When A Butter Fly Becomes A Caterpillar

We have complex reactions to aging in my family. My relatives that do not smoke or drink tend to live a very long time. My great uncle only recently started using the ramp instead of the steps to get into church. He is 100 years old. Quite frankly, much of what people consider the effects of aging I simply thought of as being the effects of being a city person. It seems that people who live in town are born weak, raised weak, live weakly, and generally die many years before their death.

By many objective measures I am healthier than I was thirty years ago. Of course, things change. A few years ago I lifted a six month old colt that could not stand and tore my right bicep rather badly. My fore arm filled with blood, leaving it a strange bluish color and, although it was the bicep that was hurt, the fore arm swelled up like Pop Eye. Looking back, I should have gone to the doctor. The muscle grew in, but not correctly. It does not hurt at all, but it is much weaker than my left arm. It tires easily.

I adjust.

I play music better than I ever did. On the other hand, my hearing has severely deteriorated and I cannot remember 12 digit sequences for even a few seconds.

Again, I adjust.

Other changes are more disturbing, and perhaps not age related. I now rarely find interest in Comedy Central, which I once considered to be, along with the History Channel, solid proof of the goodness of God. I can tolerate frivolous songs, but I no longer enjoy them. I find entertainment to be generally tedious and prefer being educated to being entertained.

Two days ago I had a chance to step back into the past and it was very disturbing. I obtained a dvd of a presentation that I made about five years ago to an assembly of prosecutors. It was a training seminar on using prey animal body language and natural horsemanship principles to more effectively communicate with child witnesses who had been molested and adults with mental retardation that were similarly victimized. The presentation lasted over an hour and was one of the better public statements that I have ever made.

In all candor, the audience was utterly mesmerized and the electricity in the room was palpable. Since I was a teenager I had been been able to electrify an audience with very little effort or preparation. Highly ironic, because there are few people out there worse at making small talk or conversing one one one with a stranger than am I.

That is gone. There is no more electricity when I speak. My battery is not charged--doubt if it ever will be fully charged again.

I regret that. However, horses still enjoy communicating with me. Not a step has been lost there.

That makes up for everything else.

Which brings us around to the final point. When things are not smooth, forget glasses. Look at your horse. Is he half empty or half full?

Either way, feed him, saddle up and ride on.

The Destination

Lately we have had an explosion in the number of page views for this blog. The blog has a central purpose with sub themes that consistently crop up. The primary focus is to promote efforts to prevent the extinction of the wild Colonial Spanish mustangs of Corolla.

Associated with that purpose is the effort to demonstrate that a different kind of education in horsemanship is not only feasible, but practical. Here is the bottom line.

1. We have too many horses in this nation that need homes.
2. Everyone, but especially kids, can benefit tremendously from developing healthy relationships with horses.
3. The central road block to getting those horses together with those kids is the established horse world's culture of competition, greed, and lack of regard for the innate value of every horse.
4. The established horse world has artificially set the cost of horse ownership beyond the reach of many working class families.
5. Those costs can be radically reduced and horses can have healthier, happier lives by the application of natural horsemanship, natural horse care, and natural hoof. care.
6. The established horse world brings nothing to the table to benefit either the horses or the kids that need them in their lives.
7. Children can learn to train colts and wild horses today.
8. In every horse culture prior to the 20th century children did train colts and wild horses.
9. We teach kids and novices to train and ride wild horses, including stallions and colts and then we have actual fun with the horses.
10. There is no magic in anything that we do and anyone that cares about kids and horses and is willing to work hard to understand natural horsemanship, natural horse care and natural hoof care can run a program like ours.

So much work goes into this blog so readers can understand that they can develop programs like ours. More happy kids training and riding more healthy and happy horses.

That is the destination.

Sit Up and Pay Attention Please, I Need a Hand With This

So often people that cannot participate directly in the off site breeding program ask what they can do to help otherwise. Of course one can, and should donate the the Corolla wild Horse Fund.

I have another very important thing that I need some help with now. History buffs, computer whizzes, patriotic North Carolinians come on and hop on this.

Betsy Dowdy rode her Corolla mare 52 miles overnight to warn the Carolina Militia that Lord Dunmore was poised to invade North Carolina during the Revolution. Because of the guts of this teenage girl, Dunmore was routed and Carolina spared British pillage.

I need to know her exact route or at least I need a colonial map from that time period for Northeastern North Carolina. I will be delighted if anyone can find this.

THE EXACT ROUTE IS WHAT I NEED.

Transfusion

Our program has succeeded entirely because of the way that the families of so many riders over the years have thrown themselves into everything that we have done. Those hard working families are being joined by a new crop of riders and their families that are coming out of the wood work everywhere. We have more riders than we have ever had and we have people that want to just work with us to be part of the effort.

This is one of the most gratifying parts of what happens at our horse lot. Participants have a strong sense of ownership in everything that we do. It was a telling moment a few years ago when KC made the off hand comment that "we" have three Shacklefords at the horse lot. He did not say "Steve" has three Shacklefords. He said "we."

I am not being modest when I say that I could not keep this program growing and succeeding. I am not being unrealistic when I say that what "we" can achieve is nearly limitless.

This colt is Legacy, the son of Tradewind and a modern Appaloosa mare. He belongs to Samantha but it will be great fun this summer when "we" train him.

Bare Necessities

 

There are some riding and training programs out there that do not even have a front porch on their tack sheds. One wonders where such people play their fiddles and banjos in nice weather.