Morning Breaking

A oddly eerie and beautiful morning's arrival. 

Life is scurrying along, the daily grind is ground and sometimes the day's arrival is heralded with blue on the horizon.

Sunshine & Horses

Brighty, weanling

Yesterday was simply beautiful in Minnesota. If you celebrate Easter, you got a gift. If not, you still got a gift. I was in the barn for the day, but I got brief moments in the sun as I travelled the route to and from the manure pile on the skid loader. You take the good where you find it!

Life on the farm is so different from the long ago life I led in Saint Paul. In that life we would have gone somewhere nice for brunch and perhaps a drive around town to see if the ice is off the lakes. That is a couple of decades ago of memory though. Now every day starts with feeding and watering large numbers of hungry equines, all calling out to me as they hear the door slide open. Noses poking through the bars, they nicker in anticipation of the alfalfa coming their way. I have never tired of this. Listening to them contentedly munch hay is one of life's joys. Cleaning up after them, well it is just part of the deal. At least I don't have the older woman wings on my upper arms. I have manure pitching and bale lifting to thank for that!

I have felt sorry for myself quite a bit recently. I have been concentrating on the the restrictions of my life, all the while overlooking the good. I do enjoy a whine now and again, but it needs to be really good and really short. Mine has been a steady droning sound, one that just crawls under the skin and annoys. Maybe the change of season will bring about a change of mind. I think so.

It's time to move my self in the direction of the barn and let the beasties out. They are always so happy to get outside, until they realize it is another day in the dirt paddock. It seems cruel and unusual punishment that they can look across the lane to green grass. Sacrifice now means plenty later, but they don't know or care. All they know is they can smell spring. At least the geldings have mostly stopped beating each other up. Several throat latches have teeth marks. Can't eat grass says Solo, maybe I'll bite Ari.

City & Ari, two years old

Off I go for another day. Enjoy your day good people.

In Thirty Minutes

In the span of one half hour I have heard on the morning news:

* 8.2 million jobs have been lost in the past two years.

* Kids are playing the 'choking game'. Purposely choking one another or themselves to receive a brief high as they are asphyxiated.  More than 80 kids have died playing this so-called game.

* A Dancing with the Stars participant is receiving serious death threats.

* An anti-government group is ordering the state governors out of office. The FBI calls it exercising free speech.

* There has been a 250% increase in militia groups since President Obama took office.

* iPad goes on sale today. Thousands line up to buy it.

And this is just a lightweight morning show. An interesting glimpse of American society, in abridged form.

* Edited to add the other within the 30 minutes. How could I forget this one.

* The Michigan Militia members who were about to go on a cop-killing spree were arraigned.

The Road To Perdition.....

is called Wall Street.

I listened to Timothy Geitner this morning explain that Wall Street had to be bailed out, it would have been the end of the world if not. He so casually said we will have high unemployment for a long time to come. When asked about the money flowing among the few on The Street, he ignored it. 2009 was a banner year for the Elegant Thieves of Wall Street, largely due to bailout money. Some hedge fund managers saw the government was not going to let the investment banks fail, so they swooped in and bought stock. And received a 25 billion paycheck among them last year. Something is very wrong. While The Street sees plenty of this,

so many others have seen this. From President Obama on down there is this phrase:  jobless recovery. THERE CAN BE NO SUCH THING. Wall Street doing well is not a recovery. Wall Street is not the economy, frankly Wall Street is the destroyer of an economy.

Glass Steagall needs to be put back into law. Balance needs to be attained.  Congress will not do it. Unfortunately, so many Democrats have joined the Republicans in putting their hands out that it is impossible to get any kind of meaningful reform in anything.

We are likely in for another crash, larger than the last, because there is no stopping the thugs. We don't need Tea Baggers or militant militia groups. We need an engaged and informed mainstream America. An American public that doesn't get their information from Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. A public that isn't swayed by sound bytes. It seems like a very hard row to hoe. 

I did not have a topic today. I was not going to post anything. Then I heard this soulless man speaking about something he does not have the ability to grasp in such an abstract manner. It makes me want to weep. 

Of Buds and Posturing

This is an in between time. Between winter and spring is an ugly place in a a region that has harsh winters. While so much of the country is enjoying trees budding and flowers beginning to show their glory, we have brown. The landscape looks dirty, unwashed from its' winter exercise. Some rain to wash it clean would be welcome.

On the positive side, it is unseasonably warm. Somehow the plant life in the frozen land knows better than to be tricked by a warm March. They have their own timetable and will bud out when they are good and ready. I'm so ready.

Today I will spend some of my time cleaning up the gardens, admiring the little bits of green poking their noses out of the soil and enjoying 75 degrees. I believe I can risk leaving the long underwear in the drawer today! It seems so wrong, it's March.

The horses know. They are full of energy, which means they are causing trouble. Broken fence boards, squealing geldings getting tough in the paddock. Strutting Topper displaying the fact he was top stallion for twelve years, he has memory even if he no longer has parts. Solo and Ari arguing throughout the day, Ari using his dressage moves on the floopy-footed saddlebred. Everyone else minding their own business, until trouble finds them and chases one or another just because.

The signs are all there. One morning I will see fat buds on the trees. Swollen with the promise of leafy greenery changing the landscape. In the meantime I will watch geldings posture, prance and bully one another while they wait for pasture to ease the boredom of confinement on dirt. A squeal, a loud crack as hoof meets wood, another thing to fix.

Sun & Smiles

We have had an unseasonable March. This looks to be the first March in recorded history to be without snowfall. This coming week we will have temperatures in the 70 degrees. Oh yeah!

So in the period of a few weeks we will be going from this..............

.......to this. How great is that! Really great, let me tell you. This has been a long winter and I think we have been given a great gift to have it leave a month early.

The horses were very destructive this winter so there is more repair to be done then usual. The next month will be filled with fence repair and general cleanup. If the unusual warmth continues maybe I can get a jump on the gardens. What a wonderful thing that would be. At the very least I can get out the fencing tools, grab a paint brush and fix what the beasties have destroyed.

Speaking of the beasts, they are full of vinegar. Handling them is a exercise in patience and agility. The warm weather coming early put them into paddocks early and the stir-crazy has set in. Nothing like having a thousand pounds of hoof and muscle dancing around on the end of a rope. There are days.......

That's all the news fit to print. The sun is out and it promises to be a pleasant day.

Uh Huh

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.

Stephan R. Covey

The fresh-faced, dewey-eyed nurse practitioner solemnly informed me I have choices. I'm looking at her youth and realize she doesn't know. Granted, some people realize at an early age the myth of choice, but it is generally a lesson learned while living life.

Choice very often is a double edged blade, not easily handled and can hurt you when taken. Choice can be gut-wrenching and impossible. I worked hard to engage the little-used filter between my brain and mouth and said nothing to this child. Let her live life a little longer.

Ah well. A bad shoulder, a bunch of horses and a choice made a couple of decades ago. Whoever thought I'd get old. Not me. I do know choices narrow and life isn't as simple as eeny, meeny, miney, moe. There's that double-edged blade, glistening as it waits to be taken hold of. I think I will leave it alone.

Flight of White

As I went about my business turning out horses this morning I heard what sounded like geese, but didn't sound exactly like geese. When I stepped outside to view what I thought would be Canadian geese flying in their customary vee over my barn I was amazed and delighted to see hundreds of swan heading northwest, in the familiar vee pattern. Huge, brilliant white birds with enormous downy wings.

greenpack.org

I have never witnessed swan migration before. So I wonder, did they veer off their usual course? Are they more plentiful in the wild? After all the years of watching bird migration this the first time for the swan.

I saw a wonder of the world today. Hundreds of them going somewhere. It gave me hope. It gave me awe. It made realize I must be more thoughtful in my decisions as a human on this planet I share with something as glorious as this. We need to see the glorious. Without an appreciation of magnificence and the concern which comes with it, the lowly, mundane and ugly in our world do not stand a chance. 

I have been momentarily humbled in my meagerness. This was absolutely a moment. A real moment.

A Little This, A Little That.....Or How The Week Swallowed Me Whole

I think if I were able to believe in a deity, it would exist in the rising and the setting of the sun.

It has been a busy week. Kristina came back to ride Zing after a three month absence. I dragged myself into the doctor to deal with my pain issues and found I have very high cholesterol for my efforts. Getting older and fatter is a real kick in the pants. And the cherry on top was spending one and a half hours on a witness stand.

Zing was a real trooper, going back to work as if he had never stopped. Kristina seemed to forget what a stallion in the throes of breeding season is like, but she will become comfortable again, in a little time. He can be a big, bold boy!

I have been handling pain for a long time. If it is on my body, it hurts. When I started to experience rather substantial swelling under my right arm, as well as a very limited use of that arm, I decided I had to spend some of my limited time and money on the doctor. You know, I live in America where we have every right to die from lack of access to doctors if we don't have insurance or if we have deductibles that are so high we may as well not have insurance. But I am getting off topic. A cortisone shot in my shoulder has helped a lot. It's amazing how one area of the body affects the whole body. I'm not thirty again, or even forty, but I feel better than I have for about twelve years. It's not a permanent fix, but I'll take it.

Remember this? The butchering of my spruce trees by the godly born-again evangelical minister. He got his house moved and destroyed my trees in the process. This was January 2008. He finally pled guilty to a lessor charge, a misdemeanor public nuisance with restitution. Tuesday was the restitution hearing and I was the first witness. He had also completely cut down my neighbors deciduous trees, so they attached to my complaint.

I guess I was being punished for daring to challenge the man of god, as I was battered and badgered for ninety minutes, having my character, personality and motives questioned while both the prosecutor and the judge sat on their hands. The defense attorney was trying the already settled case instead of challenging the restitution amount. I am a strong personality and yet by the time this was over I was approaching a panic attack and shaking visibly. I have a very clear understanding as to why people who have been abused in the home or raped are reluctant to file charges, as this was a case about trees and I was treated badly. Now it rests in the hands of the judge. I simply want it over. Having this narcissistic personality in my community is unsettling.

So after the time I have had away and the added stimulation I have in my flesh and bone life, I have decided I can cease my internet obsession and resume comments. We will see if I am too optimistic about my recovery!

It's cold today, but the sun is out and my pain is lessoned. This is a good thing and a great way to start the day. So off I go to face the music of a life with too many horses. Enjoy your day.

Spring.....Ahead

Linger a few minutes longer, forget about the time change for the day.

Another very foggy, dreary day. I believe I will take my own advice and have another cup.