two new series starting tomorrow

I'm not sure if it's spring that's pushing me to organize, or if I'm being taken over by the "series Borg," but lately I'm thinking of all my blog posting in terms of themes and ongoing posts that relate.

On the November Hill Press blog I'm doing a series on The Writing Life. It's about writing, of course, but several people have emailed me to say they think it is applicable to all artists and to life in general, so even if you're not a writer you might go check it out and see if it appeals.

I have put the mystic-lit blog on hiatus because I felt I couldn't keep up with three blogs at this point.

And in an effort to corral my helter-skelter posts here on camera-obscura, I decided today I am starting two series, at least for a few weeks, to see how it goes. I will inevitably end up posting other stuff too but the series will keep me more focused than I have been lately.

The first one is a series on living with the senior horse, and all the issues that come with that. Salina's 28th birthday is tomorrow and I'm becoming keenly aware of time passing for her, and of the ways in which her journey is informing my own. I want to write about this because I need to make some sense of it for myself. There are ways in which it is both difficult and transformational, and I want to focus on exploring those ways.

The second series is completely different. As I've been writing about at least weekly, spring is here for many of us, and for others it is on the way. I am getting far too caught up in farm management tasks and want to get caught up in riding the Big Bay (and Cody) instead. For the first several years we lived here, I had riding lessons in our arena at least twice a week. I rode 3-4x/week and sometimes daily. The past two years I have seen a huge decrease in my riding time. Some of that has had to do with physical events - injuring myself doing a yoga move (opening the root chakra is nothing to mess around with, believe me!) and falling down the stairs two different times. It also has had to do with the death of my father, which put me in a very cocoon-like state in a lot of ways, and also focused my attention onto my own aging process.

This year I have felt more physical changes than I ever have. I know some of them are related to aging, but some are related to not riding as much. And it's time to take that last piece OUT of the equation.

So - I am going to post twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, using a series title I have not yet come up with, but it will be a post reporting on my rides during that time period. I'll do a little report on what I did, how it went, what was best about the rides, and what I want to do during the next ones.

But! This isn't a series of posts about me riding - it's also about anyone who wants to participate in this with me. I invite everyone to post about your rides during that time frame. You can elaborate or if you already blog about your work with horses, use the comment as a way to check in and feel free to link to your posts on your own blogs.

And if you don't ride, you can also feel free to check in about something you are doing that is meaningful and important and that you're putting into a prominent place in your life by making sure you DO it regularly.

I think I need a little camaraderie. Sort of like what I got from riding lessons being on my calendar twice a week. But free. And online.  I think I might call it Lessons in Riding.

Whatever it ends up being called, I hope you'll join in the conversation.

springtime and horses and chores

I spent some time yesterday raking out a number of compost piles in the front field. The horses have rotated to the back full time now and while the front field rests I'm getting all the compost mounds spread out, doing some fire ant patrol, and hopefully cleaning up some branches that need trimming and clearing. I also need to rake up the sweetgum balls and the pine cones! I do a few swipes a day and am making slow progress with that method.

We had a big rain last night after several very warm windy days during which our county was on a wildfire alert - and I just had a weather alert pop up as I am typing this saying that tonight we are having a frost alert! It is never dull here when it comes to weather changing suddenly.

This morning it is beautiful. Everything is clean and sparkling, and I've already done muck duty so can now go back out and finish my compost spreading. The grass grew overnight - it always amazes me when we get a rain this time of year and the grass literally shoots up behind it.

I went through the back field earlier this morning, cleaning it up a bit as the herd finished breakfast and came out to have hay. There wasn't much mucking to be done back there as they were in last night due to the rain, but before they came in, they must have had a big party with the jumps. Every jump was knocked down, the trot poles were all askew, the flowers on my jump standards were torn apart, and the pinwheels were tipped down.

Everything is back in place now.

The carpenter bees have notched down their wild kamikazi flying a bit and there are increasing numbers of butterflies wafting by.

On a different note, I am seeing flies, and the pines are beginning to shed pollen, which means water trough duty is going to get more rigorous again. It's time to start tick check too.

I wrote on Facebook this morning that as much as I love the rhythm and routine of seasonal farm chores, rotating the horses and donkeys, and working on the pastures, I must have been a farmer in a past life. A friend noted that she thinks I'm one in THIS life, which made me laugh.

When I get one of those cute little blue tractors with all the attachments and a three-bay shed to park it all in, I'll officially declare myself a farmer. Meanwhile I'm just channeling some farmer energy a few hours a day.

Signs That Might Be Omens now available on Amazon

You can click the book cover on the right sidebar to go directly to its Amazon page!


In celebration of the publication of Signs, I started a new series on the November Hill Press blog called The Writing Life. I hope you'll head over there and read/comment.

april on its way

Although we've been seeing signs of spring for weeks now, yesterday the season suddenly seemed to take hold and although I could be wrong, I think it's now here to stay. The first carpenter bee late last week has now turned into a cloud of whirling dervish bee activity by the barn shelter.

The dogwoods are blooming. The tulips are blooming. By mid-day the horses had parked themselves up at the barn seeking shade. It was 80 degrees and with still not quite shed out winter coats and no leaves yet on the trees, they needed a break from the hot sun.

I got the stalls clean for them, turned on the fans, and started sorting out who was going to go where. Keil Bay was determined to be the first one in a stall, but Salina, usually perfectly happy to walk over and come through the gate into her paddock, wouldn't budge either.

So I held the gate open and called to whoever wanted to come through. Cody and Rafer Johnson marched through and their reward was getting to pick their area - barn aisle with clean stall and access to the big barnyard - or grass paddock with clean stall.

They both picked the barn aisle and stall and big barnyard, so I closed the barn doors and opened the gate again. Apache and Keil Bay decided to take the grass paddock and stall. They will happily share a stall so no problem there.

Salina and Redford, by default, got the barn shelter and two stalls.

Even with the fans on, the carpenter bees were making a tremendous noise. The birds were singing. Horses were snorting. And suddenly, just like that, it was spring. Which to me always seems very loud after the long, quiet winter.

March has rushed past and looking at the calendar for April I'm remembering that it's always one of the busiest months of the year for us. Activities stacked up on calendar blocks and things that need to get done inside and out. Four big birthdays. This last week in March feels like the calm before the storm. And one more birthday to go before month's end, which is a very special one.


Spring has returned.  The Earth is like a child that knows poems.  
~Rainer Maria Rilke

a little bit of a pet peeve

I just need to vent. What is it with people meeting horses and immediately commenting on various aspects of conformation?

The relationship between conformation and horses being able to do various things w/o damaging themselves makes sense to me - I can see discussing that if you're looking to buy a horse or trying to assess whether a sport is a good fit, etc.

Breeding for the best conformation possible also makes sense to me, and discussions in that context as well.

But walking up to a horse and pointing out a "flaw" is the same thing as me meeting someone and saying "Hi, it looks like your jaw is set too far back on the lower half."

It's bad enough that people do this, period, but imo 9 out of 10 horse people don't even know what they're talking about when it comes to conformation, and to a certain degree it's a subjective thing anyway.

Are any of us made "perfectly?" I think not! Do we categorize ourselves based on our physical flaws? Not in my circle of friends and acquaintances.

Horses deserve more respect than being discussed this way, as do the people who live with and care for them.

As my friend D says:

and that is all I have to say about THAT.