Merry Melancholy

 

My Dad and Stepmom drove in from North Carolina yesterday. Ranchman ~aka~ Truck Driver John managed to plan a drop-off in Albuquerque yesterday, so he is able to spend Christmas at home. The house is decorated inside and out. The sounds of Christmas music are filling the house. The kitchen is emanating wonderful fragrances from all the baking and cooking. The kidlets are all happy and excited about the holiday and we are all preparing to have a White Christmas with a winter storm moving into the area today and tomorrow.

Sounds great, huh?

It is. But I’m feeling a little melancholy today. It’s not due to just one thing, but rather a sampling of many things. My special Aunt called last night and she isn’t doing well healthwise. Her spine is basically crumbling. Her daughter, my cousin, is struggling to stay alive while her organs are giving up one by one. My Dad accidentally broke the special glass lamp that my Aunt gave me years ago. It held a collection of precious shells that my long gone Grandma and Grandpa picked from the beaches in California years ago. The shells survived, but the lamp is toast.

The slow-leaking tire on my van that I’ve been battling with for a few weeks now, finally bit the dust and taking care of that is taking up much of Ranch Man and my Dad’s time today. There’s a leak up at the barn that needs fixing, too. The sky is grey while it prepares for our next snow storm to arrive, and that is certainly contributing to this melancholy, too.

I’m also feeling this way because of my horse.

     

I’ve been spending an hour or more with her each day. We take walks, at liberty, in the paddocks and pastures. She walks beside me and follows me. She stops when I stop and I work on her flexing, disengaging the hips and backing up. Some days are better than others. She always seems to think that one step backwards is more than enough. Disengaging the left/off side is more challenging for her, and she sometimes simply refuses and walks away.

And sometimes she gets pissy and turns her butt to me and once she even turned and bucked at me. I’m glad I was far enough back, but I still felt the rush of air from her back hooves.

Some days I feel as if we are connecting and making progress in our ground work and bonding, but then some days I just feel as if she is ‘playing-me’ and she is just tolerating me…just barely. Just so she can get a cookie, carrot, or apple.

We’ve been out of alfalfa (horse drugs) for a few days. She was only getting a very thin flake of alfalfa twice a day. But I notice a big difference when she eats alfalfa. She is more saucy and spunky. But she also gives me what I ask for, if she knows we are on our way to the barn to get some more alfalfa afterwards.

It’s as if my mare is going through withdrawal symptoms without her alfalfa (horse drugs) and she has been even more temperamental, impatient, and a lot less willing. 

Ranchman John says it’s just because she’s a mare and is probably in heat, and is just being moody. Maybe.

Around 11pm last night I went up to the barn and climbed up on the back of our truck. Between the barn lights and our neighbors’ holiday icicle lights I didn’t even need my lantern to see clearly. There was no wind, so it didn’t feel that cold, and being outside in the dark with my horse, listening to the coyotes in the distance was very special.

There was still some leftover ‘crumbs’ of grass hay back there and Baby Doll came over to see what I was up to and hoovered up the grass hay bits. I laid down back there and she snuffled around me, and at one point she sniffed my cheek and hair, and pushed her nose against my leg a few times and nibbled my shoe.

That’s the touchiest she’s ever really been with me on her own. She’s not an affectionate mare by any means. She will tolerate me petting, grooming and hugging her, but she rarely ever initiates any affection, unless she thinks there is food involved.

I have a goal of getting back on her before the year is up. It will be a year Christmas Eve, that she spooked and teleported sideways and caused me to fall and sever my ACL, which required surgery. I don’t want the year to pass without me getting some closure to the pain, struggles and frustrations of this past year, but my knee is still not back to normal and the leg isn’t as strong as the other one yet. But if I can just get up there on her back, even if just for a minute or two, I will feel like I have conquered some of my fears and can then move forward.

I moved my 3-step mounting block into Baby Doll’s stall and while she eats I’ve been stepping up and leaning on her and laying on her back. She basically ignores me or turns her head around to look at me as if to say, “Are you gonna climb up on my back finally, or what?”

This morning, I took my mare her morning carrot and let her bite off half, and then we did our At Liberty work. She was with me until I asked her to disengage her hips. She did fine on the right side, but when she tried on the left side, she basically just backed up in a circle. I asked again and she walked away. I walked the opposite direction, and she followed, but when I asked her to disengage her hips again, she walked away.

When she came back to me, we walked for a couple more minutes and then I stopped and asked her to back-up. She turned her back to me and pooped.

Well, she told me, didn’t she? Actions speak louder than words. lol! How rude!

I walked away from her and went to the barn and did my barn chores while she stayed down in the lower paddock, by her own choice.

While Jenna and I were feeding cookies to the goats, sheep and llamas, Baby Doll came up and stood about 10 feet away, but we just ignored her. I was hoping she’d walk up to me, but she didn’t and after her rudeness I wasn’t going out of my way to welcome her back either. She never did come back to me and she never got the other half of her carrot or any cookies either.

She resigned herself to eating the grass hay in her hay net while Jenna and I walked back down the hill to the house for some breakfast.

Having a relationship with a horse can be so complicated. If only I spoke the language, and if only we could both be a little less stubborn.