Holiday in Ohio

I don't even know where this month has gone. My last entry being from Halloween, Yikes! I have spent the past 3 weeks packing, painting, and moving. I have moved a dozen times or more and each time I assume that the move will be easy. Maybe it is that as you get older you have more boxes of memories to mull over, things you only look at when moving. I had one day to gather and pack for the trip out to Ohio. I came out to meet Ryan's family. They live in Hudson. It is a small town, well to do full of historic homes that look like dollhouses. Luckily we are tucked away in a wooded area where I have seen new birds and black squirrels. We ventured out yesterday into the countryside. Unfortunatley we have missed the fall leaves and everything appears barren. On our way back to the house we hit a dear. I had only a moment to see the deer as it collided with the driver side. I felt so helpless and awful that I could not help this poor animal. It lay stunned in a driveway. After a few moments it stood up with apparent injury to the hind end and ran off into the woods. Not the country drive I had intended. Tomorrow we fly back and its work work work!

Happy Halloween!

It has been awhile since I last wrote. Working hard on my externship for EBW certification. This work is so incredible to me. After each horse I learn something new as well as crave learning more so I can aid in their healing and overall health. I continue to purchase books through Amazon, yet I must stop, I have to admit I feel like a junkie. How many equine anatomy books does one need? I have come across one that is a tremendous help that I would recommend to any horse lover, Horse Conformation, structure, soundness, and performance by Equine Research. Oh, and of course The Horse's Pain-free Back and Saddle-Fit book.

The other wonderful thing about this type of work is all of the amazing little communities I get to see outside of Portland. The past week here has been so beautiful. The rain has stayed away for now and the blue sky mixes brilliantly with the fall leaves. Oh how I wish I had a horse for trail rides!!!

One of my best experiences so far was meeting Kirsten from West Linn. She had read my blog, we had several phone conversations and then I was working on her wonderful horse Dez. How amazing is that! I also was fortunate to meet her friend Ann, and work on her horse Nikkers. I am hoping after I get my certification at the beginning of the year to go back out and do a demo for the 4H-club.

Hopefully on my next few massage outings I can have someone along to take pictures.

This past weekend I enjoyed the Mt. Hood wilderness by mushroom hunting with a few friends. We found a bounty of yummy chantrelles. If anyone has ever done this you know how fun yet compulsive this can be. Once you find one you can't stop looking. And today I went back along the beautiful Clackamas river to Austin Hot Springs. The water is extremely hot, nearly boiling so you have to mix it with a bit of the river water, I wouldn't say it was all the way relaxing, but a beautiful excuse to drive into the countryside.

A Perfect Fall Morning

What a beautiful fall morning. I headed out to Sauvie Island to Kristina's farm. The island is amazingly beautiful and so close to the city. This is the busy season for the farm residents on the island as Halloween approaches. There are various places to visit pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and pick dahlias.
I began my first massage with a sweet little chestnut mare, a Quarter horse-Arab named Cinnamon. She definitely needs some work. I got good responses from her and hopefully relieved a few sore spots surrounding her shoulder, back, and hip. Her eyes would soften and she licked and chewed a bit. There were a few exhales and several stretches with her mouth, big yawns. It felt amazing to give her some much needed release. We worked in the round pen with Kris, then I worked alone awhile, relaxing and taking in the experience. Many flocks of birds flew over, especially Canadian Geese. A few of her other horses and foals were wandering in the pasture, finally coming over to check it all out. I made plans to come back and work on her 3 year old Thouroughbred. This work is so rewarding and I can't wait to learn more.

A perfect fall morning.

Accepting Change

It is Thursday and it feels like a Monday, in a good way. I have been struggling with car issues and relationship woes for weeks unable to concentrate on my studies of my equine buddies. Today feels like a fresh start. After a day of breaking down our relationship, really figuring out where both of us are at I feel clearer and able to function once again. Growing together is a challenge. It is hard to accept that we may both be in different places in our life. With all of the other changes coinciding with a struggling realtionship, resentment was the only feeling I could express. I feel relieved to have talked it out, knowing that we truly love one another and able to give eachother the needed space to figure out how to progress with our chosen work.

Wrestling with the season of change

Was summer mearly a dream? This week the rain returned. I really enjoy cold rainy days, sometimes. I think if I lived in the country, with a pasture full of horses and a giant stone fireplace I could handle the forthcoming months. I have had to temporarily give up my riding lessons. I had been taking 2 lessons a week for 7 months. This was the most I had progressed in riding and now, I wonder what it will be like when I return. I already miss the faces of Robbie and Chase.

This season always slows down in terms of business and therefore money. The extra $300 a month + I usually set aside for horses will now go to my car fund. I believe I have gotten over the initial depression of that and moved on to what I really need to concentrate on. I need to be diligent and study hard to complete my externship. I have 5 months. I will not let this car obstacle get me down. It seems to be the only thing standing in my way. If only we still used horses as our main transportation.

Ode to Mancamp

I have been back a month. Days after returning more info started to click. I kept reviewing the muscle points and their corresponding number, the routine, and wondering if I could really do this. The only thing standing in my way is my 1974 baby blue Ford F-100 I lovingly call Mancamp. I had purchased this beast of a vehicle a few years back. I had always wanted an old Ford. I had such intense memories of my families old trucks. They were wheat farmers in central Washington. My mother and father had grown up there, my grandmother was raised there and I was born there too. This would be the only place that remained constant in my growing up. Each summer I would return to play with my cousins, to sit in the back of the wheat trucks and run around the fields of gold while my uncle and grandfather were in the distance driving the combines across the hillside. I loved this little town. It was my sanctuary. So for years I had thought that if I only had an old truck I would be connected to this time in my life as long as it ran.

After months spent searching Craigslist for my dream Ford, I found one I could afford, and it was baby blue. At the time I purchased it it had a canopy with a carpeted couch kit inside. The floorboards were removable and when slid in between the two benches made a bed. There were also 6 cup holders. My friend Alice looked inside at this amazing scene and quickly declared that men camp in this thing, this is Mancamp.

Unfortunately, I had to rip out this majesty as it had been taken over by mildew. Next went the canopy, it was finally transformed into the truck of my childhood. Aside from its gas guzzling ways it drove perfect...for a few months. After the engine went out I saved my summer money I earned at the Brewery. I had wanted to begin riding lessons, I finally had a vehicle, another setback. At the end of the summer I took my $2000 to Tony who installed a new engine. I had to keep it running. Everyone thought I was nuts but it represented something more to me than impractical. We took many trips in it. Mancamp saw the ocean, the mountains, the dump, moved couches into friends houses, hauled manure into gardens, and could fit 4 people on its bench seat. It felt like you were riding a couch. It did take me to many riding lessons, and always turned heads. Yet now, as I embark on my new adventure in equine massage, reliability and practicality are tugging at my sleeve. This year alone I have spent $1300 on the radiator and various coolant issues, not to mention the outrageous gas bill. Oh they do love to see mancamp pull into the 76 station.

On Monday I drove Mancamp to Sauvie Island. My boyfriend's boss has a 1991 Subaru wagon for sale. Subarus are reliable, right? I left Mancamp and took the Subaru for a week trial. Today will be the deciding factor as I let the Suby specialists do a comprehensive check-up. All I need is a year or two out of this little car. I am not quite ready for the dreaded car loan and everything that is involved with making a car purchase. All of my focus is on my externship, I have 5 months to finish the requirements needed to obtain my certification. The only thing standing in my path is a reliable vehicle. Yet no matter what, as winter approaches I can not take Mancamp with me. Thank you old blue! The adventures will not be forgotten.

Following Horse Dreams

The intensity of this experience gave the feeling that we had been here for a month. On our final day we performed the entire massage routine. I couldn't believe that we had taken in so much information, with such fabulous instruction and here we were locating 80 muscle points on our equine friend.

Taking this course had changed the way I look at horses and myself. After college I had thought about continuing to grad school, yet I couldn't choose anything that really called to me. I remember the day I knew I must work with horses. I was in college, sitting at the local happy hour in the small town of Olympia, Washington. I was with a few random students, a couple of friends, and my boyfriend, my true love. I thought he was the one, I would ruin my credit for him, I would ignore my friends and drive across the country for him. That night as we all sat telling stories over our cheap drinks, he began his routine of jealousy. Whispering mean nothings at me, like I had brought on this harmless attention to spite him. Ignoring it as I had accustomed myself to, Natalie the Spanish girl began a poetic sermon on horses. I was transfixed as she spoke with such fervor about the desire to be on horseback, riding fast, in any terrain, just as long as it was on horseback. My only experience with horses had been the summers I spent in central Washington. My cousins involved with 4-H lived among all sorts of animals. We would always prefer to go horseback anywhere. I would usually get the older fat horse, like Dapple Dan. We would ride in the open fields, I fell off a few times, rode bareback and laughed for hours as we rode around daydreaming. Yet the horse crazy bug hadn't gotten to me, not then. I was too consumed with boys.

One of my favorite pictures of myself is me at the age of 4 or 5, sitting on a pony bareback up at the Lilies place on Dyer Hill. I look so relaxed and happy, so natural to be there. I am glad I came to my senses. To focus my attention on these brilliant creatures, and to lessen my grip on the idea of the perfect relationship. This newly discovered communication between human and horse was so much more engaging and meaningful to me. I would jump in blindly to follow this dream. Stumbling through lessons, and various disciplines. Saving what money I could for another lesson, for car repairs to take me out to the barn, and maxing out my library account with horse books.

Now 5 years later I am standing near the Shenandoah Valley surrounded by beauty, by horses.