it's been a year...



such a good and mello boy



pableu with his ponybeads

last year on the day before thanksgiving, cate, gary and i went to litchfield to get pableu, sage and rosebud. oh they were so sick! we could hear little rosebuds breath just heaving in the trailer and it was so so cold that day. well...here we are a year later.  and pableu is healthy, happy, and doing great with us and his uncles and tache and tiger his crib cats. there were many days when i bit my fingers and wondered if he's make it through the day. he did and boy are we happy that he did. he's taught me a lot much of which i probably never would have gotten if he weren't here. my lessons are often funny and puzzling but in the end i do okay and i believe he's proud of me for getting them. my best wish is that we keep on learning and that he stays healthy and fine and full of life and good, strong horse humor which he already has plenty of. here are some new pics...  

crazyquilt: a tribute to an awesome mama...




pableu and crazyquilt at twin peaks

while elvon and i were in alaska pableu the boys stayed at my friend karen's ranch called 'unshackeled'. since i didn't want to come home with any babies, pableu had to stay in karens pens with joaquin. the pens were plenty big and they did fine in them the whole time. joaquin must have given p some good lessons in manners and discipline because he came home a changed boy. no more biting, no more trying to jump on the humans or aggressive little stallion-like behavior, and best of all, no more tummy aches for pabs. he's been in the big corral with his uncles and is doing great. they let him eat out of his box in his old pen and share when he wants to eat with them. all in all, they are good to him. but...something else has happened. he's mellowed and gotten lovey and sweet and is just wonderful. we take him on walks and he's fine and out to play on the obstacle course. he likes standing on the pedestal and doesn't need to be shown how to get up anymore he figured it out.  he's a deep little fella and when he looks sidways at me and i can see the whites of his eye it almost brings tears to my eyes it's so darn cute. he loves being brushed and stroked and will show me where he likes it best. when i stroke him he lets his eyes close and i think that maybe, he remembers his mama crazyquilt gently licking him. when a horse is this good, this pure and wonderful, you know that his parent were too, especially their mother. crazyquilt must be loving, gentle, patient, smart and funny and all of these attributes, she has passed on to pableu her last son. i envy her her life in the wild while she was there and will honor her life and memory whenever we go back to visit. just like i promised HoonaH, my first mustang, pableu and i will go to twin peaks someday so he can breathe the air that brought him to life and bask in the memories and love of crazyquilt and the rest of his noble family band...

rosebud



princess rosebud



this is rosebud, one of pableu's herd sisters and....maybe if he were still at twin peaks, he would be teasing her, courting her, and having a good ol time being young and free in the wild. things didn't turn out that way so here they are, with us, doing well and being as happy as they can be. pableu and rosebud survived quite an ordeal. being captured, separated from their families, weaned and very sick with strangles and horrible colds, then enduring the ride from the corrals to mt. shasta on one of the coldest days of the winter was hard on them too but here they are, strong and fine and silly. i don't like to humanize animals and make them do tricks or put clothes on them. it humiliates them and makes us look like the fools we are sometimes. but on this day, rosebud's little friend layla was playing with her and the encounter, captured with cate's camera, is adorable. one can see from the expression on rosebuds face that she's enjoying this to the delight of layla. it was good fun and i'm sure had pableu seen her with her tiara on, he would have been impressed and given her a big whinney...

a meeting with White Feather...

i recently had a meeting with one of my elders White Feather, a respected and beloved Blackfoot medicine man, and posed some questons to him about many wild horse issues on a day when my heart was heavy. what he said rocked my world and i'm still thinking on it. when i mentioned the many attemps that folks are making to save the horses he asked me "what makes you think they want to be saved? do you not understand that the wild ones are perfectly capable of making the decision to stay or leave themselves? do you not understand that they have and have always had other, better, realms to live in? perhaps this is where they have chosen to depart to and they are letting the evil hand of man deliver them there". i started to cry when he said this and he reminded me again that what happens to them may truly be of their choosing because life here for them has been tragic and hard. he reminded me of a tribe of people in australia we had talked about years ago who had consiously decided as a tribe, to die out, go away, cease to grow, because things in the world had become too painful and foreign  for them. and, he reminded me too that we keep imposing what we think is good for animals upon them and that this is not a noble thing it is a weakness that humans have. thinking that they know what is best for another, especialy an animal. he asked me "how can you tell your horse is happy?" i said i look at his face, his expression, body language etc. and, i ask him. he said "yes, good. and does that decide your opinion about whether he's happy or not?" i said that yes for the most part it does. he then said that very few people truly have the ability to hear their horses and that many think they do and make up rules and ways of treating them based upon false readings. when i asked him how one gets better at it he said that it is given gift. not something that can be bought or read or learned only given or inherited through blood. when i asked him if the fight by man to save them is futile he said "in the long run... yes. but it puts good medicine in the air and it makes us silly two-leggeds feel better. nothing wrong with that." he smiled and wiped away my tears...

bitey and tall...what a combo

healthy boy happy and growing...



sexylegs!



when we went to twin peaks last year and found pableu's band, it was obvious to everyone there that his daddy, the stallion BraveHeart, was a really tall fella. well, his son is certainly following in his footsteps. he's lotsa leg and...his legs are muscular and strong. he's sleek and shiny now that summer is here and growing by leaps and bounds. his freckles are dominant on his muzzle and around his eyes and he has flecks of white coming in under his dark fur. his cloud blanket is prettier than ever and he has a nice and shiny tail and mane. he's so good, and stands still for grooming and loves it. but...he's still so bitey! he bites everything. the brush the gate his lead his treat bowl my shoes my hair and when he can, me. he's not biting to hurt he's just baby-bitey just like any young creature with new teeth. when i go in his corral and i'm in there for a while he stops and we can have a good time but until then, it's like having a big, pesky mosquito buggin you! but in spite of it all, he's wonderful and i give thanks everyday that this little fella is still here with us and that he made it through the torture of being captured and ripped away from his beautiful family and the life we saw him living in the wild. he has many here who love him and i think khe knows it. come see him and tell us what you think!

poop salad

healthy and oh so fragrant!

there are  times when i just don't feel like scoopin' the poop. it's a hard job made even harder by the fact that the horses corral has sand ( it's actually ash) in it so it's like walking on a beach with deep sand. but...it has to be done and so i have reconciled with it and actualy like it most times now. it's a meditation, an alone time, a time to be in the horses house only with them listening to the birds and coyotes and whatever else happens to be going off out there. it's where i loose feeling mad or sad or any other yucky feelings i might have and where i come to love where we live, my husband, our life and all that rings and sings in my heart. i create stories out there, spin ideas, sing songs and act like the nut i am. when i get tired i sit down and helaku usually comes over to visit or i just sit and be. with them. in their world. surrounded by some of the most awesome beauty this county has to offer. i also check out their poop. that's right. i look at it. closely. to see if it's healthy, if has any critters in it and how it's holding together. it's an important task if you love your horses and i don't mind it at all. i can see where they roll and sleep, what they nibble on and how they travel. i look at their hoofprints and check out their coats and eyes while i'm out there too. all in all it's a good time. and when the wheelbarrow is full and i'm trudging it out to the big pile out back, i stop along the way and pick some weeds to throw on the top. it looks like salad. noooo not one to eat but one that has nourished me in ways most would find hard to comprehend. poop salad. YUM!   

Balance...let's get some

life can be simple and quiet with nature and us, in balance...

to me, the only thing absolute and for sure in this world is change. everything changes. all the time. one year this food is bad the next it's fine. goes for a lot more than food too and no where else is this so obvious than in the horse world. many people who wander in the domain are pig-headed, stuck, and so opionated that even when you ask them to explain their ideas to you they go off on a tirade that's so tainted you lose them at the get-go. i believe the only way to feel good about decisions you make about the care and relationship you have with your horse is to 1) ask the horse 2) check you instincs and 'guts' 3) read and study. i have to say i am sticking closer to the first two than #3 because stuff that's read is either a copy of what someone else said or just someone's opinion. do my horses need shoes? is riding bad? is milk bad even if it's organic and good? is that car economical? am i politically correct? should i tie my horse in the trailer? eat chocolate? run 5 miles everyday? geez no wonder we're so stressed out all the time. when did we stop listening to ourselves? why do we have to read about how to even make a decision? why do we copy  and quote other people's opinions and thoughts? have we lost our own? yes we have. why? because we're out of balance. how 'bout not saying "always" anymore or "forever" anymore or the most common "no way" and "absolutely!". and...why not just a simple thank you instead of thank you SO MUCH. balance sounds good to me. soft, easy, uncomplicated, even and calm.  pableu can spend his whole day in balance. taking bites of food here and there, napping when he feels like it, chasing an uncle and... my oh my how i envy that life! please make me duck or a free-roaming horse or a human so evloved that i can trust all what Creator gave me next time around so i too can live a life of simple balance...