Where's The Roundup When You Need It?

Do you ever dwell on the relatively few negative happenings in your life until it dims the shine of all the blessings we all live with every day? I do that.We all have weeds in our garden of flowers in one way or the other. But when you look at the garden, and the weeds are all that's grabbing your attention and overwhelming you... something needs to change!  Many days I dwell on my health problems, such as my arthritis and lower back problems. It's hard not to when everything hurts and every step you take is painful. It really zaps the joy from life. The other day the idea struck me that I need to work on rising above it; see more flowers and downplay the weeds. 

My Mom used to say, that when she opened her eyes in the morning and saw the sun coming through her bedroom window she always, "thanked God for another day". She was such a lover of nature. She loved birds, flowers, beaver dams, animals...any of it. I don't do that. I just plant my stiff feet on the floor, and ooch and ouch my way to the bathroom, muttering to myself how they hurt and how disgusted  I am that I can't take any Advil or anything.

After letting my dogs out, I drink my tea, (my bright spot of every day). This is when I used to take my Advil, three of them, so I could take the edge of my arthritis and do something. Now I have to tackle everything I do with sheer will power and my poor attitude is fanning the flame of self pity.

The other day I was driving out to see Stetson and listening to Laura Story's song, Blessings. I took in the lyrics I'd heard many times before, they come from I Thessalonians 5:16-18. Later that week I heard Pastor Mark say, what ever is bothering you, whether it's something benign like arthritis or something deadly like cancer, is easier to handle if you realize that this body is not the one we're stuck with for eternity. If we believe we have everlasting life, the years we spend in our bodies here are like a blip on the radar scale...because eternity is a long time. I was happy with that news...cuz I got the short end of the stick,  when it came to a body.

So, I have been working on finding things every day that I'm thankful for. Of course there are all the huge obvious things...the ones you have ready when its your turn on Thanksgiving day to say what your thankful for. Things like God, family, friends, health, and the food in front of us.

I decided to look instead for the not so obvious, the hidden blessings, like when you pick a shopping cart and all the wheels work! Getting a good one is a little like the lottery... it's stacked against you! You'd look pretty silly making a test run outside the store, and even if you did, once inside all the wheels would be heading in different directions clacking along from aisle to aisle anyway. I never know if I need to apologize for subjecting oncoming shoppers to the racket of my squealing cart, or the fact that I'm coming down the aisle sideways! So a good cart is a small blessing that makes your day for sure!

I have loved to go to second hand stores for many years! I used to pick a day, even when I lived in Minot, to make the rounds to the area second hand stores whose proceeds benefit people in need. In Minot, the Restore store benefits the mentally ill ( my passion), the Salvation Army (helps the poor) and also has a CEO with a regular wage rather than a six figure one, the Dakota Boys Ranch(helps young troubled boys). They are all fun places to go. Here in Arizona, I like the Goodwill stores. They are clean and in good neighborhoods over here on the East side of town. I really enjoy finding an old treasure. I collect old brooches, and I have a collection of Little Golden books, but i have caught my limit on those... as they are heavy and I had to move them once already. We have some great antique shops here in Arizona too! So Goodwill stores/antique shops are another hidden blessing for me, who likes give myself a day to wander through them, and for whom the proceeds benefit. Another blessing in my life!

My horse is a huge blessing. He has been acting up the last couple months, just being really stubborn and acting crazy. I started getting depressed and really in a funk about how old I am. I feel like an, "old lady with a young horse", and he's too much horse for me. Inside you feel the same age as you always were. The logical thing is to
                             A. Sell him, and either replace him with a deadhead that's got one foot in the grave                   
                             B. Get in better physical shape weight wise myself although the back and  arthritis is still there          
                              C. Get a rocking horse for the living room.

 I actually even showed him to some people who were interested in him. I cried all day. Syd went with to meet the prospective buyers. They wanted him, but Syd (bless her heart), ran up beside me when I was turning him out and said, "Mom your not ready to sell him, and neither am I. I don't like horses that much, but he loves you you can see that... and you love him". I decided shes right...I'm not ready to sell him, my life has a completeness to it with him in it! He's an 1100 lb small blessing, as are our chihuahuas and Bentley the human cat. Nobody is going anywhere at the moment.

I'm happy that Kerry and I have weathered the strong hurricane winds that blew through our marriage the last few years. We have both looked at the rubble around us more than once, and wondered if it was worth rebuilding, because there have always been weak spots even before the storm hit. I've never been able to see myself without him, I've loved him since I was about sixteen. Like the horse problem,  he's alot of donkey for me at times, and I have my less than stellar behavior myself too, so we keep going. Some days we fight like pitbulls and other days it's still pretty entertaining and good to have someone in you're corner and he's always been in my corner when it comes down to it.

We all have weeds in our life don't we? Weeds are resistant, hard to kill, and some of us are pretty good at over fertilizing our weed environment besides. Seems we get rid of one patch of weeds,  and another pops up! Same with problems and trials in our lives. If we look over our flowers and only see the weeds... we are missing alot of beauty. What can we do but work  at it? We must keep on picking weeds before they take over the whole garden. Pluck them from our life one by one, and and in the meantime focus on the flowers because as the song goes, "What if the trials of this life, are mercies in disguise"?

Where's Mike?

           Where was that Mike guy from the TV show dirtiest jobs, when I was a kid? Some of the jobs we had at the Stave farm was material enough for Mike to show up, and give it a try.

Mike Rowe from Dirtiest Jobs

             First of all, how would you like to dump horse urine jugs (old Hilex jugs) into a bigger barrel for your chores? Taking a shot to the eye or lip was pretty bad and it was almost a daily thing! The only people, who probably smelled worse than us, were the kids that milked cows before school, and there were plenty of them too. All so some women could prevent child birth somewhere, or quell hot flashes…crazy thought!

Cultivating in an 806, a far cry from the machinary used today!

               I cultivated fields and never minded that so much, even though it was a very dirty job, because you had to hand pump fuel first. Back and forth, back and forth but it wasnt too bad because I had a cab on the tractor, a good radio, and I just drove around and around being careful of wet spots so as not to get stuck,  and sang to the radio all day. Sonny was fussy about how I finished the corners and rode with me until I knew how to do it right.  I was supposed to go only so fast, with the cultivator sunk in so deep. I will admit now that when I knew I was out of the range of the road or the house, where I couldn’t be seen, I lifted the cultivator a little so the tractor went faster when it wasn’t pulling so hard. Being a kid I didn’t think about the fuel I was burning just to skim the ground and not kill weeds etc. But gosh darn it… a Sat night date took some getting ready, and I wanted to get done!

water jug with the drinking spout like we had

             A job I hated was being dumped off in a field with a water jug and a Twinkie or two or three with little bales as far as you could see. Sonny was our older brother and the “foreman” in charge of Kathy and me.  He’d say,” I’ll be back and check on you later”.  The first thing we’d do is take the little cap off the drinking spout on our dirty old red and white drinking thermos and have a slurp of water. Then to gear up for this monumental task we’d break into our lunch and eat one of the Twinkies.  Jeeze, it’s quiet out here, we’d say to each other…only a few bees, horseflies and “piss ants (as Sonny called them)” buzzing around...maybe an occasional dragon fly. Time to start six packing, I guessss… and we never wanted to disappoint him or Mom!  Dragging six bales together we made six packs consisting of three bales rolled on their sides and lined up beside each other, then two bales the other way on top of those, covering the cracks so rain didn’t run in, topped off with one bale on the top. If we were lucky there were no pink baby mice under the bales, or any mothers around either! Seemed like forever before Sonny came and got us again with our empty lunch bucket and warm water jug!

Wheel rake...to travel on the road you had to lift the rake wheels and hook a chain to keep them raised!

              Raking hay wasn’t a bad job, probably my favorite unless it was really hot,  except no cab made it dusty.  Sonny would have mowed the hay days earlier, and when it had dried it was ready to be raked and baled. I would usually rake and he would bale at the same time on the same field, and it was nice having him in the field with me, I liked having him going a few rows away. He liked to follow the rake to be assured the hay in rows didnt get rained on which can make for moldy hay. The big tines on the rake would pull the hay into windrows and then he could come along with the baler and feed it into the baler. The baler would spit out bales one at a time. He usually drug another contraption along called a"bale buncher" that after six would get in the bale buncher, he could pull the rope and release them. That was a neat invention for us sixpackers, as then there were six already there we just had to stack em. Every once in a while when I was raking,  I would accidently leave a windrow on top of a rock I hadn't seen, and he would hit it with the baler! Then I’d hear Sonny cussing over the sound of his radio! The worst part of raking was lifting the reels up to travel. Sometimes I remember crying out there because I couldn’t get them and I was hot and dirty. Usually a good cry boosted my strength somehow, and I got them raised so I could travel home on the road with the rake. They were never happy with us if we unhitched and came home with just the tractor.



A good feeling to have a field all raked and neat!



           I never mowed, baled or hauled bales. Mom hired bale haulers, and I drove the tractor and bale wagon from six pack to six pack that Kathy and I had made. Depending on whether the bale haulers she hired were cute or not, was the deciding factor as to whether this was technically a dirty job or not. Kerry was one she hired, so I was more than willing to drive tractor that year!

This is not our farm house but the upstairs windows were high like this

            Another dirty job I hated on the farm after our Dad passed away, was putting the screens or storm windows on the upstairs windows of the house. Mom was scared of heights so she didn’t want to do it, and neither did we.  We didn’t trust Sonny to give us a smooth ride or lift because he was always trying to scare us.  First, he’d always have to give us a wild fast ride right up to the house while we were in the bucket trying to hold on to a glass window! He’d drive fast right up to the house so it looked like you may crash right into the house! Next he’d raise the bucket lifting us up, as high as that bucket could reach. The hydraulics lifting the bucket were shiny even, because they rarely got extended that high! Of course the windows or screens(this was a twice a year job no less!) never went right on either…they always seemed swollen and didn’t want to fit. After listening to Sonny yell over the tractor at us about how to do it, and worrying he was going to give us a wilder ride if we didn’t get it on, finally we snapped the final snap and the windows were on! Praise the Lord the window was on!   Then Sonny would drop us straight down with the speed of a crashing elevator and stop abruptly about a foot from the ground. Legs shaking we’d crawl out of the bucket happy to be alive. He’d be laughing his evil brother giggle and his I scared you laugh, which he delighted in.  I think Kathy did that dirty job more than I did, because after a time or two I developed a fear of heights too, I’m no dummy!

Tractor and bucket like the one Sonny lifted us to the windows with..

            The job of rounding up a hundred and forty horses from two pastures with just two kids on horseback, and Sonny in an old blue pickup truck had to be a daunting task after Dad died.  Sonny would catch the stallions and lead them home one at a time, with his arm out the window of his old blue Chevy truck. The stallions would be pawing and striking and acting crazy the whole way, especially our appalosa stallion Hot Moccasins. If we had any visitors that day, or later any brother in laws Sonny had, they would get to hold the stallion out the passenger side and he’d laugh his evil laugh all the way home because he loved scaring the heck out of someone! Once the stallions were in Kathy and I would go after the horses. Keep in mind rounding up horses are not like herding cows…they can out run your horse some of them, and try to every chance they get!   Kathy and I would ride one on each side of the herd of mares with their colts, and Sonny would sit in his blue Chevy truck on a hill at some cut off point, and bang on the door and yell out instructions. If they got by us  then he'd call us names out of pure frustration!  At the time that seemed like the end of the world if they got by us.  I’m not talking bad about Sonny but that’s just how it went ( and this blog is only my perspective).  He had a temper and would get mad if they got around us and we were just kids doing adult work.  Mom and Phyllis and later Leslie and Shannon would come out and stand in strategic places. Mom was always ready with opening the gates etc, and she'd run anywhere she could on foot to help out. She was always a nervous wreck those round up days and I can see why now. What a monumental task every fall!

          If one in the herd started to get away from us, the whole bunch would go and we’d have to ride wide open over the hills, dodging gopher holes and praying all the while that your beloved horse doesn’t step in one and break his leg, or fall with you. Clark fell on me one time when we came over a side hill and he lost his footing. He fell on me and was up faster than he fell almost! I didn’t get hurt much, a twisted ankle is all. The amazing part to Kathy and me now when we talk about our young lives, is just how young we were, and how hard we tried to please Sonny and we had a real resolve to help Mom and Sonny carry on after Dad died. Somehow we always got the horses in… the quarter horses first then we’d go back for the appaloosas.  The colts were separated from the mothers next, and that involved some fancy gate work for Mom ha! We were quite the ranch hands at twelve and ten and on over the years, if i say so myself.

           The winter weather was another challenge. Sometimes the roads would blow shut and we would have to haul hay to the barn with a horse on the toboggan walking along side it in waist deep snow. Can we say exhausting? After Sonny moved over into the yard that was better because he was there to keep hay in the barn.

               There were a lot of dirty jobs on a farm, but I’m glad I grew up there. When I was eighteen I was ready to move to town. I left home after I graduated in 1973, but still came home when it was time to bring the horses in in the fall. Still today, I like to visit the solitude of the farm yet but I prefer to live in town where it doesn’t seem so desolate. The perfect combination is a house in town with animal privileges.  That’s the best of both worlds for me.

Sonny and Brendon

               Sonny was killed in a car accident when I was twenty eight.That was a shock and a huge blow to our family. He was a quiet guy, a reader of Louis LaMoure books, not one for public functions. If he’d had a few beers he was so funny, he could have been a comedian! He had the best sense of timing and came up with a funny answer to everything. He was a sensitive guy, a thinker, a worrier, but didn't let that show much. He was so handsome! Our Dad's passing had left him with a huge responsibility when he was only in his early twenties. He had his own little family to take care of, as well as a mother and two little sisters he felt responsible for besides, and he was really. He never really had a choice about what he wanted to do with his life. He just had it all dumped in his lap which had to be over whelming for him! He was under alot of pressure and I really I miss him. Sometimes I almost can’t remember his voice, or that laugh when he was pushing somebody’s buttons unless I dream about him. In dreams he’s exactly how he was. We were blessed to have him, and I wish he would have lived long enough to enjoy his grandkids because he loved kids and kids loved him. He was a dog lover too and always had his black lab Pepper, with him everywhere he went.

SAD!

              We had some dirty jobs which Mike could have made a show out of, but today when I can fix my own pool pump, and take care of my own house hold issues, many times I think, “thank God I’m a country girl, because I would not have survived if I wasn’t”!  They were dirty jobs but you know what they say about dirty jobs... someone’s got to do it!

Guilty Pleasures

           Say someone asks you, “What are your ten guilty pleasures”? How much thinking would you have to do to come up with ten, or is ten just the tip of the ice berg? Personally, I have quite a few and enjoy EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!  

My Tea This Morning

      The first one that comes to my mind is tea. I love hot black tea. I start and end my day, every day, with a cup of tea. I’m fussy about my tea too. For starters, I drink mine in a clear, glass, BIG mug! I use only distilled water so it’s nice and clear. No cloudy tea for me.  Here’s the really sinful, guilty part… I really love real, white, not so good for you, sugar in it …and like 2 tbsp! Celestial Seasonings English breakfast tea is my favorite, followed by Lipton’s Orange Spice black tea.

The Drip Pot Like Mom Used To Make Tea

             My love of tea started when Mom used to make tea for supper once in a while, when we were kids in her old aluminum drip coffee pot. She would add loose tea to the basket of the pot and pour boiling water from the bottom of the pot through the basket. Then she would pour the perfectly steeped tea into glass cups with saucers. That was fine dining at our house!  Kathy and I only got a half of a cup as it would “stunt our growth”! The white sugar bowl with the silver trim that was a staple in the center of the table, was readily available to sugar my tea up to my liking.  By the way it did not stunt my growth, but rather, widened my girth if anything!

        My second guilty pleasure is my heated throw. I think I have had about six already, cuz i must have a new one if they stop working! When my legs hurt or back aches or I just want to be cozy…I love my heated throw. I love that throw summer or winter, but obviously more in the winter. When my bones ache I love to turn it on and recline my chair and cook until I’m medium rare…then I kick it all off and complain about how hot I am…till I’m cold again in fifteen minutes and then start the cooking process all over !

         Third, I love my DS scrabble game, I play it almost every night before I fall asleep. The secret is I play the computer, but only on level five because if I play on level six it beats me every time!  I like a close game but getting my pants beat off before I go to bed isn’t relaxing or sleep inducing ha…ticks me off when he uses all his letters and scores an extra fifty points, on a word I’m not even sure is a word!

          Fourth, I love old jewelry, especially old pins. I have collected them for years, before it became fashionable and before they were “vintage”. I love putting on an old pin, and wondering who the little lady was, who wore this to church one Sunday and sang off tune to every hymn,  or maybe she received it for a gift from her children or husband. I imagine her to be happy with how much I love and care for her beautiful baubles, each in their own little plastic compartment. I love all jewelry, but the older the better…well,... other than Brighton’s - that’s my favorite store, and I take all the new stuff from there I can get ha!

        

Weezy...Lil Wayne

   Fifth is my love of Lil Wayne’s music…its creative, its raw, its filthy some of it, but I just love his voice, his creativity and his life story! He’s a pot smoker, drinks purple codine cough syrup from a styrofoam cup,  talks about women in a trashy way... but  I think the guy is a genius, for real. When he was in prison for gun charges, or maybe it was drug charges, Sydney and I were walking by Hot Topic and they had Free Weezy mug shot shirts, two for the price of one. We both got one but, Syd encouraged me to, "just wear mine around the house"! I was like, "yes I know,  do you think I’ve totally lost my mind"?…but I do wear my free Weezy shirt around the house with my flannel pants. Like Larry the Cable guy says, "Lord I Apologize”!

This one is my Grandma Bruhn ha.

         Sixth, is my collection of Nana’s Family Dolls. They are resin dolls made by Annie Wahl. They were commissioned by Richard Simmons ( not a fan of him but liked the dolls), and are all retired now.  I have given them names after people  I have known in my life. I take great joy in my dolls. I find as I get older the more I love my things!



Sisters





          Seventh is taking pictures. I love to take pictures, especially if I can get a cooperative subject that isn’t acting spunky and hissing like my lil roommate Sydney Nicole does. If I want to take her picture it has to be short and sweet and she has final say about the delete button on the camera! Oh and I can’t post them either!

          Eighth is a relaxing bath, I long for a nice big tub one day. Where we live now has a nice walk in shower in the master bedroom and a little dinky bathtub in the main bathroom lined with Sydney’s shampoos, conditioners and razors etc. It’s a hazard to try and take a bath in there, between slipping around on the spilled conditioner and all the razors I just shower but I miss my baths. 

            Reality TV is number nine on the guilty pleasure list. I love them all! American Idol, DWTS, Teen Mom, The Real World, the Housewives of whatever city, The Jersey Shore, …you name it I tape it, and fast forward thru parts I don’t like or am not interested in which is pretty much just the commercials!



A great view...and a better feeling

           Number ten is my horse. I love spending time with him. He really is a guilty pleasure because he’s not a Chihuahua to keep and feed ha…I also have a human cat named Bentley, and a Chihuahua named Papi…they all add pleasure and friendship  and love to my life.  My horse has been a real gift to me from me and I wake up in the morning wanting to go hang out with him…and wait to see him every day.

     

     Crocs, are pushing me over ten! I love Crocs..I don't care who says what about them..I love them! Never again am I putting my feet in anything uncomfortable. I especially love the flats...they are cute (in my opinion) with anything! The bright colors are a huge turn off, but you don't have to go with those. I'll share my favorites!



          My last guilty pleasure is being in Phoenix. I am a gypsy with two homes…I love North Dakota , but I want to live here…here where the weather is warm and sunny, where my kids are, where Marcy and her family are, here where there are endless things to do. I enjoy going to Minot when I do, and that will always be my true hometown, but this is the home I got to choose and I love it here. The guilty part is that Kerry is still in ND and would rather have me there, for the first day or so anyway and then we start locking horns about the simplest things. By the time he joins us here I hope we have lost any animosity and just become one. One can dream, ha!

           That's twelve already, I told you I could think of a bunch! The important thing is, since I’ve turned fifty five, I gave up guilt, and I think you should too. Name your pleasure, name your poison, live your life and love everything in it. It can only add sparkle and happiness!

Good Horse Sense

     Horses, horses, horses, were my life when I was young. Seeming to put away your fun when you sign up for adult life, riding horses and owning a horse was a pleasure I couldn’t afford anymore. Besides, riding horses is something you give up when you let obesity take over your life! I couldn’t even lift my leg high enough for the stirrup, say nothing of lifting my fat behind into a saddle! One of the things on the top of my bucket list is doing some riding with my kids.

                                      Me on my brothers horse Amigo

      We Stave kids learned to ride on huge draft horses. Daddy always had a matched team of horses that he would harness up to a stoneboat with runners in the winter, or a buggy with wheels in the summer. A lot of times he would even be the horse, pulling us around the yard for fun. In the later 60’s, he got into the PMU business, which was collecting pregnant mares urine for birth control and hormone pills for women. I often brag, ( that’s when you know your scooping low for something to brag about ), that I had the worst chores in the world as a kid. Dumping a hundred and ten little jugs of urine into big barrels…glug, glug, glug!

My Dad dumping the jugs, and showing how a horse was harnessed.

     When I was ten, one of the happiest days of my life happened and it had to do with….a horse. I had watched my brother, Sonny, compete for a year or so in horseshows around the area. We were members of The Rolling Hills Saddle Club. As part of that club, a point system where you traveled to hosted horse show events by other saddle clubs in the small towns around North Dakota, was part of the fun. You entered events such as barrel racing, pole bending, keyhole races, trail class, western pleasure and many others. Depending on if and where, you placed in the events, you received points at every show. I had been riding draft horses, ponies, and mares that my dad would take in for breeding fees, since I was four or five. When I was eleven, my Dad, who’d been down in the barn, poked his head in the front door and yelled, “Pam, come down to the barn I have to show you something”. That never happened before, so I ran to the barn to see a bay horse tied to a post in the barn. He had a white star and snip on his face. Dad prodded, “ you know who that is don’t you”? I didn’t. He exclaimed, “its Cowboy Clarke, and he’s yours IF YOU CAN PROVE TO ME YOU CAN HANDLE HIM THIS SUNDAY AT THE FAIR“! All I knew about that horse was that he had been ridden against, and even beat Sonny’s horse from time to time, in some horse shows. I would handle him, no doubt about it!

Dad said, “saddle him up and meet me over in the alpha, alpha field”. he drove off with the pickup truck loaded with barrels and wooden posts. By the time I got there, he had the posts driven in the ground and the barrels paced out and set up. I didn’t know I was going to be in for the ride of my life in a just few seconds. I expected to lope around the barrel, steering wide, same being said for the pole bending. That’s what Kathy and I had been doing with our other horses.

             Kathy, Me( already look like I swallowed a watermelon), and Dad getting ready to go to a horse show. Saddle strapped to the stockrack, horse in truck box ha..

     When I turned Clarke toward the first barrel, out there in the field, he took off like lighting! I was thinking of nothing but gopher holes…. don’t fall in a gopher hole! He knew the pattern, and could have run it without me,  and the steering was more about steering him away from the barrels! I managed to stay on, and when i finished my Dad was laughing, like he did when we just got scared silly! Now it was on to the pole bending. This time I was a little better prepared for the ride ahead. Clarke raced down beside the poles, weaved in and out and I was more concerned about losing a knee cap than falling off! Most people had poles that were built for this, they were a pole with X’s on the bottom,  that just tipped over if you hit one to practice with. But that would be time consuming, so he just drove ours in the ground with a post mall, and if you hit one you knew it! I had a little more trouble stopping the horse than I did the first time, but Dad thought I did ok. This was Friday, the fair competition was Sunday!

     Dad entered me in the youth division in barrels and poles at the fair. I could not believe I was actually riding a horse at the fair! The state fair, the biggest event of the year for us! I placed fifth in pole bending and came home with a pink ribbon, and broke the pattern in barrel racing because he circled a timing post on the way to the first barrel! Dad was happy with me, and Mom was relieved I didn’t get hurt, and I was happy because I got to keep the horse!

     That horse became my life! The next summer came and I got on the little saddle club circuit and did well all summer winning trophies and looking forward to Sundays and seeing my friends I’d made from other small towns who rode every Sunday too. I felt good at something and I even overheard people saying I was the one to beat! At the end of the year, in November they always had the a Northwest Saddle Club awards night. They gave out the awards and trophies for the whole year. These awards were the sum total of all points, from all the saddle clubs, from all the small towns. We always went to that and I really wanted to go this year in case I won something.

     My Dad got hurt the end of the summer before the awards night, tying up a mare in a stall. He was getting ready for the new season of collecting urine. The mare was new and he didn’t know her. She reared back and lunged forward pining him up against the manger. He staggered out of the stall, and Mom rushed him to the ER. He had internal injuries, spent three weeks in the hospital, and died October 16, 1967.

Me on Clarke, Marcy on Poco, and Kathy on Plowgirl

     Without getting into how painful that was, or how many days I cried into Clarks’ neck, it was really painful when on awards night. Sonny and I went to the awards night alone. Kathy had the flu so Mom stayed home with her.  I won smaller trophies, for barrels, poles and trail class, and a huge wooden trophy for All Around Jr. Horsemanship! My Dad would have been so proud! Driving home from Kenmare, Sonny and I didn’t talk about Dad, no one ever talked about Dad, but there was a huge emptiness for us. Mom proudly displayed my trophies on the writing desk, and tried to be happy enough for two parents.

     Sonny lost interest in going to shows, he had his own little family now. Mom tried to take Kathy and I to the shows, so we could continue with the life we loved. During one show, in Powers Lake the events were running late, and it was getting dark with no lights in the arena. As Clarke pranced into the arena I hoped he could see the first barrel because I couldn’t! It was too dark! Turns out he couldn’t either, and we charged through the metal fence, both Clarke and I falling. That shut down the events for the night! (I just had a thought, that would be a lawsuit these days for some people).

     We loaded our horses in the grey pickup with a red stock rack ( didn’t even have a horse trailer back then) and started home. My horse nervously pranced back and forth, rocking the pickup and making it hard to keep it stable on the road. To top it all off, we had a flat tire and had to unload the horses in a ditch and change a tire in the dark! That was the end of horse shows, unless they were right around home. Mom cried, and told us, she was sorry but we just couldn’t do it without Dad.

     I kept Clarke until a fourteen year old girl called me and wanted to buy him for $500, in 1980. He was fifteen years old by then. She was going to take him to horse shows again. I weighed what $500. meant to my little family, the fact that Sonny didn’t like keeping him apart from the mares and stallions because he was a gelding, and I ask myself, do I want to keep him just for me, to find him dead sometime? Or do I want that girl to feel what I had back then, and Clarke to get to do what he loved, and that was going to shows and being with a human. So, I sold him, ending of my horse years.

Brendon riding Clarke in the corral the day I sold him :(

      I shut out thoughts of horses for a long time. But when I look back to who I was, before I was a wife and mother, and what I loved, horses were my life. I found myself feeling sad when Sydney came up with loving to ride, and went riding with her friend her first time other than clomping along on a trail ride. I was sad that I couldn’t teach her what was so much a part of me, and still is in there somewhere.

      Don’t worry, I’m not going to be one of those old broads trying to be young dressed with a hat and tight jeans, or entering the rodeo circuit anytime soon. I just would like to make peace with how that all ended and do some riding again.

      That’s one more reason to stick with my "sparkle program". You can’t regain time lost, but if you do the same thing you get the same results. Do I want to lose more time being too out of shape to ride a horse? Do I want more of the same, or want my life back? I’m a month into trying feel better inside and out and I lost ten pounds this month. I ask myself was it really so hard? Its not, its all a mind game. The hardest part is mentally getting on and keeping myself on the treadmill! Sydney wants me to join her at Zumba. However, I should probably wait till I could do more than one number before I'm slumped against the wall! Maybe that will be more fun than the treadmill I don’t know, I’m not a gym rat in case you missed that ha!

     Brendon sent me a link for a Quarter Horse ( the only horse for me ) horse show in Scottsdale yesterday. I enjoyed walking around, watching the events and looking at horses that cost as much as a house, some of them. They are awesome creatures for sure! I miss them.