I had to call off my barn shift today on account of still not being able to make a fist or grip with my right hand.

I tried to start my truck but the battery was dead. Called AAA to get it jumped. Ran it for 10 minutes. Still dead on the other side. Will have to call them again to get it out of the driveway to get it inspected next week.

I have been trying to clean the apartment, one-handed, all day, but am hardly making a dent and I kind of want to throw everything away. I can’t do any deep cleaning because I can’t get my hand wet. (And let me tell you, taking showers with my dominant hand wrapped in plastic and held above my head is getting SO OLD.)

I tried to clean tack but couldn’t get the lid off my tack soap one-handed and so had to wipe my saddle down with water and clean it a little bit with some backup liquid tack soap that I don’t like nearly as much. Discovered I am out of leather conditioner. Didn’t really get a good deep clean anyway (see above re STUPID HAND).

I just tried to shovel awkwardly one-handed to get my little car out of its parking space, which has mostly left me with a sore left hand and a bruise on my ribcage from balancing the shovel and an aching right hand when I tried to use it.

And the car is still stuck. Not going anywhere. I haven’t even seen my horse in a week and now I still can’t. I have spent all day thinking of ways I can get him some exercise with one hand and had finally settled on free longeing in the indoor and now not even that will happen until maybe my boyfriend gets home at which point I’ll have wasted the only sunny day we’ll have this week.

I have to go to a family reunion this week that is feeling less like a nice weekend away and more like a series of command performances in which the agenda, menu, location, and social choices have been chosen for me and which I must follow under pain of Disappointing Your 90 Year Old Sick Grandmother (Not To Mention Your Parents). So there goes another weekend of riding.

I am basically feeling like the most lazy, useless, worthless human being on the face of the earth.

After two days of being flat on my back with a nasty stomach bug, I started feeling better late morning yesterday.

Some years back there was a mustang with a professional eventing trainer. I think he was featured on Eventing Nation. I remember him because his show name was “Must Tango.” Get it? MUSTANG GOOOOOO!

Anyway! Tris maybe was taking some inspiration last night, because he was, as they say, hot to trot from the first moment I sat on him. We had to have a conversation about standing politely at the mounting block until I settled into the saddle, even. (I know some people are ok with horses moving off as they find their second stirrup; I am not, and Tristan darn well knows that.)

It was a different challenge than I ride 95% of the time: how to manage the fired up quick horse rather than the lazy solid horse. He took a half-halt easily enough, but he totally killed the motor when he did so. It was a bit whiplash-inducing, going from a speedy horse to a stalled out one, and it took some negotiation, but once he agreed to take a half-halt and use it as intended, loading his hind end with energy instead of just expending it by going fast, he lifted his back and came through beautifully.

We did not do much fancy work, honestly: some leg-yields, some changes of direction on the diagonal. We spent some time working on staying straight on circles, and changing flexion back and forth, spiraling in and out on circles.

We had some long(ish) conversations in the canter about paying attention to me, and taking a half-halt without flinging his head up and charging off in the other direction. We worked hard on staying in the circle through the outside rein; accomplished in the right lead, mostly accomplished in the left. He was hot enough in the canter that the trainer (who was teaching another lesson at the time) laughed and remarked on it.

We finished with a long forward stretchy trot session and then a fair bit of walking. He got his wind back quickly, but was still a bit warm to finish, so he got a cooler and a bit of extra hay to keep him company until he switched to his blanket and got his grain at night check.

I admit, I’m a bit mystified as to what’s making him so forward and up the last few days. Coming back after a week and a half off? Having the round bale all day? Grain increases finally kicking in? Fitness hitting a new level? It could still fade away again, but I hope not. He’s fun to ride like this, and it bodes well for getting good work done through the rest of the winter.

The Horse Whisperer (1998)
(available on Amazon to view instantly or to buy)

If you asked the average person to name a big Hollywood movie about horses, there are only a few that would come up. One of the few is The Horse Whisperer, based on the Nicholas Evans novel of the same name.

The gist of the plot is that a young girl named Grace (a very young Scarlett Johannsen!) and her horse get into a horrific accident. Both are badly injured both mentally and physically. Grace’s mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) brings her and her horse, Pilgrim, to a “horse whisperer” (Robert Redford) who will try to heal them.

On one level, this is actually a pretty good movie. It’s absolutely gorgeously shot, and the acting is outstanding. The emotions of all the characters are keenly portrayed and felt, and it’s a good human story.

On another level? The horsemanship in this movie is absolutely batshit insane.

SO MANY BAD DECISIONS.

Let’s start at the beginning. The accident that Grace and Pilgrim suffer is…realistic in the sense of if everything went exactly as wrong as it could go, it could happen. It is extremely difficult to watch, and if you’re at all triggery about injuries to horses (and their riders) you wouldn’t get past the first 10 minutes.

After that is where it flies off the hinges. Because, you see, Grace’s mother refuses to put Pilgrim down, even though his injuries are truly awful, and everyone with actual horse experience advises her to put him down. As a horse person, it made me instantly loathe her, because everyone advising her was right: she was putting the horse through incredible amounts of suffering just so she wouldn’t have to make a decision. As Pilgrim is recovering, he becomes a dangerous, unpredictable animal.

The movie then posits that the horse’s recovery and Grace’s recovery are linked, somehow. So they pack poor Pilgrim up and drive him cross-country to see the horse whisperer Tom (in a stock trailer that they haul from Long Island to Montana without, apparently, ever stopping to water or feed the horse…or check on it…since the idea is that no one can even touch Pilgrim, he’s so crazy).

Tom then natural horsemanships the poor thing, complete with aggressive round penning and a whole lot of posturing. During the whole movie-long training & bonding sequence, no one ever apparently brushes the poor horse…or treat his wounds…or touches him until what is apparently many weeks (if not months) later. So the horse survived a really really awful accident through initial at-the-scene treatment (done by sedative) and…nothing else for many months. Sigh.

There is also a typical movie ending: Pilgrim passes through crisis after crisis but after one final crisis in which he is roped and brought down by Tom, he magically becomes precisely the horse he was before the accident. Grace rides him around the ring perfectly and everyone looking on sheds a single, crystalline tear. It is a wildly inaccurate and borderline dangerous portrayal of what natural horsemanship can accomplish, and how to behave safely around a traumatized animal.

But then again, Robert Redford looks damn fine on a horse.

Some time ago, Amanda at Keeping it Low Key shared the horsey themed decorations she made for her daughter’s room, and that triggered fond memories for me of my childhood bedroom.

For my tenth birthday, I was allowed to redo my room, within certain allowable parameters. (I wanted blue walls; my mother wanted lavender; the walls were painted lavender.)

The best feature of the redecorating, without a doubt, was a series of custom carousel horse stencils that my aunt painstakingly created based on a coloring book I had. Every single one was unique. When I moved out and my bedroom was turned into the guest room, they were all painted over, but not before I took photos of every single one. Here are some of my favorites.

You guys, I am officially sick of winter. Our heating and hot water bills are off the charts. My skin is so dry I get a cut or abrasion every time I bump against something. I am eating bread three meals a day with snacks in between and still my body craves more. Whenever I find a sunny spot I sit in it for as long as I can, cat-like. I want to ride my horse, but it’s too cold, so I worry about him instead. Is he staying warm enough? Is he coping ok with his frequently frozen solid water bucket? When will we be able to hack out without worrying about the ice? Will there ever be green and growing things in the world again?!

Ok. Time to bundle up and walk to work…

Danny (1979)
(available for purchase on Amazon.com, or instant through Netflix or Amazon Prime)

This could have gone wrong in so many ways, and yet, ultimately it turned out right. It has the cliches in abundance: the poor girl who really cares about horses versus the rich girl who only cares how she looks, the talented yet broken pony, the Big Show, the mid-movie horse health crisis, you name it.

In the end, it’s a really sweet movie, and it really gets the horse stuff on a good level. It refrains from over-explaining, which means that it avoids the pitfalls of getting the nitty gritty details wrong, and in its generalities it rings true.

In short: Janie is a young girl who loves horses, and lives next to Longue Vue (yes, really) Stables, owned by her rich neighbor, apparently as his private farm. Neighbor’s daughter Andrea rides because daddy expects it, and doesn’t really “get” horses. Danny is the horse that was supposed to be Andrea’s next champion hunter, but is sensitive and ends up injuring a tendon, and so becomes Janie’s.

You already know the plotline of this movie from a thousand other horse stories, but it’s the way the movie treats everyone involved and especially takes its horses seriously, that really make it sing. That, plus the long, loving shots of 1970s fashion and horse equipment. Trust me, it’s great.

This was also reviewed by Horse Nation and by Lauren at She Moved to Texas, if you’d like other opinions.

Remember, remember, the ninth of January – it’s More Joy Day!

Tomorrow I’ll open up a post to say what I’m doing to spread the joy. If you do something, comment on that post and I’ll share it with the world, ok? Ok!

From my post last week:

I propose we also have a horse blog More Joy Day. So, on January 9, share the joy. Post a photo, feed your horse a peppermint, tell the world about a great blog you read, donate to a horse rescue, host a giveaway, give a lesson pony a spa day, bring cookies to your trainer/barn manager, sweep the aisle, pay for someone else’s coffee at the shop…you name it. Do something, anything, to bring more joy to the world.

Finally getting around to a Christmas wrap-up!

First, I got my excellent blogger gift exchange present; then I got my saddle rack (and, Tris would like to note, a bag of Meadow Mints that he is making a good dent in). Then it was time for Christmas proper!

My biggest and best present was from my parents: a Dover wool dress sheet. I had visited the Dover store in New Hampshire when I was in the area back in November, and found the sheet in his size in perfect condition in the bargain basement. It was on steep discount but still more than I wanted to shell out that day (considering I was already making a bunch of other purchases). My mother decided to buy it that day and wrap it up for Christmas for Tris. I’ve wanted a wool dress sheet/cooler for some time and this fits the bill perfectly AND it looks great on him!

Dover Horse Anatomy Coloring Book

This book is so freaking cool I almost can’t stand it. It’s got everything, and it’s got multiple views of everything and it’s all labeled to the nth degree and beyond. I had a reasonably good knowledge of anatomy and bones but wow, there are so may more muscles than I thought there were!

I had an uncle who went to massage therapy school, and I remember every night he worked on his coloring book of Grey’s Anatomy to help learn human muscle groupings. Ever since then, I’ve thought it would be a cool idea to learn horse anatomy the same way – and now I can!

Cherry Hill’s Stablekeeping

I LOVE Cherry Hill’s books. I am full-on obsessive about the way she does these books: the explicit explanations, the dozens of photographs, the how-tos and the how-not-tos. Equipping Your Horse Farm was my bible when I was buying my trailer. I read it cover-to-cover multiple times, and I made photocopies of the checklists of what questions to ask when looking at a trailer and carried them around with me at all times. So I was thrilled to get this and spent a happy hour skimming through it. I’ll do a more in-depth read later.

Last, the barn present to all the boarders was really sweet this year. I have been the lucky recipient of some pretty great barn presents, and every one has been great. This one is a nice combination of thoughtful and useful. (And I have to admire its clever craftiness!)

Isn’t it marvelous? It was assembled from inexpensive items: a pot holder, a button, a towel, and some thread. Put all those together and you have a handy grooming cloth that attaches to a blanket bar, AND it has Tristan’s name hand-stitched to the top! I love it!

Have you heard of More Joy Day? It is a wonderful thing. Read more here.

I propose we also have a horse blog More Joy Day. So, on January 9, share the joy. Post a photo, feed your horse a peppermint, tell the world about a great blog you read, donate to a horse rescue, host a giveaway, give a lesson pony a spa day, bring cookies to your trainer/barn manager, sweep the aisle, pay for someone else’s coffee at the shop…you name it. Do something, anything, to bring more joy to the world.

I’ll post on January 9 to share what I’m doing – I have Ideas – and if you do something awesome that day, let me know about it, ok? I’ll host a roundup so we can all share in the good cheer.

So…get ready to go forth and spread more joy!