Life in Aylmer Quebec

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Royal. Regal. Majestic.

Those are the words that come to mind when I look at this photo of Bailey that I took back in the late fall, when we first moved to Ferme Ste Rose. I think it has to be one of my favorite pictures. He is bucking the whole not-very-photogenic thing in this one (pun intended).

We haven’t been working as much as I’d planned, for a variety of reasons. Snowstorms, extreme cold, icey conditions, apathy, time constraints, and pure laziness. But I rode today in a light snow storm. It was a gift. In fact, my horse gave me several gifts today. An amazingly soft, quiet, powerful canter depart from the walk. One that I didn’t even realize I’d asked for. One minute, we were walking and I was thinking canter. I must of thought too loudly, because he gave it. It was amazing!

I could also feel today that he really wanted to let loose, have a good gallop around, and he kept asking me. My horse was asking me if it was okay!! And I had to say no, we shouldn’t, I just don’t trust the footing, we could slip. And he would say, please?? I’ll be so careful. Just a little? I’ll be good. So I caved, and let him loose, just a little, and he was good, and he came back when I asked, and he was careful. But just the fact that he asked me first was wonderful!

Near the end of our ride, my toes were getting cold, so I dropped my stirrups for a while. We trotted around, and he slowed his trot for me, and lightened up. I swear he was trying to be nice to me.

I read an article recently, something along the lines of ” the horse has the right to say no”, or some silly thing, along the lines of Parelli, and some of the ‘Natural Horsemanship’ crap. Not saying it’s all crap, but a lot of is touchy-feely-my-horse-will-love-me-if-I’m-nice. It was quite a silly article, but it did make me pause and think a little bit. How much of what I ask of my horse, is actually fair? Do I expect too much from him sometimes? Do I ask him things that he is unsure, or unclear of, and then over-react when he hasn’t performed? Do I allow for his silly days, or his bad days, the same way he allows for mine? As horse people, we talk about being the ‘Alpha Mare’ to our horse, ‘Ask, tell, demand’,  and yet at the same time, we expect a partnership with them. We are always walking a fine line between humanizing our horses, and even sometimes treating them as our children (yes, I am my horse’s mom!), and remembering that they are animals; big, athletic, fast and biddable, but still animals. And animals of prey, at that.

A fine line.

Do I love my horse? Yes. I fell in love with him when I saw him as a gangly two year old, with a huge lump on his face, and that same look in his eyes that North had.  I bought him with the intention of keeping him forever, until the day he dies. He is my heart horse.

Do I think my horse loves me? No. Of course not. He is a horse. I think he enjoys spending time with me because I give him mints, and food, and really good scratches where I know he is particularly itchy. I think he might even read my moods sometimes, and respond in particular ways because of that, (and a lot of that is probably my body language). He can be sweet, sassy, bossy, petulant, forgiving,  but in the end, he is still a horse.  Yet, there is something about this particular horse that tugs at my heart.

Well, we’d all be riding!  So far so good with the wonder horse.  You’ll have to forgive me if for the next little while this becomes more of a horse blog than anything else.  I’m tempted to start another one, dedicated to Bailey and his training progress and just basically how fracking awesome all this new horse ownership stuff is, but I’m afraid it would eventually decline as did my tomato blog.  Or else I would write very little here, and spend what little writing time on Bailey’s Blog.  Hmm, Sarah, you even gave me a good name for it.  I’ll have to see if it’s taken….Well, what do you know?  New blog, Backing Bailey.  I’ll write all my horsey stuff there, and save this for the rest of life.

So, ….here I go again.  TGIF.  Really.  I’m so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.   It’s been a long week, sleep deprivation wise.  I’ve been reading till way too late at night, and waking up so tired and very reluctantly, but new books+new horse= must read as much as possible to train this baby right.  Really liking the clicker book, it’s funny cause I’ve already been doing that kind of thing, but not with a clicker, rather with my voice and carrots.  It really does work, I gotta say. But back to sleep.  I need more of it.  I really need to make myself go to bed on time.  If I don’t get at least 7 1/2 to 8 hours, I’m just not a fully functional human being.

As much as I love my husband, I’m so glad I have the bed to myself this weekend!  His semi-annual-gaming-weekend-with-buddies-in-Hamilton is taking place.  So it’s girls weekend at my house.  The girls both have parties tomorrow,  I have a feeling I won’t be getting as much done as I was hoping to on Tornado-hit-my-house-oh-wait-we-are-just-messy-people Street.  But we’ll see.

We’ve planned a chinese food pig out for tomorrow night.  Eggrolls, fried rice, chicken balls, shrimp and noodles, yum!  The girls are gonna help me make dinner (or so is the plan) and we are gonna watch a chick flick under cozy blankets, complete with popcorn and chocolate.  Doesn’t it sound fun?  Reminds me of ‘Treat Night’ as a child,  when we would walk to the corner store with Mom and spend our dollar on whatever candy we wanted, come home and watch ‘The Love Boat’ and ‘Fantasy Island’.  Dad was playing in the band, so it was girls’ night almost every Friday and Saturday night.  Dating myself with those tv shows, but I loved it!