and me on king kitty next.

and some of the others who susie worked with on down the line.

i'm very grateful for the lessons i learned from susie that summer, they have served me well throughout my life ever since. i'm not sure she was consciously or intentionally teaching me about myself, or maybe she was. but whatever the case was, i learned so much. today she would probably be called a life coach and be able to charge thousands for the lessons. :-) but i think what she really did was teach me by example and i came to think that life lived any other way wasn't an option. i was privileged to have had the opportunity to work with her. thank you susie!