Maybelline Does Montana
With my apologies for the cinematic allusion.
Some of you know Maybelline. For the others, as a child, my fondest dream was to own a horse. I had read, among other good horse stories, Paul Revere and I by Robert Lawson, the story of the American Revolution told by Paul’s horse, and relentlessly harped on my father, why couldn’t we have a stall in the kitchen like Paul Revere? After all, my mother was the champion of all things early American, and what could be more early American than emulating Paul Revere’s horse husbandry! To no avail. They sent me off to camp and let me ride until I got hurt. That was the end of my great equestrian saga. From time to time as an adult, I started riding, and, each time, progressed to a certain level of competence and then quit. I had a million reasons: too much work, not enough money, the kids, lack of time, blah blah, but the real reason, the dirty little secret, was that I was afraid of horses, and afraid of falling. I fell a bunch of times, and never got hurt, but that didn’t mitigate the fear.
I started riding again about three years ago when Sandy Carney andCarol Beekman invited me to get involved in the drill team they were riding with in Tiverton. Patiently led by Richard Upchurch, a professor in computer science at UMass Dartmouth, who better not give up his day job, given the ability to follow instructions we demonstrated, the drill team would meet twice a week, and an eclectic bunch of folks laughed and had a great time while exercising our horses, and sometimes, our minds. After a couple of months, I bought myself a saddle, and told the kids that I finally wanted to get serious about riding. In January of 2004, I was introduced to Maybelline. She had been purchased off a truck by Roseland Acres and had done yeoman service for the summer season as a trail horse and camp horse. She had developed a sore right where her girth lay, and, after being worked hard all summer, apparently wasn’t much use to her owner so was thrown in a stall where she languished for a number of months. When I met up with her, her feet were in bad shape, she was apparently full of parasites, and she was scared of her own shadow. What a pair we were! With a lot of support from my drill team friends, I started riding her. My confidence improved and so did her condition. After a few months, with the summer season fast approaching in which she would once again be subjected to hard labor, I made an offer to purchase her. The first month of horse ownership was idyllic; Maybelline and I made great progress together. The second month, Maybelline came into heat, and I learned why a lot of people will never ride mares! In the course of the following ten months, I supported the physical therapy industry in Newport with one ailment after another occasioned by falling off Ms. Maybelline. Getting injured from a fall off a horse for the first time (and the second and third!) really caused my fear to take a hold. In January of 2005, I was too afraid to get on my little horse. We worked through that and had a great year together last year, but I knew it made no sense to transport her out west. I put up advertisements in local tack shops and on an on-line horse sale site. Each and every time someone called me about her, I asked them a few questions, and then talked them out of her. The callers were looking for a horse for the child, by and large, and I knew that any child who wanted to advance as a rider would be bored with May in a single season. She needed an older rider, one who was patient, wanted to trail ride, didn’t want to jump or show, never expected to be showing in equestrian classes….in short, me. So Maybelline remained in Tiverton while I went on my adventures, and was shipped June 7. The truckers gave her a short vacation in Colorado Springs and called me Wednesday to say she’d be in last night.
May arrived in Gardiner, Montana about 9:30 last night. As you can see I haven’t figured out how to deal with red-eye in my photo editing program. Just as well, it turns out. May was once again in heat, and had her satanic attitude, so the eyes in the photo look just right! Note that the eyes are accompanied by ears pinned, and an attitude of pure evil toward the horse next to her!
May is spending the summer at the home of Sue Stormer, originally from Pennsylvania and, for the past 15 years the head wrangler for the company I work for, for their trail rides at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. She is very nice, wonderfully kind to the animals, and very busy right now as they prepare to open their operation on Tuesday. She’d not had time to prepare May’s paddock, so we put her in a temporary one for the night and I shoveled, raked and otherwise prepared her new home for her this morning while she strolled around the property to get acquainted with the other horses.
She spent the morning relaxing and engaging in her favorite activity, and even did a little work, namely mowing the lawn in front of Sue’s house. Acclimation to altitude will take her a little time, she was winded from eating!
May walked around the property and visited with the other horses for the afternoon. These are two of the girls next door; May told them stories about Buddy Cianci and they were suitably entertained.
She’ll get a few weeks off before she does any work, to get her used to the altitude.
In the meanwhile, a few miles from her new home, Bubba and I met our first rattlesnake. I dragged Bubba off up the hill, only to drag him into a beautiful crop of flowering prickly pear cactus. Poor boy! This beautiful country can certainly pose some harsher challenges than New England.
