A Voice From Beyond - Punkin's 6th Ride

 Day 3 Take 3 

October 25, 2022 

I decided to try something new with my stirrups and my pathetic attempt at twisting my fenders was nothing short of a mess.

We lunged first in the driest patch of the driveway. My visions of working on the property all winter had dissolved when the dry sandy ground turned to slick mud. Eventually the footing will come but it’s not here now and waiting for things to be perfect only means I’m cheating myself out of one more ride with what will be my last horse. 

I tacked Punkin Pie up complete with front and rear reflectors, plus reflectors on all for legs. My torso was covered with a reflective vest and my helmet was equipped with a fully charged GoPro as well as front and rear facing lights. With only 12 more days left until the dreaded daylight savings time begins, getting the “Christmas Tree Costume” in place is going to be a saving grace when our rides start and end in the dark. 

We lunged for a bit first, and in hindsight probably not long enough.

Tying my 14 foot natural horsemanship lead line into a set of reins on her cushy padded halter, I took her over to the mounting block. She was fidgety and not altogether sure if today this whole mom on top thing was a good idea. 

The mess of stirrups was way too much of a mess to use. I couldn't even get my feet into them, probably because on top of the mess I had made I had also made them too long. 

I thought about getting off. She was hot. Really hot. Still responsive and soft in my hands but it was definitely time to take my 14.2 hand high fire breathing dragon out for some exercise. Screw the stirrups.

Remembering how my tight thighs had rubbed her during one of our last rides I focused on relaxing my inner thighs, stretching down through my legs and holding with my lower pelvic muscles. I sat up straight and relaxed my shoulders so as not to put any undesirable pressure on my very green horse. 

I managed to talk the dead feeling spot in my pelvic floor into engaging. I couldn't feel a thing but suddenly I was stable. 

Punkin on the other hand wasn’t too sure about all this and really needed some grass to calm her tummy. Grass, especially the fiber rich not-so-sweet grass that grows on Haida Gwaii, has a way of making horse tummies feel better when the world gets a little scary. Today was scary, not only was mom wobbling about on her back while messed up stirrups touched her delicate tummy, it was starting to get dark. 

I asked her to pick up her head and keep moving forward, which she did delectably at first and then with gusto. Her power feels amazing underneath me and yet she remains so light in my hands with just a squishy halter and big fat lead rope for a bridle and reins. 

It felt like she was asking a lot for snacks tonight. For a moment I felt myself get discouraged. Then, clear as a bell from somewhere unimaginably far away I heard a voice “Look at what you are doing!” 

I took myself out of the moment I was in almost as though I had popped out of the saddle into a type of out of body experience. 40 years of riding experiences flashed before my eyes and I saw with perspective exactly what I was doing. I was riding my very green horse, on a loose rein, with nothing but a halter and lead rope for a bridle, down the road as it was getting dark with no stirrups. 

Suddenly I was filled with gratitude. All the work, all the preparation, all the tiny steps I had taken when I felt like I was getting nowhere had gotten me so much farther ahead than I had ever been before.

*****

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Punkin Chokes

 Day 11 Take 2 

September 24, 2022 

The blankets were warm and cozy and I could have stayed in bed all day.That should have been my first warning. I should have stayed in bed. 

The sky was gray but dry and I knew that I could multitask if I only had one fire. I decided to start the easy fire. 

First I put some hay into the bottom field for the horse with the intention of keeping them out of the smoke. 

I put the sticks that had burnt last time onto the fire and set up my fire shatter kit like I have been doing up until now. Finding dry enough wood to get the fire started was getting more and more difficult but I wasn't going to let it beat me. Not today. 

Nearly an hour later I resorted to starting a grease fire to get my yard clean up done. It was working but it needed to be thoroughly tended.It was now taking too much time and resources to justify burning. This would be my last one this year. 

Tonka decided that he didn't want to be fed in the bottom field this morning and broke into the garden to eat. Punkin was so upset that she couldn't get into the garden too that sen refused to go to the bottom field to eat. 

I finally took pity on her and brought some hay into her shelter so she could at least snack while she miserably watched her pony get all the good stuff. 

The fire was well on its way to being hot enough to load up and leave for a bit so I could start working on getting the rig set up. 

Punkin came running out of her shelter desperately trying to get something out of her mouth and trying to nibble teeny pieces of gras, which she promptly spat out. 

I watched in horror, terrified she had just eaten a fish hook. How would she have eaten a fish hook? There is no fish hook. That’s just your imagination. 

She sorted herself and went back to eating. 

Roughly 5 minutes later she came out of her shelter and flipped her top lip up at me. The colic face. 

“You’re not colicing”  I said. She flipped up her lip and looked at me desperately for help. Dropping everything I went over to her and took one look at her contracted abdomen. It flinched when I touched it and her lip flipped up again. 

Immediately the colic protocol went into action. I grabbed the happy tummy paste, made the special mash and ran out of the bar with the lunge line in my hand. 

First I pried her mouth open to make sure there wasn’t a fish hook. As I already knew there was no fish hook. My imagination could stop that now. 

She didn’t want the happy tummy paste. Normally she likes it but I made her eat it anyway. This colic seemed worse than the last one. 

Her lip flipped up and this time her shoulder shook, the muscle tissues twitching uncontrollably. Ahhhh seizure!! It wasn’t a seizure. I knew better. Lip flipped up again. 

“Oh my goodness you’re not colicing you’re choking aren’t you!” I said out loud to her as I rubbed her neck. Using everything I know about equine anatomy and the esophagus in general imagined a lump and worked the tissues of her throat to help the process of swallowing. It seemed to be helping. 

Punkin had choked on me once before as a yearling. Her and Tonka were racing to gobble the food and they both choked. Tonka cleared his and Punkin needed the vet. There was no vet today, just me, and we were going to have to get through this together. 

“You and me we're going to move through this together” I told her. “We’re just going to keep moving forward.” 

4 Kilometers and two hours later she nibbled some grass and had the tiniest sip of a puddle. Soon after she was nibbling the rain soak grass which quickly turned into grazing. I gave her the space to eat enough to make her feel better and we took our time. 

With Punkin on the mend and feeling much better I went back into the house I had melted down. I snuggled up on my couch and buried myself under a mountain of blankets where I hid until the world in my head was a little kinder and my body could handle the pressure of movement once again. I had worked so hard all week there was no energy left to handle this emergency but I did now there was nothing left.

******

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Dead Zombie Goo

 Day 5 Take 2 

September 18, 2022 

I decided to try and make some high protein bread. Not having any of the necessary ingredients I decided to use what I had. 

Having made beautiful things out of quinoa in my past I figured I had this and would use flax and chia seeds to sub the eggs and psyllium husks to bind it all together and fall apart when you’re eating it. 

I cooked up the quiona and put everything into a blender. Then added some water, and more water and more water. 

The thick warm paste of mushed quinoa and seeds filled the blender and still wouldn’t fully mix. So I did what any mad scientist would do in her ktiechen and I threw some yeast into it and mixed it by hand. 

Taking the blob of yeasty quinoa goop out of the blender with the spatula I stirred it with I moved it into the parchment lined loafs pan. I had a good feeling about this bread. After all, my other quinoa breads were quite tasty. I let it sit on the counter for about 45 minutes hoping it would rise. It didn’t. 

So I popped it into the oven and let it bake for over an hour, quinoa tends to be a little on the moist side so I left it in a little longer than I should.The toothpick came out clear so I removed the loaf from the over and plopped it on a cooling rack. 

It spread. Like hot thick goo overflowing the boundaries or a crusty shell it spread right before my eyes. Slowly it started to sink through the rack. Crap I thought, what now? 

I put the crusted gooey blob onto a cookie sheet and popped it back into the oven. Maybe that will dry it out enough to eat. 

HARD NOPE. Maybe I could save it. 

I scooped the contents out of the hardish shell into a bowl and added more water in hopes that I might be able to balance the batter with something that creates horribly dry baking. This would normally be a job for coconut flour but I couldn't find mine. The last time I saw it I think I cursed it and sent it to the basement with the quail food making ingredients. Having deemed it unfit for human consumption because it was far too dry would have made it the perfect candidate. Instead I used dehydrated black bean powder, which can end up dry or moist depending on the recipe. 

The black bean powder had turned the goo a dead gray. The dead gray color you would expect to see of a decomposing zombie. Dead zombie goo I now called it. 

Having properly bloomed the yeast this time I had faith that it would work. 

My faith was once again misplaced but that didn’t mean that it wasn't going to rise in the oven. So I put it back into the oven and left for well over an hour. Nothing could still be goo in an oven for that long? Right? 

Wrong! I pulled the dead zombie goo out of the oven and just like before it was still a hot mess of mush, only this time it was well mixed and looked like death. 

Now these ingredients are expensive and sometimes difficult to get where I live. Wasting them was not an option. I pulled out the dehydrator and spread the dead zombie goo ever so thinly over parchment paper on the racks. 

My dehydrator has been making me crackers from this sort of concoction for years. It was my last hope. I sprinkled each rack with light dusting of sea salt and whispered to my dehydrator “Don’t fail me now” as I plugged it in and left it to run in the sunroom overnight. 

Horse O’clock which had started as a minimum of 1km has now evolved into “lets see what we can do in an hour”. Setting time boundaries with myself is a big part of my balance experiment for this cycle and so far I think they’re working really well. I let go of my tension and then like I had hit a secret button Punkin let go of hers too! There we walked, long and relaxed in an effortless fast gait. 

4.12 kilometers we walked tonight working on releasing tension while moving. Which puts us at 34.6% of the way through our Valkyrie Challenge and only 63.6 more miles of ground work left until our nightly walks will transition into nightly rides. And to think I almost didn’t go because of today’s earlier failure. 

*****

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The Nights Are Creeping In

 Day 3 Take 2

September 16, 2022 

I made it to my promised workouts. It was close and I nearly didn’t but Punkin Pie needed her workout too and I couldn't let her down. 

The apple crunched between my teeth, and the juices filled my mouth. The sweet and salty creaminess of the peanut butter mixture blended into the sensation of the perfectly crisp and juicy after workout treat. 

This new concoction had taken my apples and peanut butter to a whole new level of amazing. 

I took the usual two big forkfuls of peanut butter used to dress my snappy apples and added a scoop of chocolate protein powder, the added just enough coconut milk to make it creamy. The snappy apples perfected sliced into 8 wedges act as a spoon to scoop the gooey mess into my face. 

Something was off. I was off. There was some sad news about a favorite acquaintance who wasn’t doing well. This saddened me but there was something else off. 

SLEEP I thought. I have been neglecting sleep. If I want to keep moving forward with my dreams I was going to have to set some tough boundaries with myself. These tough boundaries usually mean that I have to push myself a little harder to focus. Focusing is by far the hardest thing that I do in a day but it can be done with the right amount of routine and pressure. 

Pressure is incredibly necessary. It creates an absolute need to focus. The downside though is it also causes more stress. Having embraced my body's natural energy surges and worked with them to achieve my goals has helped tremendously.  

Unfortunately this means that Horse O’clock happens around 7:30 every night. 

Working the horses in the dark has been a bit of a fun adventure. Tonight was Punkin Pies' turn. It was our first night working in the dark and I have a lot of fine tuning to do as far as setting up the ground as an arena. We alternated lunging nice in and out spirals, with stopping to move around the arena and pick up rocks and filling holes in the hill next to the new riding space. 

She was able to keep the same cadence in her trot in a tiny circle as she did the big circle which I thought was truly impressive. But her attitude stank when it came to moving around and picking up rocks. A whole 1.07 km of moving rocks. What a bore. We are now at 34% complete for our Valkyrie challenge. 

The property is 2.5 acres, with pieces of other people's memories left behind to rot into the forest floor next to sinkholes and lost treasure. It has always been my dream to make trials and obstacles much like the ones in the trail horse competitions. I’m hoping that there will be enough stimulation by changing the routes and learning more than just the trails and the obstacles to keep it interesting for them during the dark months.

Combining all types of arena work, trail work and driving we might just be able to keep everyone fit and entertained while we work outside during the dark half of the year. 

*****

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Getting Back on The Wagon

 Day 1 Take 2

September 14, 2022 

The lessons I learned from my first cycle of the rest based lifestyle idea taught me a great deal about myself and about a life in balance. Seeing how the quality of time I had for my dreams and my loved ones was affected by the choices I made has been very helpful in learning to make choices that create a balance in my life. 

Time used to feel as though it was dragging me along kicking and screaming. I watched the months and years go by trapped in a never ending cycle of overdoing it and suffering. 

My body has never been quite right. It was almost doable when I was younger but life is becoming increasingly difficult as I get older. If I don’t have just the right balance of the correct kind of fitness, the optimal kind of rest and the appropriate kind of food my body revolts leaving me in pain and fatigue. 

This first round of the rest based lifestyle introduced me to a mindset that encouraged balance. Armed with the knowledge of the previous round I’m ready for my next cycle. 

Take 2 is dedicated to exploring balance.

With a conscious choice to end my last cycle and start a new one, I embrace the lessons I learned. Relax and let the stress go, it only makes me fat and feel like crap, getting in the way of what I really want from my life.

So here we are again having fallen off the wagon and ready to get back on, facing Day 1 again for the second time. 

Do I want to workout? NOPE

Horse O’clock rolled around and the thought of getting to try out the new gear I had purchased at the tack store got my butt off the couch. Full of energy from excitement I went out to play with my ponies. 

I saddled up Punkin and to my delight she didn’t fuss at all with the new cinch. One year and $200 later we finally had a winner.

Today we got 3 more kilometers of ever so important groundwork towards Valkyrie. We are now 32.1 miles into our first 100 mile challenge and 67.9 miles away from starting to include riding into our evening routine.  

9:48 pm I made it into my gym. I put on the hula hoop just like I said I would and had a wonderful time dancing. This dance warm up helped me warm my mind up to the idea that I was going to devote a whole 15 minutes of focus to a workout video. 

Phase 1 workout 1 attempt number 2. This time around I was stronger and needed less rest. My body was much more willing and able to workout even though I had taken 10 day off. 

*****

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