Dapple Gray

Journal Entry #10 - What Vacation?

2005-05-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

Day one of my week-long summer vacation and I feel like I'm busier than normal. Why does it always have to be that way? Last semester I had overworked myself and drained myself of all energy. My days consisted of waking up at 6 to teach lessons before school and then tutoring in between classes, complete with doing homework at dinner and then rushing off to work. Sometimes I would have the morning to sleep in, but someone would need me to help them with their horse, someone would want to go for a ride, or the gardeners would be weed whacking outside my window. It’s no wonder that by Friday nights, coworkers would ask me if I’m feeling well because of how exhausted I looked. So, I made a mid-year resolution to get more sleep and worry less. This was the first week of that goal and I’ve yet to experience sleep. Just today alone, I was up early to ride my horse, but I spent some time emailing, paying bills, studying, etc. before I ran off. Then I stopped at the feed store to grab some rice bran and shavings for my horse (which is still in my car…). I hurried over to Julie’s house to tutor her daughter, Shayna. While I was driving I was talking to Julie and she kept telling me how much time Shayna had spent on a particular essay and how well-written it was. However, I knew that that was Julie’s way of telling me not to be too hard on Shayna because she had actually tried. Problem is, I don't feel like Shayna put her effort into it at all. So, we tutored for an hour, ran out of time of course, and then I rushed over to meet Allison, who was waiting for me at the local McDonald’s. Leaving my car behind, we drove over to her friend’s house to pick up a horse. I had to get to work by a certain time and so I said that if we couldn’t do it by 3:45 then we would have to come back again tomorrow. So, time ticked by and soon it was 3:45 and the horse was still not any closer to getting in. I was dropped off at my car, and I ran off to work. Busy Monday nights are good because it keeps me awake. However, they’re also bad because I have certain tasks to do and can never get done on Mondays with the busyness. Anyway, I was told three times at work that I looked pale and tired, and that’s when I realized that the first day of my summer vacation was even busier than my busy school schedule. What can I do to fix that???

Journal Entry #9 - Inspiration Part Two

2005-05-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

Day two of the “Are You Living Your Dream?” Parelli tour and even more eyes were teary. Again, the Savvy Team started out playing around in the arena, but this time everybody rode. By the time they were done playing, Pat came out to introduce his two favorite animals, Casper and Magic. He explained to the audience how before he had her, Magic was proclaimed dangerous by multiple trainers. However, he rode her once and fell in love. He also explained about Casper and how he has been the most difficult horse Pat’s ever had because with a program based on partnership and bonding, Casper loves to be alone. It’s very difficult to have the horse want to be with you when he loves being alone. Then Pat talked about the 7 Games and how it relates to riding so that the humans win each game on the horse’s back. He had also created a musical freestyle of sorts that he performed riding Magic and working with Casper at liberty (while riding Magic). With the amount of control Pat had of Casper, it seemed as though he wasn’t riding a horse, but was actually on the ground dancing with Casper (as I had seen him do 2 years before). Pat started with just figure 8’s, circles, trotting, and cantering. It moved on to flying lead changes and jumping Casper over 3 foot barrels. Then Pat pointed Casper toward the huge green ball and Casper played soccer, kicking it back to Magic. When they started to do more collected movements, it was almost as though Pat wasn’t there, but it was just the two horses performing a ballet. There were tempe changes, spins, one horse would spin with the other circling it, piaffe-ing, and then pat had Casper lay down. Pat never touched Casper and it didn’t seem like he told Magic to do anything. But the horses seemed to be dancing together. It was so moving… the crowd gave a standing ovation. That was all before lunch! Then Linda came out to tell us how the rider’s body makes all the difference to the horse’s body and how they’re able (or not able) to move. The sense she can make out of an age-old problem is amazing and motivational. Anyway, we all left the seminar feeling amazing and awe-inspired. On the drive home, we created a goals list and while I don’t about the other people, I plan on achieving mine this time.

Journal Entry #8 - Inspiration Part One

2005-05-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend I attended the annual PNH tour at the City of Industry Equestrian Center. Since I have been a PNH believer for nine years, I am pretty accustomed the extraordinary results managed through the PNH system. I have even studied hard enough that some of those impossible tasks have become possible for my horse, Piper, and me. However, nine years is a long time and sometimes I lose the motivation to continue full-throttle. For instance, a while ago I went to the Parelli two-day seminar, then called “Success with Horses” where Pat touched his audience so much with what he could do with his horses that there wasn’t a dry eye in the stands. This inspired me to work very hard to progress and create more of a bond with my horse. However, now two years later, I have not made any steps toward my Level 2 goal. Because I missed last year’s seminar, I made the extra effort to get there this year. This new seminar, called “Are You Living Your Dream?” let me see that I wasn’t. I had gotten side-tracked in the past two years and completely forgot about the program. I took my two students down to the same facility for the seminar, as well as nine other interested friends. Luckily, Pat’s humor kept the kids interested while the adults could absorb the factual information. However, I don’t think the audience was prepared for what was witnessed. Saturday was the day set aside for all groundwork. The Savvy Team came out for a half hour to play with their horses with the ball, the elephant stand, the barrels, etc. One girl had a really tall, big horse and the audience was impressed when she grabbed the mane to leap onto the horse’s back, bareback and bridle less. Then Pat came out to explain his theory on horsemanship to the crowd. To put it to the test, he brought out two demo horses that were just like the average horse. One didn’t like his ears touched, spooked at plastic, and liked to be on top of his human. The other would just walk away and drag the owner as well as refusing any jumps it came to. Pat took one while his wife, Linda, took the other and they transformed those horses into respectful, willing, curious horses. Then, Pat did a little demo to show us how far he’s come in the past year (two years for me) and I was able to see a lot more accomplished than when he performed two years ago. After lunch, they demonstrated how the 7 Games relate to when riding. They finished the day by demonstrating what an average daily ride is for Pat. That was day 1!

Journal Entry #7-The Greatest Day in My Life

2005-05-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Being a sales clerk hired to sell a product is easy enough, and taking a trip to a store to pick out exactly what you want is even easier. However, when you sell an item privately in hopes of not being “ripped off” by a store that takes items on consignment, it’s slightly more difficult to find an eager buyer. When I took three horses to sell for friends and relatives, I never thought that it would be so time consuming and energy draining. My email box was filled with about 300 messages from prospective buyers asking questions about the horses. A lot of those people, liking what they heard, then wanted to come try the horses. There were so many interested that I sometimes even had to schedule two or three per day in order to accommodate their schedules. Showing the horses would go so late that I would sometimes rush off to work smelling of horse and stomping the dust off my pants. Although I will admit that I wasn’t showing horses 24/7, I was busy enough to feel exhausted 100% of the time. I usually tutor a friend at least three times a week and sometimes as many as five. Since I took on these horses I have not been able to get over to tutor more than once a week! I’ve had to cut down on the number of times per week that I ride my own horse and I’ve also had to wake up hours earlier than usual in order to teach lessons to my two horse students. Somehow in all of this madness I was attending school and leaving time for homework and other obligations. Therefore, today is the greatest day of my life because I am suddenly relieved of the animals. When purchasing a horse, it is a good idea to have a trusty vet examine the animal to determine it is healthy. Two of the horses I have for sale went through the vet check process and both passed with flying colors. Although I’m still waiting on a final decision from one party, I am mentally relieved to have found people who want the horses. Let’s cross our fingers about the remaining horse, okay?

Journal Entry #6 - Trail Ride Almost Fiasco

2005-05-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

I go on trail rides once or twice a week and there are always bound to be accidents or problems every now and then. However, I seem to be having especially bad luck lately with every little adventure I take. Just this year I had a horse fall down inside of the trailer, landing between the legs of another horse. Unfortunately the horse that fell wasn't able to get up because she was tied and the rope pulled her head down to her belly. But, the fortunate thing is also that she couldn't get up because had she done that, she would have broken her back with the metal dividers separating each horse. She would have panicked to get up, regardless of the metal above her. That ended better than anyone could imagine and with only a few cuts, a chipped tooth, and a swollen leg, all horses on that trailer ride were fine after a couple days. And then there was the barb wire incident. Now four months later Zoie's cut (that was gaping 6 inches) is completely healed and almost invisible. So many people were being so negative and telling the owner (who's only 13 years old) that she should put her horse down or amputate the leg. I don't understand why people would say that to a young kid already having to deal with the injuries. But, I'm glad she had the strength to ignore them and just keep the wound clean. It healed and the horse isn't lame. Who would have guessed? And every time we tack up our horses for a ride or every time I put my horse in the trailer to go somewhere, I never think that this ride is going to be another exciting incident. Today was interesting because I put my horse in the trailer and was closing the door while wondering if today was going to be another accident. We were riding along a Malibu Creek State Park trail and the noticed that the rain had washed away a good portion of the dirt. We came to one particular point where the rain had made a ravine right next to the trail and it was four feet down. There were metal pipes sticking out of the ground as well. And of course, as I turned around to tell another rider to be careful, my horse followed my leg (he turned as I turned in my saddle) and his back leg dropped. Then his front legs dropped. Then he ended up standing in the ravine and tried to regain his balance, while I tried to remain upright. There was a pipe in front of my horse and therefore we couldn’t go forward. There was no way for him to go back. I didn’t think he could go up the side, but I stepped up onto the trail to try. My horse was casually eating the plants and hadn’t even noticed that he had dropped down into this hole. So traumatic… So he just stepped right up the side and hopped out like it was nothing. The other riders were convinced that we needed to turn back then and so we called it a day. But I’m glad these things happen to me and not anybody else. Their horses would probably panic in that type of situation, but my horse tends to just wait for me to tell him what to do next.

Journal Entry #5-File Sharing

2005-05-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

While the arguments for file sharing seem to be valid ones (i.e. "it's sharing, not stealing" and "people lend friends CDs and movies all the time so what's the problem?"), they are still not valid enough. Just the title, "file sharing" gives people the idea that it's not really a bad thing (and possibly even gives the Good Samaritan vibe), but ultimately it's stealing. When I was in high school, the file sharing program known as Napster was popular and I admit that I used it and didn't think anything of it. I downloaded songs left and right and listened to them whenever I was on the computer. Then I began making CDs out of them and then I wouldn't buy the artists' CDs at all. However, I didn't think of what I was doing as wrong and I'm sure there are many other teenagers out there who are doing just the same thing. However, there are people who know what they are doing is wrong and they know why it is wrong, but yet they keep on downloading and swapping files with other people. You would that with the serious downloaders that they do it so that they do not have to buy the actual disc or movie. That's the only reason I can even remotely understand to do it. I believe that in the end, the people who created Napster did get sued because it is against the law to steal. Seeing how the law hasn't changed recently and, therefore, stealing is bad, why do people still do it? Could it be the prices of CDs? They do cost as much as DVDs used to and now DVDs are twice as expensive as they were before. I can understand this justification because I am against spending so much money on CDs when I only listen to two tracks and pay twenty dollars. But there is an alternative, such as iTunes. Now that I have more awareness of the issue, I have not downloaded music illegally. I buy my music through iTunes and maybe others can start doing that also. I'm sure eventually, people will be able to buy movies online much cheaper as well.

New Arrivals

2005-03-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

Although I don't have any pictures yet (grrr!), I wanted to announce the arrival of two new members in my family. The first is my new brother, Ethan James, born on March 11th, 2005! The second is a linx-point kitten by the name of Penny! Please welcome them both to my family!

Trail Ride Fiasco-Journal Entry #1

2005-01-18T01:22:00.000-08:00

Trail riding is the most relaxing and relieving sport you can do on a horse's back. It's also an extremely good place to let your horse out and let 'em run. The two other girls I went with, Claire and Monica, are students of mine and we frequently like to just hit the trails and "go". So, after having loads of rain and with the horses cooped up in their stalls "veging", we decided today was a great day to go out. About 45 minutes into the ride and still galloping, my horse, Piper, decided he was too tired to continue running up the hill and we slowed to a walk. The other two kept going, knowing that I would catch up with them at the top. I was nearing the top when I heard screaming, although I remember at the time I thought it was the wind or a bird or something. But then I saw Claire running toward me without her horse and knew something awful just took place. "We couldn't stop. Barbed wire!" Claire said and I asked where her horse was. Apparently they both had been galloping and hit the wire fence, and when both girls lost their balance and fell, Claire's horse, Belle, took off. I picked up the pace and finally managed to get to Monica. She was in the "bushes", which in fact was only waist-high grass, trying to untangle her horse, Zoie, from the wire. I gave Piper to Claire and leg by leg, untangled Zoie. Monica said something to me about the blood, but I fingured it could wait just long enough to get the horse free from any further damage. Once that was done and I finally saw that there was blood gushing out of Zoie's chest, I told Claire, "Go find help!" and described the way back to the main trail and therefore, Park Rangers and help. She set off on Piper and for a long time, I wondered if she made it or not. We brought Zoie out of the brush and using Monica's saddle pad, I put pressure on the laceration in attempt to stop the bleeding. But within one or two minutes this was completely soaked through and the gash was still gushing. Looking closer, I saw that there was actually a blood vessel (vein, artery, I don't know) and that's where all the blood was coming from. So, I pinched it. I thought I heard a truck on the main road (turns out it was only the wind) and decided that we should be more visible. Step by step, we moved Zoie over to the main trail in case someone came by. I held onto the blood vessel for probably 5-10 minutes before realizing I couldn't keep it up forever. Monica turned her head to look down the trail and my eyes focused on her hair tie. With a little more thought, I asked for the rubberband and tried to tie it around the vein to close off the bleeding. It actualy worked. We were able to start walking down the trail in the direction Claire had gone. We started seeing hoofprints in the mud of an unshod, large hoof that could only belong to Piper. And then we started seeing some smaller prints made by a horse with shoes and thought they could be Belle's. With that distraction keeping us moving, we walked about a mile to where we finally met up with Claire and two fire chiefs. They were so kind and patient and helped us clean up. One of them drove me back to pony club to get my truck and trailer in order to come back and get Zoie. Some friends at pony club saw me driving up in the Fire Chief's red Suburban and covered in blood and offered to help. When I made it back to the horses, we loaded Zoie while the two other friends walked Piper and Belle home. The rubberband stayed put through all of this and even until our vet was able to come. With the proper care, Zoie is gong to be fine in a couple of weeks. I must say that she is the most amazing horse for dealing with the pain and nervousness of the situation. I'm so glad that she and Monica are so well bonded that in such a difficult situation, Zoie simply stood and let us help her without stuggling. Above is a picture of Monica and Zoie

2005-01-16T21:15:00.002-08:00

Me riding Pocahontas sometime back in 2002

2005-01-16T21:15:00.001-08:00

Meadows of Moorpark Horse Trials, May 2003

2005-01-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

Pony Club National Championships, Kentucky 2004.

2005-01-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

Pony Club National Championships, Kentucky 2004

My First Post

2005-01-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

*tear* My first post! Apparently I must have SOMETHING on the page in order to see the page at all. I'd like to open by saying that my horse, whom I love dearly, is a dapple gray. That means that his body is mostly black, with flecks of white to even him out. On top of the "freckles" of white are larger blotches of white. It's quite pretty actually. I just thought you should know... Maybe I can figure out how to put a picture up.