The OMG moment

     Most of my life was spent thirsting after horses, not actually riding them. 

   As a city kid with few opportunities to ride, I learned to ride  by the following method:

1. Find a western saddled horse whose owner is sufficiently stupid enough to let a green kid get on it.
2. Climb on.
3. Hang on
4. Get off.  

   Even when I finally was able to own a horse, I didn't ride Jordan all that much. He was beautifully trained and I kept him home, where I had no place to ride for the vast majority of the year, due to rain, rain, and last but not least, rain. That's where I learned that a covered arena is one of the finest things a rider can have. Not having one meant that one had perhaps a few weekends in the summer to ride...but with gardens, jobs, a household to keep and a lazy, high maintenance husband (not my current one) it doesn't leave much time for riding.

  I have spent an enormous amount of time afoot, learning to handle, massage, breed, teach (as opposed to train) horses, but it wasn't until 2011 that I began to seriously want to learn to ride. This was after my divorce, after my remarriage to a normal man, after I'd been laid off for the last time, after I lost hope of ever finding a decent paying job again,  and finally accepting the fact and begin enjoying retirement.

   Thus I began leasing horses, which in four cases was a expensive exercise in masochism. My "owners' (those who owned the horse) were whack jobs, shysters, or outright psychopaths. I had given up on leasing a horse after two years of pain and frustration when out of the blue, Sue offered me the use of Raven. For free. It works out beautifully for both of us: she works full time, I can do things during the time she's working, (i.e. have the farrier out or the vet check), sort of be her Girl Friday. (doesn't that date me. Now it's Personal Assistant. Whatever). I started blogging about it, too. I was truly lucky, but Sue took her time...a VERY long time...before she allowed me to ride Raven without her being present. I promised her I would not ride him without her permission.
One woman at the barn said, 'why don't you ride Raven?" I said, "Sue doesn't want me to ride him without her being here." "I won't tell. She'll never know." "True...but I will." 

I could have snuck in a ride when she was at work, but when I give my word, I KEEP it.

  When I decided I wanted to REALLY learn to ride, I realized that the best way to acquire the necessary balance and self confidence so vital to properly learning to ride could only be done by riding bareback.

   When you're ten years old, rubber boned, and convinced that you will never die, you learn to ride by osmosis.
  When you're in your late fifties, are brittle boned and all too uncomfortably aware that there are things worse than death: paralysis from the neck down, for instance; you learn to ride by conscious effort and a great deal of trepidation. And a helmet.

   Thus I embarked on learning to ride by going back to basics: bareback. 

   I don't ride every day. Perhaps I would have come to this moment sooner had I done so, but there again, I have a Life. It is full to bursting with things that have nothing to do with horses. It means I ride maybe two times a week. 
  Thus the OMG moment I had a month ago took..oh, four years.

   But it was worth the wait. 

   Last month I was riding Raven alone in the arena.  (I was given free rein ((pun fully intended))to ride whenever I chose several years ago.)  I felt comfortable. I asked, inadvertantly, for collection..and GOT it. It was an incredible feeling.

  I've held off writing this till now. First, Life got in the way, but also, I wanted to BE SURE.

  Within a week of that collection ride, I was riding..again, alone, bareback..and felt the connectivity I'd only felt a few fleeting times. This time, though, it lasted the entire ride. I was 'plugged in' to Raven. Our spines were connected. I felt comfortable, balanced, at home. I felt SAFE. I was relaxed and assured. I realized I had achieved something, very quietly, very softly...I had learned balance. I was one with Raven. He proved that to me within moments by shying suddenly and I rode it out..as I usually have...without a problem. I waggled my lower legs. I was as secure on his back as if I were locked on. There was two of me..the bottom half was horse and the upper half was human.

  That was thrilling, but I've learned to not expect too much. However, it has remained. I went a week without riding, then me, Sue, Gretchen, her daughter JJ, and another woman who was riding her QH..were all in the arena.  Everyone was swapping horses. Raven is the only warmblood and JJ had stars in  her eyes after riding him. "He's Fun. He's like a rock star" she oozed.

I know the feeling...warmbloods will do that to you. 

I got aboard first and he was HYPED...there was so much energy going on in the arena and he fed off it like a sponge. Really, if there'd been no one else, I wouldn't have risked it. He as that much horse. But perhaps that was perfect, because without warning, we were trotting. I was relaxed and happy. Comfortable, balanced, steering without hanging onto the reins. 
 I was sitting his big booming trot bareback. Sue was on Gretchen's mare and her face said it all: LOOK AT  YOU!!!! oh my gosh! 
Oh my god, I thought, that was so easy. It was my eureka moment, but I'll type OMG because..well, it's 2016. Nobody has any idea what 'eureka' means anymore save us oldsters.
  
   A week later, she insisted I ride in her saddle. We are going to trot, she said, and I was ready to try, after my first two successes. But Raven can be lazy. He's got a long back and consequently is always on the forehand unless he's been suitably warmed up, as he had been by Sue. This time he was more than warm, he was hot as a pistol and ready to rock. I asked for a trot and began posting his trot like I'd been doing it all my life. Up down up down and I was even on the correct diagonal. It was easy. It was HIM doing the bounce, tossing my butt out of the saddle just enough. I have to keep my hands low, now I know, but I wasn't hanging onto his face. I was balanced and comfortable.

  Today summed it up. Sue is on vacation and I have Raven to myself. I was in the arena when Missy came in with her grey Saddlebred/Arab cross, Jester. And the barnlord came in. Was she going to give Missy a lesson? Because if that's the case, I will evacuate. I don't mind leaving if someone is paying for a lesson. But, no. She's just there to watch us ride.

 Now that I know what being balanced and in harmony with him feels like,  I had felt something amiss with Raven's walk, so I asked the barnlord to spot me. Is he off on his right fore? She demanded I trot. So ...I trotted. Sitting his trot bareback, I went down the arena, again...comfortable and balanced. I don't think the barnlord knew that I have only recently been able to sit the trot. She had me go round and then said, no, he's okay. 

  Like it was an everyday thing for me, to sit the trot bareback. Like it was an every day thing.

   IT IS STICKING. I am on my way! I can truly say for the first time that I am learning to ride, and I can credit riding bareback for it all. I have learned balance, harmony, and most of all, self confidence. It can be a long slow trial for older folks...I am 61 now, soon to be 62, but we CAN learn to ride. It just takes time and the right horse. And the willingness to accept that starting at the beginning is usually the best way, especially if you go bareback.

   I CAN RIDE!!!

My best teacher is the one underneath me

    The saying is that one doesn’t really gain mastery of a skill until she’s done it 10,000 times.

    It may be so. What it is saying is that one must practice, practice, and practice. I know this works. There are skills I learned in the military that I practiced so often that they did become automatic. For instance, I can probably still strip down-and re-assemble-an M-16 with my eyes closed, even so many years after retiring from the military.

   I now know, too, that as one ages, that ability to gain and keep a skill, such as riding, seems to take longer.

   Riding, for instance.

   I got back into horses in early 2011. I had never been good at riding before, as I’d not been a regular rider as a kid. Nor had I lived in an area where there were horses, or when I did, I couldn’t afford lessons, or, while in the military, didn’t have the time.

   The children who are blessed with riding lessons in their early days are truly lucky. Most of the horsemen I know are like me: they had lives that didn’t include horses up until their children left home and they had enough time and money to indulge in their passion.

   I owned Jordan for the last five years of his life, and rode bareback, but I was still working and didn’t have an arena in which to ride.

  So. I’ve been riding, mostly bareback, since 2011. I’ve had a few lessons, picked up several good books, but still, I’ve relied mostly on just getting comfortable on a barebacked horse.

  At times I’ve grow discouraged. I will never get this, I would think. I certainly don’t have ten thousand hours atop a horse, even at this point. I’m old enough, though, to know that, starting so very late in life, I will NEVER be the rider I see all around me. If I can be a little bit better than I used to be, that is good enough for me.

I didn’t put a deadline on my desire to be a better rider. I decided, I won’t push it. I will relax and just enjoy the feel of a good horse underneath me.

   It was with a sense of astonishment, and I should say, pride, when I made a breakthrough last month. I have found my core and can engage it. Why that makes a difference, or whether it does, I don’t know. I don’t really think it matters, despite the fact that it seems to be the cause de jour lately.

   I was riding Raven, bareback. We were alone. I have been practicing turning him and moving him without reins. He’s so very patient and willing for me. He’s a good horse.

   I-and I hate to use the word suddenly as often as I’m going to in this post- but I suddenly felt as if I was truly plugged into his spine. I’ve had brief glimpses of this feeling, but this time it wasn’t ephemeral, here and gone like mist in the wind. No, this time, that feeling of my spine being connected to his in one fluid, crystalline piece was here. I was balanced. I was IN the horse, not on him. I was amazed. I lifted both my legs off his sides and wagged them back and forth and felt as solid on his back as if I were truly plugged into him. He spooked at something, went sideways, and I hardly moved. I even laughed.  It was a lovely feeling.

   Three days later I got back on…and felt it again. And the next time. And the next.

I am balanced. I am comfortable on his back. This feeling, it’s here to stay. I have finally learned to sit on a horse.

   That was more than enough for me. I felt proud. My patience and Raven’s teaching had finally been translated into muscle memory. My confidence has climbed several notches.

   I wasn’t done with breakthroughs.

   Two days ago, I led Raven into the arena. I hadn’t planned on riding. It was raining very hard, the wind was blowing into the arena, and all the horses have been confined to quarters, because our monsoon has arrived and the paddocks are fetlock deep in water.

   Raven is a horse who wants and needs work every day, and I knew he was very fresh. I thought it’d be safer to just lunge him.

   Raven, though, had other plans.

   He dislikes ‘dope on a rope’. Sue can free lunge him, but I am not that adept at it, so I tacked him up with a lunge line and asked him to ‘walk on.”

   He turned and faced me.

   No.

    It wasn’t arrogance, or stubbornness, or an obstinate refusal. It was just a polite no.

    “Come on, Raven, walk on.”

     His warm brown eyes bored into mine.

     No. Get on.   

    “Really, Raven? Don’t you want to work?”

     Get on. I have something to teach you.

   Okaaaaaaaaaaay. So I untacked him, left him free in the arena while I ran for my bridle and helmet. When I returned I could see he’d rolled, which I had hoped he’d do. It’s good for their spine, and I suspect he’s not had a good roll in three days.

   I bridled him and mounted. The wind was howling louder than the rain, but I trusted him to be calm as always.

  I settled myself. I always give him a carrot per side, reward for standing until I’m ready to move off. Seat bones? Got ‘em. Core? cough cough there you are. Arms, click click cuffed to my ribs. Shoulders back, head up. Breathing? Nope, I still to this day can’t remember to breathe when I ride. Someday I’ll pass out and fall off.

    We walked off, sans reins. I like to let him drop his head, stretch his topline, and just generally walk the kinks out before I touch a rein.

   I’ve been practicing my hands. I imagine my upper arms to be handcuffed to my ribs. I pretend I am holding a baby chick in each hand. Now I can feel Raven’s mouthing the bit. That’s a new one, too.

   Once we were both settled and ready to ‘’’work”” I picked up the reins. I cheated by looking at where I try to keep my thumbs on my laced reins. (I love laced reins, more for their looks than anything else, but having a definite spot for my thumbs helps me a LOT). C’mere, chicks, hop into my hands, we’re going for a ride.

   After several rounds of the arena, I thought, what happens if I just gently squeeze those chicks. Not even to hurt them, just to see what happens.  

   I have to explain a failing of mine. I don’t take verbal instructions very well. It’s not obstinacy, or arrogance. I just get easily confused, especially if the instructions are multi-faceted, as riding almost always is. It’s hard for me to put two legs, two arms, two hands, all doing different things at the same time. Let’s not forget that I must also think of seat bones and weight shifts and which side is out and which in.

   Thus, when taking instruction or lessons, I’ve listened and reacted backwards. I would tell my teacher, I want to learn to do a half halt. (a subject always one of contention. Every rider I’ve ever met does a half halt differently and can’t tell you how. They just Do it.) So my instructor would say, do this, do that, do the other thing…THERE! Did you feel it?

   Well, no. I’ll say “yes” but I know I didn’t do it. I think, I’ll memorize what she just said, and I’ll repeat it the steps in order, and by reverse engineering, I should get the same result.

   But it doesn’t ever work right. I’ll do it the same way and if I’m alone, Raven continues on serenely as if I never asked a thing. If I’m being taught, I eventually get a GOOD, you did it! But I am lying to her.

   It’s a case of Raven figuring out what I want, due to the instructor’s voice, and he does it. Hey, don’t laugh. This is a horse in front of whom we must spell ‘c-a-n-t-e-r’  because he loves it and will at the mere breath of the word. One of these days he’ll figure it out. He already knows “C”. The rest will come, sooner than later.

  I think Raven just responds because he hears me wishing he would do it. We both know I didn’t make him do it, I didn’t do the steps right or at all. He’s just a kind, loving teacher.  

   Which is another reason I prefer riding bareback, and alone. I can fumble along, take things at my own pace. If I accomplish nothing but enjoy the ride, and he’s happy, I’m good.

    But this time…this time I was listening to him. I squeezed the reins, gently…and felt SOMETHING. Something Different. Something…collected.  

   What do you feel?

   “Oh my god, Raven, what did you just do? Can we do that again?”

   Can YOU?

  

   It wasn’t until late that night, in bed, that I, rehearsing what I’d felt, finally understood a phrase I’ve heard so often but have never experienced. 

 I dropped the reins, we did another round of the arena, then I picked them up and asked the same way.

   I felt Raven “come up underneath me”. His ears were pricked forward, his neck arched so beautifully and for the first time in my life, I knew I was riding a collected horse.

   I finally know the best teacher I will ever have is the one underneath me.

   I might finally be on my way to learning how to ride.

With Spring comes....horse hair

     It's spring. Far earlier than expected, but, that's climate change's influence. The orcas are calving, the daffodils are blooming, my allergies are kicking my butt, and Raven is shedding. 

   If only he would shed in one fell swoop. How nice it would be to merely give a good tug and the entire winter coat comes off, woosh, like a sheared sheep's. Several years ago, I read an article where some smart guy gave a sheep a hormone that encouraged just such a feat. The base of the wool was severed through some magic and off the wool came in one piece, leaving a naked and rather perplexed looking sheep without so much as shear mark. Not that sheep don't look perplexed to begin with. 

   It went nowhere, it seems. When one tinkers with hormones, unintended consequences happen.

   Ah, well. So Raven is shedding. He wants very badly to be out of the coat. He is itchy. Any sort of work makes him sweat. No matter which way the breeze is blowing, when I groom him, the hair hits my face. I swear, I could stand with a cyclone at my back and would still get horsehair in my face. And on my lips, and in my mouth...

   With the warmth of spring also comes high spirits. Or perhaps it's his feet feeling great. But Raven is full of yahoogiddyupGO. He's ready to rumble and tells Sue that in no uncertain terms. When she canters him in the arena, she must be ready for him to burst into a gallop on the long side of the arena. This wouldn't be such a bad thing save for the fact that there are sturdy walls on three sides of the arena, none that would be fun to be flung into, and the fourth is open. How tempting it would be for him to merely jump through the open, fourth side, and into the sunshine. Two days ago I approached his paddock after an absence of almost a week. He came flying, a flat out gallop, that was lovely to watch except that he was coming full bore for ME. Happy happy horse, but at 1200 or more pounds, not something you want to be collided with! 



    He's so full of P&V that Sue has had quite a time handling him. It's not meanness or trying to get out of work that he's acting up out of. It's just him feeling froggy. With me, though, he's still calm and gentle. I sort of give him a counterpoint. Sue makes him toe the line, I get aboard and drop the rein and use my leg aids to get him to stop, turn, go. The last two we do well. The stop, not so much. He doesn't want to Stop. He wants to GO. Sue says "you don't push his buttons". And I don't. I'm just happy being aboard a good horse, feeling him breathe, listening to his mind. 

   Ah, spring. It's lovely, even if it's covered in horse hair. 

Success at the sitting trot

    There are days when you believe that no matter how hard you try, you just don't GET it.

    I cannot remember the number of times I've had an instructor tell me to go through a series of steps in order to do something else(i.e. "pick up the outside rein, cue with your inside calf, sit back, sit forward, etc).  I try to follow her 'orders',  yet don't believe I've managed. Sometimes the horse obeys, and sometimes..most of the time..he does not. I try and try and when I finally DO get the desired result, the instructor (who has a better eye for another rider's performance then I will ever achieve) says, YES!

   "Did you feel that?" I am asked. 

   No. I honestly don't  know how I did it. It's dumb luck. It's probably why I don't have much success with riding, in that I'm inconsistent. But I don't usually admit it, guaranteeing failure.

    I must admit that the woman I've taken a few lessons from in the last two years is very good. With her, I'm not afraid to say "No, I've no bloody clue what I did or how I did it." .She's good with that, and tries different things, until I find something that does work, for instance, doing a half halt.

   I end up feeling frustrated and at the same time, humbled by my horse's patience with me. Every time I've dismounted from a lesson, I apologize to Raven.
He is so patient with me. He's a gentle but insistent taskmaster. He won't do something unless I ask it correctly. No matter how badly I fumble around on his back, he still has that lovely glint in his eye that says he loves me.

   It explains why I don't take that many lessons. I don't even pretend to believe I know more than the instructor. I certainly don't know more than the horse. I'm pretty stupid, actually, and sometimes wonder if I have any business being atop a horse.

   But I love them, and I want to ride. So for the last two years (yes), I've been working on me. I've taken a few lessons, more out of a sense of obligation to the instructors, because I don't believe lessons do any good. For me, at least.

    This is not hubris, or arrogance. I know damned well I DON'T know better than the instructor. I know my limitations.  The hard drive in my head is is full (and always thinking of things other than riding) and I find it hard to follow more than one order at a time. 

     I've always, always been the type of person who has to learn by doing. I'm terrible at following written instructions, especially complex, multi-stepped ones.  I even have to break recipes down into single steps. Being told to do something when I'm attempting to do something else is even less helpful.  I know that is ME. It takes a great deal of experience and a talent to be a riding instructor. I don't know how they do it.

    Having learned how I learn, virtually all of  my riding the last two years has been done bareback, and without a trainer. I want to be able to feel the horse. I want to hear myself. I want to find that balance, that relaxation, that everyone else seems to summon without effort.

  Because riding IS an effort. Non-horsey folk think that horse riding is merely a matter of sitting in an expensive saddle and saying 'giddyup'. You and I know much better. It's physical work. It's equal parts athleticism and art.  Coming to riding (NOT horses, just riding them) late in life, I don't have that ability to absorb and process the physiological feedback that young children seem to possess in abundance. I'm old. I'm broken in several spots. I am utterly convinced of my vulnerability and mortality.

   I can't say, either, that riding bareback at a walk is the most exciting thing I've ever done atop a horse. (THAT was when a neighbor's western saddled Morgan gelding ran away with me, and I enjoyed every bit of it, hanging onto the saddle horn the entire furiously paced trip).

     Going back to the basics has taught me something I cannot adequately describe. I can quiet my mind, now, and listen to what Raven's body is saying. I'm very right sided (and right handed) and have to force myself to listen with both sides of me, but riding bareback at a walk has taught me balance without reins, and relaxation.
When I mount, when we first walk off, I drop the reins and just let Raven drop his head and walk out. Only when I'm comfortable and feel secure will I pick up the reins.

   Today was sunny but bitterly cold. I hadn't planned on going to the barn, but Sue called me...did I want to ride?

   I bundled up in layers and met her. I'm glad we did. Being the only ones foolish enough to brave the sub freezing temperatures, we had the arena to ourselves.

   I usually ride Raven first, bareback, to warm him up. Then I'll dismount and Sue saddles him, and makes him work. So it was today.

   After fifteen minutes or so, Sue asked, did I want to try trotting?

  The last time I tried trotting, bareback, I failed miserably. I quit when I realized I was bouncing right off his back.
 But it's been six months or more. Let's put him on a lunge line and try it.

   To cut to the chase, it was...fantastic. I finally feel as if my two years of "work' has paid off. Holding onto a clump of mane, one handed, I rode a sitting trot. It was...well, it was a revelation. When I felt myself beginning to fall sideways, instead of tightening up and bending forward,  I instinctively relaxed...and leaned back.

   Voila a'!!! I was sitting his fast trot. I was SITTING HIS TROT. Bareback.!!

   Sue was as ecstatic as I was. She told me later, "I knew right away when you got it, it was all over your face." I was hyped. I'd done the right thing instinctively, not having to THINK 'relax', 'lean back", straighten up. I was ramrod straight. I was relaxed, balanced, I was sitting the trot. I'd done it without thinking. I'd LEARNED.

   Keeping him on the lunge line helped. Sue kept him in frame, which helped enormously. When he was carrying himself, stepping underneath himself, the trot felt effortless.

  Oh my gosh. THIS is how it's supposed to feel. This is the breakthrough. I'm not afraid. I trust Raven, I trust Sue...I trust myself.

  I know most of you, my readers, have been riding for years, and probably don't even remember the moment when you discovered you could actually do something more than a walk on a horse.

   For me, it was today.

   I hope I don't backslide, but I probably will. It's inevitable, but...I did it once. I can do it again. Because now I know what to do  and how to do it. Raven taught me. I taught me.

    As an aside, Sue had her seminal moment, too. She mounted a happy, warmed up Raven and achieved something she's been working towards, too. A passage.
Oh my gosh, Raven was gorgeous. What a lovely passage. I could barely keep from whooping in excitement when I saw them passaging across the arena. My gosh, Sue, you missed it, you can't possibly believe how good you two look.

   "Oh yes, I can" she said, with the same stars in her eyes that I'd had earlier,'you can't believe how fantastic it feels."

   Yes I can.  We are miles apart in levels of ability, but yes, I can.

Welcome to my new blog! If you've been following me at Through the Bridle Lightly at word press http://www.throughthebridlelightly.wordpress.com,
then  you know a little about me.

If not, I'll try and introduce myself. 

I'm a middle aged American woman living in the Pacific Northwest. I spent 21 years in the US Army, where I was, among other specialities, a microwave antenna repairer (yes, I climbed those impossibly high metal towers) (and no, I didn't like it, I hated it) and for most of my career, a tank repairer. That MOS I found a little more rewarding, mostly because I became enamored of the M1A1 Abrams tank, especially after seeing it in action in Desert Storm and Iraq.

After retiring from the Army, I found myself with a little more time to indulge my passion for horses. I hadn't had much training in riding back then. Most of my riding consisted of here's someone's western saddled horse, hop up and hang on.  But I found a career (such as it was) that melded two of my interests together: animal anatomy and massage. I professionally massaged horses for 16 years, until my shoulders couldn't take it anymore. I was good at it. I could...and sometimes had to, especially at endurance rides, massage horses in the dark. Touching a horse, especially without interruption, can tell you so many things if only you know how to listen.

Because I can hear horses. I know what they're thinking. I'm not psychic, no, but I am a student of animal (and human) behavior, and I've learned two things:

One, you cannot lie to an animal. Meaning, not that you shouldn't but that you as a human (that uses speech to communicate with other humans) are also yelling your every thought and motive through your body language, and every animal I've ever met can read you like a book. In other words, you CAN'T lie to an animal. It knows the truth, just by reading YOU.

The other thing I learned is how to read an animal's body language. They tell you, just as you tell them, what they are feeling and in many cases, what they are about to do. I don't mean to boast, but this ability does well for me when I'm at the racetrack. Once they get onto the track, preparatory to entering the gate, that horse is telling you tons of info. I can usually pick the winner, or at least the place horse. The problem is, I'm poor, so I don't bet a lot of money, and the handicappers and the tracks can also tell pretty much who's going to win. The favorite rarely pays well. The track wants you to put big money on the long shots...and occasionally, those long shots win. But not often.

Finally, at the ripe old age of 48, I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. Maybe it took that long it took that long for me to grow up. Or maybe it was because my life had finally slowed down enough for me to be able to take time to  go back to college and get my degree in my other passion, biology. I didn't need schooling for anything more than a tune up, especially in genetics, but going to college to get my bachelors made me 'official'. Not that it got me a job. I was told by a so called 'counselor' that I would never get a job in biology without a Masters or a PhD, and damn it, she was right.

The sting, though, is eased by the fact that I see plenty of Biology masters and PhDs serving coffee at Starbucks. They're not getting jobs in biology, either.

Not only could I not afford a Masters/PhD, but acquiring one involved taking some hideous subjects such as physics, trigonometry and calculus. I cannot understand the reasoning behind this. Chemistry and Physics majors aren't required to take biology, but Biology majors are. I think it's because chemistry and physics are old, tired fields, without much new work being done, whereas this is the Golden Age of Biology. So most math, chemistry and physics majors end up being math, chemistry and physics teachers.  Not for me, thank you, I didn't like being indoors for hours on end, so I took what courses I wanted and when they gave me a Bachelor's diploma, I was done.  

So I'm merely a BS than MS. That's okay. I don't mind. I went back to school to indulge myself in science. And I've been wallowing in it..and horses..ever since.

For the last part (if you've read this far, I commend you. Mostly I'm trying to build up an archive so webcrawlers find me), I am lucky in that a friend of mine, Sue, shares her Hanoverian gelding, Raven with me. I can't afford a horse, and she needs a 'horse friend'.

Because I'm new to Blogger, I'll try and put a picture of me and Raven in here.

Isn't he a beauty? I think so.

Alright then, let's add a few labels and publish.