Rescue Ranch

In the Northwest, any winter day without rain is a reason to celebrate. So yesterday, since the sun was (sort of) shining, I decided to finally get my old horse Buddy out of the pasture and take him for a walk. In the process of giving him a good brushing, I noticed he had lost a back shoe. It must have happened quite recently, because I'm in the habit of giving him a good once over every time I feed or clean his stall, and I hadn't noticed it before.

Usually I have my horses' shoes pulled for the winter and allow them to go barefoot for a few months while I'm not riding very much. Then I have them shod again when the weather gets nice and riding season begins in earnest. But because Buddy seemed to do so well with shoes, I decided to keep him shod all winter. This also allowed me to ride him on gravel roads if I wanted, which can be hard on a barefoot horse.

For those of you that don't know Buddy, he's an old quarter horse gelding that came to live with us last August. He was a couple hundred pounds underweight and pretty much on his last legs. In the process of feeding him up, I was almost embarrassed to have people look in the barn.

Beside Buddy, the only other equine I have at the moment is my old donkey Josie, who I have had the privilege of owning for nine years. And Josie has, for the last few months, been suffering from an almost life-ending bout of laminitis, which caused her to lie down for long periods of time because it was too painful to stand on her hooves.

So my routine for the past few months has been (twice daily) giving a round of medications to Josie and feeding Buddy (we call him the Old Man) extra supplements and grain to build him up. And while we tongue-in-cheekily said it looked like a rescue ranch around here, it really was not that much of a stretch.

I'm happy to say that Buddy has not only gained all his weight back, but is on his way to becoming chubby. And Josie is being weaned off her meds and seems to have (for now) kicked this bout of laminitis and is once again sound on all fours. Hallelujah!!

Today I decided to look for Buddy's missing shoe, which had to be in his pasture since he hasn't been anywhere else in the past couple of months. So I began the process of combing the pasture inch by inch. I walked the back pasture thoroughly before breakfast. Nada. I searched through all the mud in the paddock, which with all the rain we've had would be a good culprit to suck a shoe right off. Nothing. Later, I poked carefully through the front pasture. I found a piece of aluminum, a beef jerky wrapper, a broken piece of glass and a 3 inch bolt. I have no idea how these things got there, but I stuffed them carefully in my jacket pocket.

All the while, the old people (Buddy and Josie) were placidly munching their hay inside the barn. I was at the very end of the front pasture (and still hadn't found the lost horseshoe) when I noticed Josie striding towards me. Confidently, quickly, her humongous ears pricked forward and walking out sound, she was coming out to see Mom and get some scratching time. It thrilled me to see her moving so well, obviously pain-free.

Then I heard a funny sound behind her - something halfway between a nicker and a neigh. The old man had discovered me at the far side of the pasture. Buddy broke into a gallop and raced towards me, making a welcoming noise in his throat the whole way.

Galumph, galumph, galumph. If you've ever seen an old arthritic horse gallop - trust me, it's comical. He cut Josie off at the pass and slid to a stop in front of me, letting out an old man cough with the exertion. I put my arms around his neck and laughed.

I haven't yet found the missing shoe, but all-in-all, it's a good day here at the rescue ranch.

New Things

So in honor of the year 2010, let's just state for the record that I do, finally, like some new things. Like iPods (Smile).

This was a high-tech holiday season at our house. And since I am known in our family as the old-fashioned, backward one - the one who resists new cell phones and texting and anything electronic - and is always threatening to leave civilization entirely with just her horse and go up in the mountains to live - no one really knew what I would say when asked if I wanted an iPod for Christmas.

I mean, everybody has an iPod these days, don't they? Well, not me.

Although I loved the idea of buying the music you really want instead of an entire album, and loved the idea of being able to individualize your music selection to your exact taste - the whole concept of learning a new device caused me to break out in a cold sweat.

But my daughter offered to help. "I'll set it up for you, Mom. I'll show you how."

So with that offer, I agreed. My first challenge was getting the iPod out of the package. Understand now, I have a hard time opening CD cases. This thing came in a premolded plastic carrier with no obvious way of unleashing the object inside. And were there instructions? No, never.

But wait, is that a diagram in very tiny print underneath on the plastic? Yes. You bend the plastic! Who knew?

So imagine how proud I was when (with my daughter's encouragement) I figured out how to plug the iPod into my computer and charge it. Wow. Now what? But by next morning, I was loading CDs and copying them. I had songs on the iPod. Now how do I play the darn thing?

I did not want to jog with headphones in my ears. I wanted to play my iPod through the giant speakers of our ancient stereo system. No problem, right? Just need a cord for that. Now this may sound easy to you, but it turned out to be a major obstacle. After a trip to Radio Shack, Best Buy, and asking all kinds of stupid questions to twenty-something would-be electronic gurus, I still could not get good sound from the iPod out through the speakers. (And my daughter had gone home by now).

So (and I really hate when this happens) I had to ask my husband for help. I felt like we were in some bad reality TV show called "How many old fogies does it take to make an iPod work?" I mean, this thing is not much bigger than a stick of chewing gum. How could it possibly play music? But between the two of us, we finally figured out you have to push the cord into the iPod all the way and that you turn the dial on the iPod to adjust the sound. (Hey - if you are under twenty-five years old, stop laughing now!!)

Anyway, at long last - MUSIC!!

"Dance with me," I said. "Like we used to." And so we did - to Alan Jackson (Big Smile).

Last night I downloaded iTunes. I have two iTunes gift cards to use - Oh Happy Day!! Husband goes to bed last night, and wakes up this morning finding me still downloading music. He rolls his eyes. "I've created a monster," he says.

"Shh," I say. "I'm in the middle of deciding between the entire Eagles Greatest Hits album or more Brad Paisley."

I Love my iPod. I have the old stereo cranked up so loud, I feel like a teenager.

And I'm becoming so brave about all this new stuff. Tomorrow I might even tackle my new wireless mouse.

Old Things

I still cook with my grandmother's cast iron skillets. I use her long-handled granite ware colander almost daily to wash fruit. In her day, they were just everyday kitchen items. Today, while some might see them as collector's items, I value them for their longevity and continued usability.

I like the solid feel of things in my hand. I value a hand painted pitcher given to my mother as a wedding present, an ornately decorated jar belonging to my great grandmother, an egg scale used by one grandfather, and a bugle from another.

In these days of transitory things, of items from the dollar store, Walmart or Target that decorate your house and then are sold or thrown out with the vagaries of changing taste, I still value solid things from the past. Things made well, that are still useful fifty, seventy-five, one hundreds years later.

And sometimes, when I am filled with self-doubt about why I write, I remember that I really, really, really love books. Real Books, with a front cover and a back cover and bound pages in the middle.

Because writing, like so many things now, is becoming transitory. Blogs and interviews and emails and instant messages - it is all like so much dust in the wind. Pictures, too, are now hosted on online web servers, or kept on memory cards or computers or saved on our social networking sites. Will there be no more boxes of photos with names hastily scribbled on the back, so that future generations can hold them up and wonder who was that boy at the birthday party, and is that really Jimmy when he was five years old?

So for me, as we get ready to ring in a whole New Decade, I'm happy to say that I still like Old Things. Like this book with my grandmother's name written inside.

It has lasted more than 100 years.

And when I struggle for months and years over a novel, trying to get the words just right, I guess it's with the hope that I might be making something of value - something that will last. Maybe even 100 years or so. So that decades from now, someone from a future generation might pull one of my books from a bookshelf, carefully open the pages, and say, "Hey, my grandmother read this book a long, long time ago. Look! She wrote her name inside."

Wouldn't that be cool?

Happy New Year, Everyone, and may you all find things that you value.

Christmas Reading List

What do I love about Christmas? I get to shop. And what do I most like to shop for? Designer clothes? Nah. Expensive jewelry? Nope. Tools? Not really.

My most favorite thing to shop for and give is BOOKS.

I love to paw through bookstores, online sites, and even my own bookshelf looking for just the right reading material for everyone on my gift list. Books are easy to wrap, easy to send, they smell delicious, and they can entertain, uplift, inspire and delight.

Want to know what I got for kids on my list this year, ranging from six to sixty something? Hint, if you are reading this before Christmas and you have a package from me - STOP READING NOW so you don't spoil the surprise! With that disclaimer, here goes:

* If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, by Laura Numeroff
* Pony Scouts, Really Riding! (I Can Read Book) by Catherine Hapka
* The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt
* The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (2 copies)
* Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
* A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan
* Not Your Mother's Weeknight Cooking, by Beth Hensperger
* Enjoying Where You Are On The Way To Where You Are Going, by Joyce Meyer
* The Nightly Book of Positive Quotations, by Steve Deger
* Farm Tractors, by C.H. Wendel
and finally, a book published in 1940 which you must read if you love dogs,
* Lassie Come-Home, by Eric Knight

Merry Christmas Everyone, and Happy Reading To All!

Horses and Long Winters

Last night I was complaining about the long winter, and how the chores of feeding, cleaning, and watering horses continue, day after day even when there are sometimes weeks and months when I don't ride. I miss riding. This fall, I was just getting my old horse, Buddy, back into shape and he was turning into a darn good trail mount. And then two things happened: Hunting Season, which tends to keep my out of the woods, and then Winter.

Our weather here in the Pacific Northwest doesn't look so bad as I watch the news this morning and see a blizzard barreling down on the East Coast. Still, I spent all last week bundling up like the abominable snowman just to go outside and do chores in our single digit weather. (And thank God for electric stock tank heaters).

Today, the temperature in our barn read 44 degrees. Relatively balmy, all things considered. I could almost get the old horse out and ride him, but Christmas is exactly one week away and I have so much yet to do. So instead, I clean the barn, watch old Buddy lick every last morsel from his grain pan, scratch my donkey inside her ears, and give my horse one last hug for the day.

The sun is making a brief appearance through the low clouds. Did you know that birds sometimes sing, even in the winter, if the sun comes out? And I realize that these peaceful moments with my livestock, outside in the fresh (and sometimes brisk) air are what center me in life. They are my moments of peace and of oneness with nature.

So as I gear up for a day of traffic and crowded stores and last minute shopping, and then to my computer and banging out words in my manuscript, these moments with my horse nickering softly to me, of listening to the sounds of birds waking up to their day ahead, are what give me the strength to get through life.

Riding is one of the enjoyments of owning a horse. But oh, there are so many more.

The Beatles

The other night I watched Paul McCartney on television, in a replay of a concert last summer at Shea Stadium in New York City. It brought back a lot of memories. The old boy still has the chops.

I use the term "old" loosely, because although he's a few years older than I am, we are basically from the same generation. The Beatles were huge back in their day. Their music has had such a lasting influence on generations to come, and I can't think of anyone who hasn't been impacted by one of their songs. And there seems to be a whole new generation of people who are now Beatles fans, as evidenced from the throngs of all ages of people cheering Paul on at the concert, where he played with the original Beatles 44 years ago.

The Beatles were a true phenomena, not only in music, but on our culture. Right about then was when the term "hippie" first started coming into common use. I remember when they first played on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. "Who are those mop-heads?" everyone asked. "Look at that long hair!" Yet looking at the pictures now, they were relatively clean-cut.

I was never one of the screaming, rabid fan girls adoring the Beatles. And I never saw them live in concert. (Although I was lucky enough to see Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Peter, Paul and Mary, George Strait, and Merle Haggard all live on stage.)

But I did buy and cherish their records, and I was influenced by their music. I remember being at the guitar or the piano trying to figure out the intricate chord changes in "Yesterday." This was long before you could go online and find them - there was no online :-) I remember sitting around with a group of people trying to pick out all the harmony parts to sing on "If I Fell." And smiling whenever I turned on the radio and heard "Here Comes the Sun."

The song writing team of Lennon and McCartney wrote some of the most memorable music of several generations, and it's nice to see that it's still popular. If I had to pick a favorite song, it would be hard to choose between "Yesterday," "Hey Jude," and the haunting "Norwegian Wood."

Yeah, watching Paul McCartney perform brought back a lot of memories.

So here's a question - what's your favorite Beatles song?

Book Giveaway

Don't forget! Many of you have started your Christmas shopping already. Here's a chance to win a copy of Alison Hart's latest horse book -

HORSE DIARIES: Bell's Star.

You have three more days!

Entries close on November 30, 2009

Simply leave a comment, or email me (info on my profile page).

Winner will be picked at random on Dec. 1st, and I'll ship the book to you for free! Easy as that!

Thanks to everyone who entered. Contest is now over and winner has been chosen. Congratulations, Katrina! We will get your book to you soon.