Dande's Blog

Pasha's Hooves

2005-08-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

Finally showing some concavity...but thin sole, so we're conditioning on the sand, and trying to be patient.

The false sole has been tricky, but Pasha's angles are within the normal range, finally.

Hooves of Horror, Healing

2005-08-20T01:10:00.000-05:00

Kemo's Feet..a progression and tribute to my teacher and mentors. Thank you for my horse.

Yoga, Fasting, and the Ultimate Quest

2005-08-09T02:23:00.000-05:00

Since my last post, there has been much activity, like the terrible moments when Pasha looked like he couldn't stand, let alone walk, on his two front feet. Did I trim him wrong? Self-doubt assailed me, especially on a morning when I had two horses to trim...horses who weren't mine, horses who appeared sore the next day.

According to the rules of the natural trim, a horse shouldn't be sore after a trim. Pasha, however, is rehabilitating from a terrible thing that was done to his feet. He is terrified of any discomfort of the foot, of trimming in general, and of walking on different kinds of ground. Stones cause him discomfort - the sole where he should be strong is sickeningly flexible. I put him on a very dry regime. Because we live in a desert and it gets extremely hot throughout the day, most of our horses are hosed down once a day. This soaks their feet. Pasha's frogs were soft under the protective layer that he shed in work, and so he got no hosings for two weeks, which hardened up his frog areas and soles when combined with regular boot-less work. I've eased up to let him get one shampoo/hosing per week, but no other full body soaks...trying to keep his feet drier.

When we ask him to move forward, we don't let him plod along, he's got to move out and stretch his legs forward. He looks for us when we come to take him out for his long rambling walks with Jamal through the desert - over rough terrain, over sand with stones, over grass and tarmac. This is very hard work for Pasha, and he is fortunate to have Jamal with him; Jamal stays calm and empathetic while encouraging him forward, holding the goal at the foremost in his mind: do this, and your feet will come back underneath you.

My other horse, Kemo, is doing well on some extra feed, and we've been riding all over the place in beautiful paces. I love feeling his forward energy. For the first time in a long time, I feel I have met one of my main equestrian goals: I rode this horse at a walk, trot, and canter, and I had a blast and felt safe, and my horse seemed to enjoy himself! Hurray!

Also, this week, I rode another horse bareback at a walk and trot, and I didn't lose my balance, and it didn't hurt (like it had a year ago when I tried - ouch!) and I had a lot of fun with this horse...maybe next time I'll try a bit of canter and see how that goes.

I'm yoga-ing just about everyday. I've eliminated all refined sugar from my diet, and it totally sucks - no sodas, bitter coffee, no CANDY BARS, no gatorade, no processed foods and sauces. And I've temporarily given up meat. I'm gearing up to cut out caffeine and *shudder* cigarettes, so that I can continue with the next steps of my spiritual journey. I'm really a big chicken, and part of me wants so badly to just say, that, you know, I'm enlightened enough already and I should keep smoking...smoking is good, but then I realize that this very temptation is why I need to quit - at lest temporarily, for this next step.

So, I'm all geared up to fast...once I quit everything, I can begin my first drum-guided Journey, and see what that's like, although some of the stuff I'm reading indicates that I already do what it is I'm attempting to learn about...except, I'd like to be more aware, balanced, and effective with what I do...so I'm doing these things with this goal in mind.

Comfry Poultice; Rice for Dinner

2005-07-20T00:08:00.000-05:00

Lessons for poor Pasha were cancelled last night. He's still walking stiffly. He's been pulled out of his quad back to just a pair for two weeks until the mares go out of heat.

I went down this morning to see how he's doing. I remembered that I had a tub of comfry Poultice that supposed to be good for arthritis, which this guy supposedly has, but my problem was this...I have 8oz of poultice...where do I put it to best effect? So I put it in the Fridge.

Now, yesterday I came across a statement very much like this: "Comfry is good for soul repatterning"; in a book I was reading! Hurrah! I pull out the poultice this morning and ignore all of the directions. I use cold water- no boiling etc. This was pure gut instinct...very likely another person in the same situation would have had the intuition to do it all differently and still have interesting results. The key is for me to follow my intuition in a given situation. So I placed the poultice on his back ankle (where there is a scab over a two inch wound) and he swung his leg straight back and streeeetched, and lowered his head. I then felt that all of his legs would benefit from being wiped down with this stuff from the knees down and did that, but I did reapply the comfry to the poultice cotton and wrap the original ankle for an hour.

My plan is to check and see how he does this evening. I'm hoping that combined with some movement and stretching, he'll be healed up in a day or too.

I ended up taking a lesson on my horse Kemo last night, in the awful heat and humidity. Kemo did okaaay, and I was trying to tweak my position and messed everything up, but my instructor was patient and got me back on track by the time we finished. After the lesson, I rode out with a friend and she's going to set me up with some books, hopefully, for this next phase of my bizarre journey through life.

Today - contemplative housework, book searching, and a nap...oh and I should eat something. Am drinking about a gallon and a half a day, and eating one meal and a snack.

Daily journal thing sort of difficult to want to maintain.

Intuitive Contradictions

2005-07-18T23:55:00.000-05:00

Picture is of me on a borrowed horse - having a visit and beach ride with some friends (not pictured).

So, I sat with my horse the other night and did some tonal chanting - thankfully most people had vacated and there are multiple fans blowing on horses to relieve them from the heat and humidity. I felt very much that he needed to keep moving, and not stiffen up. He's off in his back end, and I'm pretty sure it's due to his being turned out with his regular turn-out buddy and two mares who are sisters.

There have been some horse "conversations" that have challenged Pasha to move in ways he wouldn't otherwise. I also think that it relates to his stallion energy (he's gelded), and his repressed power - he's awfully constrained, and can't seem to sort of let his hair down. When we discovered this lameness, a bunch of people gathered around with concerned, but chaotic energy. My husband said, "It's Pasha's ankle." Another lady, a Reiki Master, said,"It's the hip; he needs to rest." And the instructor said, "I think it's the feet." Meanwhile, the horse is dehydrated and not wanting to put weight on his back foot/leg/hip.

Instead of being able to have a look at my own horse, I'm running around nodding at people's opinions and trying to get some fluid in Pasha. One interesting thing is that people do want to help...they all needed to help. And everyone's insight and observations was helpful. But after all was said and done, I just needed to sit with the horse and find out, regardless of the "problem", what's the solution. And thus, the chanting.

Pasha does well with tones and when he's getting a horse-massage will create a tone by running his teeth slowly and steadily along the metal rail to produce a low consistant tone. He also hated his massages, and the masseuse said he won't tolerate any sort of stretching of the legs and muscle work; and since she knew I could energy work him myself she suggested that I do that. After this injury, I massaged him and stretched him with no problem.

I chanted and as I did, he rocked back and forth, sometimes shifting weight onto the problem side. Then I brought him out and had him trotting around for me - he shot forward, surprising me. After I observed him for a bit, I stretched him and put him up for the night. No turn-out.

Checked him in the morning, and he wasn't lame, but he was stiff. Cleared him for turn-out in the evening, and watched for an hour or so. He's in turn-out with two mares, and this is a new situation for him - at least it's been about 4 years since he had turn-out with more than one other horse. Our farm is experimenting with putting the horses out in larger groups, currently they are turned out singly or in pairs. Now, we have three groups of four horses each that are going out together.

One of the mares is in heat and is constantly going after Pasha and the other gelding. The other mare is the Chaparone. Finally, last night Pasha and his lady had some interaction before I left. I think the movement is good for him, and I think this is helping to heal and repatthern his Stallion Energy. Remember, Pasha's front feet had been lopped off flat, and he's been trying to heal that for over ten months and has various affectations from that experience. During that time he also had a foot abscess - can't remember which foot - one of the back ones (he wasn't my horse through all of that - I have had him two months). So this horse only had one leg to stand on and was hobbled by his own feet...his own healing mechanism.

Pasha has immense amount of repatterning to do. First, the healing, and then the repatterning - which may cause some release of toxins, old body positions and tightness, soreness etc. Once something is released then there will be symptoms as he processes everything, and then repatterning sets in a new (hopefully improved) movement for him. Kemo has been through much of this.

Kemo had underrun heels, and long toes, and had for a long while before I bought him. He was round bellied, overweight, bad tempered, ill-mannered and sway-backed. His saddle didn't fit, the bit was too wide, too thick and too pinchy. Over the past three years and with the help of many, many people, we have aided this horse in his recovery. Often when something changed for the better, Kemo would go "off" and need a rest. After a few days, he'd be okay.

His feet were so bad, they stretched all of the tendons in the back...like if you were to go a whole day walking on your heels, toes up. Youch. As his feet have come back under him, he gets releases in his back end...different mucsle groups...and interestingly, in his shoulders too. Not experienced enough to make that connection.

Okay. My energy journal/horse journal assignment, take two, completed.

Journal Keeping

2005-07-18T04:13:00.000-05:00

This morning I spent over an hour at the farm walking, and trotting my horse, Pasha, around to observe how he's moving after being lame yesterday. He's much better today, am keeping him moving in the morning and evening - seems to be an injury in the back leg/hip/ankle from trying to hard to impress the ladies he was out with during turn-out the other day. He's tender on his front feet where he's recovering from his feet being hacked flat by a pseudo-farrier (that's me trying to take my other horse's shoes off to barefoot trim him back to health...he'd been long toed-runaway-heeled by same unfarrier), so he's wearing boots. Is a little sore even in boots, not sure if this is front or back related.

The rest of the morning, I spent reading Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon, by Machaelle Small Wright, which was lent to me from a farm aquaintance. Not quite sure how to think about all of it, certain that less thinking is more at this point.

When I speak of the "Farm" what I am referring to is a stable/riding area of 160 acres, run by committees, where the horses are owned individually. This is an amazing political situation, especially to get anything done! Committees are formed, complaints are made, then everyone seems to sort of get tired and go home...maybe they have nap - that's what I do.

I also write fiction, but this blog is one of my "Energetic Assignments" to keep a journal about horses and energy stuff and personal stuff (not too personal). There you go, you powers that be. The first entry.

Okay, that's not all I did today - in fit of confusion and questing for guidence I wrote all sorts of things I do or think that I should do on 1/3 of a 3x5 card and cut them all out (in stacks) and then on another pile I wrote things like: MORE, LESS, DAILY, STOP etc. And then, of course, I turned them all over so I couldn't see and I pulled things to do and one advice card out and wrote down the results. Only then, the results caused some more confusion which I set about to clarify with more cards and more time choices, and I subdivided categories etc. and pulled out cards one to one. Oh, two hours must have gone by with me pulling and writing and groaning (more confusion) and there were some :Oh reallys, and oh okays.

Eventually I rolled to a stop, my finger ached trying to confirm things with kinisiology, and I got bored and tired with the whole thing (I'm a Sagittarius - you know Centaur, bow and arrow, prone to distraction). When I went back through everything, in case anything useful came up, I found several clear messages: Keep a journal - blog okay, eat, drink water, meditate - but not too much, don't try so hard, relax, ride the horses, write some fiction, and engage in intellectual stimulation through board games, emails, and conversations.

Not bad advice, I'll say.
Have a great day!