solstice gifts 2011

The winter solstice is my favorite holiday of the year. The thought of the longest night appeals to me, a life-long night owl with many memories of late-night revelry, creative peaks, and the quiet that falls even in the busiest of households when everyone but me is asleep.

I love the metaphors of light and dark, and have woven them into all my books. Jane's Transformation (book one in my Magical Pony School middle grade series) literally begins on the afternoon of the winter solstice. If novels have seasons other than that in which they take place, I think it's true that all mine are winter solstice novels, looking at darkness and light and how one contributes to the other.

Every year I wait for what gifts the solstice day will bring. A couple of years ago it was a baby raccoon in the big oak tree by our barn. Tiny little thing, a living metaphor of light and dark. He or she came down and you can see the painted pony (a metaphor himself of light and dark!) looking on with curiosity.

Another year there were black vultures in the tree by the mailbox, inky black against the white-gray sky.

Today I walked out to the barn to feed breakfast tubs to the equines and the first thing I noticed were the bare trees, dark with soaked-in rain, and the white overcast sky.

As I stood in the dim feed room mixing tubs, with my strand of white twinkle lights burning and NPR on the radio, Keil Bay started his Hanoverian breakfast chorus. He whinnies and sings for his breakfast almost every morning, but today it got quiet and I continued mixing. Although I didn't hear any horse sounds, I suddenly felt the presence of something close by, and I turned to find that Keil Bay had somehow opened his stall door, tiptoed across the barn aisle, and was standing with his head and neck inside the door of the feed room, in arm's reach.

Later I was dumping the muck barrow along my compost snake in the back field. I had my back to the forest and was looking up toward the barn when I heard something in the woods behind me.

A small herd of the November Hill deer were walking up the hill across from me, walking further into the woodline, almost invisible except for the white flashing of tails. Over and over again they flagged their tails, stopping and then slowly walking further into the woods.

The black tree trunks, heavy with rain, the shadows of the deeper woods, and those white flashing tails. Another wonderful solstice gift.

If you've read the story of November Hill Press you know that the deer played a huge part in its creation. Today, looking toward a new year, seeing them flashing their call across the clearing was its own bit of magic.

Happy winter solstice to all! 

come celebrate the solstice with November Hill Press!

Head OVER HERE to participate. A blog hop, giveaways, Magical Pony School promo, etc.!

another Keil Bay ride

Happy to report another good ride on Keil Bay this evening. He came in and met me at his back door and licked and chewed his way through the entire grooming and tacking up process. In the arena we did a long walking warm-up and then eased into some trotting. We did some shoulder in at the trot and it felt good - lots of suspension tonight in the SI and regular trot work.

I've broken another 'rule' of riding and am holding the whip in my outside hand. I have trouble managing the inside rein and the whip together and finally decided that I would do what works best for me and not what everyone says is the proper thing to do. It worked.

Another good leap forward for me is that I think I finally have some ability to isolate my hips when riding. Maybe I had it all along but just didn't know how to use it? Not sure. But over the past few weeks I have been doing something new with my seat that is working really well. It's subtle and I'm not sure how to explain what exactly I'm doing but Keil Bay is responding instantly to it and since his training is more impeccable than mine I think I must have hit on something fairly advanced. :)

Part of what is making it work is that I am stepping evenly into both stirrups and also focusing on NOT hollowing my back. At some point when I started getting better at these two things, i.e. not having to constantly remind myself, the seat thing clicked in and Keil Bay clicked in too.

He's probably thinking - FINALLY! - she gets it. At least a little piece of it!

And I'm back to riding without half chaps. I go through phases where I really like them, and then I go through phases when I want to feel my leg right up against Keil's barrel. Right now I'm wanting the feel of the leg to be pure. Another telltale sign that I'm doing something different (and in this case I do think it's better) is that I can feel the pull in the muscles in my hips when I ride. I'm sitting (I think) more correctly and using my core more effectively and I can feel it.

So happy to be winding down 2011 with some great rides. And looking forward to 2012.

Gwen Stockebrand, a former Olympic dressage rider, charged with animal cruelty

GO HERE to read the story.

I'm glad this is making news and I am passing it on here because it's important for people to know that just because someone achieves a high level of success in the competition world it DOES NOT MEAN they are always good horse people. Or that they care deeply about horses.

The sad thing is that I recognize the name of the Hanoverian she is currently riding, Drambuie. I fell in love with his photos and videos when he was a baby. I hope he escapes the same fate as the horses who were mistreated by her.

mats in the barn aisle

When we moved here 7 or so years ago, our barn aisle had a dirt floor. My first instinct was to put a cement aisle in and then mats on top of that. But it wasn't really a top priority in the beginning when we had so many things to buy to get "set up" here. As time passed, I came to think the dirt floor was actually pretty nice. Easy to rake out, easy to make cozy by just allowing scattered hay to lie on it, pretty easy on the horses' feet.

Eventually I came to be familiar with the downsides. Dust. And more dust. No clean surface for doing anything with hooves. More recently, since I've been letting Salina and Rafer and Redford have the barn aisle as part of their "territory" it has gotten worn down in some places and not quite as level as it used to be.

We've been doing some work around the barn and paddocks this month. We've filled the shelter (just need one more load) with small stones. It was dirt too and I had some issues with it over time in some ways similar to the barn aisle. I wanted the shelter to be tidier and also a different "terrain" for the hooves. These stones are small and very cushy. The horses are loving standing on them and I can already see a difference in their feet, which seem tougher.

I considered putting screenings or even these small stones in the barn aisle too. I also considered rubber pavers. Somehow, I wanted a smoother surface in the barn aisle so that ruled out stone, and the pavers were nice but expensive.

I read about doing cement and inlaying mats - I still like that idea but right now I'm not wanting to spend the money to do that - and I still hesitate about the cement just because if I end up not liking it, it's such a bear to change.

So, after living with the dirt aisle for years, we got stall mats and have doubled them up down the center of the aisleway. Ideally, we will put in stone dust, pack it down and level it, and cut mats so they fit flush to the stall walls on all sides and go all the way to the barn doors. But for now we've just lined them up, leaving a bit of room on either side.

I could see when we put them in that Redford was alarmed about this new thing in his barn, so I let Keil Bay in first so everyone could see him saunter through. He lowered his head to check them out but didn't even slow down as he clop clop clop clopped through. Salina was right behind him. These two have Been There and Done That and nothing really upsets them. Redford skedaddled right and left and right and left a few times, wanting to follow Salina but nervous about these black things in his way. After about 15 seconds he made a mad dash through the barn, and the cutest little hoof sounds!

Rafer was totally fine with the mats. In fact, he seemed to like the authoritative sound his hooves made and he kept walking back and forth and back and forth.

Cody checked them out and then walked on over. The pony was last and just in case we changed our minds and diverted him from going through, he came through at a big pony trot. He loves trotting through the barn aisle, so this was no different for him.

I cleaned hooves tonight on the new mats, which immediately got nice and brown with dust, and then white with the hoof powder I used. It was nice to be able to clean a hoof and have it stay pretty perfectly clean when I set it down. I swept the hoof pickings into a pile between each horse. Nice and tidy. I think we'll live with them this way as we work on putting stone/gravel/screenings in some other areas and then we'll see proceed with the full matting process.

Any thoughts and ideas are welcome! And we're getting ready to re-roof the barn, so I would LOVE to hear any input about metal roofs versus shingles. We are seriously thinking of going metal.