Yesterday afternoon I was at the barn and had encouraged my daughter to get her rides in before the rain came. It was one of those unusual days where we were getting little bits of rain, then sun, then clouds, then sprinkles, etc.
I was so busy in the barn I didn't notice that she'd come outside, and only realized it when I noticed the pony's bridle was missing from the tack room. The next thing I knew he was in the barn aisle being groomed, and there was no sound, just a girl and her pony, going through a routine they've been through hundreds of times, needing no words to communicate.
They were there, and then they were in the arena. At some point I stopped what I was doing to watch. She was riding him bareback, as his pony saddle is now too small for her, and we keep changing our minds about what we want to replace it. We were initially thinking a dressage saddle, and now we're thinking a treeless Barefoot saddle, but whatever we do will require a fitting, and with everything going on we haven't gotten around to it.
Sometimes she uses her Little Joe bareback pad, but mostly she rides him bareback these days.
As I watched, she had finished warming him up and was moving into the working part of her ride. She's a very quiet, naturally balanced rider anyway, but yesterday afternoon her body seemed particularly still and only moved with the motion of his gaits. The picture of the two of them caused me to hold my breath.
She had the reins in one hand and her legs were perfectly still against his sides, but the pony was walking, trotting, cantering, circling, turning on invisible cues I could not see, even when I tried. The contact was there, but not through the reins or the bit. This was a pony anyone would say was "on the aids" - perfectly so - and yet the aids were not visible to my eye.
She often carries a dressage whip when she rides him, which she uses to do a "tap, tap" cue if needed, but yesterday she didn't even have that. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a beautiful, quiet, harmonious ride, and I couldn't take my eyes away because I wanted to learn from what I was seeing.
I've figured out that the mark of a wonderful horse and rider team, for me, is when the ride seems to approach the sacred. To speak would be an unforgivable interruption, and the only appropriate response is to watch, silently, and hope I absorb some of that magic.
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
new petition: JUST SAY YES!
Thanks, Beth, for sending this my way!
Just say yes to the existing FEI rules and standards regarding head and neck position in dressage!
GO HERE TO SIGN.
Just say yes to the existing FEI rules and standards regarding head and neck position in dressage!
GO HERE TO SIGN.
celebrating compost
Yesterday we dug into the grandfather manure pile and found the gardener's version of gold. I've been told this morning that I either need a vacation or a stiff drink for celebrating this, and I laughed, but to be honest, it's one of the little miracles of living on a farm that I hope I never stop celebrating.
Since January I've been making small compost piles around the perimeter of my pastures, with the intention of composting some of our stall waste right where it's needed, so that when when it's mature, I can simply drag it out across the field. Unlike with chemical fertilizers, horses can graze immediately on composted fields.
It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out. Yesterday I shifted from pile making to pile seeding. I'm going to cover each small pile with a nice layer of mature compost and then let nature do its thing.
Meanwhile, I've started saving for a composting system made by the o2 company, which will significantly reduce the time it takes to get from stall waste to mature compost. I can move the portable bins around to where I need them, and run the aerating fan with a small solar panel. The company also has a page on their site which talks about using mature compost as stall bedding, which would make the bedding issue a closed circle at some point - no need to buy more! I can't quite picture it, but apparently there are more than a few horse farms doing this with good results. For the horse sensitive to the usual bedding materials, I can imagine compost being a very benign alternative.
Aside from the obvious benefits of composting, which include turning a waste material into something valuable, protecting the groundwater, and possibly reducing expenses overall, I confess there seems something almost magical about the process, and that has its own appeal.
One of the most constant, never-ending chores on a horse farm has to do with mucking and managing manure. Horses are designed to graze nearly 24 hours a day, and as we toss hay and maintain pasture to keep that possible for horses not able to range as they do in the wild, it's not lost on most of us that what goes in one end comes out the other.
Two years ago I transformed the daily chore into something pleasurable when I started using my wheelbarrow loads to create the labyrinth path. Once done, I moved on to the woodland path. Now I'm making these small piles, thinking of them as alchemical mounds, which will transform to gardening gold.
Even the equines are excited about it. I'm noticing they helpfully drop the manure close to the piles, and yesterday, as I was working on one small pile in the back field, the pony came over and backed up, leaving me more raw material for my alchemy lab.
Since January I've been making small compost piles around the perimeter of my pastures, with the intention of composting some of our stall waste right where it's needed, so that when when it's mature, I can simply drag it out across the field. Unlike with chemical fertilizers, horses can graze immediately on composted fields.
It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out. Yesterday I shifted from pile making to pile seeding. I'm going to cover each small pile with a nice layer of mature compost and then let nature do its thing.
Meanwhile, I've started saving for a composting system made by the o2 company, which will significantly reduce the time it takes to get from stall waste to mature compost. I can move the portable bins around to where I need them, and run the aerating fan with a small solar panel. The company also has a page on their site which talks about using mature compost as stall bedding, which would make the bedding issue a closed circle at some point - no need to buy more! I can't quite picture it, but apparently there are more than a few horse farms doing this with good results. For the horse sensitive to the usual bedding materials, I can imagine compost being a very benign alternative.
Aside from the obvious benefits of composting, which include turning a waste material into something valuable, protecting the groundwater, and possibly reducing expenses overall, I confess there seems something almost magical about the process, and that has its own appeal.
One of the most constant, never-ending chores on a horse farm has to do with mucking and managing manure. Horses are designed to graze nearly 24 hours a day, and as we toss hay and maintain pasture to keep that possible for horses not able to range as they do in the wild, it's not lost on most of us that what goes in one end comes out the other.
Two years ago I transformed the daily chore into something pleasurable when I started using my wheelbarrow loads to create the labyrinth path. Once done, I moved on to the woodland path. Now I'm making these small piles, thinking of them as alchemical mounds, which will transform to gardening gold.
Even the equines are excited about it. I'm noticing they helpfully drop the manure close to the piles, and yesterday, as I was working on one small pile in the back field, the pony came over and backed up, leaving me more raw material for my alchemy lab.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Monday, March 08, 2010
rolling on, into a new week
Looking back to last week, it seems surreal - a wrinkle in time, to borrow from Madeleine L'Engle. Yesterday afternoon the wrinkle began to flatten out again, and we started work cleaning/pruning two big garden beds.
I imagined getting both of them completely done, but due to our jolly green giant butterfly bushes, we only made it halfway through one bed. My aversion to pruning always gets me in the end, because when it finally becomes critical that it get done, it's a huge undertaking. It's intriguing to me that every time I undertake the huge pruning chore, it coincides with the need to 'cut through' something, or unstick myself from some mental entanglement.
This time it was what I needed to move on from this past week, which was sad and beautiful all at once, and difficult to let go. Much more difficult obviously for Gerry's closest friends and family members than for me, but it was clear that pruning away dead branches, dragging them to a pile, and then sitting with them as they burned to ash, was both metaphorical and healing.
We are having a beautiful stretch of days. The front field is looking so clean and good, and yesterday I saw just a shimmer of green beginning. The bare paddock always looks a mess this time of year - it gets the most traffic and right now it's so torn up it seems there is no way anything will ever grow there again. And yet by midsummer we will be seeing grass there, and I'll be amazed at the earth and how it heals itself with no help from us humans.
I have errands to do today, and chores, and if the forecast is correct it will be 68 degrees this afternoon. We now have two shedding equines - Salina, and the pony, going in the same sequence from year to year. We see the brush turn black when Salina sheds, and white once the pony starts. The copper and red bay comes a little later, and the donkeys shed out last of all, which is pretty smart of them, since their fur is good pest control.
I think this will be a good week to continue the spring cleaning we've been doing, and to start a few new projects: vegetable garden, new way of composting, etc. Right now it feels good to have good work to do.
I imagined getting both of them completely done, but due to our jolly green giant butterfly bushes, we only made it halfway through one bed. My aversion to pruning always gets me in the end, because when it finally becomes critical that it get done, it's a huge undertaking. It's intriguing to me that every time I undertake the huge pruning chore, it coincides with the need to 'cut through' something, or unstick myself from some mental entanglement.
This time it was what I needed to move on from this past week, which was sad and beautiful all at once, and difficult to let go. Much more difficult obviously for Gerry's closest friends and family members than for me, but it was clear that pruning away dead branches, dragging them to a pile, and then sitting with them as they burned to ash, was both metaphorical and healing.
We are having a beautiful stretch of days. The front field is looking so clean and good, and yesterday I saw just a shimmer of green beginning. The bare paddock always looks a mess this time of year - it gets the most traffic and right now it's so torn up it seems there is no way anything will ever grow there again. And yet by midsummer we will be seeing grass there, and I'll be amazed at the earth and how it heals itself with no help from us humans.
I have errands to do today, and chores, and if the forecast is correct it will be 68 degrees this afternoon. We now have two shedding equines - Salina, and the pony, going in the same sequence from year to year. We see the brush turn black when Salina sheds, and white once the pony starts. The copper and red bay comes a little later, and the donkeys shed out last of all, which is pretty smart of them, since their fur is good pest control.
I think this will be a good week to continue the spring cleaning we've been doing, and to start a few new projects: vegetable garden, new way of composting, etc. Right now it feels good to have good work to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)