Special Care for My Special Girl

Back in the late summer of 1993, we saw an ad in the local newspaper.  A gentleman had two horses for sale:  a gelding that he said was well broke to ride, and a seven year old mare.  It was a nice afternoon, so why not go have a look?  The man had copies of the AQHA registration papers for each horse conveniently at hand.  We were impressed!  Both of the horses were closely related to the great Three Bars...in fact, the mare had that name still on her papers, meaning that she was related closely enough that the 3-generation pedigree showed his name.  We had always had a dream of raising some colts and wanted them to be good, solid "thinking" horses that would know how to work.  This could be the start of that dream.  

The gentleman offered to saddle up that gelding, but we couldn't even 'see' that horse anymore! When the man shook an oats bucket out the barn door, the sorrel mare looked up, thought about it for a few seconds (probably waiting for him to beg) and then ambled toward the barn.  Oddly, the man didn't offer to saddle her up, but we were far past that point already. (We would later learn why he 'overlooked' that little item!) The mare tolerated most of the handling 'test's that my husband performed.  We said we would think about it.

We weren't lying!  We thought of nothing else for the next few hours...and knew she had to be ours.  Her name is Phylleigh (pronounced 'filly') and she has lived here ever since.  When we brought her home, we set about learning who she was.  Her hooves were a fright!  It was obvious that she had had shoes on at one time...and that no one had bothered to remove them.  They had just waited for them to fall off of their own accord, leaving split and splintered hooves in their wake.  She didn't appear to be lame, though, so we put her back in the trailer and asked a nearby neighbor to do a quick trim.  When she returned home, we put a saddle on her for the first time.  Seconds later, that saddle lay on the ground beside her with the saddle blanket nearby.  When the saddle again sat on her back, she allowed it to stay, knowing she had already made her point with me.  When I first rode her around the yard, quietly at a walk, then a smooth gentle trot that needed no urging, I realized that she reined so easily that it was almost as if she read my mind!  I knew she was the classiest ride I had ever experienced.  Nothing has changed.

So it began.  Dear Phylleigh made it very plain that some man had 'done her wrong' and she wanted little, if anything, to do with the members of that gender ever again.  Ray was finally able to walk up to her and scratch her neck sometime almost 3 years later.  It was a matter of self-respect on her part.  She also had another little trait that I learned to never ignore.  When I first stepped aboard, I could feel an invisible knot beneath me, a knot that threatened to explode!  Yes, that girl could buck!  I learned to discuss this issue with her immediately, walking and talking until she had time to get her mind right.  The details of those discussions included quiet warnings....and other words.  This ritual hasn't ever changed.  We talk and we walk and then we ride. We later heard (though the 'grapevine') that she had been deemed to be a 'renegade', a 'killer horse', and, basically, she was supposed to be impossible to ride.  Fortunately, she and I already had lots of fantastic miles behind us when I heard this.  I still laugh when I think how she had those men fooled!

Oddly enough, she seems to be one of those girls who don't really grow nice nails or long flowing locks.  We tried several treatments to make those hooves shape up; they didn't work.  She has never once come up lame, though we never expected daily hard work from any of our horses, so she wasn't stressed.

She continued to amaze me. We worked with the neighbor's cattle, rounding up and herding.  She only needed to be told to "watch her feet" to be able to avoid every rock, hole and piece of wire with which that pasture was littered!  There was one yellow cow, however, that made a lasting impression on both of us when she turned round and plowed into Phylleigh's side, missing my lower leg by a mere fraction.  I dropped a rein and lost a stirrup, but my girl took care of me till I got regrouped and said, "Let's get the hell OUT of here!"  She gladly agreed and never quite forgot that nasty hag.

On another occasion, we were going to move about two dozen heifers for that same neighbor.  Young cattle are notoriously flighty and can be counted on to explode in all and any direction at the last moment before the job is done.  There were five of us bringing those heifers to the corral, but somehow I had gotten stuck with the end position and knew that I would take all sorts of razzing if they got past me.  At the very last moment, here came those cattle, running along the barbed wire fence that was straight ahead of us. I'm not sure yet how it happened, but suddenly dear Phylleigh made us both look great, doing a cantering side-pass, cutting off those heifers, and, when they stopped, wheeling around to face them, never taking her eyes off them.  I almost cried because I was so proud of her.

Then we decided to give her a shot at being a mom.  She was bred to Mr.BlackBarMoney, who was owed by Earl Linneman, a respected local breeder.  It was so very exciting, watching and waiting that whole eleven months!  As we came up the drive on that April day, the lump of stuff in front of the grain bin raised its head and shook its long ears! It was Phylleigh's firstborn son, Ray's Mr.BarJack.  From that moment on, Phylleigh seemed to absolutely love small children, nickering to them and warning them to be careful and snuffling their hair.  She has allowed a few little ones to have short rides while I led her; no one else has ridden her since the day she came in the yard. She has given  us several other foals as well, each a beautiful example of the American Quarter Horse breed.

Her last trail-ride was several years ago now.  Edith and I attended a celebration in my little home-town of Florence, SD.  It was a short little ride of only five or six miles, but it was exciting for us because Edith had never had that sort of experience before.  We got there early and parked the pickup and trailer in the nice little pasture that had been set aside for all of us.  There ended up being about twenty or twenty-five riders and, since we had had plenty of time, all was calm and quiet when it was time to head out.  Then...out from the tree grove next to the pasture came a tiny, yapping dog!  It was as if we were all in slow motion for a few seconds while each horse made its decision as to how it would respond to this excuse to behave badly.  Phylleigh had no hesitation...she KNEW how to respond!  BUCK!!  I didn't come off.  I am not proud of how I stayed on. It wasn't a matter of worrying about being embarrassed in front of my old school mates.  It was a matter of knowing how suddenly the ground would come up to greet me and how my old body would suffer for it.  All I remember about that blessedly brief bucking spell was thinking, "Phylleigh, PLEASE be done now!" Then she was!  We had a wonderfully peaceful and gorgeous ride that ended with us taking part in the parade down Florence's main street.  Small children and their parents were seated right up to the pavement so that Phylleigh could see each and every one of them.  It was her first and her last parade, but she loved it.

A few days ago, we realized that this was the year that the dear old girl would need special care through the winter.  She always was an easy keeper, as if eating more would provide the nutrients her body needed to maybe produce a decent mane and set of hooves.  Now, though, she is becoming a shadow of her beautiful self.  She is not the dominant queen of the herd that she used to be and sometimes has to wait her turn at the water tank.  She needs more grain now, richer in minerals and nutrients.  It is difficult to give special treatment to one horse out of a group, so we brought her into the sheep yard so that she would be able to come into the barn in nasty weather. She now gets a feed pan with a mixture of oats, corn, beet pulp shreds and sweet feed each morning.  She seems to think she could prepare it herself, with perhaps a little more generosity, but we have made sure that isn't an option.  She seems very pleased with her new situation.  She is able to see 'her herd' over the fence yet, but doesn't seem upset to be separated from them.  I have noticed that the rest of the horses now gather on the west side of the barn more often, almost like they find that a place where they can all be closer together like it used to be.  

I can look out the north window and see my dear old girl out there with all those sheep and the little goat family.  She now lays down to sleep in the shelter of one of the big round bales, often with Petal and her family laying nearby.  She greets us every morning with a nicker and bright alert eyes, ready for the nice meal and the pat-pat she knows is coming.  She doesn't owe me anything and we both know we are each too old for the drama we shared in the old days. She still is one of my greatest joys.

Eye contact as a dying art!

I spent years attached to my cell phone because it was my link to work and, at the time, I was a workaholic. The day I left and handed in my phone was a very liberating moment. These days, Anita and I have one cell phone between us and have a very simple phone plan which allows us to do just that, make and accept calls. No texts, no web browsing, no e-mails! Our reception at home is sketchy at best, using the cell phone there requires sitting in the kitchen, facing west and holding the phone to your left ear. We are right at the very edge of reception and, though recent additions to the towers in the area has improved reception, it has in no way solved the problem. If we want good quality we need to drive a mile and a half to the black-top road. In the middle of winter, especially during a blizzard I will take the cell phone to the barn with me. During lambing I will take the cell phone with me when I check the ewes. When Anita drives to work, she takes the cell phone with her. It is one of those tools for safety, one of those 'in case' things, just like the heavy blanket in the back of the pick up during winter. When we go to town together sometimes we remember to take it with us, sometimes we don't, it isn't high on our list of priorities.

I was shocked on Christmas day. We went to Anita's Mom and, as she was filling the dishwasher, I went back to the living room to see if there were any more dishes. There were at least half a dozen people in the room and every one of them was glued to their phone; a corny zombie film would have shown the tiny screen sucking their souls from their bodies through their eyes. Texting, playing games, catching up on emails or Facebook, exchanging the occasional word but their individual involvement with their phone was central. It used to be that there was a phone protocol, you switched it off if you weren't on call for work or put it on silent mode if you did need to be available for something important. Those last two words were the key....... something important! A Facebook update did not qualify for that particular category. In much the same way, etiquette requires that you look a person in the eye when making conversation, it is the polite thing to do. It shows the person that you are interested in what they have to say and that they are important to you. If you feel that your texts are more important than my conversation, that's fine, you should be able to set your priorities but don't expect me to waste my time. I have more important things to do than be second best to your screen. 

We all know it is rude to leave your phone on during church, in a theatre or even in a cinema but I have even seen someone texting during a funeral we attended recently! Am I really old fashioned in saying that phone usage is revealing a lack of respect in those who are unable to switch it off? Today I heard of a new way of dining with friends; all cell phones are put in the middle of the table face down and ignored. The first person to cave and look at their phone or answer it picks up the bill..... obviously I am not the only person irritated by peoples' inability to switch the dang thing off!

This coming weekend the Christian calender recognises Epiphany and with it, the end of the Christmas celebrations. Our decorations have been taken down, the boxes carefully stored until next year. Of course, if we are to believe some interpretations of the Mayan calender, we may not be celebrating Christmas next year! One thing is certain, this has been a most unusual holiday period for us.

Last New Year's Eve we had blizzard conditions with 6" (15cms) of snow falling in one afternoon. We had wind, snow and below freezing temps. Two years ago we spent Christmas alone as we were snowed in on Christmas Eve and nobody could reach us except the neighbour in his tractor! We have had our first snows in late October other years but, as we enter January 2012, we have no snow on the ground. This year there are warnings to remove fishing shacks from the lakes as the ice is too thin, even people we know have fallen through the ice as they tried to go ice fishing. Parts of the sloughs and lakes are even open water. We are waking up to temperatures above freezing and chores are much simpler as we are not having to crawl across snow drifts on our way to the barn. 

I will admit that not having to fight life-threatening weather is very pleasant but there is a down side; if the weather continues like this, we will have drought conditions later in the year, as much of our moisture comes from the snow melt. True, the last 2 years the snow melt has been disastrous for many in the state but none could be equally disastrous for the farmers round here. On a lighter note there is still much of winter left and often, our heaviest snowfalls are after my birthday at the end of this month.

Just before Christmas, Anita's sewing machine ground to a halt, actually it was more like hitting a brick wall and it looked as though I was going to have to vacate my space in the sewing room so she could finish the last of her Christmas projects. You have to realise that Anita is one of Santa's alpha elves in the sewing department and any delays can be disastrous, as she likes to test herself with close deadlines! Her youngest son and his family came to the rescue! They decided that she deserved a new sewing machine and not just a hand-me-down or a quick solution from the local Walmart. Jon went sewing machine shopping with Anita on the phone and me on the internet, all three of us looking at the same machine discussing the pros and cons. Decision made, the store agreed to ship and thanks to Jon and UPS the machine arrived in time! It has been a great success, not least of which is the self threading feature, wonderful for the more mature set of eyes. The words 'kid' and 'candy store' come to mind!

Neither of us have made any New Year's resolutions, not new ones anyway. We have some goals for the year, I want to make at least one more quilt top, preferably two and finish the one I am working on. We want to enter a few things in the Watertown Farm show. We want to continue losing weight.  The usual mixture of 'must do', 'to do' and 'wish lists' we make each year and prioritise as the weather improves. 

We have been toying with the idea of a kitchen garden for several years. A garden close to the house, outside of the vegetable garden that is home to herbs, salads and strawberries, productive yet aesthetically pleasing. We just never came up with an idea that would work with location, format, hours of sunshine, not be in the way in winter but still have proximity to the kitchen in summer. Some of the solutions were just to expensive, some were just not attractive and raised beds leave sensitive roots too exposed in our South Dakota winters. We have finally decided on cement blocks, not the boring old grey ones but the newer coloured and textured ones. We will buy a few each time we go to town, then fill them with a mixture of seasoned manure, topsoil and sand. The photo shows the 4 corner blocks. We will make a bed 4ft wide and 10-12 feet long for strawberries and salads but the holes in the blocks will also be filled with potting soil and will house the herbs. Not only are they cheaper than landscaping blocks for retainer walls but they are more functional with the holes allowing a diversity of planting options.

It may be January but plans for gardening and food are still very much in our mind and at the end of the month we will order our seeds as some will need to be started indoors some time in February or March.