Of Horses and life.

Of Horses and life.

One of the great realities of life is that we have a desire to learn
and grow throughout our personal lives. After 40 years of working with horses, I have come to an understanding that they are the same as us. And so, I have set to write some of my observations down.

There is no learning or growing without relationships. Like us horses are social creatures, in that they will only thrive with other horses. What is amazing about the horse is they seek a greater connection withhumans, not because we force it on them, but because they have the ability to look for it. They understand that there is more to their existence than being a wandering herbivore, waiting for death.

There is no thriving when fear is involved. The fear of hunger is
greater than the fact of being hungry. The fear of being hurt and in pain is greater than the fact of getting hurt or being in pain.There is no learning, growing and thriving when we are tired.

The ability to learn, to grow and thrive, is found from a place of rest. There is always growing and thriving when there is hope. The ability to hope is eternal for both the horse and the human.

The ability to hope gives us the energy to try, and the energy to try allows us to learn, grow and thrive.

I had a filly that l was asked to train some years back. I bought a
saddle horse in my trailer, because they couldn’t catch her or load
her, I’ve seen many like her before. She was young and had a great bitof energy.

She was lonely and fearfully tired. She had about a
half-acre run with a big tree for shelter. I spent more than four hours creating a relationship, while sitting on my saddle horse, before I could put a halter on her. And another two
hours teaching her to load in the trailer.

And so, the relationship had begun. The desire for relationship is overwhelming for the human and the horse. Understanding it takes time to create it. The horse always has the time…

I bought her to the ranch. She squealed and kicked at any horse that came near her pen. She devoured her hay as if was her last meal ever.Her ears were laid back and her tail flagged nonstop for a week. She would run at me to bite or kick the moment I stepped in the pen. I had no problem stinging her with my rope if I felt in danger. But I was not there to create fear, but a relationship.

She was not made to be like this from her present owners who cared about her well being or they would not have taken the time or money to call me. Whatever caused her condition was not mine to judge. It wasonly mine to help.

Letting her rest in her troubled condition is often hard, but hope
brings knowledge and without letting her set into this fearful state
of mind. I began to let her have more contact with my older horses, she kicked at them and she was kicked at. But our relationship had
begun.

Our desire to relate is never pretty and often leaves us a with
few scuffs, yet it is not a wrong thing. As a horseman, letting horses be horses is an important thought to keep in mind.

In no time my horses had helped me create the relationship. This little filly began to find rest in her environment. She was not as anxious about being caught or worked with. And by no miraculous existence, this young filly was ridden by its owner just six weeks later.

These little principals allow this horse and many others reach their potential and mine as well.

To create relationships of rest, that dispels fear, with hope of the next adventure, is what horses and humans are created for.

Hard times…

My mom told me often as a lazy teen: “…just because it hard doesn’t make it bad.” Now that l am the one with a lot of life experiences in my past, I see the issue from the other side of life. But relating that to the next generation is often a reality learned over time

Still I am confident that it needs to be said often, for there more to this motto “than just pushing through… and getten er done”. Of course there is a feeling of satisfaction in getting a hard job done right.


Once several years back whilst ranching in the southwest, I headed out a horseback on a warm late fall day, to gather the last of the strays out of a pasture along a sometimes little river. I know some winter weather was fixing to come in the next day and this could be the last day to get them out.


That big piece of country was rimed by steep rock walls and small rocky trails and cattle can get snowed and iced in down there. They got a fifty/fifty chance of making it through without looking after.


Or even worse,  being looked after by someone else. In the big country someone may finding your lost stock and will just push them up a cannon pasture and start raisen calves off of you cows.  I’d hunted for the runaways a few time with no luck,and had a feeling this could be my last chance for a while.


I was lightly dressed, just flees lined denim jacket, a neck rag… (which I alway put on the first of October and don’t take of till the last of April. If l got that silks neck rag on l can stay reasonably comfortable in most weather, but if not it doesn’t matter how many layers l got on.)  …my regular high top leather riding boots, and of course my black wide brim hat. (A good black hat is good cool weather riding gear, cause it catches the sun and warms your head and keeps that same sun out of your eyes, kinda a win win piece of equipment. Honestly I have no idea how anyone can walk around bareheaded outside. Even with a ball cap it doesn’t keep the sun off your neck and ears in the summer and dang sure don’t help at all in the cold. And my leather leggings to keep perfectly good jeans from being tore up.


Well that’s enough of being stuck in a conversational gopher hole. In any case things didn’t go well, like they often don’t, and l found myself in a bit of a jackpot. I got to tracking those cows, that lead me through a down water gap (fence going over the river) and into an abandoned bit of range that went up river for about ten miles of no fences, covered in tall push narrow cannons and quick sand on the boggy place. You can trust me on this one cause it cost a good bit of blood and sweet a time or two.


Fortunately for me, my stud horse Drifty (awesome horse) and border collie Daisy (greatest dog in southwest),   those cows hadn’t gone to far up river. But they had found themselves a bit of a honey hole, to wait out the pending weather. Wasn’t that cold yet, but thick dark clouds were rolling in and you could smell a hint of moisture. It became clear those cows weren’t much interested in going anywhere and we had several miles of tough country to get through.


We went to work and got them pushed through that down water gap and that’s when we started working up a sweet. Those dang cows (and I was calling them worse names than that at this point. ) would go up the river some distance cross over the river,  back to the down to the other side into the river, through missing water gap, and travel back toward their honey hole. There was no way to cut them off and they just ran right over the top of Daisy getting to the river.


It was mid afternoon, and I had no desire to fixing that water gap till spring. But unless I did fixed it and put them through a wire gate half mile up the fence line, (which would add another half hour to getting these cows home) this little game of theirs would go on to eternity.


I did my best to get those wires pull across a horseback against a pretty strong current, and Drifty did his best to keep me dry, but there were some deeper spots that he needed to skirt around and it made for a tough pull. Let me just add that there are not a lot of horses in this world that will drag four strands of barbed wire across running water and hold it tight on a saddle rope, while I work at getting it tied off.


Getting it tied off to a big post set in behind a even bigger flat rock was hard hard work. And in the process of pulling the last two wires out of the current, I slide off the rock and went waist deep in real cold water. And that made me made .


I dang sure wasn’t given in now. In another 10 minutes I had that gap tight and out of the water. I loosened the cinch a couple holes on the best horse, God put life into, swung in the saddle and headed for where my dog had got them four leged demon stopped, few hundred yards off.


I slipped in behind, hissed to the dog, gave out yelp, and we hit them hard and set them running to the river. They came to that water gap, looked back knowing they been beat and head up the fence line at a fast trot, stopped at the gate, and waited for me to open it. Daisy worked the back, whilst I turned them toward shortest trail to winter camp.


Now as you can imagine, the “mad was ware off”, and I was starting to feel the influence of that little swim I’d took. So I began take stock as to the situation l was in.


It was less than an hour till dark, best l could figure. The wind had shifted to the northeast, and pushing straight against us, I was soaked to the shirt pockets, and sweat through my hat. Which was now starting to freeze up, and felt like a metal helmets, rattled cold in the wind, on my head. My thin leather cloves were freezing to my hands, and my boots were frozen solid to my nume feet. I’dthought of getting down and walking to warm up but sure if I could walk any more.


I had to smile to myself a bit, because I didn’t know  to many cowboys that had got themselves in a pickle like this and lived.I had heard a real story or two about cowboys that died of hypothermia, while trying to build a fire, and l didn’t even have any matches. I wasn’t  really thinking about dying, I was thinking about how great of a story this was going to be when I made it through.


Normally it doesn’t take longer than an hour to break out on top, but luck was against us, and it started sleeting hard, and making the rocks icey,. About halfway up it was rough going. Where the rocky trail got narrow cattle were slipping and stopping. And the higher up the trail we went the harder that northeast wind pushed on all of us. The warmer air that was trapped in the valley, was far behind us.


Did l mention that l was getting pretty cold, and the only  thing that kept any feeling in my bare hands, was that stinging icey sleet, my soggy leather gloves had frozen to my jacket pocket some time back, and all I could do was put one hand at a time between my saddle pad and my horse. I sure was glad my neck rag was dry, if it had not been for warm silk, I would have just fallen off my horse and died.


We were kinda at the “all in or done” spot on the trail, with those poor cattle slipping and crawling their way. We couldn’t stay there and wait it out. We all just keep moving forward. Every now then when thing got to slow, I’d give a whistle or daisy a bark, and off we’d go another hundred yards.  


By the time we topped out, it was snowing so much, it seemed to be one huge snowflake going sideways. Normally when those cattle get out on the flat, they tend to just trail on out to the pens. But with hard snow and wind in our faces, those cattle just wanted to spread out and find a place to hide. It was like pushing rope and herding chickens, all at the same. And about now a desperate frustration set in me.


I didn’t blame much and thought about leaving them, knowing I was getting to cold, but with no real shelter for these wayward words of the ranch, that had wasted good time, and energy trying to stay ungathered. And now they were trying to kill me. I know l couldn’t leave them, they would need better shelter and water and rest from the days activities.

There is something a bit different about us cowboys that have truly chosen this life. For whatever reason we tend not have any “give up” in us. There is a weird sense of confidence about ourselves that gets us in some pretty tough places, but it’s that same confidence that gets us through too.


What is amazing, is that it becomes a part of those who work with us. Because that young stud and dog of mine, just keep work those “suldup” old cows, like it was a warm summer day.


So with the reality that it could be done, I let out a whistle and a howell, we hit them hard for a final  push. Swinging the knotted end of my saddle rope to put a little sting in their cold hides. Drifty with ears back went to biting tales, Daisy hit another gear working the flanks.


As you can tell from the fact that I am writing this, we all did live, though it did take two days to get back to normal.


I wondered often about that time and many others when it was hard. It seems sometimes the harder you try, the harder it get, and when you’re sure it can’t get worse… it does. Sometimes life just seems to be against you, and it stays that way for a long long time.


I’m sure we all heard the phase “when life knocks you down…”,and in some of my darkest hours of depression, I’ve had some of the most well educated professionals say that to me. And I would just think, “you have no idea what has knocked me down”.


After much thought on why that phase makes me unsettled, I’ve found this bit of insight over the years.


Life doesn’t knock anything down, Life is the one thing that raises us up. We tend to blame the very thing that well get us back up. We have been created by divine design, with His life breathed into our spiritual humanity. Losing the influence of this reality, exchanges our best to become our worst.


What knocks us down is simply the rhythm of our existence, it is a designed resistance that brings great worth to Life. We are often influenced by social and physical notions of speculations. We habitually label a circumstance with a moral value.


Hard is not bad or wrong. We are created to be in hard and tough places. One of the greatest trip ups for me was a notion, that pushed me to the edge, was thinking: “at my age it should be easier now! “At some many years of marriage l shouldn’t be having a divorce.” “after all my hard work and experience, I shouldn’t  lose my business, and be in debt”. And this was the greatest one of all, “l don’t belong here”! “I dont deserve this!”


Almost all of our religious and professional council is directed at a superficial concept of choice. If you choose to change the physical action, the “bad” feeling will go away. And that somehow you responsible for the for the spiritual realm of influence.


We avoid sadness, and loneliness, those dark and anxious places, but they are The reality of true life. Our greatest troubles comes from trying to escape, it is my personal adherence that all addiction are rooted in the effort of escaping something. Instead of feeling the reality of life, we run faster and faster for a peace that can only come when we are overwhelmed by that which is unwelcome to the superficial view of life.


We in the realm of being human, think we need to choose our feeling, if it doesn’t feel right, it is wrong and I must choose to change it. We can change what emotions we have, but the feelings are a part of our created spiritual nature. They are not meant to be changed, they are designed to be lived in.


There isn’t always someone there for us, or the one that always was, is gone. And as I’ve experienced there isn’t all a reason or answer. But as I sat on the porch of  a little cabin as a stay in the  journey, in a place of great saddness, loneliness and sorrow. I once heard in still small voice, “if I left you just as you are now, would you love. If this were all I had give,  would want me”. I said no at time…  


 The peace of life is not for getting through or above the sorrows that surrounds our existence, but realize that our created spiritual nature is our first reality, when we feel the experience of our existence as we where created to. We are alive.


…Bob’s ghost, the rest of the story 

Now with the first part of this adventure still your mind,  you can understand the reality of the of our situation, as this cow is hooking at this, what appears to be a small piece of white plastic, my dog comes around to a juniper,  clearly annoyed at the straggler and gave her a hard nip in the heel.

This cow jerked her head up, takes off in a panic, brings this huge bellowing  white, twenty foot sheet of constitution plastic, completely draped over her face and horns, blindly racing straight at me and Bob. I figure the wind was just right to make float and flutter some ten feet in the air


The cattle I was holding at the water tank sensed the coming apocalypse, throw their tails in the air and stampeded over a nearby ridge and into the brush. Even the dogs ran off and left me and Bob and the giant ghost to work it out.


I had a few different things going in my mind as time slowed way down. I sure set down in the saddle thinking if Bob blows up or out I was going to go with him, or stepping off and manageing the situation from the ground, all the time wondering how much either choice was going to hurt.


I could feel Bob’s muscles getting as tight as a banjo string, and hear the air rolling in his flared nostrils, looking at a ten foot ghost wildly gliding through the trees and brush bellering bloody murder.


One of the last thoughts going through my head was that nobody would really know how I died, or it they would even find my body,  because in a second the wreckage would be scattered from hell to breakfast.


Now I’ll never know if it was because I was just sitting there on Bob’s back, deep in my own thoughts, waiting for the inevitable, and he  got the notion that I wasn’t concerned, but without a thought or motivation from me, this big young colt started to back up.


He just naturally started to create his comfort zone, and he kept going back at a deliberate pace. His ears where perked and head was high, and still blowing air like a steamboat, but he put himself in a stead reverse, turning slowly in semi circle, always facing the ghost at hand, until she had passed on by at a safe distance.


This poor crazed creature crashed into a big cholla cactus which really got her on the fight, before she was able to get free of that sheet of cow eating plastic. With great relief she shook her head one more time in disgust and embarrassment, and trotted off in the direction of the rest of the herd.


I was astonished at the out come of impending doom and felt myself relax, and as I did, Bob began to step forward right toward that now limp and lifeless shell of ghost material. In about a minute he put his nose on it, push it around a bit and then looked off after the cattle now appearing way down ridge headed away from whatever had been going on up there. Kinda like a bunch of kids that had just broke someone’s living room window.  


Some folks my say I was just lucky, (which i was) and others that  I’m a hell of a horse trainer (which I am) But I can’t really explain the feeling of connection it creates, its just changes life as a whole, to know that someone’s got your back. In the plainold times we spent experiencing life together, something happened to us both. We started to care about and care for each other.


This big red sorrel horse is one of the most brave and confident horses I’ve ever swung my leg over. We’ve been in the thick of it a time or two with wild cattle and the like, but we always have come out with a job well done, and all the important pieces still attached.


If we get in a situation and he doesn’t like. I don’t force it cause he’s looking after me, and if he’s after something and I pull back, he knows we’ll still get it. I’m just looking for a better way.


He has also been a wonderful part of sharing the passion and joy of horsemanship with the next generation. There aren’t any spokes big enough to change the relationship anymore.


I’ve come away recognizing that there is a natural response to relationships, we are all created to care and be care for. It is in our spiritual DNA. It is unnatural to have contention with other living creatures. We were not created  to fight, struggle, scratch our way through the greatest gift of relationship life and living.


I’ve observed that there is a big difference between what is normal and what is natural. Our human nature live in a shallow reality of repatriation that gives us a precipitation of normal, if it happens a lot it is the normal reality of life and we come up with ways to cope with it.


It was normal for Bob to blow up when he felt unsafe. It maybe normal for human beings to fight, struggle and scratch for what we need emotionally and physically, but it not natural. It is not created in us to live this way.


Bob naturally didn’t want to blow up when he was scared. He wanted to be relax and be confident, it just became a normal reaction.  My normal reaction was to get made and a fight for our individual survival could have ruined any hope of creating a great partnership of experiences.


Perhaps the saddest thing of all this is that we are encouraged to except this existence as truth from the very instructions that should know better. When a horse can respond to the nature of comfort and security in another living being, why can’t we?


Maybe it’s just that we have never been told. I have bought this realization up in relationship to the christian faith. If the nature of God is love, then it is natural for God to love and be loveable. The is not struggle within God’s thoughts and feelings as whether to love or not, He can love with ease because His nature in love so it is natural for love to come from Him.


Therefore if He has breathed His life nature and character into our spiritual created humanity, it is natural for us to love and be loveable. Therefore it is easy to love and be loveable.


Yet there is great resistance to this revelation, because it is normal to believe that that we are by nature hateful, and we must fight against hate with the choice of love.  


The cowboy philosopher in my came only say that we are looking at this horse from the wrong end. We will never appreciate the whole horse by simply looking under the tail.


We are loved, loveable and loving by nature. we don’t choose it, we naturally respond to the reality of creation.



This my horse Bob and my boy helping me take a first ride out side on a young horse I was starting for him.

Bob’s ghost…

Bob’s ghost was about as real as ghosts get. The only thing missing was that wasn’t dark. In fact it was in the middle of a sunny morning. I don’t worry much about ghosts, but Bob does and what was coming at us had mighty scarred also.

Bob and have been partners now coming twenty years. We still are although we’ve both slowed some. Back in our prime we were something the team on both sides of the Pecos. There wasn’t often when we did bring home what we went after. He is by far the best partner and friend to work with and play with.

(We used to go fishing and hunting all time. But what we  enjoyed doing the was most is roping wild cattle, and training horses).


If you haven’t guessed yet Bob is a horse. I picked him out of a pen of two year old of from a ranch that owed me money on a training deal. He was just a tail skinny colt that some want-a-be farm hand had tried to put a start, but seems Bob was to much for him.


He had a name that was made up of three long Spanish words I couldn’t make much sense of. So with not much thought I just started calling him Bob. He was a bit of a hot mess for the first few months, and had some serious truth issues.


His most extreme characteristic was the super prower to spoke. This tall young athletic colt could jump twenty feet to either side of anything that caught his eye wrong. He was so quick and unpredictable about the whole thing, that I thought about selling him.


I was a bit of a saddle hand back then, and always stayed with him, but it felt like he was going to jerk my my bones out of my skin and it hurts. We could be riding along in a pasture just relaxed and pleasant,  and a rock or stump would appear to attack him, and he would blow to the side some twenty feet at the speed of light.

After a few months of this, it seemed that it was becoming a game to him. He started to ride around looking for things to blow up about. So being l like to play games too I made some rules so it could be fun for us both.


The game goes like this: Bob can be scared of anything he wants, but instead of blowing out sideways at speed of sound, he can back up until he feels safe again. Then we can look at the horse eating monster far as comfortable distance.  When he feels more confident we can walk forward until its scary again and then back up. Little by little we turn fear into curiosity. We win when he can put his nose on it. It doesn’t take long to turn spooks into rocks, stumps and logs.  


It was mostly half hidden things in tall grass. But the last and most challenging things to get past was flapping plastic. Anything from a kmart bag to a feed sack, any color or size wasn’t  to be trusted. If l had it in my hand it was of no account, but if I we were riding out, and it was with in eyesight, it was scary to the extreme.


Still with time, patience and consistency we made wonderful progress in being partners and companions. This simple foundation of: back to escape, relax, and investigate, made us an awesome team in some extremely dangerous situations.


At the time of this ghost sighting, l was managing a ranch that had a pasture that pushed up against a country highway. As I drove from town one hot Sunday afternoon, l saw some younger cows on that fence line. I had no need for cattle to be up there this time of the year. It was clear that they were lost and would require some assistance to find there was back where they belonged.


As human beings we like to plan our lives. The power to control the whens and wheres of life gives us sense of a accomplishment, and frustration until we realize that each day plans the next. Each day is a gift from our Creator and with that creativity come purpose for tomorrow.


As it was, I grudgingly changed my plan for Monday, knowing that it would be a full days work to get them gathered, moved back where they belong. Find where they got out, and fix the fence. In this rough country of old fences, it was often a two day job, seeing that you might need to haul new fencing material in to do the job right.


The next morning l saddled up young Bob, who was about three or so at the time, and trotted couple of miles, with a couple of border collies trailing along behind. Bob was becoming a steady get er done kinda horse after a year  of ranch work. He stretched his nose out a bit and jogged along with the exception of making cow move.


When we got to pasture where I’d seen those cattle, we found them still handing on the wire fence. I sent the dogs down the fence line to turn them off the fence while  I pushed some chubby calves to a water tank, where l would hold them and let them pair up, before starting them to where they came from. The dogs knew their job and Bob knew his. Everything was going as planned.


Now to paint the picture for you all, I’d like to mention that on highways where folks haul all kinds of stuff,  thing have a tendency to plow off from time to time. As I set there watching cattle drift in looking for their babies, I noticed some white plastic hanging on juniper tree some seventy yards off and a young horned cow was stiffing at it like they have a tendency to do. If it smell ok they will try to eat it.


I once had a cow find a purse and was carrying it by the handle in her mouth. She carried that purse along like it was hers, for over two miles. Looken like she was going shopping for that calf  trailing along behind her. She finally spit out when I rode up thinking it was hung up on her lower jaw and she couldn’t get it out. Funny things happen in the back lonesome country.


In any case Bob had seen it and was paying it no mind. He was working cattle and had better things to do than to worry  on old spooks. Apparently that plastic didn’t smell right to that horned cow because instead for chewing on it, she decided to fight it. She went to shaking her horn at it and gave a little hook to see if it was going to fight back.


I’ve come learn that the very character of trouble, is that it appears very quickly and accelerates even faster. So powerful is the speed of trouble, that in order for the human mind to see it coming , we must perceive time to stand still


Science will tell you the the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe, but I know for a fact that the speed of trouble makes light look like a snail parade.


So with that in your mind, you can understand the reality of the of our situation, as this cow is hooking at this, what appears to be a small piece of white plastic, and my dog come around to a juniper, clearly annoyed at the straggler and snaps at her heels.


This cow jerked her head up, think that whit thing had bit her, and takes off in a panic, brings this huge bellowing  white, twenty foot sheet of constitution plastic, completely draped over her face and horns, blindly racing straight at me and Bob. I figure the wind was just right to make it float and flutter 10 ft in the air.


The cattle that I was holding at water tank sensed the coming apocalypse, throw their tails in the air and stampeded over a nearby ridge and into the brush. Even the dogs ran off at the sight of it all, and left me and Bob and the giant ghost to work it out.


Thanks joining me. Stay tuned for the rest for the story …

What are we here for….

Now I knew with a heading like that your our expecting some deep physical or theological thies on how to fix some united human problem of life. “Get to the root cause of things” as it where. We are for best or worse a “fix it” society. We have ingrained in our minds that if there is a problem we are endowed with the human power to  Fix it.

This is one of those concepts that I am not naturally good at.  When I fix something it usually brakes again or isn’t really fix at all!  The time and energy applied is never equal to the finished product.


I spent about 30 hours fixing the ATV we use for chores around our little outfit. Its a very handy and economical way to get around in the mud, and get tools and feed around the place. Somehow in all the “taking apart”, it started to work, and in time it took to put it back together. It stopped working again. Oh we can laugh about it now…


I tend to be more of a work with a problem kinda guy. You will often hear a phrase around our outfit that sound like this:

Me:    “…well honey I’m fixen to go to town,  needanything?

She:   “ I’m fixen to make bread, and need some flour and…. Never mind I’ll just come withya”. And yes we do run a lot of words together sometime just to get that bit of communication out at the speed of light, like on the internet.


Now before you come to the conclusion that rural people are uneducated and never learned much good grammar, cause we didn’t get enough schoolen.

Let me just point out that right now there millions of professionaly educated people in the metropolitan areas, that are speaking a paragraph of acronimes to another professional in the same profession, and anyone else wouldn’t have any idea of what was being communicate no matter how educated you are.


My professional wife is educated in knowledge that her colege in the marriage, is very impatient while looking at all those little special ingredients in the bakery ayle, and while in al probity came home with the wrong kind of baking properties requirements for the formation of bread to develop. ( we call this: WKBPRFBD).


Or that he will start to communicate with a colege at the “physicality of equine and bovine substance and husbandry specific material dispensary,”  (we call this: THEFEEDSTORE), and completely forget all about the makings of bread, which she affectionately calls DSOB syndrome.


As a professional husband, I  have learned that there are SJLGT implants that are being activated. (For you laypeople it simplify means … she just loves to go to town…) But I have digrest on this fall day as white stiff cover the green, as well as race by at 30 plus mpr or miles per hour.


Anyway…I have found it interesting that there is a big difference in the feeling  of Fixen To, and Fixing It. And of course it brings to mind another story.


As as horsemanship clinician or EDC, business (I’ll let you have fun figuring that one out by your self). I like to start our time with a little questioner about the characteristics of both horse and rider. Of course the horse can’t talk or even write, it is up to the ride speculate on what their horse is thinking and write the horses response.


Unbeknownst to me at first, was how profound the results were on one question. Why does your horse like you? Over 98% of people answered: Because I feed him/her/it. Now whether you never seen a horse or lived your life on and around these beautiful creatures, there is an amazing revelation as to the our humanity or perhaps our lack of it.


We often live in the shallow existence that leaves us less than who we really are. When we are in  “Fix it” reality, we throw the horse some hay or open the gate to fix the horse/hunger problem,  and go on to fix the next problem of middle school homework .


Life is valued and devalued in every moment of interaction.


When we focus on the hunger instead of the horse, or the homework instead of the kid, we short change the interaction and loses the value of what we are here for. It creates a difference in prospective about of being against a proplem, because problems are bad. Or we are being for the person with the problem, because problems exsit.


Now it’s adout this time in any conversation I have with someone that they feel the need to put some sociological or theological label on it like: “ selfish” or “self absorbed”, “to goal oriented”, “type A personality”.


For whatever reason we find it some how important to give it a name or an acronim. We believe when we can define it, we can fix it. Like my ATV, if I know what part is broken, and find the name of said part, I can spend two hours Googling it. First we Google the problem, then we Google the the possible parts that my cause said problem, then Google prices of said parts for said problem….


That’s why we have so many self help books, religious teaching. We have the problem and it can be fixed when we know what it’s called. We go to church because my neghbers have a morality problem. We read books about Bill Gates because we have a financial crisis…. We search the world thinking we’ve found true love, they meet a another and… there gone.


The “FIXIT” reality is a need driven reaction that comes with many restrictions of time, place, and resources. It often creates problems faster than they can be fixed. We are motivated by the a spiritual influence of being frantic. We emote frustrations based on time and money, and struggle with the insecurities of success and failure.


I have come to a great revelation, that this is completely unnatural to what we are here for. We where not created to be frantically frantic. Our created nature is not designed to fix IT, but to a more restful energy of “fixing to”


I had a young man who was honestly interested in a more natural way to work with horses in the occupation of being a cowboy for a local ranch. We were visiting one day as we rode out to check cattle. I asked him who he had worked with and what he thought about their horsemanship aproch.


His response was very common to the culture we live in. He said that so and so had been really good with horses and know a lot but that them, but he was to slow in getting to the point and he got bored. To which I could only reply in response, that learning good horsemanship skills is alot like watching paint dry.


The feeling of need to fix IT, is contrary to our created purpose and as a result we are left with hardships of existence. We are created to give value to the moment of the experience and feel the value it gives to us. We are created to live in a restful atmosphere because our Creator is restful by nature.


The feeling of “fixing to” creates emotional actions of: taking the time it takes. I can give myself the time to find the right tools and information. To naturally except setbacks and unforeseen complications. Understanding that the value is in the moment (fixing to)  and not the finishedness of the task, and often leads to a better fixed situation.


What we are here For… is a natural response that releases us into the creative creativity of our Creator. While what we are against… leaves our  existence shallow and and filled with struggles, the striving with strife, always coming at life from the negative in despration of a need for the positive.


We are not created to struggle and fight fixit all the time.  We are created to have relationship that leads to fellowship. We are created to be for the moment and the humanity of creator. 

Just some thoughts from spending to much time in the saddle. Hope you will hang around for more. Leave a comment and tell me what you think. 

Connections…


Connections…This word seems to have turned the corner on it meaning in life. It has in fact slowly been demoted to mechanics of progress that often creates more a challenging reality than our human nature can Endeavor.

We have minimize this word to a simplicity of finding the right end to put into the right hole, get the energy required, and it is maintenance free. There is no more effort need.

The mechanical simplicity of the concept also allows us to unplug the connection with little effort as well. Sadly this effortless mechanized connection concept in society a created a shallow reality of life. The energy of life having simplicity, is not intended to be effortless.

I sat in a room sometime back and just by nature began looking over the course of conversations and the people interacting, and to the life in that environment. Not just as an outsider, but as one added to the energy in that room, to the place itself.

What happens inside us every moment, affects those around us, be it school, carrier, family. Whether you are in a boardroom of fortune 500 company suit and tie or a branding pen with dirt in your teeth, we all create energy in our surroundings.

We were very different in all aspects of life. We had never met before. All closed in the area for a moment in time. There was laughter, joking, but also moments of sadness and somber conversation. We moved in and out of the the area and conversations, all at ease with one another as if we belonged there. (And may we did…, but not on purpose).

We were all of different ages, genders, culture, and world view. Yet there was something very different about the interaction of the group.

Now as often is case to me: my mind wandered to another time not so long back, when I was an active participant and looking over of the environment with another group of individuals with different that were designed to interact with each other.

So different to the fact that, only a few of the individuals could communicate with each other. It was a challenging endeavor to make anything positive out of this circumstance. Yet it had been done before and I was confident it would be done again.

For you see what I was looking over that day was a little river valley which myself, horse, had dogs had just splashed through, on our way to a hill that gave us position for the “looking over”.

It was a hot early fall afternoon, and we had been at it since sunup. The other group individuals in this microcosm of time and space, was seven mama cows and six big calves. Whom made it pretty clear, by about 7am, had a very different perspective of what this days activities involved.

It had been a long morning of riding to locate these wayward wards of the ranch, in all this rocky, brush covered land of the southwest. Once we had connected up with the other half of this committee off range management, our communication limitations became apparent.

This community is made up of two teams. One is in charge of eating the grass, and the other team is responsible for where the grass needs to be eaten.

As the team leaders, my horse and I must relay information to the other team leader (most often a older momma cow that knows the country and where her calf is. Cows have an inconvenient habit of hiding there calves in such professional manner as to not be able to find themselves ). The dogs as the other half of my team, are responsible for encouraging motivation of the entire community.

In cowboy speak this simply means: to turn a circle gather them up and headed to the gate. In this instance they were younger cows that didn’t know their way around around much yet and had scattered their lazy calves in the shade brush without a clue as to what shadie bush they had put it under.

They had found them a secluded little cannon that was unbeknownst to me until that day, and were quite confident in their choice of managing the range from this location. Needless to say it took a bit of bawling, barking and whistling to get everyone on the same page.

There frist plan of action is that mommas run off in all directions bawling for their calves, while there calves in turn pop up in various locations and run of in all the other different directions. And then they find it important to all gather up and run off in the wrong direction together. It takes a bit of cowboy grit and horse sweat to get the whole problem headed in the right direction.

Once we have them on a trail that is headed in the general direction, we can slow things down and let everybody drift along. There is no real contention among us, it just the nature of things, and it tends to be rather natural to naturally relate to each other this way.

(I’ve rode with a few folks at had great contention and it always end up with wild cattle, mean dogs, and horses that buck.)

I had ridden across the river to get a better look at what my cows had decided to do. The trail that lead to the river crossing, split off into several smaller trails, that snake there way through the thick heavy brush. The bushy tree like plant they call Salt cedar are loved by cattle and cursed by cowboys, lines the river on both side.

It is common for cattle to stay in the shade brush and go parallel to the river instead of going across. The brush is heavy for a long way to the south, and I’ve found it a great time saver for me to stay on the southern side of the trails, and let the dogs bring them across.

But as is the case they stop and were contemplating going back the way they had come. There was nothing to work off of, except the ability to creating a willing cow. The dogs couldn’t force them across. They had the advantage they could god up or down the river at will and never come home. I can’t force them to do my will…

Whether or not I knew it at the time, I have come to realize, that there a consistent spiritual connection with all created being. As I on that little hill l did know to wait. We often think that waiting is negative reaction that hinders progress.

In truth the feel of waiting is very positive feeling with energy in the connection of life. (I’m sure we can all relate to the feeling of energy knowing that someone is waiting for us at home or a destination. )

After some time I drifted my horse back across the the river, with those dogs trailing a long behind, in plain sight, so they didn’t get the feel I was sneaking up on them to trap them into something. And waited some more.

They sniffed around a bit and looked at the trail that lead out of the river on the other side, and with my horse shaking his head a bit, they simply stepped out and trailed up the other side. As I put them through the wire gate into greener pastures, I had very relaxed and pleasant feeling about me and a great appreciation for this little range management committee.

As I sat in that room that day I had the exact same feeling, relaxed and pleasant. It was a very positive and constructive environment. There was no contention between human beings and yet everyone was being human. It was a very natural to exist.

What caught my attention the most was that it was in a place that should have been the total opposite. A place that should have been full of contention, strife, fear, anxiety, and any other physical emotion you can imagine, was missing.

The place was a large common area room for patients of how had given up their lives by suicide. The clinical term is psychiatric ward for patients that have “tried to commit suicide”.

There was a retired hairdresser who took pills, a young man who drove his car into a freeway pylon, a young lady with rope burns on her neck, a homeless man who laid down in the freeway. And a middle age man with a bullet wound in the side of his head. And several other others not interested in saying why.

When the shallow truth of being human is revealed, there is nothing left but our Creator, and our being of humanity. Regardless my state of physical existence.

Everyone was being human and yet they were not relating to each other as human beings, but as our created nature of humanity. There seemed to be nothing left to the human motivations of being.

The only time I became aware of contention, anxious fears, and negative influences, was when human beings who wanted to help, focused their reasoning on how to cope as humans again. The concept of going back to the very lifestyle that bought on this place in time and space, was a disturbing concept.

We were not created to cope or survive, or to get through. These physical attributes will never give any value to our nature of humanity.

The true nature of compassion in us is a powerful energy not from physical emotion to action, but from our nature of our Creator that transcends the the shallow existence of the physical, even more so change the physical. But the greatest reality is not in our ability to change the physical but experience the spiritual connection of life.

Sitting there that day I realized that I was looking over the truth that there is a natural relationship of humanity that is most relaxed and pleasant when we no longer value the shallow human actions of life and that the struggle to live that truth would be the path less travelled.

The humanity of being human and the horse that could Go. Part two.

“We don’t need to see all of that. Just get on and ride it. “. Now folks when I heard him say that, I’m not near as big as this fellow, and I didn’t know if I could take him in a fight, but I do know I was mad enough to try.

But being the *christian* that l was. I made a choice to hold my anger in, and looked up and said to all three of them “If you want to ride this horse you best be watching what it takes”. All the time letting King move around and having him change directions every half circle or so.

 

There is eternal conflict when being human interacts with a human beings.

There was a bit low toned talking going on between the three of them, but when nothing more was more said from the big fellow. I went back to focusing on the horse,. But I stopped talking as much because I wasn’t going to waste my breath on stupidity.

 

(I did feel some bad for those ladys, seeing how they seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing, but this comment had killed any excitement in me to share my thoughts with them).

 

All I needed to do is show that the horse could ride around and get paid. So I just focused on old King and set him up for success. It wasn’t ten minutes to get him relaxed and willing to be saddled and rode. With Tom close by on another good saddle horse, I stepped up and swung my leg over.

 

I moved him around in all directions and gates. I was sure to let them know that he did not have much of a stop by just pulling straight back on the reigns. I could tell King was bored with all this fooling around in the arena, and would have rode best outside.

 

After about ten minutes there wasn’t much left to show them, and so as nicely as l could, I rode up to the women and asked if one them wanted to ride him, seeing how it was their horse.

 

They talked to each other for a bit, but before they had come to a conclusion, this big fellow pipes up and declares he’d ride him, and before I could turn my head, he was long striding back to his truck and drags, what must have been a good saddle at one time over the fender, and long strides it back.

 

At this point I didn’t care, and just stepped down and pulled my saddle off Kings back and handed the bridal reigns to one of the girls. Walked to my other good saddle horse and swung in, mostly because I just dislike standing around in the dirt when there’s a perfectly good saddle horse to be set on. And would also give me a bit more mobility if things went array.

 

That horse could feel this guy from a mile away, but he allowed this fellow to put that wearnout saddle on his back, with his head high and legs straight. Nothing good comes from a high headed horse. And I was a mite surprised that King hadn’t taken off and kick this guy in the belly on the way out by now.

 

That young horse let this fellow crawl up in the saddle, like an old lady climbing up a step tool, and reach for the gravy bowl at thanksgiving. But when he had made sure this gentleman was settled in that poor saddle. That colt did what God had created him to be.

 

That colt took off like he was shot out of a cannon, and keep running like he was in the Kentucky derby. This poor man in his broken down saddle was set way back, grabbing at what had been a saddle horn years back, with his bridal reigns pulled straight back to his to his chin, and his long legs straight out in front of him trying to keep his big feet in those sturps.

 

Just when you would’ve thought King couldn’t go any faster. he hit another gear as if he was trying to break the sound barrier. That fellow made a lap and half around the big arena, before the ride came to it abrupt conclusion. That young horse never bucked a jump, he just ran faster than this fellow could ride, simply fell off the back of a perfectly good saddle horse.

 

And that finally brings us to where we started in part one. And the great timeless truth of who we are as a created being. As I rode to the scene of the crime, things going through my mind, most of them are a part of being human. I was thinking about how arrogant…, disrespectful…, foolish…, stupid.., and most importantly justice… “I was glad he got what was coming to him.”

 

( I’m sure you can up with a few while reading this story as well)

 

As human beings, we all think on a very shallow plain of existence. We think that if we can label “it” we can understand it. If we can give it a name we can fix it. We call it good or bad, right or wrong, and then we can choose the appropriate emotion to “it”, happy or sad, anger or not angry, hatred or loving. And then life is the way “it” should be. We can then justify the bad emotion we have from being disrespected.

 

But even though I can now justify my emotions , my religion and social morality require that I must choose a different emotion for the sake of another human being, or perhaps to get the money he owes me, for the physical work I have done.

 

Now this is where the real conflict is. We are not created to live or be motivated by this shallow experience. It is in fact why ,in our human nature, we are never satisfied.

 

Our Creator breathed more into us more than the oxygen of this superficial world as wonderful as it is. Our first nature is our created spiritual humanity. A breath of relationship and fellowship with another with the same created nature, just as our Creator is full of this life.  

 

The power of our humanity, does transcend the circumstances of the superficial. That is why there is first conflicted with ourselves and then with other human beings, being human.  Because the life in us lives bigger than the physical ability of choosing emotions. This breath of life is constantly superimposing our created great value. This is our existence, be chosen though superficial mental reason and lived out, but revealed and naturally live in.

 

(It’s kinda like your house you don’t normally choose to go home every night, it’s a natural response. Why ?, because it is where all your good stuff is. It is natural to our physical existance.) If you do have choose by reason you to go home there something wrong with where you live, and you need to reason away that emotion.

 

This foundational truth is who our Creator is! This is what He creates everyday, like it is the very first day of creation. This what He feels, and thinks about all day long. Our only responsibility is revealed in our humanity in a natural ability to respond.

 

The superficiality of being humans lives in realm of Need.

We need love therefore I need to love.

We need respect so I need to be respectful.

We need to eat so I need to feed.

I need comfort and security therefore you need to obey the law.

We need salvation so I need Jesus.

You need salvation even more, so I need to get you saved. LOL.

We need to happy so you need to be happy, and make me happier.

 

I know you get the point and can come up with even better ones than me.

 

The great reality is that our humanity is created to naturally want.  

We want to have relationship with something greater than ourselves, so we have families, churches, groups and gatherings of all kinds.

 

We want to have fellowship (to being, have intimate connection), so we marry, date, have ball teams, and bars. Game night and movies night,  and church socials.

 

We want to know our Creator, so we search for the meaning of life.

We want to know our Creator’s creation, so we go to the bottom of the oceans, in plastic bubbles. We fly to the moon in an oversized coffee can, with less computer power than my toaster.

 

We are created to want. That is why it is natural to sacrifice in the physical. That is why we naturally give of our time and money. That’s why we naturally have faith, can believe, and do trust. We naturally have the passion of forgiveness.

 

We are compassionate. This is the greater reality of our existence. No matter where we are in the physical world or what has happened to us life. That is who we are because our Creator is that.

 

You may be asking yourself, what does any of this have to with a fellow falling off his wife’s horse? I guess the upshot is. What we think is reality, is the shallow presence of human beings, being human. Needing to control for the sake of the need to be of value,

 

And whats even worse, is when they don’t get what they deserve, when humans can Go through life arrogant, controlling, and in the end abusive. Taring down other human beings in thought and emotional actions. So we pray to a god of judgment and wait, hoping we will get see their demise, and when it doesn’t seem to be happening on this planet, we sleep in peace knowing they will burn in Hell.

 

Human beings so unnaturally cling to a shallow contention, with those we want a relationship and fellowship with the most. Believing this how it is. The reality is: our Creator is not in contention with our nature of humanity, He never was.

 

I was being very human that day. I was giving a lot thought to my money that was in his back pocket. But in the revelation of compassion (relating in my nature of our humanity), I see that there are so much more than who was the better horseman that warm summer morning.

 

I often wonder what feeling of insecurity, about money or marriage, job, health, that by his need, in thought, justified this big fellow’s emotions of arrogance, pride and control. Knowing now that the natural power of look through the shallow things of being human, is what see who we are created to be.

 

Thanks for stay with me. Tell me what you think. I am not interested in debate, but trust we can relate.

 

The humanity of being human and the horse that could Go. Part one. 

As that big fellow hit the ground, I knew he was going to hurt for a week… if he hadn’t just broke something. My partner and I, who had working real hard to make sure that horse didn’t do THAT, couldn’t help but  grow a big smile. If hadn’t been who it was, we’d having laughed out loud, (It’s a strange thing about cowboy humor, not all people appreciate it, and this fellow would have been one).

It’s kinda a considered courtesy out west, when a fellow falls off his horse, to wait a bit. It’s seems best to let a fellow catch his breath, find his hat and dust himself off before you ride over and ask the question “what happened?, trying to seem ignorant to the foolishness you just witnessed .

 

It slowly became apparent that no medical attention would be needed immediately.  My partner pulled it together enough to ride off after that Arab horse, that was still circling the arena dragging this man’s saddle.

 

I just pulled my hat down a bit and moved my horse to intercept his wife and daughter (in hopes of keeping them from being run down by their traumatized horse), who were trotting afoot across the dust to the seen of wreck.

 

I personally hate these times. We work so hard to created a relaxed and willing horse that a person can take home and have a great relationship with for a long time. Having to ride up there and seem empathetic, and come up with something other than “I tried to tell you…”, always goes against my being human.

It’s always a bit awkward to set there and not look smug, when you just spent forty-five minutes showing your clients what we do and don’t do at this stage of training. And  why we do and don’t do with your horse. And even ride the horse in front of you, in relaxed and willing way.

 

This is where we find a great conflict between the reality of our created humanity, and our being human.

 

Seeing that I’m very good at making a short story long, I will endeavor to not to fall in any proverbial gopher holes in this conversation.

 

I got a call one evening from a lady that was wanting my services in starting a five-year old Arabian gelding, it was a normal visit with the usual, “never been rode… didn’t know much about him…. Seems like a nice enough horse…Her daughter and her were hoping to take up competitive trail riding.

 

I  listened and quoted a price for the first month, which she replied with a hint of excitement, was a fair deal. She said that she lived on very large cattle ranch, that I was quite familiar with, some three hours north and would be there by noon cash in hand.

 

(Now let us just look in this conversational gopher hole for just a minute without stepping in.)

 

This ranch that she said she lived on was a big rough outfit. They had more cattle, land and horses than most people will see in a lifetime. Those boys that made their living there, were born with spurs on. They ate their breakfast on a the back of a bucken horse, and ate suppers on a back of a gentle one. So I quickly surmised that they were “horse people“.

 

She and her daughter arrived the next day in a timely manner. And commenced to unload this tall, narrow, bay Arabian gelding. Bigger than life itself and feeling he was worth it. Not surprisingly they called him “King”.

 

They were both very nice and eager for me to work with their horse. It was rather apparent that there were somewhat fearful of this thousand bounds of uncontrolled energy, and justifiably so.  I did make such to explain to them that 30 days of working with him, may not be enough time to create the confidence in him to be rode safely. But they were welcome to come out and see what we were working on. And we could asses where he was at mentally, and if they wanted me to keep working with him.

 

As a trainer I try to find out what the horse is interested in and begin teaching off of that talent. It was not hard to find out what King was good at. He wanted to GO. He was created to GO, GO everywhere, anywhere, fast and furiously, with complete confidence. Where he was, was  where he was supposed to be. He rocked his world and everybody needed to know that.

 

This youngest was living the dream, and having a person on his back had nothing to do with it. And to boot you could not wear him out. He was going to be an awesome endurance competitor, if you could ever get on his back and point him in the right direction.

 

And so with hope of creating awareness of the existence of a human being, sneak in some relationship through  leadership, we went to doing what he did best GO. You could sneak a rope halter on his if you distracted him with an apple, but that was it.

 

So just on foot with a rope halter and the longest long line on the place we had we to work. We went in huge circles very fast in one direction and then huge circles to the other. When he realized I wasn’t going to stop his god given gift to GO, but only ask that him for a certain direction. He began to notice me some.

 

Little by little the circles got slower and small. And after about three day he realized that he could walk if he wants to. He figured out that he could go back and go sideways. And before a week was done he could go outside the arena with another horse, I riding said other horse. I ponied him with catching cattle water and fence , we went over hills and river, brush and rocks. He figured out that his gift to GO, was even better than he thought.

 

He began to look for my leadership because when we went somewhere it was awesome. He even realized that his gift to GO could made cows go. And that where he went made the cows go where he wanted them to go. All of this before I even thought about putting a saddle and myself on his back.

 

Having a relaxed relationship is what we are created to want, and the big ship we are naturally created to use is, compassion.

 

As the first thirty days came close, I was aware that most people won’t take the time I was having to take, to have a relaxed ride. Young King and I were still working on controlling speed by direction.  The smaller circle the slower the pace, until the feet “stopped on the bend”. Pulling straight back on the reigns just made his head to come up, his body tense and his feet go faster. We didn’t have a lot whow in our Go.

 

Sadly nobody had come out in a whole month to see the problems and progress that King was making. I called with in the last week of training as I always do, to give them an honest assessment of were their horse is in training and asked what they would like to do.

 

I’ve always been very straightforward with clients about their horses. After the first thirty days they can consent to more training or pay the bill and take him home. I always want make sure they are confident and have gotten their moneys worth.

 

With a bit of reluctance she agreed to letting me continue training and promised to come out and see how comfortable she and her daughter in riding him. But within an hour the phone rang and a very gruff male voice informed me that they would be out in the morning to get “that horse.”

 

(Now given the fact that they lived on this big cowboy outfit. I was expecting for some tough cowpuncher who was half horse to step out of the truck and show me how it done. )

 

I informed my training partner of the next days event, because we had a very refined system for riding king that included Tom being on another good saddle horse ride when I rode me. There were still some relationship issues and it was good to have another horse for King, and Tom for moral support,  even if it was just to call 911. If he wanted me to ride “that horse” I had no plans to ride him alone.

 

Tom and I saddled up a couple of good horses but left old King alone so that these folks could see him fresh out of the stall, and what it requires to set him up for success.

 

All three jumped out of the worn out Ford truck, and this tall, lean forty something, fellow came striding up and shuck may hand in a hard cold manner. It was one of those moments when I knew this was no church social we were about to commence with.

 

I brought old King out and began to let him drift out at his own pace with not so long line but gave him some slack to see how he was feeling. I was talking to them about letting him pick the speed me picking the direction.

I was two minutes of working with King. When this gentleman interrupted me forcefully. “we don’t need to see all that. Just get on and ride it”…

Now folks, like always say, if you can’t say it in 1500 words say the rest in part two. Hope you will come along for the rest of the story.

Leave a comment and tell them when to publish part two.

“Are we there yet !?”


I awoke to just a hint of gray sky and ability to see my own breath, because of all the cracks in 100 year-old door. Which in keeping with old cowboy line cabin decor needs to be tied shut to keep the bear from taking advantage of my hospitality.

 But even so, I light a match to the wood I put in the stove last night without leaving my bedroll. And lay there feeling cold get pushed away and smell a fresh pot of coffee heating to a boil. I always set a big basin of water on the flat top wood stove the night before so as to have some hot water to clean up with.

At the age of fifty-two, I’m kinda amazed that I’m still able to live this kinda life. I’ve been in my share of jackpots, and it takes a bit of time to unfold in the morning, it feels good to be doing what I love.

There’s frost on widow, but in hour that sun will do its job. Early October is full of cold night and warm days here on the divide. After a cup strong hot coffee, I untie the old door, and step out to greet the day, dog, and call in the horses, all standing on a little hill catching the first rays of sunlight.

They all pop their heads up when I break the silence of the valley with call they all know well. I always hate breaking that wonderful silence of a new day. But those partners of mine will sit there in the sun all morning and then hunt some shade by noon, without a care in the world for me or cattle that need gathered.


Banging a coffee can on fence post gets them to drop their heads and start drifting to the catch pen, which nothing more than a pile of stacked up lodge pines, that a butterfly could knock over just flying by. Five cans of grain gets them ready for the day after a night of grazing on the rich fall grasses. They’ve had a good summer on good pasture, but they have earned it.

As I sip one more cup of coffee, not only am I happy that can still do work, but I really enjoy it. I’ve learned all the tricks to making by alone in the high country or desert with a string of good horses and a couple of dogs. There are a lot of simple comforts to be created working out of a line camp, when you’re done learning the hard way.

Working a big allotment on summer grazing lease is simple enough, but not that easily done with success. Knowing the country, the cattle and your horses is the best start to winning at this game. Water wasn’t a problem is this country, there are creeks and beaver ponds everywhere.

Once you know how your cattle travel and what they are grazing on at any given season, it’s best to get some good mineral blocks out in front of them to slow them down and graze the country evenly. Once you get them settled and moving at an easy pace. It just a matter  packing the salt, and check for sickness and runaways.

It’s a horseback job all day every day. You best like riding and your horses best like being rode, because that’s what it takes. You best be able to enjoy your own company seeing how are you only one to talk to.

 This country we tough because it just seemed to go up and up and up and when you got up there it became down and down. Though we all ate well nobody was packing any extra bounds, it was all muscle and tendon that is left on this crew. Not mention that the trail have a lot of dead fall trees all  over and picking your way through or around can take some effort. (But I have a couple of older war horses that are master of finding their way through).

I was behind the eight ball on this endeavor. I came in midseason to help a well-established ranching family that had grazed 300 head of pairs on this fifty thousand acre allotment for over 60 years.

It seems that the fellow that was hired to run the show up here  had just saddled up and rode off over the back side of the divide, with nothing more than a note on the old cabin cook table, that simply said “Have a great summer “It was the oddest thing this ranching family had seen in a long time.

Now to give you a better idea of what l was into. This job was remote. It was a three plus hour ride just to get your horses and groceries in and once you where in there you best stay put. I could resupply with a small pick up, it took every bit as long to drive in and out, on that hundred year old wagon trail.

There’s was no cell service, electricity, and the only running water was me with a bucket. These fine folks expected for good hand to stay up there and look after their million dollars investment. It was ten days before they realized this dude had left out.

It took another ten days to run me down, and me to get horses and gear gathered up, pack in and settled in. The cabin I camped in was a small one and half room affair. It was built with huge pine logs, cured by a wild fire in the 1890s, cut and stacked in 1901. That cabin was still as solid as the day it was built (except for the door course, which needed help).

After thirty some years of riding the big lonesome ranches from Montana to New Mexico, I’d gotten a knack for what cattle do and a quick learner of the lay of the land. Now it had been more than thirty days since anyone had been in here tending to those cows. So I knew l had my work cut out for us.

But like I said, line camp work is simple enough. I went to riding, hunting tracks and packing salt. Once got those mama cows located, I went to moving back the ones that were ahead of the rotation, and spending up the ones that are behind. They were scattered bad, but we sure put things in better order than they were. (Did I mention that the 50,000 acres had no fences. Those cattle could walk to Wyoming, and some did).

It was a good two months for all of us, but one to be the most disappointed when we pull up stakes, is my 7 year old border collie Kati. She has been in heaven working cattle and swimming sometimes, at the same time, everyday. I’ve raised border collies for twenty years and she is one of the best. She often sleeps with the horses to make sure we get early start.

Since a pup she been confident in her ability to gather and move the world and she diligently works at it every day . I’m no sheep man, but I’m pretty sure she would scatter a herd of them to hell gone. But she’s got her PhD in cattle and runs a real tight ship. That dog will not put up with any wondering off or lagging behind.

I sit there with another one more cup of coffee and let the warm sun soften my bones and contemplate one last circle to ride for strays. Then button up this line camp and take the remnant of cows and calves down to winter pastures, load my partners and gear, and head into the valley of confusion. I was consumed by that dark feel again.

 I’d known something was wrong in me and with me for more than a year. I didn’t just come up to help out a ranch but to meet with my maker. In all reality l had laid myself on the altar of life, and waited for my body to stop. I was done with life, any life, all life. My only feeling was stop existing.

I couldn’t kill myself yet, but I did want for whatever god there might be to just blow my life away, like it was blown it was into me. I had no energy to live but no power to stop living. I know that there a many reading can relate to what I write.

The incompetence of human reason wants to label it as depression, anxiety, addictions, compulsive behaviours. Religion labels it as selfish, self centered, pride, sin and judgment for wrong choices. But I  am confident that it something so much more in spiritual places. Maybe it is the reality of Hell, alive but dead, dead but alive. A continuing experience of feeling of being in an state for existence in which you do not belong.

Ciniching up a young colt that needed a little more one on one time with me before the winter set in and he’d be on a vacation. I realized  that I was no longer equipped to deal with life. The power of free will and choice was dead, nothing more than a foolish idea human speculation. 

Stepping  into the strup and slipping into the saddle like I’ve been doing it for awhile. I know like so many times in my life that there nothing left to do but the next thing. I ease my horse to north, with a black and white dog drifting out in front. 

Like the creek that riddled it way over the rocks, past that little cabin. The journey of true life never ends, it moves ways forward. We are so much more than our individual self awareness. Yet it is not for us to choose, but simply except. 

The 7,10,12 Steps to a better…

Several years ago I was asked to work with a cute red and white paint horse pony. In Norman Rockwell picturesque concept, a father and his 7-year-old pigtail blond daughter, had gone partners on a dream of equestrian bliss.

I have always had a passion for sharing my love for horses and the magical experience of riding people, especially with eager “youngens“. And so I had no issues with taking on this project. Seeing that this miniature Annie Ocklie had not been “ahorseback” that much, I worked out a plan with the dynamic duel in which I would work with her little horse on the weekdays and she promised to come out and learn about how to create a partnership with Strawberry .

While talking to the father on the phone before this little mare arrived. He related to me that Strawberry’s former purpose in life was as a carnival pony. Which entailed being tied to a metal bar walking in a circle with other carnival ponies, while little children, lathered in sunscreen and hyped on cotton candy, wiggled ,whining and screamed on her back in five-minute increments. With that same carnival music, and flashing cameras.

Needless to say, after relating this information to a cowboy friend who helped me work with the tough ones, I was given a good share of cowboy humor about the type of rough stock I was having to take in just to pay his wages.

Now Strawberry was around 13 hands high, and round as a pickle barrel, not so short as to have my feet dragging the ground, but still a humorous site for onlookers. She was about eight to ten years old, with kinda “what ever ” disposition, and as gentle as a professional carnival pony can get. There was just nothing the could scare this horse.

Sitting on her back wasn’t a training issue. That little girl could have moved into that saddle till she was twenty, and old Strawberry wouldn’t have cared less. But it became rather apparent that going somewhere was the challenge in this relationship.

She would walk for you, but only in a circle to the left. Everything moved in a circle to the left. And only for four to six minutes. Always and I mean always walking. never trotting or looping. Once you put a saddle on her back. She moved in a slow consistent walk, in a convenient circle to the left, for a short period of time.

I earned my fee and then some opening the door to the right. And little by little it became a straight line. Amazingly enough, she started going to places and become a real horse who wanted to see what was over the hill with someone on her back . Her “horsenality” came up and although we had to “relationship” our way though some insecurities, she became a lot of fun to be with, and in the end a wonderful partner to share in the dreams of a little girl.

It is always an amazingly rewarding feeling when you have the opportunity to help someone with their dream. I believe it the motivation of life to connect in our humanity. See the impossible become reality. It is un-natural of our created humanity to discourage the dreams in others, and only is accomplished by our reaction to our individual disappointments.

We are all dream makers or dream takers.

I have a feeling that about now you’re waiting for me to give you a bunch of clichés about getting out of a route, because I feel the influence of taken the easy road and just say what others said. But I have come to realize that if all we do is quote someone else, it is not real in our lives.

Being created to feel creative, but thinking we must have ordered constancy, leaves us conflicted in our existence.

A few months ago I needed to replace the internet router in our house. I went to the nearest convenient box store. Which conveniently had several different kinds, all conveniently in the same place with in the building itself.

I love *quick and easy,* so that I can quickly and easily get to more important things, that I hope will be quick and easy also. (I like to call this mentality: the horse race with no finish line).

I am a price shopper, and the prices of the different types routers are conventionally located right there below the idem. I never buy the cheapest one, nor the most expensive one. I quickly find the midrange router and simply look at the easy to read institutions. The big selling point for me was when it said, “1,2,3 easy setup”.

Life is so good when we have convenience. We need convenient order and consistency. Getting back to the house. I quickly begin to set it up. (knowing how much of a need there is for the power of WiFi, which magical allows the family to sit in the living room,watch t.v. and Utub at the same time).

Opening up the little set up instruction book, I soon realized that three steps had become seven, and the seventh one opened up to another five steps, and in the end was right back with step zero: having no Wi Fi.

(Now folks by the time I was done, I could have conveniently built my own router with a curling iron, old horse shoes, and extra lawn mower parts in barn).

I have come to see that there is a great conflict between what we believe we need in the physical, and what we were created to want in the spiritual.

We are created to want a spiritual connection with our Creator and His creation of humanity, through feeling. Our lack of response to this reality causes a need for ordered steps of convenience.

Now that l have WiFi again, l can get my steady dose of emails that are intended to help me feel better by meeting a need. I get most that say: Five ways to build your retirement. Three things to know about your credit. Four steps to a stress free life. Two ways to a better relationships with your spouse. One secret you need to know to help you poop.

I’ve noticed also that the bigger of a “hot mess” we are the more steps are involved and the more time must be invested. It take 30 days to love Jesus more. 60 days to lose the weight you wanted and keep it off. 90 days to the yard you’ve always wanted. (And all for only the cost of a cup of coffee a day).

And when your life really sucks, we need the circle steps. 12 steps to sobriety, that brings you back to step 1. There 15 step approach to getting out of debt. Which seems to be headed in a straight line until you actually spent some of the money. Not to mention all programs, meeting and gatherings that must be attended for life, in order to see any improvements to the issues of choice.

The humor in all this is that we have to be taught to live like this. Our physical beings are trained to live in a circle. Our individual circle may cross my cross the path of another’s, but the very idea of the circle is that they quickly go in different directions again. All because of a manufactured need of convenience and simplicity.

It seems that we believe our personal human being powers are most useful when used in the direction of the circle.

(Evidently l was offensive to someone the other day for making a comment that “roundabouts” at traffic intersections are “stupid”.)

I find it intriguing that, for the sake of the presumption of needed convenience, that a straight line with signal lights, which would require interaction with other people in a patient and caring way, is not as safe as controlled chaos of the circle. Apparently other people are an inconvenience.

Watching that little red and white paint pony out in the pasture one evening, I noticed that she did naturally walked and run in straight lines, turn to the right with ease, while grazing and relating to other horses.

It wasn’t that she was created to walk in a circle for five to seven minutes, it was created in her that this was her job/purpose, and as noble of profession as it was, it was a shallow existence.

Perhaps, for the sake of convenience and simplicity and most importantly safety, I should have just convenience that little girl that: “this is what good horses always do. This what good riding is. This is how all horse people ride. We real cowboys/girls always ride in a slow circles, to the left, for six minutes. Isn’t this a wonderful life, just liven the dream! “

I’m often reminded of old Strawberry, when I confuse my job/work, with my the reality of who our Creator is, and what He breathed into our spiritual humanity.

We are created with the DNA of relationship, and recognize that it functions best in a straight lines, at different speeds. (Sometimes with signal lights that turn red.) Always with twists and turns, in all kinds of adverse conditions, inherently dangerous: this is who we are.

It is the spiritual that influences our humanity and motivates our being human.