Dissolve Yourself

There was a point, outside with our big horse today, where I did something right. Or I don't even know if it was right, but this huge, 1400 pound lump of motherly love was balanced between my outstretched arms, going in the circle I was trying to teach her (to lunge) around me.

I wasn't forcing her forward, I was encouraging her and then letting her go forward. And when I stepped in closer to her tremendous girth instead of being afraid, at a safe distance, when I moved in that's when, magically, she just started moving around me, like with me closer to her, she felt supported instead of attacked. Picture me standing in the middle of our back dirt paddock, barefoot, at 10 at night, and I decide to step closer to the giant mare, and hold my arms straight out from my sides, crucifix style, and jiggle the leadrope in my left hand to encourage her forward, and wiggle my right hand at her rear to let her know that this is where I end, that she's in a safe little pocket of me, and then magically, she trusts me. I'm so close to her that it's like she's a half ton ballerina and I'm supporting her weight, even though she's not touching me, she is leaning on me, the air is heavy and we are doing a little dance, where everything is moving the right way. We're in sync, and we are connected. And it's easy.

It's like the one time I was a good actor. For one moment in a play we did back in Maryland at our little coffeehouse theater, it was me and Paul, my friend, doing a scene from "Burn This," (no doubt badly) and in the play he storms out of the room and my character is supposed to crumple to the floor and want him back, and when Paul stormed out of the room I actually forgot that I was in a play and I felt my body say "Is he coming back?" And I cried for real, I crumpled down to the floor because I felt the loss, and that's the one time acting was real, when I forgot, and it was like crossing over to some other place, where I wasn't OUT HERE and everyone else was OVER THERE. I was THERE. I wasn't even I. The moment was everything, and I was dissolved into it.

That's what it was like tonight, out in the misty dirt, with the beautiful horse, balancing on my outstretched arms like she was floating. Lasted maybe four whole seconds. Because perfect only lasts that long. Then I scratched her way under her tummy and she stretched her neck out with her lip quivering because it's really hard to reach your itcy bellybutton when you're a horse. And I thought maybe it is worth it to have our little barn and family, even though she had to give up 30 gorgeous rolling green acres in Colorado. All the food she wanted, but none of this glorious dancing with barefoot humans.

Connection is something.

Everybody Call 911

I got on! Exactly one month after working every day with her. On 9/11, and the tatoo on her butt says 911. It was destiny.

And look how highly dangerous she looks.

Tale of the Horsey Continued

I have no idea where we're going with this horse, if we're even keeping this horse. But for now, I guess we're just trying to see if I'm not too chicken to keep moving forward.

We took Meg to the park yesterday, first time, me and Nathan on his bike and Katie our friend, and Hank and Owen, doggies.

She is the slowest horse ever. But when we got to the arena and let her free in that thick sand, she just ran around with her head straight up in the air. She was checking out the green grass, the kids playing in the park (she'd never seen a park, never seen a baseball field, never seen anything.) Of course I was scared seeing she could go fast and was huge. It just looked like death on horseback to me. I think I'm fixated.

But on the walk home she did finally relax and get back in her laid back mellow surfer state. So I have to realize that with each new step and experience, it is all new and all scary, for her and for me. But that new things are supposed to be nerve-wracking and scary, that's how it starts. That's hopefully the worst of it. Then it morphs into routine, normal, everyday. I just love boring. But I'm having to take all the scary steps to get to boring.

So maybe next time she'll be a little bit less excited, and then I'm building into things being reliable. It's all just time, and experience.

Horsework

Day 22 with our new horsie - I hate to sound optimistic, but I think she's kind of great. I mean, she's really slow - I'll probably never make it more than 10 minutes from the house before I have to turn around for the hour ride back...this is if I ever actually ride her... But she seems level headed. Just inexperienced. So we're going slowly. It's only been 3 weeks now.

Today I got the saddle on her, got her used to the feel of that, and leaned on her back while standing on a chair. I also got her to pick up all four feet without kicking me. And she is starting to like the bit - it's going farther in her mouth each time we try. So no rush, this seems to work. Tiny bit at a time, and we might end up with a sweet horse. I think she eats about a bale and a half a week - which is about $30 at our high hay prices of the moment. But if I get a boarder in here, or get my horse job going again, she'd be covered.

Well, it's a good experiment. Everything seems like the first time, like I don't know anything about horses. All I know is to be scared. But we're building something. I'm building confidence.

Believe in Yourself

So I'm covered in molasses but very excited because tonight, day 16, the horse did everything right. She did everything I asked. She slurped molasses off the bit and let me fiddle with it without yanking her head away (or maybe I learned not to be so forceful). She let me pick up her feet with a rope using light pressure. She let me put a bareback pad on her back and cinch it up gently, and then walk around.

Hmm, so slow and gentle, with a sense of humor... it does seem to work. All I did was stop trying to get somewhere, and remember that this mare is new to everything, and then there ya go. We're working out our relationship. So today was good.

There's this horse. She's been at our house for two weeks now. I've been working with her every day, at night when the kids are asleep, and I'm sure the horse wishes she was asleep.

On day 13 (2 days ago) I decided this is too much for me. This takes too long. I don't know how to train a 1400 pound animal. My kids don't even put their dishes away, and they're a waifish 80 pounds.

So I started looking on the internet for how to work with horses like her and then I started reading about life as a PMU mare, which is what she is. She stood pregnant, tied in a stall starting every September until May. She had a little pee bag strapped to her pee area (that's the professional term) that collected her pee so it could be used for hormone replacement in humans. She was just a pee machine. She couldn't lay down, or wander over to smell flowers. No one gave her a carrot. In May, she'd have her baby and be out to pasture to loll free for three months. Then they take her baby away, get her knocked up again and stick her back in the stall for the long winter in snowy North Dakota.

I went back out there this morning to feed her. She was rolling in the dirt, free. She got up, shook off and stood there looking at the sky. She saw me and she came ambling over, sticking her nose out for a pet.

I can't believe I expect this horse to do anything except take deep breaths and enjoy her freedom. I don't need to rush to shove a saddle on her and bit in her mouth. I'm just getting to know her, and asking her to do small things to get her used to working kindly with me. Of course I want to ride, like yesterday. I want a horse that knows everything and is just easy. But my small amount of money buys this horse, the one that needs help and guidance. I have the space, and little bits of time. She is wide, fat and hilarious looking. And she loves molasses. Maybe sometimes you get what needs you, not what you need. Or somewhere along the line it works out, if you commit to it. And in the meantime maybe I can learn patience, and empathy here. Start gently, and fresh. With understanding of where she's been, the way she's been standing for years. It's only been TWO WEEKS.

I did just spend two years working with a filly doing exactly what I'm doing with her. I do know a little bit. I could do it.

One lady trainer I read said Slow and Easy. Throw away your watch. She'll learn everything, just go slow and easy.

I have hay for awhile longer.

A Swell Summer

Sold our doggie door today to a strange guy in a truck. He was a big guy, who looked too old to be driving a truck. He made lots of jokes that were a little bit weird - you know when someone is trying to be casual and it just doesn't fit on them, they're just not good at it.

So he took the doggie door which is good because we're getting a new one put in the wall. But he wasn't someone we'd want over for tea, even Nathan agreed he was a little odd.

There's alot going on at our house - guys outside builing a deck that seems much bigger than the feeble one Barry and I had in our tiny minds. Things seem to take longer when power saws are involved, and they main guy who's working seems to pump up his muscles every day. By the end of the job he's going to be all arms, you won't even be able to see his face. Tina and I like to ogle him, big stong man. It is a construction site, so someone has to ogle. It's in his contract.

People come to swim, so the house kind of expands in the summer, friends come and go, food comes and goes, (mostly goes), the day always starts out with the usual Oppers and then there's this big middle day where people jump in and then it winds down to just us Oppers again. That middle part is swell. Like, full, swell, it swells. There never seems like they'll be enough food. There are always many stomachs. Luckily the stomachs usually bring extra - but the sheer amount of food preparation, have I mentioned this?? How do other people do this??

Okay, well anyway, a swell summer.

I'm in the Money

I'm only writing in here because Nigel said he'd pay me $50 bucks for every blog I write. Cha ching, look this one's only two sentences.

Big Fat Horse

There is a big fat horse at our house right now, and dammit I'm too tired to get the camera and plug it all in for a picture on here. If only Nathan was running my downloads or uploads or whatever, this would be a way cooler blog. Filled with pix and games and things you click on and whoosiwhatsits. That's not even a word I'm comfortable with.

This mare got here 1 day ago. She looks like a cow. A cow who swallowed a barrel. She has big cow eyes. She has never seen so much action in her life. She's been on 30acres in Colorado for a year, and before that at a PMU farm where she stood in a stall and had her urine collected for 7 years.

Now she watches kids riding bikes over ramps in the yard, and airplanes flying overhead. Her eyes get wide when she hears something she's never heard before. I'm sure she's sitting out back thinking "wow, I really drew the short straw on this one. Where's all the grass??"

But she is having something she's never had in her life. A family. Kids feeding her hay. Pats on the shoulder. Someone sitting with her. Putting fly spray around her eyes and face. So she's still adjusting to this new life.

The good thing is, she can always go live with my neighbor and be a trail horse for a living. But for now, we're just seeing what it's like to have a horse here, and giving her some love.

The weird part is, when you get something you think you want so bad, it doesn't feel like what you think. It makes you realize that the wanting something is a great thing - the getting it just makes you realize you were already perfect before - my life is already so wonderful. I didn't need anything else. I see that. Just having these kids, and a car that works, and living indoors, and occasionally pizza and books to read - this is much. Huge.

Nathan on The Workers at Our House

Nathan says tonight, "You know you like someone alot and then you find out something about them...like they smoke or they have a tatoo... and you don't like them as much?"

Home Improvement

Whoever said that opening new doors is a good idea has never gone door shopping with Barry.

It could be me, it might not be Barry, it might just be that you can't take two people with little sense of home style and put them in front a million doors. Will this one open in and clutter the room? Is this a bad choice, the boring sliding glass door? Who pays $800 dollars for a door?

Lilly lays on the bottom of the Lowe's cart and is so bored that she invents a new game with two gold screws she found behind the cabinet section. I think the screws are both dogs and there is something about napping going on. Either way, it's more interesting than Barry and I standing around on concrete floors with big drooling Lowe's employees trying to figure out which frigging door should lead out of our bedroom.

Then we get home and we have to move the broken diving board to make room for the new thrift store diving board, and somehow Barry ends up knocked off into the pool. Barry is now not allowed to do anything involving the OUTDOORS. Since his phone (which was in his pocket) is now sitting in a bag of dry rice in the kitchen. Praying for a miracle.

Stealth Chicken

Our white chicken did not like that we moved her nest. Since the chickens have been moved over into the barn while the millions of chicken mites die tragic deaths alone in the chicken house, the white chicken has been holding out laying. In protest. I knew she had to lay, too, cause she kept going in and out of boxes, looking for the right spot, not able to focus on anything else, she obviously had a worry on her mind.

I could NOT find the nest. For days, I knew she had laid, just couldn't figure out where the heck she found a place that I couldn't see.

Yesterday morning when I went out, no white chicken. Uh oh, that usually means that overnight, chicken has become possum's Sunday dinner. But later when I went out again with some treats (who doesn't like old watermelon and stale crackers heaved over a fence?) I SAW the white chicken fly down from a tree. Eh heh, okay, I got you.

While she was eating I pushed my way past the foliage (sorry) and on TOP of the rabbit hutch, in the midst of a bunch of leaves I find a MILLION white eggs, all organized into her secret nest. Okay, 13 eggs. So it had been exactly 13 days she had kept her nest hideaway a secret.

I've checked the hideaway the last two days now and NO eggs. Craft hen. I believe she is building an underground railroad. If you see her, do offer her shelter and solace. But grab the eggs.

My House Has Me By the Balls

I'm pretty good at looking competant at a lot of things. Mothering, cooking, animal husbandry. (wifery?) But with the house, forget it, it all leaks out, I cannot hide the fakery, it all comes sloshing around the corners as I run to try and pose, and block the landslide. All day, I could spend all day trying to organize as my three little destroyers unhinge all I have done with a simple bathing suit thrown on the floor or a spill of macaroni or a broken tooth or some other wild act where some limb waits to be broken.

I am always in the middle of something, usually involving my hands and a great deal of worry about all the other things I'm NOT getting to while my hands are busy doing this one VERY dumb task. I need multiple heads to manage all the worry - in fact, good idea, I should look into that on Craigslist, my true husband. If I had more heads, I could feel bad in more minds than just one, and that would feel pretty good, at least the space would be useful. Set up some lawn chairs and serve up the worry in a more relaxed fashion.

I snarl at the kids to help and basically let them know how they have FAILED me by not jumping up to help at each squawk I make so that now, deep in the summer (although it only feels like a few weeks) I have shown them how Mommy Cancels Fun because there's so much boring work to be done. I make them vacuum and mow the lawn and pull back the pool cover and feed the chickens and make their bed and fold the couch blankets and stop watching tv. I say things like Don't watch teenage shows because they're badly written and I don't want you to think buying shoes and wearing lipstick is what's Really Important.

I guess the house is always secondary, looming around us, a squalid shimmering mass of Undone, Unaccomplished, a gnarled, pointy finger shivering at me You Lose. I am adrift in this file-less ocean, an unalphabetized mess, piled underneath broken toys and lost library books. Someday I WILL climb to the top of the heap. I will build the bonfire and enjoy the burning of the stuff, I will be able to see the other side of my garage. Which I think is still there.

I am SORRY, house, that I've been so busy making quesadillas. Trust me, may I never see another corndog. It's that I have to manage things from the heart on down, so the building of the kids is more important than the wiping of your walls or the brooming of your sidewalk. My house will never be the palace of virtue that my prim grandmother's house was - it was always silent in her house, and undisturbed white like the inside of a starched leather shoe.

Our house is lived in like my (other, more relaxed) Arkansas Gramma Yvonne's hairstyle. She was tan and had big boobs and in her kitchen all the lemon drops stuck together in the glass jar from humidity. So you could take the whole glob of them out and just suck on the giant dome of lemondrops.

It was a beautiful world, there. I have, yes, successfully achieved the glob of lemondrops. In every corner of my house. She is chuckling in approval up there, in Heaven, jiggling her foot and flicking her ashes absently down on us. Those lemondrops taste pretty dern good, don't they? She's saying, taking a long drag.

Now go find some playing cards. (She had them stashed in every drawer of her house.) Like leprechaun gold.

Shock, Terror Mixed with Hooray

Lilly learned how to jump off the diving board today. In her blue bathing suit that matches Emma, that she got for 9 dollars at Target. With Lilly, baby #3, I am always IN the pool when she does something great, and I have no camera built into my hands cause I'm swimming, so I keep saying I better remember this because there is going to be no picture.

This summer, where she went down the slide for the first time and it was so fast, the look on her face, shock, terror mixed with hooray in a split second. Her nice fat little legs getting her in and out of the pool, running off the board, spinning, jumping, not afraid of the wind or the cold air as sunset approached, so happy to be doing something new that it required no less then 300 tries in a row. Aiming for 3000.

I said to my mom, hey, I remember when things were so exciting I had to try them all, and weather couldn't stop me. Nothing mattered except trying that new thing, cause joy was in that new thing. I had a pang like, oh no, I'm past that point in my life. My mom pointed out that you just learn to pace yourself - Lilly can get out, jump in, get out, jump in and then at the end be exhausted and wrapped in a towel and loved the rest of the night. But the mom has to take the joy in small bits, because she has to get the towel, make the late night snack, brush the teeth, put away the clothes, find the pajamas. It's all there, all the little acts of maintaining joy. When you grow up you learn to stretch out all your joy of new experiences so you can make it to the end of the day. You sort of store it all up and savor it slowly. So it's the same - but different.

So I watched Lilly jump, right there, floating in her waves. I get to see all the joy, the whole pool, while she masters the diving board. She's building her own whole pool with these bold acts of bravery. My joy gets to be watching her as she does it.

Coyote Ugly

A coyote was jumping our fence and getting in the yard, eating his way through all our animals. I thought it was a possum (cause I hadn't SEEN him in the yard, I do know the difference between rodent and wild dog).

Anyway, after losing two bunnies and two chickens, I did finally see the coyote. Started building the fence up in a really redneck, haphazard way. He still got over and tried to go shopping again in the chicken yard. One of our chickens started hiding in the hen house, which I thought was fear related, but turned out she was just brooding (ready to set on the nest and wait for babies). But alas, us with no rooster. So I called our neighbor behind us who had a rooster, and told her about the hen and mentioned the coyote and my neighbor went into hyper drive saying oh we are going to set this coyote straight.

I hadn't wanted to figure out how to hot wire our fence, it all seemed too hard, the fencing, the wire, the hot - even she said "oh we'll get your husband out here and he'll figure out how to wire it to our hot wire.." and I'm thinking, Barry? Outside with an electrified wire? It didn't look likely. In fact, that's why I was so tired even THINKING about it because I kept having to substitute "Julie" with "husband." Barry's not the out riding fences type. It was going to have to be me. And Nathan, 10year old superhelper.

But this neighbor, it's rare you find a woman that you hope you turn out to be. She's got to be 70 years old. And she just hops up on her fence and is telling me how to put the wire here, and attach this thing there, she is not afraid of ladders or hard work or getting it done. Nathan just stood there in awe as she handed over a pellet gun which looked like a giant shotgun, still new in a box. She's against guns, she said, but she's more against coyotes.

She made hard work look like some sort of town hall dance - happy, facing the crushing waves head on. That's the kind of person Shakespeare wrote plays about - these dastardly people that dammit, have this great attitude. I'm just hoping that some of that wears off on me and doesn't get zinged away with every singed coyotes that comes to meet our fence. We did do the fence, excellently.

And putting up that fence in the hot sun was a big big drag. Because I had to supply popsicles to small people and get sunblock on and entertain - my life did not stop so I could put up the fence. My life continued on hectically right alongside my crushing need to put up a coyote ugly fence. That is the draggish part that sucks out my happy ability to face life like an agile 70 year old. Maybe it's something to look forward to. From down here in the foxhole. Deep. How I get time to do even ONE thing like write this blog - let alone build and wire a fence without electrocuting myself while simultaneaously making spaghetti and watching kids in the pool.

It's been two days. So far all chickens accounted for.

Summer Lovin

Summer hit us. The pool is our old, watery friend. Why have we been ignoring him for months when we could have been floating in his glorious waters? The kids are red already, maybe I shouldn't have gotten those marked-down sunblocks last winter. I gather chicken eggs (6 today), I make more food than I want to make, I wear pajamas all day, we don't rush, we are just here. I listen to my friends, I watch their faces as we watch our kids, I am just glad to be here.

Sets on the Brain

Visited Barry's set and remembered the time I used to use sets as my own personal bar. It's dark, it's vast, everyone is whispering like we're all in on some huge, important secret, it's cold and everyone is like 25. Ahh, I miss the old days. I never had any ambition, I should have been in the writer's offices all along, developing skills, making important contacts, shaping the stories, growing my writing career.

But the SET, man, the set had all the love, drama, action. There's a large group of undulating people, the guys are so cute big and strong, there's laughter and things are happening and changing in moments. And there's craft service, huge amounts of snack food that keeps refililng magically. I was always more flirt than work, I spent a great many years making sure my flirt skills were highly honed. In fact, they're now sadly lacking, rusting, broken off in places. I've had to vacuum seal them and place them in a gold box in my garage rafters. I keep them up there couched between my sighs and longing.

I had alot of fun on the set in my 20's. Let's just say that. And what good would a few writing contacts do me now, I've spent 11 years wiping vomit off my shirt, pulling up tiny pants and breaking up fights. The set wasn't all that different, actually. So I'm better prepared.

Anyway, the little crew and the big dark stage made me wry. Wry me? Just kidding. The tribe of a set, those drumbeats, you can still hear them, even when they basically took me nowhere. My dad, he flew straight through like an arrow. He knew he wanted to be over there, in charge. Me, I just wanted to smell every flower.

Towel Wonderland

After I don't know, 400 years, I decided to buy new towels. On Ebay. Huge towels, like you could circle the Earth in these towels, and still have some leftover for Jupiter or Uranus. Heh heh. At least that's what they said. And they're soft.

So I get them and yeah they're big, but more like Mercury big. And they're soft, but more like cheese shredder soft.

But I love these towels because they are fresh new faces in our bathroom and at our pool, and they don't mind if you wrap them around your freezing, wet body. They encourage it, in fact. It's what they do.

I Have a Chickness

Can't stop buying chickens. I have a chickness.

Don't Hold In Your Grunties

Been having this weird fight with my boarder-girl who keeps her animals at our house. She's been here 2 years, she's been really great, and then one day I suddenly can't take it anymore, all the chaining up of the fences, she overprotects her goats, and then suddenly we're in this fight through texting and I'm telling her to find another barn where someone might actually like goats. So then I feel terrible for like a week because she decides okay, I'll leave. And I didn't want her to leave, really, I wanted her to stop chaining every door.

At the same time, for months (inside the house drama) I'm battling Lilly the 3 year old because she holds in her poop. I gave her every high fiber thing in the world, finally had to use Miralax which is definitely true to it's name. Had to like rebuild her poop psyche to get her to realize that letting go is a good thing. Things are flowing like, well, logs now. Lately. So far.

And after weeks I finally TALKED to the boarder girl, now that she's leaving in five days, and said, hey, I was only kidding. I just got frustrated. Sorry I took it out on you. Wish I was a better communicator. No one should hand me a texting thing again. At night. When I'm sick, and tired. I text anger. Apparently. I need an anger detexter.

Just kept thinking of Will, my dead ex husband. How he said as a kid his mom would tell him, in a singsong voice, "Don't hold in your grunties," when he didn't want to poop.

I coulda used that advice. And here the 3 year old is so good at it.