Your comments will no longer be moderated

Thanks to Patricia's helpful comment, I found how to change the "moderation" step, so henceforth, no blog comments will be moderated. Thank you Patricia!
Cheers,
Nancy

Soundness is in the Heart - or A Teacher named Bailey

It was December of 1999. The Denver area had gotten a good dose of snow. The wind was still strong as I drove south of the city, to an address in the middle of nowhere. I had to find the turnoff, follow the dirt road past a huge power pole and stop at a barn. I was so excited I could hardly drive. Sean, in the back seat, didn't know where we were going but he was happy to be going somewhere.

The object of the trip was to look at a horse. From the ad in the paper, it sounded like this horse might work for Sean. The horse was an older, "been there, done that" ex ranch horse. 20 years old. I had been around an old retired horse as a youngster and knew how much an older horse could teach. Many years later I had rediscovered horseback riding when I leased a horse and rode double with a small, 11 year old Sean, almost daily for over a year. Sean couldn't get enough of that horse and of riding.

I had never owned a horse as an adult. The prospect was daunting. The owner brought out a saddled, bridled "Bailey" and rode him around for us. This was not reassuring because the ground was icy. It terrified me to watch the rider nonchalantly canter Bailey around. When the reins were handed to me, I preferred to bring Sean out to a non-icy area. I let Sean approach Bailey and touch his face, touch the saddle, stroke Bailey's neck. I then handed the reins to Sean and walked off a little, letting Sean use his residual vision to follow me. Bailey obediently followed Sean and stopped when Sean stopped. There was never anything but slack in the reins. We walked in this manner for several minutes. Sean was not about to get onto Bailey because it had been several years since he had ridden a horse and Sean had grown up in those years. Getting him back onto a horse would probably take months because it would have to be at his own pace. But I felt Bailey had the patience to go with Sean on this.

Bailey scuffed his front hooves as he walked. I asked about it. Yes, Bailey was had always walked like that since they'd had him. They'd taken him up into the mountains for trail rides over the last year and Bailey had done just fine but yes, he was not sound. He was also nothing to look at. He was a plain brown horse with a winter coat. He had a tiny white spot on his forehead. But I wasn't looking at color . The temperament was the most important thing to me, and Bailey was calm. He was fine around people, and the seller didn't strike me as the kind of person who would dope up a horse.

What a gem this old brown horse turned out to be. He was the best possible teacher we could have found. Over the 7 years we have had Bailey, he has taught us how to care for him, taught me what a fine mind he has, how smart he is and how safe he could be. Even though he scuffed his front hooves, he took great care with his riders. He especially loved carting small children around.

Bailey taught Sean how to feed carrots to horses; Bailey taught me how to be calm and not get riled if things didn't quite go as planned. He taught us infinite patience. He was a saint waiting at the mounting block for half an hour so that Sean could get on in his own good time. Above all, he taught everyone in our family what a blessing a horse can be.

Now, Bailey is no longer rideable. (I think he was older than the "20" I was told in 1999). He now enjoys having the freedom to roam our 10 acres and hit us up for treats when we go out on the deck. He seldom misses a chance to snag a carrot if he sees us out on the deck during the day. We have since gotten 2 other horses, and Bailey is the herd boss. The other two horses are mares and although mares usually rule the roost, Bailey continues to be the benevolent dictator.

I used to read horsemens' stories about what a great teacher this or that horse was. Now I understand what those horsemen meant. And with more horses now, the learning just keeps on coming! What a journey we are taking!

To anyone who has left comments!

My apologies to those who have commented on some of the blog entries! Only recently was it brought to my attention that the comments had to be moderated. That is a change from the way it used to be. I found comments from many months ago which had never been seen! Today I have moderated all such comments and published them all.

In future I will keep a close eye out so that anyone who writes a comment will have his or her comment noticed right away!

Cheers,
Nancy

Jan 31, 2007 Deliberation and a Decision

Sean can be demanding.

In the day-to-day world of Sean and his care-taking, various demands must be met. It is true that now that he is 27 years old, he has calmed down a bit compared to what he was like when he was little. Now, he can "chill out" more easily and by that I mean he can sit in the living room or in his room and be content to enjoy the sunshine as it washes over his face. His fingers will always be busy, finding a tiny little particle of something to roll between his thumb and forefinger while he basks. In earlier times, Sean had to be busy busy busy - his fingers were exploring and getting caught frequently in just about anything he could touch. He would get up, wander around the house and pull on anything that he touched. And keep pulling until it broke. Like curtains. But as I say, now he's a bit more mellow.

Nevertheless, caring for Sean is demanding. He remains 100% WHATEVER. And by that I mean if he is hungry, he is 100% HUNGRY. He will not allow me to sit down for an instant, but will guide me into the kitchen and insist that I get something ready for him NOW. He will not be herded back into the livng room. He will not budge from the kitchen. Not until he has been handed a plate of food that meets his nose test. Once handed a plate, his first action is to dip his nose into the food. This, we have come to realize, is his way of telling the temperature of the food, in addition to determining how delicious it smells!

Whether Sean wants food, something to drink, or a bath, or whether he needs to go to the toilet, or whether he wants to go outside, Sean will INSIST upon total familial participation until his goal has been met.

With this background, I will attempt to explain a crossroads we have come to, and the decision we made. It has to do with money.

Mick earns the income for the family. I take care of all the peripherals, so to speak. But mostly that means that anything having to do with Sean, I do. That's in addition to the shopping, the cooking, (most of) the cleaning, the feeding and caring of the horses and caring of the dogs during the day when Sean is not here. Sean does have a wonderful care giver, named Doc, without whom we would be lost. Doc has really become very important for Sean on a day-to-day basis. Doc takes Sean swimming, Doc takes Sean to nearby parks where they practice sign language while walking, and this also allows Sean to play on any playground equipment that is big enough for him. I must write a whole entry about Doc one of these days. But I digress. Doc takes Sean for 6 hours 5 days a week, more or less.

From time to time we have become pretty tired of having to budget as carefully as we need to. And let's face it, more often than not, I'm really lousy at it. We would like to get into our own property. We would like to buy some nicer things. So every once in a while I get a bee in my bonnet about having to earn money to supplement the income that Mick brings in so that we can actually make some serious headway in those directions. In those times, I have applied for jobs in local stores, I have looked into trying to use the horses in some way to earn income, etc. And I have gotten a little desperate about having to earn money.

This week though, we achieved something special. It was one of those times when I had been looking at property on the internet and gotten excited about several that looked like they'd fit our needs. But we just weren't financially able to plop down a chunky down payment to get the monthly costs squeezed into our budget. We talked about it and finally I decided that I would do SOMETHING to help out on the income front.

A friend of mine does home-based customer service over the phone and computer. She has been doing it for over a year now and it has really helped them pay bills and keep ahead of the game. I decided to call her and check into the possibility of doing that. She seemed to enjoy it, she certainly enjoyed the extra money they had now, and the hours were not horrific. Plus she could be at home. One thing I know I'm good at is customer relations. Perfect! I called her up and she was great at
answering my questions and steering me through the hiring process. It was part time but the hours that I set would have to be adhered to without an interruption.

The schedule would be something like this: start at 5:00 am and work until 7:00 am. We get up early, so that would be fine. I would work those two hours, then get Sean up, give him his bath, do his breakfast etc. He would be picked up around 9:00 am and then I would feed the horses, take the dogs out for their business, and start work again at 10:00. Work until 1:00 pm. And I'd have to work either on Saturdays or Sundays too. Sean would return home at 3:00 pm. I would even have time between 1 and 3 to go out and feed the horses again. This was not grueling by any means, and the extra money we'd make would really help! Since I didn't have to go anywhere, and I had almost all the necessary equipment to do the job, it was just a matter of selling my skills to the company. This I could do! I decided to sleep on it before actually applying online.

Boy am I glad I did!!!

When I awoke the next morning, something was abundantly clear: I would be sacrificing nearly all of the time that Sean was away on a daily basis, by working on the phone and computer. There would be absolutely no room to handle Sean emergencies, there would be absolutely no room to handle animal/pet emergencies. But for the first time in my life I realized the most important reason that it just would be a big mistake: there would be no time in the day to do anything that I truly WANTED to do. Like train Moon. Like riding Rosa. Like reading how to do that. Like talking to friends. Like catching up on sleep because Sean often is up during the middle of the night. Like enjoying the heck out of living out in the country where things are a big slower and where the huge sky is an endless source of joy to me.

Now I can hear some people saying: well all that's very nice, Nancy, but if you HAD to work, you would. Well that's true. But the fact is, that we have a lifestyle that is a true dream come true: we have our beloved horses right in our back yard; we have two great rescue dogs that are a source of endless delight; I can bake and cook and create anything I want to in the kitchen, and I do. The prospect of giving up all of this, in exchange for a pretty measily amount of hourly money while getting the additional burden of stressing out over schedules, Sean, when to do this and that..... well I decided that it was NOT worth it.

It was clear to me that while I am not "making money" for the family, I am contributing very valuable services: I am available for Sean, whether that is spending more time tickling him as he gets dressed; making his breakfast; taking extra time with him, letting him know how much he is loved, not rushing or stressing out on "getting him out of here" so that I could "work". And on and on.

Most of my life has been spent working working and working. Now, I am finally doing what I have always wanted: helping teach horses to be better safe horses for me and my family (and of course Moon is here in order to serve as Sean's and my riding horse). But the time it takes to learn, experiment and accomplish things is just that: time. Horses do not run on a schedule.

I also do the shopping for a good friend of mine who has difficulty getting out. It is a source of great joy that I am able to help her get out of her house and do a bit of walking, and I can help her run her errands. With that job schedule I would not have been able to see her during the week at all.

When I announced my decision to not apply for the job, Mick not only was understanding, he was elated! He said that it was a huge weight off his shoulders that I would not be trying to work, because I am available for anything that can come up during the day that needs to be handled, in or out of the house. It was a huge relief to him because he knows I try so hard to do something perfectly and he knew I'd start stressing out over it instantly. He also did not feel comfortable with me doing a job for small pay, when he feels our big paycheck consists of being out here in the first place.

So money? So what. We have enough to pay the bills, as long as we don't spend frivolously. We have enough money to buy groceries every week and to have nutritious delicious meals. Sure it would be nice to have a lot more money, but at what cost?

People dream of having the life style we have. I wouldn't trade it for millions of dollars. I'm so very lucky to have Mick and Sean and the critters, not to mention the friends we have and love.

So that's what has occupied us recently that I wanted to explain. I think it's the first time I have ever turned down the possibility of money in my hot little hand, for the choice of doing exactly what we are doing.
Nancy