What I want

I was trying to find a catchy one word title for my blog post with no success so I just went with what came to mind.

I'm finally living the life I want in so many ways. However I'm realizing that one critical factor is lacking. it's too soon for it to be much of a problem but I still see that it may be something that can't be achieved. I eventually want someone who wants to travel with me. I want someone who wants to go with me even if it's their most favorite thing to do bc they would rather be uncomfortable with me than hanging at home without me. I did meet someone I thought was going to be that guy. I introduced him to friends and took him to a ride but he was not the person I thought he was. that whole episode is still.so bizarre that it feels like I was having one of those dreams that doesn't make sense. I still can't quite figure out how it all happened. one day i thought i had met a really cool person with whom i matched and thr next i realized i had no kdea who he was. but moving on.

it's not that I can't go alone or that I don't enjoy being at the rides alone with my dogs. it's just that sometimes it would be nice to have someone pass the miles with. it would be awesome if that person wanted to ride or even just if they were there when I got off the trail.

in the end it will all sort itself out and I'm not going to stress over it. I'm happy having the opportunity to travel. I'm happy I only have to.ask myself if I want to go instead of having to plan with someone else. I'm enjoying not feeling bad when I go or.havong to negotiate. but sometimes that road trip partner would be so cool.

contemplation

I do some of my best thinking when I am driving in a silent car my mind will wander sometimes your subjects I never even considered thought about I read somewhere that if you wake up with a song in your head to explore what it means. I often sing songs over and over in my head when I'm driving and it intermingles with all of the thoughts I am having.

The song that he keeps coming to my mind is a Liz Longley song called Pieces. It is not on an album or on Spotify. I found it through and online class I was taking. The composer was talking about how they brought Liz Longley into the studio to work on the song with and how she phrased it changed the feel of the song. I liked it so much I had to figure out how to play it and I have mostly worked on the chords.  the song is on YouTube and it is absolutely gorgeous.

The song is about a lost lover. I don't know if the person has just left or if they died, but the girl in the song is very attached to the man. He is gone it talks about how when you love someone it would be much easier if they left all at one time what they don't you lose them in pieces. You must hear this song.

I have people in my life that I have loved but who, for whatever reason are not going to be with me long term. I want them to be. I wish they could be. But I know in my heart that it will never work out. When I hear this song I think of all the little things that make this person special and I'm bored how they can't get their act together to be fully present in my life.  but yet I fully care about this person, I would wager to say even love their not in love. I have great sadness that some relationships can never be fully realized.

There has been another song to but now I can't think what it was.

I have been trying to consider how One lets one of these relationships go. I have tried cutting it off and that didn't work well. the emotions are still there. I have tried being myself apart intellectually and this works better. However I know it some point the intellectual will outweigh the heart. and the worst part is I don't feel like there's any way to converse about I would love to just talk and work out all the details but I don't think that's ever going to happen.

So for now I go through each day taking it as it comes. I do what I need to do to keep my essential part of the safe. I truly have no desire to go out and meet new people at least not right now. I want to just Embrace and enjoy my single life. But I am a little sad for things that cannot be though I admit to Growing less sad each day.

As usual I have dictated this vocally. For some reason my Punctuation is not appearing as it should. So I apologize for bad grammar, run on sentences, and anything else I may not have proof read properly I do promise to go back and proofread it again.

Harry day 2 part 2

A Harryism...it's amazing what a horse won't do if you don't let them. 

This has been his response to me many times. How do I stop my horse from doing (blank)...don't let them. Wow, if it were only this easy. 

Fran and her horse Shiloh. 

I had a fantastic lesson with Cass today. I started out bringing him up early to play with the obstacles. He did pretty well. I backed him through the L. I Walked him over cavellti and walked him over a bridge. When it was time for my lesson we started by walking him through the round pen gate 1 step at a time.  We started out letting him around the round pen. I had meant to let him stretch his legs but I made the mistake of not leaving the pen so I ended up making him work before I truly intended to. I learned that he is very easy to get to be with me. I learned that for Charlie/cass (Val, Ivan Valentino, etc--would someone please help me name this horse lol) he needs very little reminder most of the time to follow me around. I had him with me quickly and he was following, stopping and not crowding me quickly. 

Then we put him on the line and worked on getting him to move around me on the line. We had him walking and trotting and staying with me very quickly so much of our early work has paid off. The big focus for me was to not drive him him but instead to out feel in the line and change his gait according to the energy in my body and slapping my body. I also noticed that he has started to stretch his neck and relax. 

Next we picked up a flag. I have done flag work before but it has been awhile. When I moved in with the flag at first he was ready to stomp it like he used to, but he stopped very quickly. Within a few minutes I was touching him all over with the flag. Then we used tapping the flag on his withers to move him off and then pet him with the flag to get him to keep going. He is such a smart boy. He figured this all out very quickly. 

In all of these things he was mostly attentive but sometimes I had to get his attention back. To do this I had to make an impression on him but not drive him or pull on him or let him step into me. What I discovered that when I'm consciously working on something I'm good at maintaining his attention but that when I'm just hanging out with my horse I have a problem keeping enough focus on my horse so that I don't lose him or that he takes advantage of me.  

Then I asked if maybe we could saddle him. Harry said we could but I might want to use the ring rope on him first. While waiting for Betsy to bring me her rope I worked on getting him to line up next to the mounting block. I discovered the tapping to move forward at the wither came in handy here since I could tap him just to move up a step at s time. He did very well with coming to the mounting block. I lay in him on the near side but not the off side. I'll have to work on getting him to line up on the off side but it will happen pretty easily. 

The ring rope was very interesting and I definitely got a work out. We started with the ring up at his withers. I was to bump him to get him to move off and then let him walk off. To stop I pulled stead in the ring. He didn't care about the withers at  all. Then I moved the rope to his mid section. He didn't like it but he still followed the cue of moving from the bump and stopping from a pull. He did start to paw when left to stand still showing me his displeasure. Over the course of this bumping and pulling the rope slid back to his flank area. Then we had a bit of a rodeo. He bucked very expressively when bumped and stopped. However after about 10 minutes he became good at stopping from the rope and relaxing. 

Tomorrow we will do the rope again and then I'll get a saddle on him. My goal is to then be able to start teaching him to ground drive a little and to understand what steps I need to be ready for mounting. 

Harry Whitney day 1 part 2

Cass is very disrespectful. He crowds, he bites, he is always on top of me whenever you need to do something. Within 30 seconds Harry had fixed it. He told me I was nagging him but not really commanding his respect or attention. Within 30 minutes he was standing quietly away from us and finding out that coming in didn't work out so well for him. For the first time ever I was able to feed him without being crowded last night. All I did was whack the rope on my shoe and making a noise and he went right back to trick is going to be teaching others to treat him the same way so he can generalize his learning. 

One of the things Harry observed about him is that he is so tense. His head his Hugh and his elbows are clamped into his body. One of the things I am to work with is to get him to lower his head and relax. This will create more space in his chest and rib cage. Even after an hour his body was relaxing and growing. He went from looking like a colt to a more mature horse after just an hour of work. This is a body work and posture issue. Improving his posture will improve his relaxation and vice versa. 

I can see how this work will benefit Liberty as well. He is often tense and doesn't pay attention. I'm hoping if I get him more focused on me perhaps he will call less and be less anxious. His anxiety has been costing us p&r's points. If he can out his head down and breathe and release tension his p&r's will improve. 

We also talked about horses who lick and chew or who don't. Sometimes it means the horse is so tense that they can't. But it can also mean that the horse is really ok so the changes caused by licking and chewing aren't as dramatic. He says when the kicking and chewing happen after a release its not near as important  the as the licking and chewing that happens during work. He says everyone gets excited about kicking and chewing and it's not always they big of a deal. 

I was highly impressed how much we learned in the little covered pen. I have always thought I needed to have a bigger space to practice things but it's simply not true. We can learn so much wherever we are. 

Today I don't know what we will work on. It was raining yesterday and if we can get in the round pen  (no rain) I hope to expand on yesterday and maybe play with some obstacles. If it's raining I'll probably try to work on saddling and bridling in the rainy area. I hope to start teaching him to move his hind and forequarter as well as side passing. 

Harry Whitney day 2

Betsy Zimmerman on her new horse Poppy. 

Betsy bought poppy after her mare, April died. She is 8 and was not started. They are working on straightness and helping her give to the reins equally. Harry said that the crookedness can eventually turn into a lameness. In helping them improve to rhis end Betsy is to wait on Poppy for however long it takes for her to give to the rein right. Hardy says the fact that he is sitting here is proof it will happen or he'd be on a horse somewhere. He says people get impatient and that a small but persistent request will result in a change eventually. Poppy spent s lot of time backing around the round pen. I think my mistake would have been to stop the backing instead of hanging in through the rein to get a change. 

Harry's main focus is about getting a horse to change their thoughts. We get the horses to think differently and then they are able to behave differently. 

Roger and Elvis. 

Roger is working on getting and keeping his horse's attention at liberty. 

Harry has a unique rein handling technique. He keeps one hand in the middle and pulls the rope though an open hand. Going left his right hand is in the center and the left hand is open with the right hand pulling the  rope through his left hand. This is more balanced for the rider and more gentle for the horse. This is backward for most riders. We are used to pulling with the rein whichever direction we are going. This rein technique helps the horse learn to let go of his thought, come around and be soft with as little pressure as possible. 

Harry riding Elvis. 

Robert and Valor

Depending on the horse you have to gauge how hard to slap you leg or the horse or even just wiggle your leg. Harry is very particular about adjusting for each horse. There is not a one size fits all solution. This horse is fixated on fences and tries to jump out of the round pen and other pens. To distract Valor form the fence Robert  made the Valor uncomfortable near the fence. He is currently getting hung up at different places in the pen and can't trot around the pen without stopping in key spots. Eventually valor will trot around the pen. Harry says we don't know when eventually is but eventually it will happen. 

Cheryl and Woody

When we haul the horses around all the time the horses don't have to stay with us in their thoughts. They just wait for us to haul them around. When we are soft and and give them time to think about what we are doing then they have to take responsibility for their own changes which makes them more with us. 

Cheryl worked learning to rein softly in the way that Harry reins, the way I described above.  It can be very confusing for the rider but once you start to rein this way the horses get very soft. 

first lesson with harry part 1

I'm in Lindale with several friends old and new at the Harry Whitney clinic. For who Harry is it's hard to explain but I will attempt. Harry is a natural horse trainer but he is not commercial. He has had a few books written about what it is like to take clinics with him. the author if those books is Tom Moats. I found Harry through a lady who has put on other clinics with Dr Deb Bennett. She came to East Texas when I was first starting Liberty. if it hadn't been for Dr Deb I'm sure Liberty and I would not have been successful. Harry is a protégé of Dr Deb and has been coming to Texas 1 time yearly since about 2010.

the first time he came I brought Fiera for one lesson and we did ground work. The next year I brought ollie to work in his bridling issues (I will say that Harry had no trouble putting a bridle on him and years later we are still unsuccessful )  One year I brought Fiera for 4 days and fell off during the clinic which was unpleasant. Now I am here with Baby Cass to get him a little education.

Melancholy evening

Today has been an interesting day. It started with an extra ride that I went to with Teresa adoration ranch is 500 acres and I think they told me it belongs to Tarleton State it would be a fantastic place to have an NATRC ride but everybody there said the chances of them letting us do that are small.  I figure I will give it a shot though because it never hurts to ask. They served a great barbecue lunch which included brisket and different flavors of sausage.  We got a tiny bit of rain just as lunch was being served but it went by quickly. My friend Gidget had encouraged me to come to this ride so that I could meet people from Stephenville since I now seem to live here. While I did not really meet that many new people I didn't meet one gentleman who had moved here from Oregon to study with a local trainer. I thought it was really neat that he had come here to follow his dream to be doing very well.

As an aside, The longer I am down here the more I love it. The other day when Maggie and I had to register her new trailer at the DMV we were able to walk right in and have service without a weight. They have three people working in the office and everyone was kind and courteous.

We joined Gidget's Team, called the blue  mules, and we found that our team was the largest and got a trophy. Teresa and I outwalk most of the people who were on the trail. We started near the back and ended near the front and very little time was spent trotting. We were very impressed how polite everyone was on the trail and how well educated they seem to be about trail etiquette. We have the opportunity to talk to several  people about both NATRC and Texastrailchallenge Club.

After we came home I realized that I had not prepared any food for the weekend ahead. I am to bring desserts to the Harry Whitney clinic and I had not yet accomplish this. So I ran to the store and bought the things I needed plus some other groceries and of course spent way too much money but that's how going to the grocery store is I guess.

I had thought I would have company this evening but it has not worked out that way. I was torn because on one hand I had so much work to do I did not really want company but on the other hand I had look forward to seeing friends all day long. It has been a strange and melancholy evening. I put on Pandora playing Liz Longley radio. Liz Longley is a recent find of mine. I don't know how to describe her music other than it has a jazzy and sometimes melancholy vibe. The words are frequently meaningful to me and they almost always make you think. There have been lots of other people on this Pandora station and it has suited my mood. The mood is one of wanting someone yet not wanting company. It's a mood of craving time alone yet wishing there was someone here on a similar wavelength to share the evening with. I have been very happy for all the peace in my world but yet wish I had someone to share the peace with.

It's now 10:32 and I'm going to be wrapping things up and going to bed. I am off to the Harry Whitney clinic tomorrow with my young horse to hopefully teach him some better manners and possibly get him ready for riding. I don't know if either one of us is actually ready for that that's why I say possibly. It's going to be a strange week because I will be gone through Tuesday afternoon. I will work Wednesday and then leave with Teresa on Thursday for a Friday Saturday clinic and we are taking two of her paso fino's.

This past week has been especially busy as I saw many of my clients ahead of time so that I didn't have to do missed visits this week. The ones I was unable to see I will see when I return the following week. I did not realize I had both of these clinics the same week or I would've probably only going to one. I love my home so much I find that I don't actually want to be gone all the time.

Unfortunately I still have some paperwork to complete so I will wrap this up for now. I hope to post each day about what I am learning during the clinic.