Horse Sense....
So in the interests of transparency, Spirit gave me a slap.
To be fair, I might, just possibly, have been going too fast with Belle. Maybe for her, maybe me, maybe both of us. Well, anyway, let me tell you what happened and you make up your own mind:
So Belle and I have been doing video's and doing really well together. I try and walk with her twice a day, just to get her used to the whole thing. I only video in the morning. It's been going awesome. Then I was chatting to some of my friends and we were talking about learning to tie up (I would bring Belle to their place - they're professional horse peeps), have maybe a playdate with their foal (about to be weaned), have a bit of a shower with Belle. You know, I had plans.
And I had a plan because of this one little thing...Az is terrified of water.
And he's terrified because some fucking muppet tied him up so he couldn't move, and then sprayed him hard with water.
So I know first hand that what I do with Belle makes a difference, and I'm not going to take a chance that I'm going to do it wrong.
So then I had my second bright idea.
Yes, I would teach her to love to float but wait, if she has not been tied up, she may get lonely on the float and freak out, so she needs a friend. So I need to bring Chew in. Chew loves going on the float and visiting. In fact, he's a fucking rockstar.
So I brought Chew in to Belle, in the Welcome Paddock.
Chew decided right off the bat that he would assert his dominance. Understandable. He booted it in the direction of Belle, and then they were going hammer and tongs. I've put a video of this up.
Then they took a break, and then decided to go again. This also ended well. Took another video and put it up.
Third time they went a round, I was standing at the shed with my back to them, Belle comes galloping up to me, with Chew booting it up behind, Belle crashes into me full boot, I go smack on into the side of the shed then ass over tit, winds me, and they are both going around me. Although as soon as Chew sees I'm down, he's like, Uh oh...
I get up.
Chew sees I'm fine and then boots it off again, chasing Belle, scares Belle half to death, she jumps the fence. New fence, other paddock.
Not the result I was expecting.
However, Belle is fine, Chew is fine although a little embarrassed, I have bruises from here to well, pretty much, a lot. I've either pulled a muscle under my breast or cracked a rib, well, as long as I support under my breast and don't bend down too far I'm fine - so you know, take your pick. However, as I'm writing this, it is definitely a sleep in chair in living room jobby tonight.
However, I've got the Kawa Kawa and Comfrey Balm cooking and it smells delicious. I can also hear Spirit whispering their songs and weaving their magic into the balm, so I should be noticeably better tomorrow.
To be fair though, I needed Chew as a companion to Belle on the float, so you know, it is what it is and Belle, Chew and Suz are all fine as I'm writing this.
Mares and Caps on the other hand are like, WTF just happened? and neither or them are particularly happy campers about it. Although Caps was like, Come here and have a snuggle... Mumma Bear was like, Tell me exactly what happened...
The only thing I'm pissed about is I was looking forward to a nice, long, hot bubble bath tonight, and there is no way that's going to happen now.
Bugger.
****
Just checked on everyone. Mumma bear is particularly well behaved tonight, Caps was talkative, Az and Ralph were eating, Chew was extremely well behaved, Suz was Suz and I couldn't find Belle.
So with torch, because it's pitch bloody black, I was hunting around and as I called her, she came. Chew was still a little territorial but you know, I have a new Plan A if he still has short man's syndrome tomorrow.
I'm good like that.
So, I'm signing off now, the fire's going, there's a great program I'm watching on Netflix, and there's magick in that there balm, which even now, I can feel the magick going deep into my soul and spreading through my bones.
All in all, I've had worse days.
****
So Belle and I play every day. We learn new things or just hang out. We're learning step by small step, how to keep that horse/human door open. We are very good at going through gates and shutting them behind us though. Mostly because we have to be, the gates only open one way and there's only us. You know that old phrase, Needs must... well, it works out that it's really accurate.
Mumma Bear has stopped galloping up from the bottom paddock, although she still eyes the other paddocks, so you know, I think this is a Mexican Stand-off at the moment. There's also nothing I can do until I have Belle sorted, so Mumma and I just do what we can. She's starting to understand our breakfast protocol with bananas and apples, but isn't participating yet. That's cool.
Oh, and another thing...my food is sooooooooooo wrong with Mumma. Found that out within hours of her coming home. It's all good. When I've got it wrong and feed too little, she stands there with the bucket in her mouth, waving it round. When I've fed her too much or the wrong kind, she just tips it out and walks away. Not the best communication we've ever had, but most certainly not the worst.
Chew ate Belles breakfast this morning so I tied him up and gave Belle another one. I also tie Chew up when I lead Belle out of the paddock. I don't expect to have to do that for too long, just until we've got our boundaries up and running.
We're doing ok, but I'm still bloody sore and sleeping on the couch. Actually, I could get used to sleeping on the couch. I turn my phone off, snuggle up with a duvet and the fire going and binge watch Netflix. Then leave the tv going all night. Talk about being lazy. But all jokes aside, it's been really weird, it's so rare that I'm not 100% that when I am under the weather, it's bizarre. Like some kind of random Universe. However, I'm healing extremely well and quickly. Just not over night like, Boom, fixed.
On a positive note, it's made me think about how I could have done it better to get a successful end result first time up.
Oh and almost forgot, I just found out that one food that I'm feeding out at home has soy in it, and I only found out by accident. I emailed a company re No soy for babies and got a lovely long email back about why soy is fine. That's cool, however, I noticed that they never said what food didn't have soy, so I emailed them back again. And got a short email back, We've done our research, we know what we're talking about, all our products have soy.
Bugger.
And I am so careful as you know. To be fair though, they had put soy under another name so you wouldn't have known, and I certainly didn't.
So I have a question:
If you have done all your research and soy is fine, why did you lie about it on your packaging?
****
Oh wait, let me re-remember you re soy:
Soy is a hormone disrupter. This means that it plays round with the hormones. This roughly translates to causing PMS and PMT-y symptoms. It also has Phytic Acid in it which means that is stops the absorption of iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. It is also a Protease Inhibitor which means that is stops the absorption of protein.
This is scientifically proven.
****
If you had asked me 10 days ago, What are the three most important things for a horse?
I would have answered, Herbs, food, Touch/play.
Mumma Bear and Belle have been home now 5 and a half days and yes, herbs are important. But only in the way to keep the cycles in their correct balance. I have used herbs just twice. Two feeds out of 12. And food is important. If you get the food wrong your horse does misbehave, and he (or she) can't help it. But out of everything it is Touch/play which has proved itself to be a winner time and time and time again, in this almost week.
When things could have gone badly wrong and let's face it, there were multiple opportunities for that to happen, it was Touch/play that kept us together. It was the link that not just Belle, but me, held onto. Like a life raft in a stormy sea.
But it worked. And it didn't just work a little.
****
So, as I'm finishing the last of this off tonight Mumma Bear is hooning it, that's literally hooooooooonnnnnnning it up and down the paddock trying to jump the fence. Now before I go any further I need to explain the layout of the land. Mumma has two large paddocks which are open for her to freely roam about. Lots of grass and a pond. Well, you know that from last week when she fell in. Anyway, first she would just go a little bit down the second paddock and hoon it up. Now she is going right down to the bottom paddock, doing a left then another left (like a little circle). This means that she has almost come back to where paddock number 1 meets paddock number 2. Then she gets her game on and hoons it up from there to within an inch of the gate at top of second paddock, where she wants to jump but can't. But wait, that hasn't worked, so now she is going sideways. Directly down to the road from paddock 2, turns around and hoons it up the hill thinking she will jump fence (way smaller) and do it that way. Either way there is so much power you can literally hear her hooves thundering. It is both awesomely impressive and scary as fuck to watch. I've just been standing there yelling at her, Don't you dare jump that fence!! I notice she didn't run like that when she was racing, just saying.
Watching Mumma hoon paddock was after the Chew ate Belle's dinner episode. Nana's told me that I can't say Belle can run, so I won't, but when Belle gets her game on, fuck she's got some serious power behind her. I ended up getting the naughty stick out tonight though. Literally a stick with rubber tassles on the end because Chew has got to learn not to eat Belle's dinner and Belle needs to stop throwing her weight around willy nilly. I know she is just finding her way but seriously, no.
So we are learning rules and rule number 1 is:
Do not run over your human.
Boundaries eventually worked well tonight. But it's not whether it works well tonight, but whether it works every single time. Which it eventually will, I'm not putting up with that shite.
So, that's been our week:
It's been fucking insane. I thought it would be a walk in the park and honestly, you can stop rolling round on the floor laughing now, because it's just been bloody hard work. And downright scary in some respects. But through all the craziness there's been some fucking drop dead amazing. Things which have blown my mind in awesome.
But if there is one thing in this Universe that I am grateful for, it's Touch/play.
That beautiful language of Touch.
Because when we needed it, really needed it, it showed up and was worth every second, of every minute, of every day, that we had learnt...then fine tuned it.
And that's the key that opens that beautiful horse/human door.
Wishing you much love my friends, and of course, my humans.
Caps, me, Spirit, Az, Ralph, Chew, Suz, the Big E, and of course, my beautiful Mares, Belle and Little Boo
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
* Taped the fence round the gate yesterday for Mumma. It's not hot but it seems (fingers crossed and holding my breath) doing the job. No galloping for the last day and a half.
** I spoke too soon. She started her galloping about lunchtime today. I'm going to use one of my herbs on her at dinner tonight. It's one of her favourite ones and she reacts really well to it, so fingers (and hooves) bloody crossed.
I'm also playing her Nina Simone as I'm writing this. She loves Nina.
Belle was also a little out today, I think she's in season, or baby filly season if there's such a thing.
But this is making me think again, that maybe food has to run to cycles. That you literally can't feed the same feed every day for a full, 3 week, mare/filly cycle.
Food for thought, and I don't know how to fix this right now, so I'm just going to put this out to the Universe and let it sit with the stars.
This has been a fucking insane week.