Years

I remember New Year's Day as a child - on New Year's Eve my parents would go to the Coronado Country Club for a big party. My brother and I would fall asleep with my Grandmother caring for us. I would wake up, so excited before dawn and there would always be at least a half dozen helium balloons of various colors hovering at the ceiling in my bedroom. My brother had the same and we would run around the house with our balloons squealing and playing until one would get away and drift up to the 16 foot peak of the living room ceiling. No one would retrieve the ones that got away; we had to wait for the gas to weaken and they would drop slowly down to within our reach.
I know my parents worked hard to get our Christmas presents (always Breyer type horses for me!), and we loved them, but there was just something about the floating balloon tradition that kept us enthralled each year!

Wisdom...s

I lived in Arizona during the '07 to '08 years... southern AZ. During monsoons and fire season (yes, there is a "fire season"!) and lots of political stuff. It was a time when gasoline cost $4.89 a gallon there. I drove an older Jeep Cherokee and had to drive into Tucson often. I did not have a job - Jer and I had sold & given away most everything we had to move there and help out at a stable... an exchange kind of thing that did not work out, but gave us the opportunity to meet some of the most wonderful friends in the world.
We lived several places with our horses after things didn't work out originally and that is when our Susie was injured so severely after being terrified by a train. But we became really flexible and stayed positive and eventually we lived at a place in the middle of the most gorgeous mountains on the whole planet! I had an art studio/gallery in Old Tubac (in a tower that was part of an ancient fort) and Jer established a woodwork studio in Amado that was like an old cattle station in Australia!
One place we lived (where Susie got hurt) during fire season had a train track running through the property and the bosque there caught fire! We had to move our horses to a cattle pasture fenced in barbed wire and lead them over the tracks on a berm covered in huge, deep gravel - and Susie had the radial nerve paralysis! We got them safely away from the fire, but I was a nervous wreck about the barbed wire! Smart horses - they stayed safe, so did we, but I was out tying old Tshirts and wash rags on the fence to make it more visible.
At the gorgeous place (later, after we had all gotten our wits about us) - a huge fire broke out on the mountain range by our (rented) home. At night we watched the surreal flames spread and rise in sudden pillars of swirling sparks as a tree would be consumed...
The TV News stations from Tucson were all over the place - special fire fighters were everywhere; giant tanker planes dropping foam stuff on the mountain. I was getting really stressed. They talked evacuation... there was no rain in the forecast at all.
I got out my photograph of the Tibetan monks and their sand mandala that I had watched them make at NMSU. The sand from it had been poured into the Rio Grande and afterward it rained for a week! So, I put the photo on the Earth, placed a pointed Selenite crystal on the photo with the point aiming at the burning mountains. And then I prayed... and then the rain came. It poured rain. The fires were subdued in a matter of days. Our neighbor, who would become a dear friend, was a witness to the whole photo/crystal thing and she was most pleased that I had done it! Whether or not it started the rains - just doing something helped us feel a bit stronger.
Arizona was a roller coaster ride for me... more to tell than can be told, really. I faced whatever I had to face. I decided, finally, to return to my real home (New Mexico) and help my Mother and some friends with health things.
We loaded everything we could into and on top of my Jeep. That was all I would have to my name by that time (and a little bit of money to buy a laptop and pay to host a website) - and I was certain that my paintings were safely loaded into that Jeep! I gave my horses to the most wonderful home in the world where they are cherished and live in huge pastures (this is what inspired this story tonight - I just heard about how well they are doing, thank God) and, because the daytime temperatures were over 100 degrees; the A/C did not work in the Jeep and my little dog who was to travel with me is long haired - I had to leave after the sun went down. Storms were brewing all around. Jer and our neighbor and I went to our favorite restaurant, Wisdoms, for supper, to say goodbye. Jer was staying to continue woodworking.
The photo with this story is of one of the two rainbows that appeared over Wisdoms as I arrived that evening, full of apprehension about the drive to Las Cruces. When I saw the rainbows, it gave me peace about my future. The drive was to be a frightening one through hail, pouring rain, lightning and severe wind - but my dog, my Jeep and my paintings, crystals, beadwork, photos, etc. all made it!! That evening I had my green corn tamale and half of a hot, fried peach burrito with ice cream and coffee and I just knew that somehow, Jer and I would be together again.
Now, a few short months ago, when I found our new home to buy (with a lot of help from those who love us!!) - Jer and I took the drive up the mountain to see it for the first time and, behold - there were 2 rainbows in the dark grey/orangey sky right on top of the mountain. :) So, I had no doubt that this was to be our new home and the place where Dharmahorse would finally become established. sigh, what a long strange trip, well, you know!

Onyx

Onyx was the black and white pinto gelding from the 3 wild 3 year olds we took on at Fox Fire Stable. This was in the early '70's. There were no books or methods available (that I could find) about humane techniques to gentle the horse who had never seen a human being until the age of 2, 3 or 4. I was young but had a lot of experience riding and training horses and ponies who had seen people, so I figured the main task at hand was to get these youngsters accustomed to seeing, hearing, smelling and being touched by people. Then, I could use my skills like usual. (It did work, by the way - but it is much like the instructions for replacing a kitchen faucet, they say, "first - remove old faucet...") The hard work was the first part!
Onyx was lovely. He moved with anti-gravity, had suspension of stride and his own version of airs-above-the-ground. His sensitivity made him reactive to all the normal goings on in a stable yard and I was wondering if we should just turn him out on the forty acres, provide food and water and simply admire him. Leon claimed him and my brother and I supported him in his quest to tame the black and white colt.
He was wearing a halter, was gelded now, had a tolerance of us in his boxstall for mucking or feeding, could be loose in the barn aisle and could be "herded" to the large round pen to have a run.
We had built a stout round pen instinctively after the wild ones arrived. I found that corners in the stalls gave them places to get stuck and panic, so we decided to have a large space without corners. We could gently get hold of the short cotton fob we left on Onyx's halter, then attach a lead or longe line. In the round pen, I started him on the longe without a whip (I do call them wands because it is only a noun and whip can be a verb - that I do not do). I used my body position to explain to him how I wanted him to move. This was instinctive for both of us - I had been around horses all my life and he had, too. I would then leave him in the pen with water and some grass hay and each day I would toss something new in with him. At first it was a feedtub, then a tire, then a stuffed toy dog, then a bright red ball, then a small canvas tarp - and we left each object so they collected in there. A couple of times I fell over things while longeing him, but even that was good for him to experience.
One thing I never did with any horse was to act like a preditor; to sneak up to them or push them aggressively. The only times any of us had to be loud or make ourselves big and forboding were when a horse tested the boundaries by being aggressive with one of us.
Onyx needed slow, consistent, clear experiences with humans. He got plenty of exercise, but was not in race or endurance training, so he received no grain feed. Only grass hay, alfalfa hay, wheat bran mashes a few times a week with herbs and the trace nutrient supplement "Source" that had recently come out. I will be honest with everyone right now - his first and second hoof trimmings were done tranquilized. I fed it to him well before our farrier and friend (Mr. Jim Keith) arrived. I reasoned that, since it HAD to be done, why let it be scary for the colt?
Leon was grooming him finally with no over reactions to being touched. Leon apprenticed with Mr. Keith and eventually was trimming all the wild ones' hooves. They were starting to accept us within their own time frames and that was just fine with me! We were all learning so much.

Prodding

In Tucumcari we had a huge feed company/feed store and tack shop called Worley Mills. I was there a lot! It was kind of out of town and my Dad was friends with the owners - we had the newspaper there, the Tucumcari News. I had just established Fox Fire Stable and was getting known in the area. I had gone to Worley Mills with some brochures and cards, visited with the people at the counter and was at the back of the store looking at halters when a cowboy came in. He tipped his hat toward me and I nodded. I watched him move, slightly limping, to the cattle prods on one wall beside multi-colored plastic tags and odd metal clamps and chalk, etc. I watched because he was kinda cute - he brought one of the prods down from its hook, looked at the end of it carefully, then pushed on it with his hand. ZAP, I heard it shock him - he fell back and ended up on the floor on his, um, bottom! I looked away quickly, grabbed a halter to pretend to examine. THEN, he picked the prod up from the floor, looked at the end of it and pushed on it again! On the floor for a second time, he seemed dazed - the girl behind the counter came running to help him up. I got out of the store and to my truck quickly - it was just too humiliating to witness if he was gonna zap himself a third time! You know, "cute is as cute does", or something like that.

Ice Storm

For several years I lived on the side of the mountain in the town of Organ. I rented a tiny cottage covered in vines, surrounded by trees and herb gardens. I also rented a cottage next door for Zen meditations, Reiki treatments and making soap and medicines. My retired eventer, Snookie (Breath of Snow) lived just below the house in a three sided shelter and pen that I had built. Snookie was in his 20's, had the beginnings of Uveitis (moonblindness) and was Cushinoid. I was managing his health and happiness, but he was fragile.
An ice storm hit one day in January. It came without warning (to the severity of it) and we lost power. My little wall unit gas heater worked without electricity... the dogs and I were safe, but Snookie was in a life or death situation. My landlady (the coolest person on the planet) said "take Snookie in the house!" Yet, that wasn't really possible - I did have a storage room in my little back yard. It was of block, but the ceiling was insulated and the door was thick and of metal. I pulled all my stuff out (I thought) and piled it on the downwind side then filled the building with hay and straw. The wind made the pores on my face bleed. The sleet stuck to my body in freaky ice sheets that made me unable to bend my arms and legs easily. I could barely breathe. By the grace of God and Goddess I led Snookie up the hill to the backyard. He was covered in layers (a mesh sheet, blanket and turn out rug on top) and still was shaking from the cold. I "stuffed" him into the room, crunchy ice sheets all stuck to his sides, neck and face. My gas stove worked (it was really old - they work best - simple) so I kept making him buckets of hot herb tea and sloppy hot (warm!) bran mashes and wet pellets. The dogs and I hunkered down in the cottage with warm rice and oatmeal for them, soups and lots of hot tea for me. We were like that for three days!! The roads and highway were closed. As the storm stopped and the sun peaked out onto our glistening ice world, I started pulling manure out of the storage/Snookie room and decided to let him walk around the back yard carefully (the ground was solid ice).
The sun thawed us out quickly. Life returned to normal. Snookie survived quite well and was glad to get back to his pen! After all was cleaned out from the shed he lived in over 5 days, I found a little television under the poop that I had completely forgotten I had. It was unharmed (just poopey), but more important, Snookie hadn't been hurt by it... amazing. I'll never know how he kept from stepping on it.

Wind Horses

The school and boarding stable I had here in Las Cruces (started in 1982 at the Briarwood Dressage facility we built around the dome house I bought north of town) was at the back of a long field of alfalfa. My turn out for my own horses was the arena and boarders went out in the field that was fenced with black rubber fencing. The arena was made of 1 by 12 boards on 4x4 posts with one strand of electric fence on top that was only turned on when horses were loose inside.
I had all the school horses out one very windy day - 10 horses of varying ages, sizes and temperaments. I was mucking when the wind actually blew the top boards off of one line of fence, breaking the electric tape as well. One of my school horses was a retired open jumper named Smokie (Holy Smoke) who was the only equine that did not jump the lower boards and gallop off across the country side! He looked at me as if he knew he wasn't supposed to leave - I yelled at him to "stay" and took off after my disappearing herd of 9! One of those wildly galloping bay geldings was Halftone - the babysitter who could barely do a one mile an hour jog in a lesson... now leading the whole group down the road and through a large mobile home park set within an orchard. Zigzagging through trees and fenced yards, my herd stayed together and parents were grabbing their children from the swings and slides, holding tight to them. I was gasping for air, legs cramping as I tried to keep up (foolishly) with my horses.
They made their way around and turned back toward home. When I finally got to the barn - my neighbor (a young girl who took lessons from us and knew each of the horses) had put Smokie in his stall and was slowly catching the exhausted, sweating, just a bit too pleased with themselves school string. We pulled their water and started rubbing them down, offering small drinks until they had all cooled. The wind kept howling. I thanked my neighbor profusely and never charged her for a lesson after that day.
Companions in my life always seem a bit impatient with my double and triple checking gates; wiring boards onto posts in addition to screws or nails; becoming edgy when the wind blows... and explanations are just kind of useless. For most of the experiences with horses in my life, you just "had to be there".

Peanuts

When we had the school and livery in Tucumcari, we would drive a big truck to Amarillo every two weeks to get bagged shavings for the box stalls. We would have the 200 bags loaded onto the truck, then we had to unload and stack them at home. It seemed like a lot of work and money for bedding. The father of a student who would come up from Portales told me all about the massive amounts of peanut hulls that were available free for the taking and that the horse people there used them successfully for bedding. He said that horses did not eat them. It seemed worth a try. So, before we were out of pine shavings (I do think ahead most of the time), Leon, Bill and I took the white truck with the box bed and huge garage type door... plus snow shovels, goggles and bandanas at my friend's suggestion.
In Portales, we found the processing company and backed up to a loading dock area where there were mountains of peanut hulls. We started shovelling them into the truck. We took turns being inside the box to push them to the front... the dust was unfathomable. My thought was that, after all this handling, by the time we put the hulls into the stalls, the dust would be minimal. Besides, I could dampen them down for the horses if need be.
We stopped at a cafe with a truck filled to its limits with the peanut hulls and us looking like we had been mining brown coal. We had white patches where the goggles had been, lips crusted shut with the dust mud of saliva, nostrils caked and clothes that made clouds when we moved. I was beginning to doubt the advantages of this idea... but we ate and felt stronger and drove home to Tucumcari.
The next day we mucked; pushed the saved shavings against the stall walls; filled the stalls with the peanut hulls and pulled the saved shavings over them to make the beds. The wheelbarrowing of hulls from the truck parked just inside the barn aisle raised another massive dust cloud. We sprayed everything lightly with the water hose and filled hay feeders. We brought the horses in from the field. Some just went to their hay. Others pawed the strange, fluffy beds and rolled before eating. A couple of ponies munched some bedding first, then went to their hay.
The next morning I just stood aghast in the aisle when I realized that all the horses had eaten every peanut hull!! I quickly dosed everyone with mineral oil and then fed wet, sloppy bran mashes and that was ALL they got to eat until noon when I fed a small bucket feed. They pooped 4 times as much manure during the night and that morning. We mucked for several hours. The peanut hulls cost us a lot of time and work, they made tons of manure we didn't need, could have coliced all our horses, left them with essentially no bedding in their stalls (we did bed lightly with shavings that night) and left us with a needed trip to Amarillo and the 3 of us with sinus irritation and coughs to deal with. Lesson learned.

Balloons

A friend and student was riding her three year old gaited gelding alone in the arroyos when they suddenly came upon a shiny helium balloon (from the grocery store!) just hovering about head high in the middle of their path! Obviously it had floated away from someone and its "lift" had diminished until it had found its way into the desert. It had a bug-eyed, startling face painted on it and was metallic and crinkley. Her horse was beside himself, but listened to her and she was finally able to calm him and even get a hold of the balloon and bring it home - where she tied it at various spots for her other horses to get accustomed to the sight of it. After hearing about the encounter, I began buying a weird balloon now and then at Albertson's and tying it to fences where my horses were turned out. It was the inspiration for the Dharmahorse Confidence Clinic balloon mazes.
Another student told me about a trail ride where she found a couple of nice plastic pots on the road, tied them at the cantle of her saddle and was riding home with them just fine until they picked up a trot...........

Ponies

I bought a medium pony from a student who had out grown her in Roswell. A really pretty little bay mare, she was very well schooled and became a school horse for us. "Coquette" had the typical pony's inclination to jump the fences that horses twice her size jumped. Before I bought her, her little girl and my working student were schooling for a show. We knew the outside hunt course well - there was a 3'3" white rolltop with a 4'3" spread to it. It was off a kind of corner and weird looking to the horses (and us, to be honest!). My students and I had been jumping that heighth and width, but we all kept worrying about that rolltop. My brother's idea was to build and paint that jump for us. So, with a copy of it sitting in our jump arena, I set up a jumping lane down one long side. It was just a one stride, bounce, bounce and 2 stride, then a left turn to get to the rolltop going in the opposite direction. It rode brilliantly! The girls just flew over the rolltop after the gymnastic and we were in awe of little Coquette. After adding a little course and clearing the rolltop twice, the girls all wanted to go over it "one more time"... this is always risky. And I know better - when things go so well, STOP, reward the horse, pat yourself on the back... but we made the mistake and rode to it one more time. We taught all the horses to refuse that jump that day. And once the horses' confidence (and the girls') was shaken, they all had trouble at the show at that fence. I write about mistakes I've made and ones I have watched through these many years with the hope that someone reading about them won't make them, too.
Coquette was a favorite with young students. I had a meek young girl who adored her and rode her at shows some. This little girl was blonde, wore thick glasses and was so very, very quiet. We were loading horses one morning for a show and Coquette was the third one up the ramp (where the horses were turned around and backed into their stalls). I turned her around (she had done this dozens of times) and, being such a sly pony, she knew I was just expecting her cooperation. She bolted out of my hands with a squeal and galloped down the ramp! The little blonde girl just took hold of the lead shank as it flew by her and when Coquette felt the connection, she "doubled" at the constraint of the line. We all just stood blinking for a moment since it had happened so fast and the outcome was a pure shock! The girl led the pony up the ramp to me and Coquette never did that again.

TBird

I had a school of Dressage and Combined Training in Roswell, New Mexico. We boarded and trained horses, had a nice group of school horses as well. A young girl became my apprentice and brought her palomino gelding with her to our stable. His name was TBird. He could trot and had a little running walk kind of lateral gait, too! He was an angel in a horse suit. His owner had the chance to buy a colt to start and get a cute, young Appaloosa from her grandparents, so I bought TBird. What fun he was. Beginners were safe on him, more experiences riders could be challenged riding him because he adjusted to the level of the person on board. He would jump anything you pointed him to - even with a halter, bareback. We used him as a lead horse when a green horse needed confidence over a fence. He went to shows and clinics, did trail rides and pretty much everything anyone asked of him.
He had come through a dealer's yard. In those days, there were a lot of horse dealers and I was often out looking through their offerings for horses to train or for school mounts. There were never any horses better and very few as good as our TBird. My favorite TBird story was when we took him to Albuquerque to a Dressage clinic with a famous instructor. This man was a good teacher and was working with my apprentice on TBird. A little hollow through his back, TBird was difficult to truly collect in the trot and this clinician was a little frustrated with my student. He asked her to dismount, adjusted the stirrups and mounted to show us all how to do it "right". Funny old TBird! He picked up his lateral gait (a kind of rack mixed with foxtrot like movement) and would not do anything else with this man on board! When my student got back on (this was a horse she had known for years, of course), TBird trotted without any sign of lateral leg moves. We held back laughter - not at the teacher, but chuckles that would simply acknowledged TBird's obvious sense of humor! This is a photo of him with a student from WAY back.

prayer wheels

Sam

We had neighbors in Tucumcari who raised Appaloosas. Times were tough for them and they talked me into buying 3 horses, one gelding and 2 colts not yet castrated. Now these horses had grown up with people, so they had a different perspective than the 3 wild ones, but they had their own issues as well. They had not received the best of nutrition, but they had been handled a lot. I seemed to be doing things in 3's! Goldie was a lovely 4 year old gelding with only halter training (!) who took to the longe like a gentleman and I was riding him after 3 weeks. Punkin was only 8 months old, Sam was 2 years and cryptorchid (he only had one testicle descended), so I knew I was looking at a more complex surgery to geld him. Punkin was a solid palomino (who later got some mottling and spots) and Sam was huge, totally the look of an old Nez Perce Appy - mostly white/gray with lots of spots and mottling on the face, sclera showing on the eyes and very striped hooves. His tail and mane were sparse, his bone dense and hooves properly large.
Sam became my project because I just really liked his personality, strength and energy. He seemed so focused and kind. I had a veterinarian friend come out and we set up for the surgery in the aisle of the barn. Against my better judgement, the Vet immediately removed the testicle that had dropped (I made major notes on everything which side had been done - how would we know later if the retained one wasn't found?) It must have been my worrying because he could not find the other testicle. Sam had been under long enough, so we sutured him (actually, I did, my hands were so agile back then) and set up a clean stall while he came to.
I don't remember how long we waited, but I took Sam to the clinic of another friend who was a Veterinarian. We worked for an hour and he found the retained one, removed it and I had a gelding. We started Sam's schooling right away as he needed light, supervised exercise.
A few months later, he was wearing a jumping saddle and longeing well. We put the western saddle on him a couple of times (bigger and heavier, preparing for the feel of a rider, too). One afternoon he was in the cross ties groomed and ready; Leon put a different western saddle on him - this one had a rear cinch attached - so Leon just buckled it without thinking. My brother was standing in the aisle 2 stalls down from the cross ties in front of Sam. I had just stepped out of the tackroom with the longe cavesson. Sam took a deep breath. Then came the explosion! Poor Sam reacted as most horses would - he took off to escape the unfamiliar thing grabbing his midsection/flanks. The 6X6 wooden posts that were the cross ties broke right at the ground. Safety snaps failed, no one of us could have grabbed a quick release in the storm that was horse, legs, ropes and posts flying in all directions. Out the aisle door he went onto 40 acres! As he passed my brother, a kicking hindleg punched through the stall door not 12 inches from his waist.
We ran out to see the not tightened up saddle now slide around and rest underneath poor Sam's belly. Still galloping, now bucking, still dragging the wooden posts, one on each side that were crashing against his legs at each stride - Sam looked like a horse doomed for sure. Sweating, gasping with his head now wrenched to the left as he finally stopped, Sam seemed to be ready for help. I caught up with him half way to the back fence. I was sure I would see broken legs, blood, horror. But Sam was standing there. I talked him into calming and allowing me to get close. The first task was to release the damn saddle. The rear cinch had broken (thank goodness, it was probably why he stopped). I got to the main cinch of the upside down saddle and, it being loose, was able to release the buckle on the latigo. The saddle fell to the ground. Sam jumped to the side. Then he stretched up, leaned toward me and let me disconnect the ropes at his halter. There were no wounds. I could tell he was really bruised, but no broken bones... he didn't even limp as we walked him back to the barn! That was one tough horse! And, with no rear cinch, he was fine for the next saddling a week later after lots of cold water therapy. I had to work hard to keep his accident out of my mind when I mounted him for the first time! He was an angel. I had him going well and sold him as a green prospect for a combined training rider in Santa Fe! Sam was a really great horse, bet he made a super eventer!

Water

We have a new way of using water therapy for horses detailed in the Rain in the Desert Water Therapy for Horses booklet by Katharine. We use flooding the water in sheets in specific patterns to prepare for wrapping and moving lymph, blood and chi circulation! It is only $7.95 (plus a bit of shipping cost), can be ordered through the dharmahorse site or the naturalpaths site.

Mother & son...

So much happened during those years in Tucumcari. Before the 3 wild youngsters, I had gone to Albuquerque to look at a mare and gelding who happened to be dam and offspring (I quickly realized that the gelding, at age 8, had never been emotionally weaned!). They were so sweet and just as calm as could be when riding, so I bought the two of them, then started trying to load them into my horse van. The 11 year old mare, Ginger, a small, pretty brown QH type went right up the ramp; turned around and backed into her stall. I put her in the cross ties, fastened her chest bar and hung her hay net. Two hours later, I was still trying to load the gelding, "Gunner". Ginger did not care where he was, but he frantically wanted to be with her yet just could not force himself up that ramp. The sellers had left, but returned to let me know that Gunner had never been off the property or in a trailer... I was starting to think better, knowing this. Poor guy, it was so stressful for him. I decided to push the ramp and sides back in the van, back it up to a hill and get the ramp more level. When he thought that the truck was leaving with "Mom", his eyes got huge (thought he was going to cry!) and as soon as I had things set up again at the hill, he closed his eyes (I'm serious) and just leaped into the van, barely touching the ramp. It was a peaceful trip back home for me with the 2 new horses munching their hay quietly, the headlights of the truck cutting through the dark and the desert air flowing through the tilt cab's vent windows.
Gunner and Ginger turned out to be great school horses and in time, he was able to bond with the other geldings and become an independant, middle aged, bay fellow with the cutest little ears and funny narrow chest!
This experience helped me later when I was in Las Cruces and had taken the horse van to Roswell to buy a gelding for my school. The big, bay Quarter Horse gelding did not want to go up that ramp (and let me say right here that these were the only two horses out of over a hundred that did not like the van - most horses just loved it and walked in and out with confidence). But "Tull" (I named him Jethro Tull) needed to get in - two friends had gone with me, we had mountains to cross to get home and it was getting cold and dark! I had to back the van right up against a steep hill; no ramp or sides, they stayed inside as I led Tull up onto the hill, got to the end of the lead myself in the van and asked the 2 cowboys to be super assertive and just send him forward at me. They didn't want to - I encouraged them... when they got after him, 1,400 pounds of Tull leaped right into the van and stopped 6 inches in front of me. "Good man!" I told him; turned him around, backed him into his stall, etc. and we were on the road!
Tull was a funny horse. He wasn't working out for the school. He was too sensitive to leg aids and needed one, consistent rider. I had sold a "babysitter" horse to a family a couple of years earlier who now wanted something a bit zippier for the father/husband. I needed a horse like "Halftone", the one I had sold them; so we arranged a trade - IF they liked Tull. They came to Briarwood with Halftone in their trailer. The husband led Tull around, tacked him up and I talked to him about how to relate to this new mount. He got on, dug his heels in (my heart jumped into my throat) and Tull literally "blasted off" across the arena and down through the turn out. The guy stayed on, steered him back up to the stable yard, still at a gallop. They slid to a stop and, smiling, he said this was the best horse he had ever known. WHEW!

wild horses

What I noticed most about the three wild horses was their confusion. Of course, it made sense. They had been born into a truly feral environment. What happened to them, after 3 years of living in a natural, wild state was the equivalent of being abducted by extraterrestrials! They began to see me as a source of food - maybe "not all that bad", but certainly still a very scary presence in the barn. They were eating from the feed tubs with the halters tied in them (and balancing their diet was a challenge - in those days, grass hays were hard to find in northern New Mexico, everyone fed alfalfa!), my tame horses were influencing them (I put a school horse in a stall beside each wild one); so I started standing in a stall with a bucket of pellets, bran and herbs quietly waiting for each youngster to approach. Being Buddhist really helps at these times. You have to be calm, relaxed, patient and still as you allow each horse the sovreignty of his own time frame to acceptance. I had a halter on Chinquapen in no time and was hand grooming him. Dawn had an affinity for my boyfriend/partner, Leon, who got her halter on next. Onyx was to become Leon's horse... Onyx was the most volatile. He hated seeing humans in the aisle (when students arrived for lessons or we took out another horse for turn out or training) so we made a dummy by stuffing clothes with newspapers (named it "Wally") and hung it just outside his stall. It did help.
But, we had 2 young stallions... I decided castration was a priority. I fed the two a strong dose of Ace granules the morning of the planned surgery. They actually ate it. The Vet helped and he and Leon quickly and carefully got a halter on the wobbly Onyx. Chinquapen was all smiles! They had standing castrations in the aisle of the barn. Onyx needed more drugs than Chinquapen, but the strange thing was that, after the gelding and now wearing a leather halter with a 12 inch cotton rope tied on it - Onyx became easier to approach right away. I felt like he had given in and given up... but even at that, Onyx was still wild as a whirlwind. He just acknowleged our existence now!

Stories continue...

In Tucumcari, I bought 3 horses, all age 3 years, who had never seen a human being until they were "rounded up" and sent through a chute into a stock trailer, then delivered to my barn. They were unloaded into the aisle where they, paniced and in shock, found a box stall each to hide in. What they taught me cannot even be fully described. There were 2 colts and a filly. Thank goodness she wasn't in foal! But we didn't know until a full year had passed. They were 1/2 Thoroughbreds. The sire was a TB stallion, a son of Jack Straw, I believe, and one colt was a solid chestnut (named him Chinquapen); the other a black & white pinto (named him Onyx) and the filly was a bay/white pinto (named her Dawn..."Dance of the Dawn", actually). These young horses had been born on sections of land - huge desert and native grass land that included a mountain of its own. I had just turned 21. I had a relative of these youngsters, my Appaloosa, "Breath of Snow" who had come to me as a "wild" weanling almost four years earlier. I had him going under saddle... these three, I couldn't even imagine getting them to that point! At first, they had to live in the 14 X 14 foot box stalls because if I let them out on the 40 acres, I'd never catch them... couldn't "catch" them in a box stall!
So, using only my instincts (taught to me by the horses I'd known), I tied a halter in each feed tub so they would need to touch it to eat their bucket feeds... I had to do that through the feed doors because it wasn't safe those first couple of days to enter a stall with any of them. It turned out that Chinquapen was Snookie's full brother and they had a rapport, so I put them beside each other (the stall dividers were screened, not solid). Chinquapen watched me working with Snookie. In 2 days I could go in and muck his stall. I tried to always move with quiet confidence - never being sudden; never moving in a creepy, preditory way. Because our aisle between the stalls was wide enough and high enough to ride in, I could let one young wild thing at a time out into that aisle to move around and give me time to muck, etc.
In the months that followed, much happened, that I will relate here over time. The lessons were profound and serve me to this day. I will tell you that Chinquapen became a dependable sweet riding horse for a lady. Riding Onyx his first (and last for me) ride took more courage than anything I had done before! And Dawn was just too sensitive to be ridden. I still dream about them (over 30 years later!) and their brother, Snookie (Breath of Snow) my beloved companion until several years ago. Snookie's photo is on the right side of this blog - me jumping him, warming up at a Pecos Valley Horsemen Horse Trials in Roswell, way back! And Onyx is the horse trotting on this old ad for the stable I had in Tucumcari (the ad is from the '70's - Fox Fire started there in 1973). We had dozens and dozens of good horses we trained there and taught on and boarded (an herbal barn before it was popular), but the most memorable for me are the 4 from the wild hills!

Water Therapy

The Water Therapy for Horses book will be available next week. Information will be on the Dharmahorse.com site, or email us at katharinechrisley@yahoo.com

More Horse Stories...

In Tucumcari, we had our barn in the middle of 40 acres of native pasture. Sometimes, we finished working and feeding horses well after dark (the barn was 12 stalls with a very wide aisle, lights, etc.) and had to walk pretty far back up to the house. One night, well after dark, my Mom and I were strolling home and talking under the most awe inspiring sky full of stars (no light pollution there!), when we heard distance chatter of coyotes, like laughing ladies beyond the field. And they kept getting louder and closer. We walked faster and got really quiet. The sound was just a little weird, like coyotes with an odd accent. And they were closing in on us! We stopped and held our breath as the chatter overcame us, then passed overhead. I was thinking, "flying coyotes!" (I was young) - my Mom started laughing out loud, they were sandhill cranes.
Another time we were finishing up with the horses, had hurried to get them all inside as a huge thunderstorm flopped over the mountain (Tucumcari mountain) and all at once the rain was pouring and lightning striking with bolts so big we could smell the ozone. We ran toward home, the charge of electricity made even our now damp hair stick up. We went to duck through the pipe fence by the house when a thunder bolt hit a few yards away and the pipe lit up and popped a big spark at us. We were both squealing; got real low bent over and waddled around the fence to where it turned to wood at the entrance to the yard. When we got inside, we watched through the big glass windows that were the walls of the east side of the house. The power was off and we could see eveything just fine from the almost strobe effect of all the lightning. The feelings of those times are embedded into my memory - I can see it happening in mind all over again when I remember, but the power of it all is in how it felt and how I can still feel it.