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...