Red Pony Farm: A journey in motion

Mule Polly & The Lost Sea Wagon . . .

. . . Resume their expedition across what was once a vast ocean between Canada and Mexico.

They took the winter off to stay cozy in the Carolinas making appearances and signing books. They have recently arrived in South Dakota where they left off last fall to begin the second half of the journey south.

I have the link to River Earth dot com in the 'blogs I visit' list in the sidebar. If you haven't ever ventured over there you really should. Berny is a heck of story teller and he always has great adventures. Great stuff for kids and grown ups alike! And you can buy a signed copy of one of his books right off the Lost Sea Wagon. He's added a nifty search tool in his sidebar! Try these seaches for my personal favorite adventure stories:

Rifle

Dino

Fossil

Bikers

Could There be Life Without Imported Beer?

Does a post oil future mean a life without cars, without electricity, without fresh mangoes from South American in mid winter , without mass transit, without computers to link us instantly to the entire globe? It does in this new book by Howard Kunstler. Spend a summer in Union Grove with Robert Earl a business executive turned Carpenter and find out what it could like "working shoulder to shoulder at things that matter" and see if there is anything good to be found in a world without oil.

Watch  The Trailer for Kunstler's newest novel "World Made by Hand".

And please use my Amazon Button if you want to buy the book.

Feed myself as carefully as I do my horse?

(Excuse please the cut and paste mess this turned into--they are ignoring my attempt at added spacing! and I am out of time.)

Endurance News magazine this month has a lot of good stuff, but it has one thing in particular that excited me. A new book describing a method of feeding myself that could result in there being less of me to feed! It's called "Riding For Life" and is written by Rallie McAllister, MD an avid rider herself. Signed copy's will be available at the AERC 2008 Convention in Reno in February. There is more about the importance of our own fitness for riding as well as information on feeding ourselves like athletes. I will tell you more once I have scored a copy and read it. But here is the basic method for a balanced human feeding plan. Ralie mentions the fact that we often so carefully scrutinize everything we feed our horses in competition while paying little attention to our own food consumption.

Theory:

Feed only the pounds you want to keep (a balanced diet) and the remainder will fade away.

Formula:

Goal Weight multiplied by 11 (for women, 12-14 men) = daily calories

Based on 50% Carbs, 30% Protein, 20% fat balance

Daily calories multiplied by .5 = carb calories

then carb calories divided by 4 (# of calories per gram of carbs) = grams of Carbs each day.

Multiply daily calories by .3 to get total Protein calories.

Divide protein calories by 4 (# of calories per gram of Protein) = Daily Grams of Protein

Multiply daily calories by .2 to get Fat calories.

Divide fat calories by 9 (#of calories per gram of fat) = Daily Grams of Fat

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For me it works out thus:

146 * 11 = 1606

1606 * .5 = 803

     803 / 4 = 200.75 grams of carbs

1606 * .3 = 481.8

     482 / 4 = 120.45 grams of Protein

1606 * .2 = 321.2

     321 / 9 = 35.7 grams of fat

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I chose 146 pounds because it is the least I have weighed in the last 15 years

And I liked being at that weight visually and athletically

However, I was counting calories and not balancing carbs, protein, fat

So perhaps that contributed to how weak I would get during workouts (?)

I want to know if eating this way at 146 pounds “feels better”

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GOAL:     To Weigh 146 pounds   

Carbohydrates: 200

Protein:               120

Fat:                       36

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I'm giving it a try and I'll let you know how it goes. Oh dear I don't want to own up to how often I'll be using my dinner time grams of carbs on This Stuff.

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ALSO:  HELP TRAILS FUND and treat yourself to an inspiring read:

Quote from the side bar at AERC site:

"LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT AND A GREAT WAY TO HELP TRAILS?
Every sale of Julie Suhr's superb book, "Ten Feet Tall Still" brings $24.95 in donations to trails funds. Call the AERC office at 866-271-2372 to order your copy. The total price of $29.95 includes tax and shipping. Thanks to Julie and thanks to all who purchase the book!!"

Re-org

I just spent over two hours organizing the posts by catagory. What a mess, especially the older stuff. I compressed the Standish farm stuff into one catagory thus eliminating two others. Now all that is "Selling the litle farm".  Lithos stuff has been consolidated and several pieces that should have been in "Dan's pages' now are. I found some long lost  horse health stuff , behavioral, under "horse stuff" and relabled them. I put this under "Books" simply because I could bare to add another catagory today! I have added a couple catagories that don't have much yet but that I will work on. several endurance rides were never posted on-I should at least link to a couple of interesting stories on those by another woman. And I will do that soon. There are two upcoming clinics-I'm saying this to remind myself to take notes and pics and sit down and add them.

Cushing, a Gravel & The beginning For me: CTR Endurance

I sat on an overturned bucket trying to read about the 'ideal' endurance horse in the opinion of Marcy Drummond from her book: "Long Distance Riding" Marcy laments the loss of some of the original traits of 'heart' and the mysterious physiological dessert horse elements of the old breed through what she refers to as indiscriminate breeding. (I just opened the book to check the print date and white Willie hairs tumbled out onto my lap. Willie did not think I should be sitting there last night ignoring him while he had to stand with his foot in a bucket of hot salted betadine water. He kept nosing my hands with his gigantic muzzle. So I reached up and scratched his chest and chin and forelegs and continued to try to read through the snowstorm of hairs for twenty minutes. Anyone who ever cared for a Cushings horse knows the falling hair never ends, March through November. The shedding and growing cycles are maxed out for about nine months of the year. It would be nice to be able to clip him. He will not tolerate clippers. And at 1800 pounds or better it's hard to argue with him. They tried tranquilizing him once but he flew up and off from a staggering semi sleep when he heard the clippers turn on, Kicking violently at the girl who was bent over at his leg with the clippers and barely missing her head.

The gravel  (hoof abscess) has blown out just above the coronary band at the top edge of the hoof wall. There is an inch and a half long gash there that oozed the nastiest smelling thick pustulous ick you can imagine down over his hoof for the first 24 hours after the burst. I got the stuff on my hands and couldn't get the smell off after three washings in dish soap. The betadine wash finally got it off. Willie sure felt better. The pressure of swelling in the hard hoof is very painful. With this episode he only limped for 2 days. I soaked it that second day and it blew during the night. Cushings horses are also prone to gravel. Poor Willies hind feet are quite cracked and split at this point, and it's easy I guess for bacteria to get where it shouldn't be.

This book was written in 1985. I like the way it is written and wish their had been a updated one published just because I would like to know what she felt had happened in the last twenty five years with regards to breeding and new equipment etc.. I looked at Amazon to see if there were other books by her. Nothing more recent than 1993. I bought the hard cover version of  "Long Distance Riding" a week ago for 5.00 on Amazon. There is only one listed there today and it is at 48.00 used. (?) WOW. It was recommended to me by a woman on the Chronicle of The Horse Endurance Riding Forum. Perhaps the recommendation set off a mass search and purchase of the book and drove the price sky high?  I can't wait to finish mine and re-sell it!

Dan is off to Boston today to install wire on a fishing vessel. He told me to have fun today, but he could not remember what I was going to be up to. He has been so preoccupied with the business these past two weeks. He missed a lot with the broken leg and surgery and is trying to play catch-up. This is his 'manic season' anyway. The time of year when he is in over-drive thinking and planning and scheming on some new venture to diverse and grow D & E Enterprises. I am very proud of the work he does, and that he provides a living for a few other folks as well as himself. The latest thing is sandblasting. He is looking into putting up a building to house the specially designed room and garnet sand recovery system he will need to succeed. He won't notice me much for the summer. I will miss him and dream about what it would be like to have ones husband share in the things one is passionate about. I will try to share in his scheming and planning as much as he wants. And then I will keep myself busy with my horse stuff--and hopefully figure out what I want it to become.  Perhaps the reason it is usually in flux and prone to stalling out is that it is always something I am doing just to keep busy (?)

Summer is not my manic season. I fade and wilt and cease to move. I look forward to sleep at the end of the day more than any activity to try to get involved in after about 11:AM.  As I walked from the barn last night listening to the wind I stopped and stood for a moment watching the leaves in the maples and poplar being shaken clean of pollen and dust. The maple leaves have grown so broad and vividly green. I feel as though I am bound to the trees in some way-- they are so vast, so incredibly large and consuming--as if they pull their energy directly from my soul every summer and leave me nothing but empty. I am in awe of the trees in summer. I am jubilant in fall as the foliage dies and falls beneath my feet. I am triumphant as I run over the snow beneath barren gray limbs throughout my winter manic season.

I am off this morning to audit half of a natural horsemanship clinic at footloose farm in Brownfield. After that I will swing over to Waterford to catch a piece of the endurance ride that is taking place there this weekend and meet up with a woman I have penned with on the COTH Forum, who will be photographing today. I may find out about endurance riding and camera stuff. I have begun a search for the new camera which will have a name.

www.footloosefarm.org

Book Project

I was e-conversing with a horse woman in Vermont who does clinics on relationship training with horses. Her name is Lasell Bartlett and she teaches ways to improve communications with equines. She comes to Maine on occasion and will give private lessons while she is here. I am working on setting something up with her for the end of July. Which reminds me somehow:  I have two books to finish that I promised reviews on. Still in the works. I will update you on this greatly anticipated event.

(This is one of the many beautiful card creations that my sister-in-law Susan Libby painted--it seemed a good place to put it)

Anyway, Lasell read the Euthanasia piece and told me she found it touching. I wrote back explaining that I experienced much healing through the process of writing and re-writing and editing that piece. I told her I often wonder how many folks out there have healed from this kind of grief through writing and creating artwork similar to this or of different forms. I want to collect works and interview some of these people to create a book where we could display our art to the world. I would like to encourage those who have yet to heal to explore creative out lets. There is a magic that takes place in the process of hands on creating whether it be in the form of writing, painting, drawing, dancing, music, voice, or training horses. Forgive me if I have left out your favorite art form--and educate me by commenting. It is indeed work in any form. I looked up the word "solicit" because it was used in a suggestion of how to get folks thinking of this method of healing (and because I cannot spell and must look up everything). I was thrilled when I read the Middle English origin of the modern definition in Merriam Webster On-line (which sits very near the top of my favorites list and is always an extra open window when I am writing anything!):

Solicit:

Main Entry: so·lic·it
Pronunciation: s&-'li-s&t
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, to disturb, take charge of, from Middle French solliciter, from Latin sollicitare to disturb, from sollicitus anxious, from sollus whole (from Oscan; akin to Greek holos whole) + citus, past participle of ciEre to move --

I think hands on forms of healing work are so successful because they indeed "solicit" from you--in the Middle English context--great emotion. Contemplating a trauma like this deeply enough to express it through art is hard yet cleansing work. The process "take(s) charge of"  your physical body, churning up all manner of feeling and thought. The work comes; from letting it all blossom fully without hiding from it; from sitting still in its presence, watching and waiting for this dredged up material to settle, like the snow flakes in a child's glass globe, swirling at times in cyclones. Then looking into that globe that no one else can see; that globe that rests in the center of your heart; and watching as it is transformed into an organized force that builds and moves through your body, pushing out through your fingers , through your legs to your toes, or up through your vocal cords and spills onto what ever medium is set before you.

I will post updates on this project.