Friday, April 11, 2008

stuck in a hotel ballroom

Today is day one of a 2-day workshop I'm taking with Bessel Van der Kolk on trauma. He's wonderful, but the hotel ballroom atmosphere nearly always gives me a headache, and right now, after lunch and awaiting the second half of the day, I wish I were in the barn mucking stalls or cleaning tack or, as I did last night, standing in my backyard taking pictures of horses brought in for a lovely treat.

Do you think Keil Bay can stuff any more of the green stuff into his mouth?

6 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

I'm betting Keil Bay can stuff much more than that in his mouth if he tried a little harder. Sorry to hear your not loving the hotel scene, but I'm sure the actual workshop section is enjoyable and interesting.

billie said...

It was wonderful, information wise, and Bessel is a very good speaker.

Keil Bay had two 15-minute sessions with in the back yard today while I was gone, as did each herd member, so I'm sure he stuffed his mouth both times. Getting them geared up for front field turn-out the end of the month, and also getting the back yard mowed. :)

Victoria Cummings said...

I wish our grass looked that good. I just spread some pasture seed mix to try to help the situation yesterday and happily it rained last night. It's smart to ease them into eating it - my vet has more founder and colic this time of year because people don't think that they're turning their kids loose in the candy store. Don't those hotel ballrooms smell weird?

billie said...

So far we haven't seeded our pastures b/c if they get any lusher I'll have to keep horses in their paddocks a huge amount of the day/night to keep them from gaining weight, or use grazing muzzles, which I just don't want to do if I can avoid it.

This time of year we use the backyard, which is so lush, to ease them on to the green grass in increasing increments of time.

I highly recommend the website safergrass.org as a resource to learn about pasture management and the safest times to graze the horses. In spring/summer we switch to night-time turn-out, b/c of biting flies during the day and also b/c the sugar content of the grass is lower at night and early in the morning.

Unknown said...

I don't know anything about horses and grass, but these seem like good things to think about. And I can relate to being away from home and knowing there is a place, and there are moments, authentic to my soul.

billie said...

Yes, Kyle, exactly what you said. Since we moved here I've found that when I'm away, I miss those authentic moments, the anchors of my day.