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March 15, 2008
I'm sitting at the computer, looking out the window. One
of my sixteen Paso Pleasure Horses, "Dancer", is banging
on a feeder. He's got a real steady rhythm going. Maybe
he's going to provide the music for the others to start
a dance. I'd like to be out there with them, going
riding. But, at least for a few more weeks, that cannot
be. You see, last week I went into the hospital and had
my prostate reamed out, the remedy for TB (tiny bladder)
another of the almost inevitable afflictions that come
to men in the process of getting old. So, for the
moment, I am practicing patience, but I 'm not sitting
easy. Good thing that the weather isn't very pretty. If
it was, I'd really be going crazy.
It's been a long, hard winter here at West Gait Equine
Learning Center. We've had more snow this year than
we've had in the past seventeen years that we've been
living here. Maria hasn't been feeling well since she
did a ten day hitch in the hospital back in late August,
and so I've been hanging around the cabin, keeping an
eye on her, doing the shopping and housekeeping chores,
and feeding the horses, dogs, cats, and fish. The
result? Well, for one thing, I've watched more TV this
winter than in the past ten years put together. Now, as
the days are getting longer, I'm ready for Spring!
As I mentioned, we still have sixteen of our own home
bred Paso Pleasure Horses (see my horses for sale list).
Last Fall we sold off all of the remaining Peruvian Paso
mares, except for Maria's palomino mare, Fantasia, who I
had bred to Big Red, right before we had him gelded for
his new owner. We were looking forward to her having one
more foal for us this Spring, but a few months ago she
aborted; a chestnut colt. It's interesting how I first
realized the mare was about to abort. When I went out in
the morning to do the first feeding, while I was still a
long way from the front paddock, I smelt something
"dead" in the wind. My mind immediately turned to the
mare. I expected to see the foal lying somewhere on the
ground. But no, it was still inside her, with only a
little bit of a bubble of the placenta showing. Of
course I rushed her right over to the vet, but I knew
that the foal was dead (remember, the smell), and she
couldn't shed it, so we had to pull it out. So, no foals
for us this Spring. And, no more foals for us ever.
Thirty years of looking forward to bringing horsey
babies into the World, coming along with the warmer
weather, has come to an end...forever. It has been a
labor of love, and if the results are to be judged by
the quality of the product produced, it's been a great
success. But, it's also been a great financial failure,
and an expense that we can no longer sustain.
Our hay price has gone from $3.00 per bale, delivered
and stacked, last year, to $6.50 a bale, you come get
it. Given the price of gas, that probably adds another
fifty cents to each bale. How's the hay price in your
area? What ever it is, I doubt that we can expect to see
it get better. Don
January 1, 2008 This morning, I
woke up and looked at my watch in udder disbelief. It
wasn't the time of day that jarred my senses...it was
the date! Can it really be? Are we really already into
the month of January? This past year hasn't flown by.
"Flown" wouldn't even begin to be the right description. No, this
past year just sort of sneaked by, almost without being noticed.
Like a ghost that comes in the night when you are
sleeping and is gone as soon as you open your eyes, this
year has slipped by me, almost without me noticing.
And yet, as I look back and try to remember various
individual events that punctuated my planning calendar,
I realize that many significant changes took place this
year that will have a profound effect on my life for
years to come, and influence the next segment of my
life's journey.
It has been a year
of giving up on old goals and ambitions, letting go of
the old game plans, coming to grips with and adapting to
new circumstances, and accepting a new reality.
Tomorrow the horse
transport people will come here and pick up my last
three Peruvian Paso mares. They will take them to their
new home in Wisconsin. When they are gone, for the first
time in twenty seven years I will own no Peruvian
Paso horses. Their departure will end my thirty plus
year career as a professional horse breeder. I will not
cry when they leave. In fact, I will feel relieved. The
mares are going to a good, loving home. And, they will
be staying together. That is good for them, because they
have lived together all their lives, and are such good
friends. On top of that, they are going to be with one
of their sisters who I sold to the same folks a few
years ago.
I have been working my
way out of the "horse breeding business" for a few years
now. Tomorrow, that goal will finally be met, and become
a reality. I am no longer a "horse breeder". That
portion of my career as a professional horseman is over
and done with. I am sad, of course. I will miss my
wonderful stallion, "Big Red", and the spring time, when
the foals hit the ground. But, I am glad, too. Given the
nationwide state of the pleasure horse market today,
this is probably the best I could have hoped for, for
me, and for my beloved horses. And, I still have sixteen
Paso Pleasure Horses, the offspring of these and other
Peruvian Paso mares that I have already relocated into
new homes, here at West Gait Equine Learning Center to
keep me, and my "Come Ride With Me!" students busy for
years to come. I feel like
I only have a few more years left as "an equine success
coach", before it is time for me to hang up my hat, and
really retire. My hope is that this year I will have
many people "Come Ride With Me" in my Training and Trail
Riding Intensive here at West Gait. If you are
interested, please, look up my website
www.donwest.net,
and click on the Latest News Bottom. Happy holidays, and
Happy Trails, Your amigo in horses, Don
Every
day, when I'm at home, part of my daily routine is to take
the dogs for their walk down to the river. We have a
standard, circular route that we travel; one that we have
walked together so often that it has become a well worn
trail, our private path through the sage brush, rabbit
bush, prickly pear cactus, salt bush, and the vast array
of desert wildflowers that bloom in profusion at their
appropriate times during the spring and summer seasons, giving the
broad, open landscape an ever changing pastoral hue, noticeable
even to the eye of the most casual observer. By
repeating this journey so often over the fifteen years
that we have lived here, I have become intimately
acquainted with even the smallest, least conspicuous
grasses and wild flowers, those that come and go, year by year,
without the approval or recognition of the general populous,
marking their own time and keeping their own council.
Some, I now know by name. But many have become my
friends without revealing their human given identity. I
like them all the better that way. So often we just
name things so that we can comfortably dismiss them, and, that way, do
not have to really get to know them, and can dismiss them categorically,
out of hand...out of mind. There
are only two large plants that grow along my path: two mammoth,
ancient cottonwood trees. I presume they are husband and
wife. They stand side by side in the moist bottom land
along the river's edge, a protected little flood plane
enclave that's hemmed in on three sides by the steep alluvial river
bank, almost a vertical cliff actually, about eighty feet
high. I often sit at its edge, taking in the quiet
scene below, looking up and down the river as my dogs
take their turn coming up to me and getting their special hugs,
scratches, and strokes. Usually, we turn west there and
follow the path that runs along the top of this
ridge. At this time of the year, the stunted tops of
these two grand old behemoths are covered by a lush green
canopy that mimics the height of the escarpment I stand
on, their growth halted by the powerful winds that
occasionally blow across the
open land, uninterrupted. Upon
occasion, when the spirit moves me, I take a longer side
trail, around and down, that brings me under the roof of these massive
old-timers. Viewed from above, in full leaf, these stately
trees
look serene and free from strife, only slightly agitated,
on occasion, by the breeze. But viewed
from their base they reveal their true life stories,
telling a tale of the violent storms they've weathered,
sicknesses they've endured, and their major appendages
that have been broken or lost. Just standing below them in the
shaded helter-skelter rubble of their huge dead limbs, some
lying rotting on the ground, and others carelessly propped
against the huge trunks, or still dangling lifelessly from
the branches they broke from, gives the observer a sense of their
determination to endure their trials through time;
those they now so majestically bear witness to. Eagles,
both bald and golden, and herons too use the tops of these
tall sentinels as a vantage point, or a place to rest.
Sometimes I am able to walk up close on them, we being almost
at eye level, to where I could count the feathers on their
wings. Sometimes, if I get too close, they take flight,
slowly, deliberately, seeming more annoyed than alarmed. But sometimes,
under the same conditions, they are apparently feeling
more lazy (or trusting), and simply watch me as I go by, a
temporary, harmless intruder on their tree top turf. It
gives me great satisfaction to know that they see me as no
threat. My only fear is that they will confuse me
with other men. My
cottonwood friends talk to me. They tell me of the
seasons just as surely as the calendar that hangs on my
wall. In the winter their branches are bare, their twigs
empty, with only the shinny, sticky buds at their ends
giving a hint of the exuberant life that lies dormant
within, awaiting the warmth of longer days and stronger sun to
prompt them to burst fourth, revealing the new growth of
leaf or flower that they have held onto and protected
through the cold months, so tightly. In the spring I watch
as their leaves unfold and grow to full size, shiny and
dark on the top, lighter and dull on the bottom.
Suspended, as they are, at the end of flattened petioles,
these leaves shake back and forth in the wind, making a
rattling sound that can make me shiver, even on the
warmest days. Today
we witnessed the first yellow leaves on these season forecasters, scattered
here and there among the top most canopy, harbingers
of the full array of fall colors that are soon to
luxuriate the shorter, cooler days that fall is sure to
bring. If I had to pick, I guess I'd say that fall is my
favorite season. It always feels like the reward
that finally comes for enduring the disempowering heat of
summer that always seems to go on, and on forever, wearing
out my patience, and sapping my energy. Yes, I love
fall. Even though the bright red and yellow colors
are the result of a dying process, they seem to be so
glorious in death that they fortify my heart against the
cold of winter that I know must come. This is a good
season to go out and ride your horse. So, saddle up.
Let's ride!
Last updated March 2008 |
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