Tag Archives: equine

Great Gifts for Horse Lovers, Part II: Personalization Strikes Back

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As a continuation of my previous post with some recommendations on gifts for the horse people in your life, I thought I’d do a follow-up since it’s now officially gift-buying season and let’s face it, horse people are simply not getting any easier to buy for. As per usual, my suggestions are handmade items, and I urge you to support artists and crafters directly, because they’re awesome and they could use your business. With this post, I’m going to concentrate specifically on the kinds of gifts you’re not likely to be able to buy from the equine catalogs: gifts that you can have customized or personalized to make them one of a kind. Horse people are seriously hard to shop for, but we also appreciate the personal touch… like when you remember our horse’s name. And let’s face it, we are delighted with anything at all that has our horse’s name on it. Below is my latest Etsy treasury of customizable horse gifts; you can also check out the treasury directly on Etsy if you’d prefer.


 Personalized Fine Silver Hor…
$88.00

Horse Gift Art Framed Print …
$38.00

Chalk board Stall Sign
$35.00

Custom Horse Portraits LOVIN…
$75.00

Personalized Horse Ornament …
$8.00

Personalized family ranch Na…
$54.99

Horse Necklace Custom Person…
$44.00

HORSE Ornament Personalized …
$8.50

Word of your Choice OR Your …
$4.25

Horses Personalized wall art…
$14.99

Personalized Christmas Cards…
$18.00

Personalized Silver Horse Je…
$92.00

15″ – Personalized Hand…
$37.00

Western Horse Christmas Stoc…
$29.00

Lariat Rope Necklace – Perso…
$46.00

Custom Ribbon Display
$45.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

And now for the shameless self-promotion:

Copper Wire Horse OrnamentsI make my own personalized or generic horse, donkey, and mule ornaments out of wire and sell them on Etsy; you can find my shop at Bright Strange Things on Etsy. I can customize ornaments to try to match specific horse colors and breeds, or to symbolize particular riding disciplines. I also sell photo prints and sometimes t-shirts, and am working on some new lines of products, so I hope you’ll also give my shop a look, and check out some of the sellers above when you’re shopping for Christmas, birthdays, horsiversaries, or any other equine-related gift-giving occasion.

I can stop anytime I want. It’s just that I don’t want to. Ever. Please, don’t make me!

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I want to make a confession, because I feel like it’s going to be cathartic. So here it goes: I have a slight addiction. To shopping.

It’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t have a thing for shoes or a complete inability to resist a bargain in general. It’s mostly just… well… art supplies. I am completely psychologically incapable of going into a store full of art supplies and coming out with the same amount of cash in my wallet that I had going in.

You might think that’s not a bad thing for an artist, considering we do tend to burn through art supplies rather rapidly. I’ve made three runs for additional supplies (the actual necessary kind, not the “I must have that because it is there” kind) just this week. The trouble with art supplies as a consumer product is that when you’re wandering through the art store you’re not just looking at products on a shelf, you’re looking at the potential for genius. Or at very least the potential for a good time. You can be looking at a tube of paint or a block of clay or a pair of round-nosed pliers, but what you’re actually seeing is the finished product.

This is the problem with artists. We have vivid and sometimes detailed imaginations. We can see that finished piece in our mind’s eye, and we simply must have those components that are necessary for the creation of whatever it is we think we’re going to create. And if we haven’t worked in that medium before and really don’t have the first idea how we might turn that collection of raw materials and tools into the thing we see in our heads, well… in my case, at least, reality rarely gets in my way.

Which is why, as you might imagine, my work space consists of a desk, a lamp, and a bunch of bins and containers full of things that I haven’t figured out how to use yet. When I was a kid things came very easily to me and I’m still in the process of training myself to embrace the learning curve… to understand that when I try a new medium for the first time, what I produce probably isn’t going to be a great work of art or the vision I see in my head or even necessarily something that’s going to make decent kindling. So while I’m always excited by all the possibilities of a new art form — and perhaps too excited over all the associated equipment you can buy in shiny, promise-filled packages from the art supply store — I often find myself incredibly intimidated by the same things once I get them home. Sometimes I give them a try and give up for awhile in frustration. Sometimes I don’t even get around to the trying part and they just sit, still neatly packaged, waiting for me to work through my neuroses.

Recently I decided that I was going to start working my way through those supplies. I decided to start with the box I’d labeled “WIRE,” which was filled with little spools of wire in different gauges and pliers (mostly of the wrong sort). I checked out a few books on wire-wrapped jewelry from the library so I could figure out the essential skills, determined that I’d need to make one last fortifying trip to the craft store to get a couple more pairs of pliers that every book seemed to agree I would need, and then I sat myself down at the table and decided that I would create something. I would create something that would probably just go straight into the garbage, but what the hell, the wire hadn’t been that expensive (at some point I’d extended my shopaholicness to the hardware store, where they had wire galore). And it’d just mean that I had less art supplies sitting around, making me feel guilty for my non-use of them and for my shopping addiction problem. So I cut a few lengths of wire and attempted to make a few basic shapes and loops and mostly ended up with mangled chunks of wire that couldn’t even be called “abstract.” (One of them did sort of look like a sea urchin, though.)

Normally at that point I’d be experiencing a strong urge to browse for something more cooperative at the art supply store. But what the hell, I was comfortable, I had some Doctor Who on the telly (you have to say “on the telly” when you’re watching British television, it’s required) and bending wire is actually kind of fun as random activities go. Plus I had that image in my head. The finished product. And by all that was good and holy, I was going to create that thing I’d envisioned. So I took my pliers and that copper wire and I bent and twisted and turned and cursed and pricked myself so hard with the end of a wire that I bled kind of profusely and then… then I had this.

It was a little rough. And it was also awesome. It was just what I wanted. It was kind of better than I’d originally planned for. It was a first effort but I figured somebody out there might want it, so I put it up on my Etsy shop and pointed to it from Facebook and asked my friends whether I had created something they would enjoy. I haven’t sold that original quite yet (you can remedy this by buying it, lolz!), but I have sold quite a few others, both one at a time and in large orders. I suddenly seem to be spending a lot of my time making little wire horses. And finally, finally, I have an excuse to go shopping for art supplies. It’s not a compulsion, it’s just that I genuinely need more colors of wire! It’s not my fault!

If you’d like to get a little wire pony to decorate your Christmas tree (or rearview mirror, or whatever other things you like to hang decorative items from, I do not even want to know) please feel free to drop by my Etsy store and order one! I also do custom work that’s made to order, and am working on some designs for cats, dogs and other adorableness. (Perhaps an echidna! Or a capybara with a little wire monocle!) Honestly, the more I can move this wire out of here the sooner I can move on to some other stack of art supplies that I’ve been neglecting… maybe I’ll try the scratchboard next. Or the linocuts. Or the watercolors. Or the acrylics.

Help.

Trusting the Process

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If there’s one piece of advice I’ve heard most often lately, it’s probably this one: Trust the process.

As a chronic worrier and control enthusiast, trusting anything in particular doesn’t come easily to me. I recognize that I have a tendency to give up on things when I can’t jump directly from “starting out” to “end result.” And since I stepped out of the world of more traditional horsemanship and into the world of natural horsemanship, I’ve had to adjust to some pretty major shifts in thinking. Like, for instance, I would’ve never dreamed that I’d take my third ride on my green-broke horse as a half-day trail ride. Up a mountain. In a rope hackamore. But after having been through the process of training her myself in her groundwork, and then watching 3-Star Parelli Professional Terry Wilson start her under saddle, and having seen techniques that were sometimes counter-intuitive to me turn her into a different, more confident horse… I was finally ready to trust to process.

Sure, I might not know what I'm doing, but my horse looks awfully good!

Terry is a big believer in the power of the trail ride. He’d only put a handful of rides on Juno before taking her out on the trails near his property, and it was plain even to me what a positive effect it had on her development. After my first two rides on Juno, both in Terry’s round pen and neither of them terribly inspiring for me — in the sense that they revealed to me what an awful rider I am — I was certainly ready for something different. Terry thought a day on the trail would be just the thing; he’d ride Juno to begin with while I rode one of his lease horses, Jane, and if all went well we’d switch and I could ride my own horse. Terry’s wife Lvonne and our friends Laura and Bridgette joined us with their own horses, so we had a pretty decent-sized group, and the weather was beautiful, cool and overcast.

Terry and Juno leading the way

We hauled in to West Fork, scraped the previous day’s mud off the horses and got everyone tacked up, then we headed right out on the trail. You wouldn’t have known that Juno had only done all of this once before — and on that occasion they’d had to turn back after only a mile or so, because Juno’s unshod feet were a bit sore on all the rock. This time, Terry and Juno went right out in the lead, and she didn’t flinch away from tight horse-high vegetation, bridges, or even the singing cowboy on her back. (Hey, everybody likes a good Canadian sea shanty.) In short order, Terry proposed that we switch and I get up on my own horse for our first trail riding outing together.

We covered eight miles and six bridge crossings. We rode near the front of the pack, in the middle, and all the way in the back, but it was all the same to Juno. She naturally prefers to give the other horses plenty of room, so there was no need to constantly remind her to keep her distance from the horse in front of her, and she didn’t feel the slightest urge to rush home when we turned back. She was, in short, the perfect trail horse, and gave me the gift of the most enjoyable trail ride I’d ever experienced. And though I’ve suffered all kinds of confidence and fear issues when it comes to riding horses, when I was out there on the back of my own horse, in the middle of the wilderness, I didn’t feel even a moment’s worth of fear or doubt. Even though I’d had a bit of an emotional explosion just a few days earlier, I trusted Terry, I trusted my horse, and I trusted the process that had brought us to where we were. I trusted that it would keep taking us further.

Me and Juno, trailblazing!

Progress is often an uncomfortable thing. You don’t know yet what to do, or how to do it, or whether you’ll ever get it. You’re outside of your comfort zone — sometimes way outside of it — and sometimes you’re compelled to take risks to keep moving forward. That doesn’t mean you have to take up daredevil riding or do something that’s unsafe for you: it just means that you might need to put your pride on the line or sacrifice your usually zen-like emotional state for awhile. But with the right knowledge, the right attitude and the right support you can do things you never dreamed you’d do — even if it’s just taking your horse on a trail ride.

Terry Wilson is a 3-Star Parelli instructor living in Pagosa Springs. He teaches lessons and clinics all over the US and Canada, and I strongly encourage you to take advantage of his knowledge and general awesomeness by booking him for a clinic. Also check out his website and his Facebook page! This post is a follow-up to The Long, Dark Horseback Ride of the Soul; if you haven’t read that post yet, you might want to have a look. You know, just to see what I’m like when I’m a bit less emotionally balanced.

The Long, Dark Horseback Ride of the Soul

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My horse Juno and I don’t really share a typical horse/human history. For a start, she’s in her late teens, and she’s spent more years in the wild than she has in the paddock. She’s the first horse I’ve ever owned. Oh, and by the way, I have no idea what I’m doing half the time. It’s not really what you’d call a recipe for success, but somehow Juno and I have muddled along, with a harmony that comes of being kindred introverted spirits. I’ve mentioned before the particular challenges of moving beyond where we’ve been and into the exciting world of saddle training, which for a horse of Juno’s age isn’t necessarily an easy proposition. But I’ve always known that it was possible, and in recent years we’d reached a point where the only thing standing between Juno and a truly spectacular future was me.

Years ago when I first began to admit to myself that I wasn’t qualified to start my horse myself — which admittedly wasn’t until I’d taken my third ride on her, which ended with a spectacular unscheduled dismount — I didn’t really know what to expect. What I discovered was that there are some trainers who, when you say the word “mustang,” will immediately say no without hearing anything else. There are quite a few who won’t even bother to think about starting a horse as old as Juno is. (Horses can live into their thirties or even forties so she’s really kind of middle-aged, but younger horses are without a doubt easier to train, and a lot of equestrians would consider her practically over the hill.) And there are some trainers who, when you tell them the horse you want started is both teenaged and a mustang, will laugh until they’re red in the face and then offer to loan you a gun so you can just kill yourself since you’re apparently intent on dying anyway. (Cowboys are secret drama queens, apparently.) And it usually didn’t matter anyway what many of those rough and tumble trainers of the American west thought, because watching most of them work with horses was enough to convince me that I never wanted them to touch mine.

Luckily for both Juno and I, we wound up in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where I’d taken a job with Parelli Natural Horsemanship and suddenly found myself surrounded by both experienced horsemen and fellow students who were on the same horsemanship track and speaking the same language that I was. And when I asked around about who might be able to start Juno under saddle for me, pretty much everyone I met recommended 3-Star Parelli Professional Terry Wilson. When I ran into Terry and asked him about training my horse, he was a little surprised at her age, but he was game to give it a go. He warned me that Juno might never work out as a saddle horse, but he was willing to try.

In deference to her age and introversion, he started off slow — compared to what he’d do with a young colt, anyway — with plenty of groundwork, filling in the holes I’d inadvertently left in her ground training and helping to get her accustomed to saddles and cinches, which was something I’d always had trouble with.

Wearing a western riding saddle

Ponying out onto the road with a pack saddle on

He was mounting bareback in the middle of their first session; by the end of the first week, they were out on the trails.

Riding out on Terry’s acreage on day 3

I knew that all of Juno’s groundwork, and her inherent good nature, would make things easier than Terry likely expected, but I had no idea how quickly they’d progress. I’ve had the very good fortune, with Terry’s kind cooperation, to be able to watch nearly every session he’s had with my horse. I’ve accompanied them out on trails and learned a remarkable amount just from watching everything that Terry does. It’s been amazing to see how much my horse is really capable of, and how much more I should be doing with her. And of course, the more I watched her progress under Terry’s tutelage, the clearer it became to me that one day, very soon, it was going to be up to me to ride her, to keep her moving forward both literally and metaphorically, to be the leader in our herd of two.

To put it succinctly, I was petrified.

The day of reckoning arrived today — Terry had suggested that after his session with her, I should get on and ride for a bit — and it would be fair to say that I spent most of the day at work vacillating wildly between excited and scared as hell. Not scared of Juno, or of getting hurt — even green as she is, I know her, and feel quite confident in her and in Terry’s work with her — but rather scared that I wouldn’t be able to be the leader she needed. Scared that I wouldn’t know what to do or how to do it. Scared that I’d set Terry back in his progress with her, and that I’d never be the rider she needs me to be.

So I sat and watched Terry work with her, as he ran her through the basics again and made sure she’d be okay with a rider that bounced on her back and flailed at random, which she was… though it was more than a little humbling to realize exactly how necessary that would be before I could get on. Then Terry asked if I was ready to ride, and I said yes, because no wasn’t even an option, no didn’t occur to me, no was not in my lexicon. So I went into the round pen, and I got on.

I wish I could give this story some sort of Disney finale where as I rode, I realized that I could be a leader, that I did know what to do, that I wouldn’t be setting my horse back at all. Rather, the experience was quite the opposite. On the one hand, it was incredibly thrilling after all these years to be sitting on my horse, feeling all in all calm and confident about being there (but slightly panicked about being able to follow Terry’s directions, because my mind was stuck on a bit of an endless loop that went, “Holy s***, I’m riding my horse!”). On the other hand, I discovered that I hadn’t been worried enough. I thought I’d be bad, and I was worse.

Everything I’d ever known about riding — which I can’t say was much — I suddenly forgot. Fine motor control was a thing of the past, as was language comprehension. When I asked her to walk forward, Juno kept diving nose-first toward the fence and sidepassing, which was awfully fancy, but would’ve been even more impressive if I’d been aware of asking for it. When I posted the trot she thought it meant I was about to go flying out of the saddle, and obligingly slowed down to save me from myself. Whenever I asked her for something, it was more of a timid suggestion than a confidently worded direction. When Terry asked me for simple maneuvers it felt like he was demanding rocket science.

After I’d managed to somewhat laboriously grasp a few basic concepts, I asked her for a bit of trot so we could end on something I could actually accomplish, and then I unsaddled her (and started training her to stand with her nose at the tie rail, even when she’s not tied, because by God if there’s one thing I can accomplish it’s training my horse to stand still and not move). I got her a dish of grain and held it for her while she calmly chowed down, undoubtedly secure in the knowledge that of the two of us, she’s by far the cleverer one. Terry left me to put her away, and headed up to the house (probably to pour a stiff drink, poor guy).

I watched Juno eat and relished the way that she’d occasionally turn her head into my hand for a rub, with a confidence and self-assurance that even a few months ago she didn’t possess. I reminded myself that nobody starts this journey knowing everything — or even necessarily anything — that they need to know. I gave myself credit for being proactive, trying to get more time in the saddle before bringing Juno home and even working on enrolling in some formal lessons in addition to all the DVD studying I could do at home.

And then I buried my face in my horse’s neck and had a complete emotional meltdown.

Horses are good for things like that, though. Juno just stood and curled her neck around me a little (I suspect she was giving me a “wtf?” look behind my back, or maybe just subtly inspecting my pockets for cookies) and waited for me to stop weeping like a little girl, which I’m only slightly ashamed to say took quite a long while. I apologized to her profusely and repeatedly for not having worked harder to be the partner and leader she needs me to be, and I promised to do better if she’d just try really hard to keep me out of the hospital while I tried to catch up. I pretended for awhile that she understands English, which clearly she doesn’t (otherwise, you’d think she’d respond a bit faster when I say things like, “Hey Juno, it’s dinner time!”).

I know it’s not necessarily anything to be ashamed about, having a moment of complete mental break and just absolutely losing it. I know it was about more than one lousy ride, and that I’d piled work stress onto personal stress with a shaky foundation of overall uncertainty about life, but as I drove back to town, still sniffling, it was hard to even begin to gather the scattered shreds of my dignity, much less think about putting myself through the same wringer again tomorrow. It isn’t the riding that’s a hardship, it’s more that when you’re in the saddle, you have to face yourself.

The moment I walked in the door, my friend and temporary house-guest Gina wanted to know how the ride went.

I told her, in all honesty, that it had been simultaneously awesome and horrific.

“Good,” she said. “That means you’re learning.”

I’ve been keeping an album of photos from Terry’s sessions with Juno on Facebook; if you have any interest in seeing a great many pictures of the process, along with occasionally-helpful commentary from me, check out the first album and the second album on Facebook. You don’t need a Facebook account to access these public albums! And if you’re on Facebook and would like to friend me, please feel free!

Edit: Wow, this blog sure has gotten a lot of attention! My thanks to the WordPress gods for Freshly Pressing this entry, and to my colleagues at Parelli for finding it interesting enough to post the link on our official Facebook page. If you’d like to continue following the saga of Juno and I, please check out my follow-up entry, Trusting the Process, wherein we go on a trail ride and nobody dies.

Are you ready to own a horse?

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It seems to me that everybody I meet has always dreamed of having a horse. Often, when they find out that I do in fact own a horse, they immediately begin quizzing me. They’re not typically seeking actual answers to any questions of substance, but rather reassurance that surely, by now, their childhood pony-dream could become a reality.

(First lesson for the prospective horse owner: Don’t treat every horse-owning yahoo you meet as an expert. They usually aren’t. And you probably haven’t learned yet to distinguish knowledgeable advice from complete nonsense.)

Don’t get me wrong: I get it. I can’t say I ever had a particular attachment to dreams of horse ownership, only because I never imagined myself being able to afford a new pair of jeans, much less an equine. Instead I sort of woke up one day and had one in my possession. It wasn’t the ideal situation: I was young and stupid, she was still half-wild, and I’d only recently decided to quit my job and go back to college. It’s not really a combination that leads to a great deal of financial security. We made it through some very lean times, and there were days when I spent my last dime on a bale of hay and ate pancakes with mustard because it’s all the food I had.

It’s not a lifestyle choice I’d generally recommend.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re rich enough to maintain a horse, but not quite rich enough to hire a full-time staff to take care of it for you. You’ve wanted a horse since you were just a tiny wee person, and though you’ve never really learned much about horses, you want to buy one. You spend all your free time fantasizing about cantering down the beach with your hair streaming behind you, and your horse running to meet you in the field Shadowfax-style, and all of the marvelous adventures and exploits you’ll get up to when you finally, at long last, have a pony of your own. So, are you ready to own a horse? I have some helpful questions for you which may help you come to that decision.

Are you ready to pluck embedded ticks from your animal’s body with your fingers? Are you ready to clean smegma from your horse’s teats (or his sheath, if your horse is a male)? Are you ready to scrub water buckets, even when they’re thick with algae, drowned insects and horse slobber? Are you ready to spend a good chunk of your time smeared with horse snot, covered in a fine layer of dust and horsehair, with manure on your boots? Are you ready to haul water into the field, bucket by bucket from the kitchen sink, because the barn pipes are frozen? Are you ready to stay up all night trying to nurse him through a colic? Are you ready to take rectal temperatures, shovel manure, engage in all-out warfare against flies, and get up in the middle of the night just because you heard a strange sound and you want to make sure the horses are okay? Are you ready to funnel all of your money into feed bills and vet bills and equipment and trailers and trucks and boarding and supplements and farriers and trainers and transporters and more vet bills? Are you ready to be frustrated, kicked, bitten, ignored, bucked off, or otherwise defeated?

Are you ready to challenge yourself, to learn new things, to discover exactly how emotionally fit — or unfit — you are? Are you ready to put your own ego aside and ask for help? Are you ready to always push to better yourself for your horse? Are you ready to throw yourself into becoming a better rider, a better horseman and a better human being?

If you can answer yes to all of those questions, congratulations! I still wouldn’t recommend getting a horse. Not yet, not if this would be your first real horse experience. Here’s what I would recommend, first.

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