"Wake Up Little Susie!"

Montana was sound asleep when I went for my lesson a few days ago. He sleeps with his eyes open but glazed or clouded over, and he snores loudly. It is the creepiest thing waking him up.

John came to help:



Then here comes a miracle: 1000 pounds hoisted up into the air on those 4 little legs:



Resulting in eventually this: 'OK, you woke me up and put these boots on me, so let's get this over with."



Is there anything prettier than a booted up horse? What is so darn sexy about it?

Gaited Insanity

This goes in the all-too-large category of Crazy Things People Do To Horses.

John is a gaited horse. This means he has a smooth 4-beat 'walk' that can accelerate to extremely high speeds, and he has this in common with several other horse breeds who vary their type of gait but are all smooth to ride: Icelandic Ponies, Tennessee Walking Horses (the most tormented breed I know), Rocky Mountain Horses, and John's designer breed (made up out of a political controversy among the Rockies): Kentucky Mountain Horse, etc.

Take a look at the horse in the photo, with a blue ribbon awarding what has been done to it. Look at the shoes on the front feet, look at the bit, head carriage, etc.

Welcome to the world of gaited insanity. People like the gaits, but they also want MORE: a head flung up to the stars, feet flailing in a similar direction, hollow backs, tails sticking straight up in the air so the hair waves like a fan out behind.

Here's a horse being offered for sale. How comfortable is he? This is one of about six sale photos with the same exact head carriage in all: "I hurt!". I have removed the evil expression on the rider's face.

Tennessee Walking Horses have a huge fan base and their shows have been regulated somewhat of late, but you still see many people who think this kind of shoeing is really neat:

This young lassie is all dressed up & ready to show her pretty horse, whose tail did not come from the hand of God looking like that. Check out the angle of the horse's front feet in those kegs. And then calculate the number of years or months until breakdown of the joints & ligaments.

Here's what wins, obviously:

My friend Kathy calls this type of competition "Evil Old Men Slumped Over in Tailcoats". But sometimes they aren't men...


All this insanity around gaiting makes it strange to own a gaited horse and be relatively clueless, as I am. Everyone and I mean almost everyone claims you must have a long shanked bit. You will find the religious belief that shanks are required. Are they? I really don't know but I doubt it.

Then there's the "gaited horse saddle" industry. There may be something to this, in that gaited horses need a lot of shoulder room so a slightly back-placed or Y-rigged saddle may be helpful. But fortunes are being made off people who think they can't get on their gaited cuties without a special saddle. Embarrassing story about self omitted here.

This high-headed look and upraised foreleg are almost a trademark of gaited horse competitions in the U.S. Here in Minnesota there's a group called Minnesota Walking Horse Association and they are promoting natural standards for especially Tennessee Walkers. It's refreshing to see them out and about, or at a show, with pretty horses just gaiting, flowing along, not flailing or grimacing...They go on group horse camping trips too, and I went along on one - what a completely fun group. They love their TWH's and let them just be.

I am very confused about what John should be doing. Everything from bit to contact to head carriage baffles me. Gaited horses don't just gait without some training and that training has to be kept up, but the contradictory schools of thought on how to do this could make your head explode.

Right now he goes best with a light contact on a snaffle bit, and when he is really warmed up, he gaits smoothly holding his head on a curved neck like a little palomino dragon; I can let the contact drop and he still keeps going in this frame. For awhile. Then will get pacey (two legs on the same side moving in unison in the same direction, very bumpy to ride) for a bit, then self-correct. He gaits best out on the trail.

Here's a good example of a happy gaited horse, outside and it looks like a canter, with a soft rider and no head constraint:


That's my goal. Not exactly sure how to get there.

Mmmm Winter Delights!

1. Those skies!

2. Putting your hands under a horse's blanket right behind the withers: smooth pocket of warm horse, yum.

3. Thermal underwear! You can live in them! I feel like Pappy Yoakum schlumping around the property - all I need is an outhouse and a banged up rifle.

4. Doggies to sleep in your lap.


5. Lemonade!! Big wintery thanks to CanadianCowgirl for sending me a glass of lemonade award; when winter gives us lemons, girlfriend, we gots to make lemonade or perhaps a hot lemon toddy!! I like your style, Canadian! And you must own some kickin long underwear!


6. Hay for my horses! Take a look at the size of that bale:
And look whose greedy horse is gnawing on it in midair: that's Montana on the right. Not too scared of machinery.

And Rufus is learning to jump through a hoop! And having fewer accidents on the rug! Life is improving as the days grow ever so slightly longer each week. Dust off your chaps cowgirls - that ice is going to be gone before we know it.

Night Rider

Thursday night I rode two horses after 8 p.m. and I had the arenas to myself! Pitch black dark night except for the northern lights, and bitter cold but the horses were in mellow moods and it was just heavenly. Now why don't I do this more often?

I didn't take the northern lights photo above but they were pretty spectacular. Their silence always makes me wonder - it just seems like a display like that ought to make noise!

Montana was in his glory - loose and springy. And John was like a snorting chuffing plump yellow gaiting machine. They seemed to decide that though unusual, this night riding was within the rules of their union contract.

To avoid the unwanted encounter with cars on the road in the dark, I have this little thingy:


It attaches to a zipper tab or other spot and gives off a strip of very bright red light. It will also flash. So far I have nearly given two parents heart attacks as they came flying up the road in the dark; "What the hell is that?" said the dad.

Everybody drives too fast on this dead-end horse riddled road, and one close call was enough for me. So I give off an eerie red glow now and so far we are alive, knock wood.

Ice Heaps on the Shore

We drove up the shore on Monday to observe the progress of the ice. The wind piles it up on the shore of Lake Superior around this time of year. Since the days are already getting longer (yes!!), soon it will begin to recede and then melt.

The dog brigade came along and this picture makes them look strangely tied together but it's just their jackets being parallel.

Rufus (left) continues advancing his sinister plot to rule the world; his 3 strategies seem to be: cuteness, urinating in the house, and stealing all Gabey's toys. It's working. Jan and I relax for a moment and then suddenly sit bolt upright: "Where's Rufus??" to which the answer usually is, over there behind something, just finished relieving himself on the rug, looks happy.

On the ride home the sun shot up this great ray into the heavens:


It was a nice trip and included some of this:

"7-Layer Chocolate Mocha" from the justly famous Betty's Pies. And it has no calories whatsoever! isn't it a miracle?

Johnnie Comes Marching Home!

John does come when I call him, on most days, and he especially marches on these cold days when he is bored and hungry. Montana will look up at me, and occasionally take one step in my direction, but then he just stands and watches me walk over. In the video you can see our covered arena, the saving grace of winter in this awful climate.

I had a pretty decent ride on John yesterday. I'm working on taking a bit of contact with a new fatter bit I changed into his bridle last week. The world of gaited horses and their tack is a jungle of mysterious questions to me. so is the whole issue of how they are supposed to be 'in the bridle'. I see every which thing but I am going to leave that for another post.

Meanwhile, here's John's opinion of my picture-taking when he wants his mint:

Watch Boiling Water Vaporize in Cold!

I made a little movie this afternoon to illustrate an amazing phenomenon: boiling water instantly vaporizes when you throw it into a cold enough Minnesota afternoon! You will witness me performing this experiment with scientific accuracy and great fastidiousness, in this extremely short video I posted to YouTube just this minute: