Not Every Single Thing That Is New Is Bad.....

On the rarest of occasions one will find an innovation that is also an improvement. This is nearly never true in the world of tack. The bosal and mecate will never be improved upon. A well cared for antique saddle will often fit a Colonial Spanish horse better than any saddle made today.

Replacing cowboy knots with billets and latigos filled with holes certainly is not an improvement.

However, sometimes one can take modern designs and use them in tried and true manners and get a good result. The instrument in the picture above is a new design and is called a "Merlin." It came out within the last two years.

I have acquired a taste for it.

When played using the hammers, pull offs, and slides rooted in ancient African music it can sound first rate.

There are many lessons one can learn from playing music that apply to solid horsemanship. The reverse is also true.

Sometime You Just Need A Little Help Remembering

The sun rarely shines this time of year. The sky is generally the color of lead. The cool season grasses left around have little color. Each winter there is a bumper crop of mud.

But it does not stay that way. Two Corollas and a Shackleford in a lush pasture of various grasses and tender weeds-- that will be how it will look in about six months. That is how it has always been--seems like it gets hard to remember how beautiful the spring is when trapped in the drabness of winter.

Time is a constant.

Today I will go to the Little House and will likely mount up at some point--just like I am in this picture of me behind the Little House on my pony Tanka from about fifty years ago.

Hope To Get More Spanish Goats Soon

Vice President of Weed Control

War Admiral, my Baylis line Spanish Goat, is a voracious eater. He is joined by a younger Baylis, Sea Biscuit and my San Clemente Island buck, Spicer. The impact that they have had on pasture weeds is incredible. They hit weed seeds and flowers hard and it is really starting to pay off. Eventually I plan to increase my Spanish goat herd and add in other lines of colonial livestock as the educational component of our program expands.

The parallels between Spanish goats and Spanish mustangs are striking. Both are heartier and tougher than modern breeds. Both convert low quality pasture and browse to food better than modern breeds. Both were absolutely essential to the development of this nation. Both have been scorned by proponents of progress. Both are extremely close to extinction in their pure forms.

Like my Corollas, my Spanish goats are warm, intelligent, and affectionate. They work hard.

Redirected Energy

Each day still has 24 hours in it. Next week I turn 55 and I have a lot of things left to accomplish. I have a lot of significant writing to do--programs to develop, scripts to write, planting schedules to develop, and magazine articles to write.

Might even write another book.

These are things that require time to write but also time to think and time to research. This year I must focus on living more efficiently and getting much more work out of a given day. That means I have to cut down on less significant activities. We reach many people through this blog and face book and I will not be abandoning either, but I will radically reduce my attention to them over the next six months.

I am not given to naturally looking forward to the future. Being hopeful and optimistic has never been something that I have been comfortable pretending to be. Experience simply has not born out the validity of such feelings.

But right now I am more looking forward to our future than I have ever been. Ashely will be working with me this semester on everything what I need done--horse training, hill work, planting, environmental enhancements, training program development for professionals who deal with children who have been abused, writing, and more important than most could ever understand--helping me think. Talking to Ashley is like putting leaven to my thoughts. She immediately sharpens my pre-ideas and helps turn them into action. She will be working directly for me and will not be an employee of our non profit--The Gwaltney Frontier Farm. Our non-profit will benefit from everything she does without having to put out a penny. I am not a business man, but that seems like a good deal for us.

I like concepts that move quickly into action and Ashley helps make that happen.  This morning was quite an odd sensation. My norm is to wake around 1:30 to 2:30 clear my mind and think about things that I need to be doing at the horse lot and trying to figure out when i can get those things done. Prioritizing a list of things that are all top priorities.

This morning I woke up at 3:30 and found myself smiling thinking about how good 2015 will be at the horse lot. 

I am still smiling.

Spanish Mustangs: Gentle As Puppies?

Few ironies run deeper than the fear that those who have never been exposed to my horses have of  them. They fear them because many of them were wild.

Others are mustangs.

 Several of them are stallions.

Should not the fact that most of these horses  are trained and ridden by kids say more about their sweet and gentle natures than do the silly stereotypes taught by the established horse world?