my best boy...

joaquin gets good n muddy out on winter pasture

all of our horses are bell trained. i ring the bell, they come. it's a way to be able to check on them when they're far out and i want or need to see them. with echo and smoke close to the house in their habitat and joaquin and helaku in the pastures with the cows, when i ring the bell they all get to gather, see each other, and get their daily oats and scritches. the other nite when the moon was full i went out later than usual and joaquin and helaku didn't come in. now mind you i not only ring the bell but if i don't see them coming i call them. my call echoes across the 120 (acres) and is loud. WAAAAAAAAAkeen! hayLAAAAAAAAku! still, they didn't come. so i walked way out and found them. joaquin came first and i asked him "hey bud what's up? why didn't you come when i called ya? let's go get some oats". on the walk back he stayed right with me. i have a really hard time walking on ground that's not even and he knows it. so when i have to he walks right by my side and let's me put my arm over his back for support. this time he was behind my right shoulder on the cow path and every few steps he would nuzzle my ponytail or my ear. he loves to do this and it tickles so we always have a fun time when he gets silly this way. he was really into it and seemed to be making up for the fact that i had to come fetch him. helaku was behind him and nickering the whole way. i love joaquins wild heart. he won't let me catch him very often unless he's in a small space and runs as fast as he can out there sometimes just for the joy of running. no matter how much time passes or how aloof he is at times, he will still lend me his heart and soul and comfort my tattered heart with his soft breath and velvety muzzle. he's my best boy....  

so many changes!

pableu and rosebud share...

it's been so long since i wrote on pableu's blog and so many things have happened. some good, some very good and some not so good. after moving all of us, ponies, pups and tiger to a place with jobs and a home that promised to be too good to be true (it was) we are at a new location in the shasta valley that we are now calling home. smoke and echo are in their habitat right outside, joaquin and helaku on winter pasture with the cows out back and pableu has gone to live at dreamcatcher's sheep rock with rosebud (remember her?) her mama sage, some calico horses and some others from twin peaks and elsewhere. we could only have 2 horses here we had to decide who to keep here and who to send there. since pabs has family there it turned out to be the best place for him. he will be free again soon to travel the hills, buck and play, surrounded by the beauty of sheep rock and many many pretty fillies. my heart misses him very very much but i know he couldn't be in a better place. i went to go see him yesterday and he was glad i did. he's growing straight up like a weed and is as sweet and friendly as ever. so...even tho this blog will feature him from time to time, i want to also write about the other boys and talk about how they are coming along too. blogging is good. you get it out, let it flow. and even if no one reads what you wrote you have a place to put what you hold in your heart. for now, here's a pic of pableu and rosebud drinking water together. pretty darned cute hm? 

pableu's big day...

pableu and his freckly face. will he know the difference???

tomorrow pableu is being gelded. i have such a jumble of feelings about it. i know that in order for him to live happily and peacefully with the rest of our herd and the mares we need to do this but it really breaks my heart. when i saw him for the first time with his family band during those glorious summer days at spanish springs in twin peaks he was so radiant and new! stepping with his little spindly legs over rocks that had me almost flat on my face at times he was graceful in his bobbs up and down. i'll never forget the color of the sky during those days and the mules ears and lupine yelling at the sky so full and fragrant. we climbed up a hill to get above them so we could just sit and watch and when i looked down at the ground i found a small-point, obsidian arrowhead. it wasn't just a gift or a treasure it was an affirmation telling me that the day was perfect. the horses were perfect. the land was blessed despite all of it's tradgedy and bloodshed and that Creator was in charge that day. it was a moment in time that has stained my heart and memory with the colors it lent me and i will cherish it forever. so to reconcile with the fact that i have to alter my little fella because he was rudely stolen from his family and homeland cuts deeply and brings up lots of old tribal sorrows for me. if i could put him back i would. God how i wish i could. but all i can do is smudge him, make him comfy, hold his head and sing to him while the deed gets done and pray hard that he comes thru well and healthy. i've already apologized to him and i hope he will forgive me...  

the heart of a big angel...(dedicated to layla joling)

"gee i like your fur! it's fun and silky!'...joaquin



joaquins new best friend...



although i don't know much about religious stuff i do know that many of the angels and arch angels were big and strong and had a alot of power. when we see pictures of them they are always pumped up. muscular. stern looking. my good friend chuck thinks that big, strong, pumped up horses, especially the ones that are pushy and standoffish with us can learn from humans to "let their insides come out". i get what he means. oftentimes when an animal or even better, a human postures this way it's because they 1) think it's their 'job'  2) or they are actually being defensive because of a lack of security. with regards to joaquin, our alpha-boss guy in our herd of 7, i think it's a bit of both. he defends all of the little ones human and horse. his behavior with pableu when he was small was incredible. he will come see me when he feels like it and when strangers come he will come check them out too but for the most part, wants to be left alone by both humans and his herd buddies. but...a couple days ago our wonderful friends jamie and justin were out here with their kids and layla, their 5 year old daughter, made friends with joaquin. he really liked her. he toussled up her hair, sniffed her all over, made her smile and giggle and they had a good ol time together. but the most wonderful thing was the look in joaquins eyes. they were soft and curious and he was careful to be ever so gentle with her. she showed him that there are still innocent humans out here that don't want anything but to be friends and share in big fun. and to all of you who keep saying that this horse is "dangerous" or "not to be trusted". HORSE PUCKY!!! he's got the heart of a big angel is all and they are not often understood. and to those of us who think we can "whisper" horses? maybe we can't. but maybe our little ones with their giggles and honesty and innocent ways still intact, can...    

big fat message from white feather today...

receiving the message...

and it was this: "don't call it 'gentling' when it's not gentle, and don't call it  medicine if it doesn't heal". simple, one would think hm? and yet for many years many of us (including myself) have been using both of these words to describe how to bring along and care for horses and it's time we honor the use of these words by describing how we do what we do more honestly. to capture a wild horse and put him through the chutes, in the pens and in the trailers after chasing him for miles and miles is horrible. but how is putting the then caught horse in a small pen where he's helpless, scaring the shit out of him (literaly) with bags and ropes and an angry face any different? hey people guess what? it's not!!! i don't care how fast the horse "gets over it" or calms down it's wrong, wrong, wrong and no better than what the wrangler brutes do to them. (okay and here i go)and, it is not GENTLING!!! call it something else but not that. call it what it is: 'putting-a-horse-in-a-round-pen-until-he-learns-total-helplessness' training. there is nothing gentle here and this is not medicine. when your healing someone or something, you give it medicine and altho it may be hard for the recipient to swallow, it is good, it nourishes, heals, transforms. and the best medicines on our sweet earth are soothing and good for us on many levels. when wisdom from the elders of long, long ago is not shared and then heard, we get in trouble, we suffer, we get sick and cry. why continue to propagate this? why call it what it's not? why misuse and distort the meaning  of these two powerful words? their meanings are being re-defined by our bad behavior just like 'natural horsemanship' and 'horse whisperer'. if you can't abide by and use use their true meanings, then perhaps just shut the f--- up! love ya'll and believe me this lesson was for me first and foremost...

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...    

happy birthdays or not?

eeyoweptna eta eta kankaa'ne

both ginger kathren's cloud and pableu had birthdays this week. in my heart of hearts i celebrate them being here, am made more better for it, am happy that they are both loved and welcomed in this crazy world, but there's also a part of me that is sad again and probably always will be. cloud shouldn't be a poster horse for anything, he should just be the glorious stallion that he is, free, healthy, happy and left alone. and pableu? oh yes we love him to pieces but the pictures i have in my head of him so young and adorable, walking the earth with his family during those brilliant-sky-bleu days in july when we saw him, haunt me on days like this more than they conjure up happy memories. every time i see him buck and play he tells me it's okay...my life is good, all is well. so maybe it's just my weak human mind feeling the changes we have been forced to endure and succmb to ever since our buffalo, horses, land and people were killed, scattered, and or dislocated that haunts me. i can choose weather their birthdays are gonna be happy ones for me or not. i choose happy. sometimes, once you speak the pain, you can lay it down. no alcohol is required, no pills, no misery, you just lay it down. i lay mine down...

sunny days, snowy days....





A very happy Pableu. "Life is GOOOD"!





Pableu and Helaku learn to play. Cool pic hm?



The weather lately has been crazy. Just like life. One day sunny and brite, the next, dark and miserable. Yesterday was warm, sunny and lovely, and in the midst of it, Pableu got a terrible tummy ache. After herbing him up and rubbing his belly, he was okay but it scared the scat out of me none the less. Today, it was cold, rainy, dark at times with snow in Mt. Shasta. He was happier and more full of joy that I've ever seen him. When I let him out with Smoke and Echo today he ran around tossing his head, bucking, biting them on the butt and having a ball. It was almost as if he was saying " This is great!!! I made it and life is good!"  Later when I went in the big corral where Joaquin and Helaku were to scoop poop, he came and stood at the gate so he could come in and visit with them. He played a lot with Helaku and I was happy about this because Helaku is really a loner but he was really good and gentle with P. Joaquin's behavior was interesting. He hung back in another part of the corral and all but ignored what was going on. Whereas when Pableu comes in to play with Smoke, he chases Smoke off. I have a feeling he knew this was good for Helaku and so left them alone. Then when he was done, he went and stood at the gate and I let him out to graze some more with the other two. In spite of the crazy weather, it was a good day and my boy once again, filled us all with joy and a humble feeling of gratitude that we were fortunate to live yet another day in beauty and love...

a pictures worth a thousand words....

"do i look cool or what!"...

I promised Pableu that we wouldn't put a halter on him until he told me not only that he was ready, but that he wanted to try one on. Knowing that at some point he may need one, I was willing to do this but I wanted to put it off for as long as I could. Elvon and I made him one from a larger one we had and I hung it on his corral so he could check it out. He pulled it off, stepped on it, tossed it around, flung it over his back, chewed on it and then gave it to me. I put it over his nose, and gently slipped it over his poll and tied it. No big deal. I did this while I was grooming him which I do everyday prior to letting him out and he doesn't seem to be bothered by it at all. I tried not putting it on one day and he pulled it off the fence and pawed at it until I picked it up. I doubt he was asking to wear it as much as he was saying "hey you forgot that part!" Anyway, I took this picture of him so you could see not only his halter, but how freckly his muzzle is getting. I think this picture is adorable and I won't even try to assume I know what he's thinking. Look at that face!!! 

echo's bewilderment...(for kathy h.)

echo talking to joaquin

my sweet little pabs is learing how to ask to get into the big corral with his uncles and has been standing at the gate instead of gingerly walking through the tape. smart guy...so i let him in and he has fun harrassing smoke and running like the wind all over the place and jumping the poop pile. smoke squeals and plays right along but ehco, well, he doesn't quite know what to do. he stands and watches and looks somewhat confused. pableu never goes near him sensing i think, that next to joaquin, he's next in the line of command and would never stand for any shenanagins. since smoke and echo are such good buds, it's kind of sad to see him out of the loop. so today, while smoke and the little shark were playing, i went in and gave echo a good grooming, loved on him real good, teased him about his halfa moustache and his 'curlybutt' fur, and he seemed to love it. it's so good for me to see their dynamic and see how they live and react in their world. when i was done, i snuck bubba (echo) a peppermint... 

tell it yourself...

josephine in her early days

a reporter came over a couple of weeks ago to talk to me about the horses and meet pableu. i was adamant about my position concerning the BLM'S inaccurate numbers and faulty reoprts on the conditions of things in the HMA'S and told him why i was and that i wanted this stated in the artricle he was writing for a local paper. he ignored this, misquoted me, got names wrong and insulted our home. he described it as "battered" and commenced to writing a dumb, patronizing, story that was inacurate and full of mistakes. we live in an old, vintage, 1952 pan am trailer that some wonderful friends gave us, that we are restoring. so far it's been quite cozy and has a beautiful teak and rosewood floor that elvon put in with wood from the scrap pile off his last job, and a 'carrot door' in the kitchen that's for the horses when they walk by. bit by bit, our "battered" home is becoming quite lovely. we choose to live without many creature comforts so that we can live off the beaten track, with our animals, in peace and beauty, and hope that someday, we can build an even nicer home and the trailer can become a guest home. i learned a lot about 'truth' with this guy. and what i learned that was most important was that if you want to report the truth, simply tell it yourself. and...that beauty is once again, in the eye of the beholder. we think our home is great, our animals love it here and we're all pretty friggin' happy. he has another opinion. evident in the little puddle i found in front of the toilet he used...  

finally...

we love this little guy...

Now that I have a new knee and the weather is changing and the flowers are blooming and Elovns smilin' and Pableu is healthy, happy and liking us a lot, we can begin building with him. He is so full of youth and vitality and to see him run around here and buck and play and then see him relax and smile while we brush and love on him is just wonderful. We're so glad he's here with us and we can all grow up together... 

uncle smokey plays with the "little shark"...

nip n nip back

come on uncle smoke let's play!!

THIS is horse whispering

Whenever I talk to my friend Cate about Pableu's colty antics she says "that little shark!!!" and, he is. He behaves just like a bratty, pesty 8 year old sometimes.  Sometimes when he's out of his pen and he feels like it, he snakes through the fence into the corral his uncles live in and pesters Smoke relentlessly. I went in there one day to watch them because I wanted to make sure no one was getting hurt and took some pics. What I saw was really cool. Pableu was on Smoke like white on rice...nipping, squealing, rearing, pushing anything he could do to get Smokey to play with him. At first Smoke acted like he was a pain in the ass but then he started having fun. When Pableu goes too far, Smoke sets him strate but all in all, they have a great time together...

quite the jumper!

oh those scritches feel good!

daddy longlegs

Last week our good friends Ed and Jane brought over a load of hay they got for us and we had some other friends with kids visiting while they came. Well I guess all the commotion got Pableu pretty excited because he decided to jump over the 4'6" log pole fence that separates him from his uncles. He fell as he landed but except for a tuft of belly fur on the pole that scraped off his tummy, he was fine!  He hasn't tried to jump over again since then but to ensure he doesn't, we've made it higher. If he jumps that, I'll have to find a way to get him to stop getting taller. (yea right!). Anyway, once he got in there he had a great time rubbing his back on his favorite juniper tree branch...hehe!