Random Thoughts

It feels as though it has been an eternity since I received the phone call from my mother on Sunday night. But only a couple of days has gone by. Here I sit in the middle of the night unable to sleep and it is raining again.
This country has been dry for so very long. This last month all it has done is rain. Finally it has warmed up and the grass is growing with all of the moisture. It is sad that the moisture that we so desperately need had a lot to do with my step-dad's failing health. Humidity is difficult on someone who has trouble breathing anyway.

I did not stay with my mom tonight. I think she needed the evening alone. I tried to call several times but the phone was always busy. She is doing as well as can be expected. Actually, better than I expected. I have to shut her down sometimes when she starts with the shoulda, coulda, woulda...Thanks to her, my step-dad never had to spend a single day or night in a strange place, he never had to take a single pain pill, he never wanted for anything. There are not many terminal patients who can say that. Nor would he have survived so long without her undivided attention. She did what she did, because she loved him.
The last few weeks, I could see that my step-dad was tired of his situation. He changed. The last time I rode his geldings, he watched for a little bit and then had my mom close the curtains again. Before, he would watch out his picture window from the time I left until I came back. I always had to stop by and let him look at his horses for a bit before I put them away. Then I would go in and we would discuss the merits of each horse. The paint gelding was not much of a pasture horse. He always looks to the far horizon. I needed to get him to the arena to work on getting his attention on me and his immediate surroundings. The blue roan horse was a horse my step-dad would have loved to have had when he rode the pastures daily. He is all business. He left the yard with that old head just a swinging. He can go all day and has never once spooked at anything. Of course my step-dad was especially fond of him because he raised his mother(who I broke-22 years ago) and her mother, who was by his good old Three Bars stud. My step-dad loved a good horse and raised more good ones than most people ever get the chance to own.

My mom knew the end was very near. I could tell the difference in her the last couple of days before he passed away. She was so sad. They didn't want company. When I had to go out there, mom met me at the door. He was letting go and she wasn't ready for it. Who ever is? When your whole life for years has revolved around someone 24/7-365.
They were together 35 years. I can remember the day he showed up at our house with his suitcase. Mom says I was too young to remember, but I do. I always liked his laugh. He had one of those great chuckles. The one that makes you laugh too.

I am so relieved his suffering is over. I cannot imagine not being able to take a deep breath or being able to leave the house or ride a horse again. He was okay with it for a long time. But when he decided that was enough, that was enough.

I know that at this point my mom does not want to think too much about the future. I suppose to her it looks lonely and bleak. But honestly, I see my mom being able to get back to the land of the living. It will take some time-that is just how the grieving process works-but eventually she will realize that she can go to town and not have to worry about getting home ASAP. She will be able to go to the barn and not have to rush through chores to get back in the house. She will be able to saddle up and ride with Megan and I.

The first glimmer of that realization has already hit her and with it the obligatory guilt. When we were coming home from the funeral parlor, she was looking out the pickup window, just looking at the countryside(you know the last time she even went with me to get feed was August of last year) and without moving she said "I might need to get my riding boots back from you." I tried not to smile too much because I could see she felt bad about saying it-but I now have those suckers polished up and can't wait to hand them back to her...

We were all standing around in the driveway yesterday, visiting and I kept watching this iris unfold. I couldn't help but think that this was going to be like watching my mother come out of the cocoon her life had become. It will not be the same as it was before my step-dad got sick, but it will more closely resemble the life they used to live and I think he would like that.

A Long, Sad Night

Last night my step-father passed away. He has been very ill for a long time. He has had respitory problems since 2000 but 2 years ago was diagnosed with Chronic Leukemia. My mother has been taking care of him at home all of this time.

I will probably be offline for awhile. Thank you all in advance for the thoughts and prayers I know you all will be sending this way.

That Competition Thing

This morning Megan was entered in the 4-H rodeo here in town. She was only entered in the barrels. She was going to use Moon. But things changed pretty quickly yesterday morning.
My little cowgirl got up yesterday morning and got me up too. She was anxious to get to the arena and give Moon a whirl around the barrels. And boy did he give her a whirl.
The last time Megan ran barrels on Moon was 2 years ago when we were just starting him. We would go to playdays to get some experience on the horses and because they were fun. Moon was still in his "lope around the barrels" phase. Megan likes that phase. She is awesome at that phase.
But since that time-Moon has progressed. He no longer lopes around the barrels. He is turning the barrels-even at slow speeds. He knows what his job is and he loves it.
Megan is still in a slower gear and Moon is just too much. After trying a couple of times, I could tell she was frustrated and Moon was starting to do his flippy thing with his hind quarters again. So I got on and made a little run on him to make sure he got back to business.
Now to me-Moon is just the easiest thing ever to ride around the barrels. He is pretty much on auto pilot and I can just sit and lift around the barrels. I know he is going to turn the barrel and all I have to do is ride to the pocket and leave him alone. I trust him.
Megan-not so much. She is still trying to "train" on him and he doesn't need it. It causes problems. I was very, VERY proud of my daughter when she straight up told me that Moon's speed scared her. It takes a lot of guts to say "this is too much".

So we went to plan B - this morning Megan used Rip at the rodeo. Now we have only loped Rip around the barrels a couple of times but he does know the pattern and he is showing good form. Much to my mother's dismay, Megan and Rip made a nice, slow lope around the barrel pattern.


Personally, I have no problem with this. Megan was entered and it cost nothing for her to ride to the arena and get to do this. My mother does not believe in going unless you are there to win. But she came to watch anyway and left a little more impressed that Megan and Rip made a nice pattern. She also gave the thumbs up to start bringing horses to town so Megan can get a lot more experience loping horses and see if we can get her to start building some speed into her runs.

I know Megan would like to be competitive at the rodeos-but you know what? I'm not one bit worried about it. She is very, very good at patterning horses and that is a skill that is harder to learn than getting on and running full speed. That being said-I noticed a couple of things in the pictures that we need to work on. She doesn't do this when we are practicing so it must be a competition thing. So many people(myself included-until I finally figured it out) think that competing is different than practice. It's not. If you are making good practice runs, whatever you are doing then you must do during a competition.

See how she is sort of hunched forward? and her hands are down by Rip's neck? Ideally, she should be sitting straighter. Her inside hand needs to come up to lift and balance the horse around the barrel. In the first picture you can sort of see what happens when your hand drops too much. Rip's shoulder is wanting to "leave" the turn. Sitting back, lifting the hand and using the outside leg to keep the shoulder in the turn, especially at this point in the turn on 2nd. You really have to hold the turn on 2nd for an extra stride so your horse won't blow away from the barrel too soon. In the 2nd picture you can see what happens when that shoulder drifts. Rip went into the pocket at the right spot but he drifted out on the back side, causing him to come out wide.

You can really see the difference in his body position when you compare the two sets of pictures.





Seeing things like this in pictures or on a video is so helpful and considering Rip is basically pleasure loping the pattern, Megan will learn something from it and there is no damage to the horse. All in all-a win, win situation. Especially for me-I got my barrel horse all to myself this year.

Now I just gotta find some barrel races to go to...