Thursday, November 12, 2009

sojourn from the storm



Yesterday morning I opened the curtains to our front windows to find a small flock of birds taking refuge from the rain.

They were on the chairs, on the porch rail, and even lined up on the threshold of our front door.

The cats were lined up begging to be let out there, as it was the day of the big rain from Hurricane Ida and the front porch is a way to get outside without getting wet. I made them wait, though, because the birds were obviously trying to find a place to sit and dry out.

Today most of the rain has gone and now we're weathering gray skies and big wind.

As I did my daily check-in on Facebook, to see what news there might be in the rollkur debate, I found a reference to a book called Empowered Horses by Imke Spilker. Further research yielded THIS, a blog post that looks at Spilker's philosophy and work with horses.

I've ordered it, my own little sojourn from rollkur and the insanity in the dressage world.

10 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

The view from your porch looks lovely and very peaceful. No wonder the birds took shelter from the storm there.

That blog post was interesting and I may just have to get that book myself. Thanks for the link.

jme said...

i couldn't resist getting this one either :-) i only briefly skimmed the article, but from what little i read it seems a welcome relief from all the dominance and submission talk from the dressage world in particular. i love the idea of working as equals, or at least as equal as possible... if we're honest, there will always be things we have to decide for them (our unplanned visit from the vet early this morning calls to mind a few :-\ ) but i am curious about the general premise. people always think i'm nuts because i let the horses decide when they'd like to come and go, if they feel like working today or maybe going for a walk instead, etc. it would be nice to know i'm not the only one ;-)

billie said...

I'll let you know how I like it, Arlene. I just couldn't resist.

billie said...

Well, you know you have a kindred spirit here wrt giving the horses a lot of choice in what we do with them!

I'm holding my breath a bit wrt your early a.m. vet visit - I hope all is well.

jme said...

yes all is fine. poor dusty was off her feed and then started to act colicky, but her temp was up to 105, so i called the vet and we got her on antibiotics for ehrlichiosis (sp?) she's much better this morning already, but i am officially declaring war on ticks at the farm!

billie said...

Glad to hear it's not colic, which seems so much more unpredictable. The tick-borne diseases are scary too though, and I worry about the ticks every year. I hope the antibiotics do their job and she continues her improvement!!

ponymaid said...

Billie, I envy you that magnificent bird collection. We just have gangs of truculant, drunken crows at our place. And a noisy woodpecker. Do you know what species your birds are?

billie said...

Sheaffer, they are sparrows, I think. Very small and quite unnerved by all the cats present.

Michelle said...

Love the view - it's so peaceful. And thanks for the link, it was an interesting read!

billie said...

You're welcome, Michelle - I'm happy to be writing from a sunny day today instead of rain!