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November Hill Press will be part of tomorrow's tour - for each comment you leave on each stop on the blog tour, you get a free e-book from that author, a troop gets a free e-book and both you AND a troop get entered in a contest for free Kindles!

GO HERE to start the tour - but do come by November Hill tomorrow and say hello to get your copy of claire-obscure.

wild mustangs, donkeys, and the BLM

 I'm  not sure what we can do to change what happens in this video. Madeleine Pickens is asking Oprah to do a show to raise awareness and force the BLM to stop these practices and to release the horses and donkeys from holding pens back to the range where they were brutally and heartlessly herded by helicopter.

Tonight while reading my Facebook feed I've burst into tears (wailing tears) at a series of photographs of a rescue mare (not a mustang) that is now in safe  hands. Then I came across this video. I watched it once, and I can't watch it again. But every one of us who love horses and donkeys, each of us who know how special these animals are, and how much they matter in our world, need to see this just one time, and get one other person to watch it just one time - so that one by one and two by two, we can create a group of people big enough and intent enough to figure out a way to stop this.


The idea that one cent of the money I pay in taxes is supporting this program makes me ill. If anyone has more information on what we can do to help change this, please post it in the comment section. I am beyond appalled. I've seen some of what they've done in the past, and I've signed petitions and sent emails. There has to be a way to do more.

the senior horse, 4: beating the heat with a bath

This week we're having some very warm days for May - highs in the mid-90s and an intense humidity that makes everything seem sticky and sweaty.

After breakfast this morning I got things set up underneath the big oak tree in the little barnyard and led Salina out for a bath. I had a feeling she might appreciate it more than the usual grooming we do.

For a few seconds she didn't want to go with me. I had put a lead rope over her neck and started to march out of the barn, but she stopped and tried to turn into the stall. I stopped too and realized I'd skipped a step. In my own head I was ready to get going with her bath, but I hadn't taken the time to communicate that to her.

"I thought a bath would feel good," I said to her, and pointed with my left arm out to the oak tree. "Let's go out and cool off, Salina Bean." She immediately walked out with me. I looped the lead rope around the base of her neck and adjusted it so the buckle wasn't hanging in an uncomfortable way. I had everything ready, so I got started quickly, a gentle scrubbing with shampoo diluted with water. Salina doesn't like being bathed with the soapy sponge around her face, so I usually start mid-way her neck and go backward, then around her tail and up the other side.

As I got going with the rubber scrubber and sponge, in my right hand, Salina kept putting her nose on my left hand, very gently as if she was trying to tell me something. I stopped and just stood still with her. She turned and looked me in the eye, rested her nose on my palm, and said very clearly, "thank you." It was as clear as if she had said it in human English. And interesting because Salina is not often affectionate in that particular way, but she very much wanted me to stop and allow her to not only say thank you, but to do it in a special way, with her nose and muzzle.

I also had the sense she wanted me to slow down and just enjoy the time with her, so I notched down several notches, and just stood rinsing, very slowly and deliberately on the "gentle stream" setting, rotating the hose nozzle so she got a little bit of massage action. I went over her body inch by inch, really taking my time and letting the water soothe both of us.

Salina emitted a very long and relaxed sigh of contentment.

The donkeys came out and began to roll in their dust circle, which they often do while Salina gets her water baths. We shifted angles slightly so Salina could watch them roll while we continued rinsing.

After the first round of rinsing, Salina turned to me again and this time nuzzled my arm, again very gently. This time meant something different, and this time I was much more attuned to her, so I knew immediately what it was - even though it's something she rarely wants. She wanted me to stand right in front with the hose and spray her underneath her jaw. Keil Bay loves this, and I do it often for him on hot days, but Salina generally wants no water from the hose aimed anywhere near her face.

But this morning, she wanted exactly that, and she knew how to tell me so. By slowing down and just being with her, I had tuned in enough to listen and understand.

We spent several minutes with the hose under her jaw. I tested several settings - gentle stream, mist, cone - and we ended up back on gentle stream again.

When she was done with the under-the-jaw hosing, she very quietly turned so I could get back to rinsing her body again, and at the exact moment I thought in my head, there, all done, she stepped forward toward the barn.

"Wait," I said, and she stopped and allowed me to take a clean cloth with plain water and wipe her eyes, her face, and all along the poll and upper neck. Then when I removed the lead line, she waited one more second to make sure I was done, and she headed into the barn.

I took the sweat scraper in and did a gentle scraping, and she was back with her donkeys in the cool barn, clean and very happy.

I was thinking as I stood there with her, how different it is to bathe a horse who is tied and unable to communicate by turning and nuzzling and even by walking away if something is truly unpleasant. The communication is so much easier when they can move and let us know what feels good, what doesn't, and what they would like us to do.

All of ours enjoy baths and hosings when it's very hot, but the seniors especially seem to appreciate a long, slow rinse - especially when there's nothing else in the world but us, them, a hose with some good settings, and a little soapy water sliding down and away, watering the big old oak tree that lends its shade.

2011 EHV-1 situation report at APHA

Someone provided THIS LINK to the APHA site earlier today which seems to have a great deal of very specific information on the recent EHV-1 exposure at a competition held in Ogden, Utah.

Check out the May 19th situation report (it will download as a PDF) and also the various fact sheets.

The situation report offers actual numbers of confirmed cases as well as numbers of horses euthanized and for me helped put this into perspective.

Here's an article about A HOLISTIC APPROACH to this issue.

And ANOTHER. (this one is on Facebook so if you're not signed up or in you may not be able to view it, but's a terrific write-up by a vet)

I've been receiving a number of panic-inducing emails from various horse groups I'm involved in, one of which passed on irrelevant information from 2007 as current data - everyone needs to stop, take a deep breath, and get grounded with reference to this outbreak.

Healthy horses not stressed by poor diets, frequent travel, and over-immunization are at the least risk.

lessons in riding, 6

Tonight's lesson: how much I learn when I ride a different horse! It's been awhile since I rode our 8-year old QH, Cody. He's 15.3, not built like a tank, and in almost every way he's a different ride than Keil.

Cody is infinitely more sensitive to every aid. Keil is not what I would call insensitive, but with Keil there are a few different settings. One is what I call slug setting, where he just plods around and doesn't really do anything special at all. Another is "I know all the right ways to look so here you go" setting - which is actually quite masterful if you think about it. He knows how to torque his body to LOOK like he's doing what he thinks you want him to look like. But he's still stiff and and not straight, and thus things feel a bit clunky and unbalanced. And Keil has a setting which is brilliance in motion. It's not all that difficult to activate this setting - it took me awhile because I simply wasn't ready for it, but once I was, and I asked instead of demanded, he gave it to me. Part of my work with Keil Bay has been me learning that I never need to demand anything from him. And that in fact, doing so gets the slug or the fake-out. He saves his brilliance for when I focus on myself, get into balance, and ask.

With Cody there is mostly one setting. He came to us tense, using tiny strides as he had been taught to do as a very young Western Pleasure horse. He was fully trained under saddle at age TWO. We thought he was almost four when we bought him, and then the papers arrived. TWO YEARS OLD! We backed off rigorous riding and encouraged him to stretch out and really use his body. Now, at age eight, he is still anxious to please, and still defaults to tense, but I think now that is more due to the fact that we believe he has PSSM. With a balanced, low carb diet, regular exercise, and acetyl l-carnitine, he does very well, but we have adjusted our goals for him. He won't be the Pony Club horse for my daughter, as that requires hauling, lots of jumping, and I am not willing to give him a job he might not be able to do well. He cares too much about doing a good job.

Cody is a wonderful tag team teacher for me. Riding Keil Bay is like closing my eyes and just feeling for the magic. With Cody, I need to tune in to every part of my body. I always feel like I have more control of my legs when I ride Cody, which I think allows me more finesse in applying the aids. I suspect most of this is due to the fact that he simply isn't as broad-backed as Keil is - my pelvis doesn't have to open as wide, and it's just easier to use my legs well.

On the other hand, Keil's strides are longer and more fluid, so in that sense he's an easier horse to sit, which in some ways makes it easier to cue things. There's a longer beat in there in which I can ask. Going from Keil Bay to Cody is like inserting a fast forward button - everything goes faster on Cody, almost like I'm in a time lapse and I have to work hard to catch up to myself.

Tonight we rode after dark and instead of Keil Bay's high alert mode, I enjoyed Cody's laid back demeanor about things like dark corners, the short side by the forest, the diving of bats, and the hooting of owls.

I also discovered that Cody knows shoulder-in. I honestly can't remember how much I've worked with him on this exercise - but tonight we did it effortlessly in both directions.

We had an audience. When Keil Bay realized I was in the barn, he came in from the front field. And when he realized I was riding Cody, he met me at the arena gate and stuck his head over, pushing to come in. "You get the night off," I told him, so he went to the barn and stood in one stall, Salina stood in the one next door to him, and the donkey boys stood in the paddock, and watched us ride.

My daughter rode the pony and named all the bird calls. And tonight is the first night I heard the whippoorwill calling.

Just now, typing this, I heard something, a soft, muted sound, outside my window. I opened it up and was answered instantly - the soft, relaxed snorting of a horse. I don't know which one, and it doesn't even matter. Tonight's real lesson is this: even when the rides are wonderful, the real wonder is when they know we know they're there.