party and working on the books

Yesterday was cold and cloudy and we had a party to go to during the afternoon, so we rushed to get chores done and I managed to keep my writing time intact before it was time for us to leave.

Our local feed store, the first place I went to check out after we made the offer on November Hill, is one of the best parts of living with horses in our area. The owner bought the store 20 years ago when he bought farmland here and realized the need for a feed store that served people who live with horses, cows, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, and all the maintenance and repair that comes with keeping these animals happy and healthy.

The day I went in to check out the store, I asked about a certain feed that I was using for Keil Bay, which they didn't carry. But they ordered it for me and had it ready and waiting when we moved in, and that was the first of many such experiences I've had there.

The feed store immediately became part of our extended family. D. and his staff (3 of the friendliest, most helpful people imaginable) were always ready to help with products, recommendations, advice on seeding fields, fencing, anything related to farm maintenance - and just standing there chatting about life in general. They have the kind of store where when asked "how are you?" they want the real answer, and vice versa. They sell good products, they respond to customers' needs, and they're also friends and neighbors.

Several years ago D's daughter started working in the store. She brought a ton of new ideas and created a huge organic/sustainable farming section. She took special ordering to a whole new level - bringing in specialty oats, organic whole flax seed and alfalfa pellets, and specialty pet food. If I need something, I ask D. and I ask M. If they don't have it they figure out how to get it. D. had her first child while working at the store, and then her second. A whole new subject to chat about was born.

I can buy horse feed products there, riding breeches and boots, gloves, clothing, locally raised beef, chicken, and pork, grass seed, hoses, buckets, shavings, stall mats, fence posts, fencing, wheelbarrows, mowers, hay,  and they have a fridge where I pick up my raw milk each week. (they don't sell it - they allow the farmer who does to put it there so I can pick it up) I've joked before that if they put in a coffee shop I could just go there and not have to go anywhere else in town. 

D. retired at the end of December, and 200 of the store's regular customers got invitations to a surprise retirement party. We also got news that J., the employee who takes care of the machine side of the store, bought that from D. J. was hired when he was 14 years old as part-time help and he now owns his own shop - and repairs everything from weed-eaters to top of the line mowers. If we need a part, he gets it for us. We also learned that D's daughter M. has bought out the feed store - so the family tradition continues. 

It was a great party. They fed us and served great beer and wine, and D. made his way around to talk to every single person there. Which was easy - because he knew every single person there and we all had stories to tell and things to say.

My story had to do with the latest feed store "save" - my haybarrow's axles had rusted through and I had asked M. if they had them - she said she could get them but I'd need to measure and make sure what I needed b/c different brands had slightly different sizes. It turned out that what can be ordered are full "kits" that include axles, wheels, and other parts that we didn't really need. The next time I was in, I mentioned this to the "guys" - A. and R. - and they asked which wheelbarrow it was - I showed them the one in the store - and they disappeared.  A few minutes later they reappeared from the attic with the exact part in hand. $10. 

D. was thrilled to hear that story because that's the kind of store he's created. It's a family business, a community business, and a real treasure for those of us who shop there.

We got to catch up with our across-the-lane neighbors, and, as I was leaving, one of the store employees brought a woman over to introduce - she'd seen my name in the sign-in book and wanted to meet me - we'd just exchanged emails about my auditing a Mark Rashid clinic coming up later this month. More on that later! 

It wasn't a day of riding, but it was a great way to celebrate the passing on of a store to the next generation. We're so glad it will stay in the family!

cold day, huge equine work-out

Yesterday the high was around 32 degrees here, and with winds gusting up to 35 mph it felt colder. I pulled out my trusty 18-year old Lands End knee-length squall parka and wore it over my pajamas to do morning chores. I was warm as toast.

I only need this level of warmth a few times a year if at all, but when needed, it is perfect. A couple of years ago the zipper broke and I contacted Lands End, who offered me either a new parka or paid shipping for the existing one so they could send it out to be repaired. I opted to send in my old trusty coat. A couple of weeks later it came back nicely repaired with November Hill hay remnants still in the pockets. 

Before I went out yesterday morning, I glimpsed flashes of color through the kitchen window. A closer look revealed Keil Bay and Cody in the arena, walking, trotting, and cantering, then galloping around. In emerald green and purple plaid. The Little Man was in the open gate watching, and the donkeys were right behind him.

Cody tends to go a bit wild in his arena work-outs, but Keil Bay, trained in dressage his entire life, offers circles of the usual size, shoulder-in, flying changes, and generally seems to be doing a shuffle of all the dressage tests he's ever learned. Cody arches his neck and tosses his head and Keil is perfectly "on the bit" - just in front of the vertical.

I had already determined it was going to be a day I did not ride, but this cemented that decision. They took care of their stretching and opening all by themselves!

Last night the predicted temp was 13 degrees. My barn thermometer said 0 just before sunrise this morning. Husband put out 3x the usual amount of hay and they had cleaned it up. They had also broken through the ice on the water trough and drank enough that the water level was visibly lower this morning. Every year when ice forms (usually less times than the fingers on both my hands during winter season) I consider whether to get water heaters for the troughs. And every year they keep drinking the cold water and I figure it's probably best to keep things as they are. They get salt in their feed tubs both morning and night, and if we have several of these extremely low temp nights in a row I warm up the troughs with hot water. 

Today we're entering a warm-up that will last until Monday, when the night's temp is predicted to be 11 degrees. We're on that crazy weather rollercoaster again.

Writing-wise: I continued working on exploring the minds of two characters, did some research on an old hotel in Paris - which reminds me - has anyone stayed in one you'd recommend? I am looking for something old and expensive, but most of all distinctive. I'll be traveling there via the internet only, so cost is no object. :)

I also returned to my chapter by chapter editing of Never Not Broken. The chapter I'm on right now is getting almost a total rewrite, so I'll be working on it again today.

fun on a rainy day

Yesterday we had a huge rain front moving in so daughter and I decided to do ground work with all instead of riding two. 

Keil Bay did walk, trot, canter free lunge work, Cody went on the lunge line for his walk/trot/canter and then some focused ground work, and the pony and donka boys went into the arena together and had a bit of a wild time when the discarded lunge whip got picked up by two playful kit-meows and dragged all over the arena.

This finished up just as the rain moved in, so the horses and donkeys went into the barn for the afternoon with fresh shavings, good hay, and full water buckets. As the rain moved through the temperatures began to drop - from mid-forties down to 25 last night. Today's high is 32 with 35 mph wind and I doubt I'll be riding - the arena is likely frozen due to all the rain we got yesterday.

Tonight's low is predicted for 13 - I'm not fond of the teen temperatures but compared to those who have teens and snow and loss of power on top of that, I won't complain.

Writing-wise yesterday I did a lot of foundation writing and exploration (thinking about it now, it's actually sort of like free lunging vs riding) of character and place and motivation. I'm working this month on a short for the Claire Quartet, which is going to end up being a free bonus for readers. While doing this early work on that, I'm re-reading the first two novels in my Quartet, claire-obscure and Signs That Might Be Omens, as a way to get solidly back into Claire's world. When I'm done with the short I'll be working on the new Claire novel, claire-voyant, and am excited to be getting into that one this new year.

Everyone stay safe, stay warm, and keep your horses hydrated!

2013 - the year in review

Like so many folks are doing this week, I'm looking at the year gone by as I create some plans for the year ahead.

In 2013 I was intent on finishing the novel-in-progress, (the girl who was) Never Not Broken. I finished the first draft during my November writing retreat at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, and am now working on a second draft edit.

I published the second book in my Magical Pony School series, Fiona and the Water Horse, right at the year's end. Although I had so much more on my list "to do" with regards to November Hill Press and publishing, I'm happy with this year's work and looking forward to new goals in the coming year.

2013 will always be remembered in my mind as the year Salina left us. She was a grand old mare and letting her go was one of the hardest things I've lived through in my life. She came through last winter and enjoyed the spring, leaving before the heat of summer hit, and the worst insect year I remember since we moved to November Hill. That she is buried behind the A in our arena, and keeps me company in spirit every single day, is such a gift.

I had possibly the least number of rides in 2013 than I have had since returning to the riding life in 2003. There were weather issues, aching hip issues, the loss of Salina and a period of grief, and what has been a slow but steady return to the saddle since fall. Riding the Big Bay these months since September has been a revelation of sorts. He will be 25 years old in April, and although he is sound and still capable of gorgeous movement, I realized that neither of us are on the path to GP dressage. I knew that already, but sometimes rode like we were in training.  I have tossed the idea of levels altogether and we are simply enjoying the rides we have. Our dressage tests are aimed at stretching our muscles and opening our joints, and we make them up as we go along.

It's wonderful to finish the year with a long string of lovely rides on such a dear and beloved horse. I am treasuring every single one.

Last night I was working on my plans for 2014, sketching out the books I want to write and the way I want to spend my days. The daily schedule that has fallen into place this fall is one I want to keep:  write, ride, muck, and gym. That keeps it simple but doesn't include the pleasures of spending time with my daughter and husband, sending messages to my son at college, and being surrounded pretty much all the time by loving horses, a painted pony, the donkey boys, six cats, and the Corgis. It's a good life and I'm grateful to have it.

I got an email from Janet Roper, who many of you may know as the creator of the radio show Talk To The Animals. She's expanding that work this year and has invited me to write a monthly column about my interactions with the menagerie I live with - equine, feline, canine, and the wild animals that visit us regularly. I'm so excited and will share more about this in a week or two.

I plan to use this blog to post daily or near-daily entries - a sort of running commentary on my days and what I'm doing. As usual, I love comments and getting a conversation going in that part of the blog - so feel free to share your own days and your routines, successes, frustrations, etc. I hope we all have a great and productive year - productive in that we make the time to do the things we love, because in the end, as Annie Dillard wrote so eloquently, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.
 -Annie Dillard

postcards from the holidays

The week of winter solstice I was grooming Keil Bay in the barnyard, so the caked-on mud dust would fly off into the air instead of swirling around us in the barn aisle. He was happy to graze a bit as I worked. He tends to move around, slowly, while we do this barnyard free grooming, which is fine with me. We have our routine down to a fine art. 

Keil made his way toward Salina's gravesite. When we got to the mound itself, he walked up between the mound and a tree, carefully fitting his huge body in that fairly narrow space. I worried momentarily that he was going to step onto her grave, but that's not what he was doing. He got himself into position and then he craned his neck toward where her head rests and lowered his muzzle to hers. He was sharing breath with Salina, if not literally, then figuratively. It was absolutely amazing. I stood there and watched, and smiled, and got teary-eyed, even more so when he lifted his head high and stood looking out over the cleared field behind her, gazing intently at something, that I think was Salina doing a perimeter gallop back to spirit land, back to where she lives now, a happy place and a safe place. If we're lucky it's a waiting place, where all of us might meet up in years to come.

Our ride that day was special too. Nothing spectacular, but fueled by Salina's presence. I'm aware with each ride that Keil Bay is nearing 25 years of age. I don't know why 25 seems so much more important than 24 was. It feels very much like he has been 19 for a long time and suddenly skipped up to 25. He joined me at 15, and in this decade it feels like the time with Keil Bay has been forever. With Salina here, always older than he is, I focused on her aging. Now he's the oldest here. And I am so intensely aware of it.

My daughter's riding teacher has lost 4 horses this year. One got loose on a trail ride and simply disappeared. Many many people searched high and low for her for months and it appears that someone probably caught her in the half-hour after she bolted and loaded her onto a trailer and took her away. The other 3 lived long, happy lives and their deaths were hard but not totally unexpected. Between losing Salina and witnessing the loss of these 4 horses, I've become hyper-sensitive to the possibility. But this is not only a sad feeling - it makes me know that even more so than usual I have to focus on the present, enjoy each day, and hope that Keil Bay is one of those horses who defies the average and lives a long, long life. This makes every ride more precious. It has forced me to look at the rides differently. Suddenly I do not care how good our circles are, if we're on the bit or off it, whether we are first level or fourth, nor do I care much about the quality of the gaits. I want healthy movement, good positions that keep us sound. I want the rides to stretch our muscles, to gently work our joints, to keep us healthy, and to make both of us feel satisfied by the end. We're on a different kind of riding journey now.

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On Christmas Eve we went for a hike on some land nearby that quietly went from private to state-owned in the last year or so. It's apparently now state park land, as there are signs at entrances and indications that someone is keeping the old roads, now trails, cleared, and we've seen a couple of benches appear hither and yonder. But no one goes there, and it feels like it's our own property. 

We recently discovered that at least one trail leads to the river, and this is the trail we took on Christmas Eve, late in the day, where we stood and listened to the river rushing, high and fast after all the rain we'd had. The sun was setting almost directly across the water, and just as it dipped below the horizon we turned to head back home.

We walked faster going back, racing with dusk, and it was perfectly quiet, as if we were in the middle of nowhere, outside time. As we walked past a small pond that sits in the middle of the forest, two gaggles of geese circled and honked as they came in to roost for the night. I've never been so close to geese coming in that way, and it was magical, like an image from an old Christmas card that I somehow stepped inside. 

The only way it would have been more perfect is if we had been on horseback and snow had started falling.

*******

On a lighter note, we have gone through two horse blankets thus far this winter. The pony's is old but had stood up well - it finally just ripped into shreds across the rump; the outer fabric just wore out.  Cody has been getting out of his blanket between bedtime and morning, mysteriously, and this morning it was found in a heap, belly strap ripped completely out of the blanket. Fortunately both have extras. I'm looking at getting Schneider's for each of them - Keil Bay got a Schneider about 5 years ago and it has fit the best and held up the best of any horse blanket I've ever bought. The blanket repair person told me not to buy Rambo or Rhinos new, as the quality has fallen off severely, and that she sees the Schneiders holding up quite well. It's a bit of a shock to go to bed with horses in blankets and wake up to one without. What is he doing to get that thing off? It must be quite a show.

*******

It's also the time of year when a glimpse out my window falls on sleeping horses and pony and donkeys. Often all but one will lie down and it always takes my breath away to see them resting in the sun. One day Cody was standing guard and when the pony got up, Cody went directly to the spot he'd been sleeping and peed on it. That's about the only way to get one over on the pony! The dynamics of this herd full of personalities makes me laugh on a regular basis.

*******

As you can see I have finally gotten Fiona and the Water Horse published, so if you like reading about horses and ponies and magic, it's a fun story and I think appeals to all ages. If you like Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, and look at stories as fables and windows into self, it offers a lot for women looking at the girl-maiden-mother-crone process.

Happy New Year to all - for many of us it has been a rough year and my wish is that we all get to relax and rest and thrive and grow in 2014. With perhaps some lighter lessons than those we faced this year!