Eastern red cedar. And ponies.

We have these popping up all over the farm, with only 3 that I'm remembering at the moment grown into full size. Why is that? This is what a NC forestry site says about Eastern red cedar:

EASTERN RED CEDAR (Juniperus virginiana) – Eastern red cedar, also known as red juniper, grows throughout the eastern half of the United States. It is the most widely distributed conifer of tree size in the eastern United States. In North Carolina, it is found everywhere except the high mountains. It is a small to medium sized tree 40 to 50 feet in height and 1 to 2 feet in diameter. The crown is dense and narrowly pyramid-shaped, or in some cases, columnar. When “open-grown”, the crown extends nearly to the ground. Eastern red cedar is found in a variety of soil conditions, however, it seems to thrive on barren soils where few other trees are found. It grows best on light loamy soils of limestone origin. Because of the moth-repellant properties of its oils, eastern red cedar heartwood is used for closet linings, wardrobes, and chests. Shavings are used for kennel bedding. It is in great demand for posts, poles and rustic work. Red cedar is also grown for Christmas trees, ornamentals and for use in windbreaks. Red cedar’s berry-like, fleshy cones are purplish-blue when ripe and are eaten by animals and birds. The dense crown provides shelter for birds during rough weather. Strips of its fibrous bark may be peeled off by squirrels, mice and birds to line their dens and nests.

The thing they left out is that painted ponies, at least the one who lives here, likes to let the volunteers grow to, oh, about 2.5 feet tall and then he breaks the trunk off at the exact right height to provide himself with a belly scratching post. I guess the cedar feels good on his tummy and maybe it has some insect repellent properties beyond the moth. 

There was a cute one along the path from barnyard to woodland gate that was looking decidedly Christmas tree-like but, alas, it is now chopped off and being used as a scratching post.

he knows exactly what I mean

Yesterday in the barn aisle Keil Bay and I were standing and enjoying the cold breeze that blew through, finally some relief from the hot muggy air we've had for the past week.

That's for us, I told him. We have a cool spell, then another few days in the 80s, and THEN, it's cooling way down and maybe this time that's it. We're going to ride, Big Bay. It's you and me in the arena getting back in shape.

He turned and looked at me and then went into the deepest, most perfect downward dog, horse version, that I've ever seen, and when he finished he extended one hind leg out behind him in a perfect stretch.

Exactly.

And point taken! I need to work on some yoga stretches too so I'll be as ready as he is when the saddle goes on.

What happened when I stopped trying to do Everything

A few months ago my husband and I decided to hire someone to come once every other week to help us get the fenceline on two sides of the farm clear for the fencing that will be done in November. Through a serendipitous referral we found the exact right person to do this job, and quickly realized that a number of my projects could be expedited with his help. He started coming one day a week and then two days a week.

What happened next?

The nightmare of honeysuckle, wild muscadine, and trumpet vine living under our front porch was dug out and cleared out of the beds around the porch.

The beds were cleared and prepped for planting.

The farm was weedeated on a regular basis.

The mowing was done.

The fenceline, a total thicket of poison ivy and other invasive things, was cleared.

The pastures were cleared of fallen sticks and weed patches.

The very back wooded area is about 2/3 clear now, with stacks of firewood and kindling waiting for the woodstove if it ever gets cold this year.

A month ago we decided to have someone come help me with cleaning inside the house once every other week.

Every room but the master bath has now been deep cleaned and kept that way.

For years I've said I can do three things in a day. Barn, house, family. Ride, family, house. Pasture, family, house. Family, writing, house. The bottom line is that family, which includes the 11 animals we currently live with, is always going to be one of three. That is as it should be. But what it meant was I never got to everything, because there are really 5 things that matter to me: family, write, ride, house, barn/pasture/farm. So I was forever juggling it all, making bits of progress, then losing it again as other things piled up.

Now what happens is a couple of amazing people do one of the things while I do the others, and at least some of the time, I see projects getting done much more quickly than they otherwise would.

I'm an introvert at heart so some of the time I go through a half hour of stress about having someone here, but once that passes I appreciate the help and am grateful that at this point in our lives we can afford to make the choice to put some resources toward getting it.

Yesterday while the downstairs was being managed by someone other than me, I sat in my garret and reduced three piles of paperwork to nothing, checked about 6 things off my to do list, and prepared the sleeping set-up to accommodate having the attic AC/heat unit inspected and two rooms painted. It's amazing what I can get done when the pressure of trying to do it all is removed.

The message beneath all this is not about hiring people to help, although that is part of it. At its core, the message is about me allowing for the fact that I can let go of my own desire to Get Everything Done. It's something I have worked on for years but hiring people to help has not only helped get some needed work done, it's shifted my mobile, to use an analogy I often use with clients. When we change something, just one thing, it shifts everything else around. So often we think we have to make huge changes to see a difference in our lives, our relationships, our selves. But many times just making one change results in a whole new way of being. Like a mobile hanging in a room. If you touch just one part, the whole things shifts.

And that is what I've done.

Rain mandala

Finally, some rain on November Hill. I put in a rain gauge in the flat upper bed and measured .6 inches on Saturday, .5 inches on Sunday, a trace on Monday, and more yesterday that I need to check.

We need even more but it's nice to have some each day instead of a deluge all at once.

I noticed a batch of huge rusty-colored mushrooms in the back this morning. I'm sure some things are popping up with the ground staying damp for so many days now with not much sunshine.

The birdbath created an interesting mandala when I emptied it yesterday so I took a photo. May we all get the water we need to sustain our needs. I'm thinking too of California and the wildfires and hoping the winds die down, rain falls, and the fires are soon under control. It's been an intense late summer and early fall with hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires.

Horses and humans, meeting in the middle

Last night in the barn I was cleaning feed tubs and waiting for husband to bring out the dinner buckets. Keil Bay thought I was getting ready to feed, so he joined me at the feed room door, but when I just stood there, rubbing his neck, he nudged me, a big (some would say rude) nudge with his muzzle.

I stepped back to catch my balance, made a little shriek sound, and the Big Bay's eyes went wide and a sliver of white showed. He raised his head. I collected myself. Then, just as suddenly, I relaxed and breathed out in a sigh. He lowered his head and made a soft snort.

Keil Bay and I know one another well enough that this kind of communication happens all the time. He got overly excited about dinner, I misread his appearance at the doorway, I offered affection, he wanted food, he expressed himself, I reacted, he reacted. Then we both breathed and relaxed and grounded ourselves together. I think if you simmer the essence of horse and human communication down to its most basic, this is what you have.

I kept thinking about it, though it's not a new idea to me, nor to most people who spend time with horses and spend more time pondering how this relationship works.

Horses are large compared to humans and their instincts tend toward flight in moments of fear, boldness in times of play, and what to a horse is a simple nudge asking for movement, can be a rough shove to a smaller human. A shriek quite normal in volume as a reaction of surprise by a female human is incredibly loud to a horse.

This could have gone another way if Keil didn't know me and I didn't know Keil. Years of living together have taught us a few things.

Horses bolt and flee when things get scary, sometimes they rear and spin. Humans grip on tight and fold forward into a modified fetal position. Humans usually tense up, horses do too but their tension is released by their motion, if allowed.

Put the human who grips on tight and folds forward into a ball of hard muscle on a horse trying to get away from something scary and you have a recipe for disaster.

For humans to coexist peacefully with horses we have to engage in a mutual training down of our natural instincts. We teach the horse not to bolt, not to run away, to keep his hooves on the ground, to spin only when we ask him to. We teach ourselves to sit up straight, to resist the urge to grip on tight with hands and legs, to let our seats go deep instead of forward, to relax our bodies into the horses' forward motion. It's almost never an equal endeavor.

A young horse with less training usually needs a more experienced human and vice versa. Personalities play a role, and for the human, a basic philosophy about how we treat "others" plays a role as well.

I think the best horse people meet their horses in the middle. They listen to the horses to learn how to give at the right moments, in ways that are safe for both, in consistent patterns of behavior that build trust.

The image I have is of a human and a horse walking into an open space, an arena, or a field, and both working in unison to control instincts and join forces. A well-known Rumi poem came to mind, but I'd never considered it in the context of humans and horses. I think it fits pretty well.

Out Beyond Ideas

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.


When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense