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February 23, 2009

Is anybody listening?

Filed under: All My Posts,Horse Talk,Humorous Ponderings — Tags: , — Dawn @ 7:40 pm

OK. I admit it. I talk to myself. At times, I talk to myself a lot. When my husband catches me doing this, I just say, “What? At least I listen to myself. No one else ever does!” Now, to be fair, that last statement isn’t true. Steve does listen to me, when he has to. My son listens to me whenever I can get his attention, usually by mentioning some girl’s name. Even the dog proclaims deafness in his old age, but I know from the way he snaps to attention when the fridge door opens, he just has a case of selective hearing like the rest of the men in my family.

Now it is embarrassing when I find myself talking to me and only me while I am doing my grocery shopping. Usually its just about dumb things like, “OK, now why do they have to continually rearrange these stores? Don’t they know I don’t have time to wander all over this store playing hide-n-seek?” People really give you a strange look when they hear you and as long as I don’t know them, I just smile and walk away. If they are someone I know, I usually admit that “Yes, I was talking to myself but I didn’t answer so that makes me not senile – right?” I’ve had bad luck in running into people I know lately…well, not bad luck as I enjoy running into people I know…just not while talking to myself….the men in white jackets haven’t caught me yet but they are looking!

I was talking to myself in the bathroom the other day…now before you quit reading I was painting the walls. In fact, I was standing on the toilet (lid closed) painting and lost my balance and almost fell. My conversation with myself after this near tragedy went like this. “Just how did you break your leg, Dawn? Well, I fell off of the toilet. You mean you fell off the wagon and got drunk and then fell off the toilet? No, I was not drinking and I am not on the wagon. I was just standing on the toilet painting the wall above it. Yeah, right, like I’m going to believe that one!”

Now my horses are a different story. They listen to me, usually. My whistle in the morning brings them running and I fantasize that they actually are happy to see me rather than just anyone who comes with a feed bucket.

I talk to my horses when I ride and they listen although I’m sure at times they say, “Doesn’t she ever shut up?” I realized how much I coach a young horse through a ride when my hubby was riding his horse with me one day. I had started the colt for him and now it was his turn to step into the green zone. Whenever I rode Zippy and he started to tense up, I would talk to him and reassure him he was “just fine” simply by the tone of my voice. I may have actually been saying, “You little turkey, if you don’t shape up we’ll be riding 20 miles today.” But if it were said with a smile and gentle tone, he would calm down and relax. So, once I clued Steve in and convinced him to try it, we went merrily on our way once again.

You don’t even need to talk to a horse verbally to be able to communicate with them. By your body posture, movements and hand signals, you can communicate quite clearly to them what you would like. This explains why you should never go near a horse when you are in a bad mood. That “evil eye/flying monkeys on your back look” sets them to wondering just what they did wrong and they may turn into major crabs and go into a defensive mode just to protect themselves from that nasty wolf you turned into overnight. Pretty soon, you both are having an extremely miserable day! The same can be said for the people around you. Smile and the whole world shares your joy, but dare a mere frown or sneaky snarl and World War III will ensue!

So go ahead, talk to yourself, talk to your horses and communicate however you can with whoever will listen. If you say it with a smile on your face, you might even convince them you aren’t really the big bad wolf. And if nothing else, I won’t be the only one caught talking to myself in the grocery aisles!

February 18, 2009

Building Ships in Bottles

Filed under: All My Posts,Horse Talk,Humorous Ponderings — Tags: , , — Dawn @ 6:49 pm

Everyone always says that if your marriage can survive building a house, it can survive anything. Well, we built our house 17 years ago and did a lot of the work ourselves and our marriage survived so I decided to challenge that process a little further and one spring I bought myself my dream horse trailer, a brand new Sooner 4-horse gooseneck with a seven foot dressing room. Our marriage survived that also…big sigh of relief. Then being of insane mind I took the challenge a step further and started building living quarters in the front end of the trailer. And finally after a year of very slow progress, again my problem with patience, it looks like both the trailer and my marriage will survive again! I was about ready to call my trailer a “Work of Art” because I felt like it would never get done but with just a few tweeks added occasionally, I think we can call it officially done!

The first main obstacle was to convince my hubby, Steve, that this project can be done and that you can really fit all you need, or want actually, into a space of seven by seven. He finally bit the bullet when he became convinced I was going to make this project happen with or without him – that took cutting a very large hole in the roof of the trailer by me….scary for both of us! Cutting this hole for the roof vent took at least three confidence building phone calls to friends and asking for pep talks and a sanity check. I never knew I could shake so much as when I drilled the starting holes and you all know the saying “measure twice cut once”? I must have measured a million times and I still sweat gallons before the roof vent was installed. But it even works and doesn’t leak and I did it all by myself!

Early into the project, Steve compared building a camper in a horse trailer to building a ship in a bottle, he said, “And those people aren’t sane either!” Now luckily, my hubby is very talented at whatever he does, and knows all about plumbing, wiring and building things. I would present my ideas to him on how I wanted the trailer to look and then he would tell me why it wouldn’t work…finally after much compromising and convincing that it would or wouldn’t work on both sides (and him winning the majority of the time!), we spent some major bonding time working together in very small spaces. My job was handing “things”, holding “things” and going to get “things” usually and then hiding when “things” weren’t going well!

I found out that I excelled at one thing and that is demolition. We bought an old pop-up camper that contained a fridge, stove and furnace along with other smaller usable parts and my job was to remove the salvageable items. This was REALLY FUN and no, I didn’t wreck the good stuff although my hubby had to caution me a time or two!

My farrier, Pete Novotny (who is always full of wisdom or at least that is what we will call it for now), told me that after I finish this trailer, I need to sell it (at a profit of course), and then buy a new one and build living quarters and then continue this with up to three to four trailers. He says, “By the time get to the fourth trailer, you’ll have your trailer paid for and have it exactly the way you want it.” My husband overheard that and muttered, “The next trailer will be the next husband’s job.” Well, I don’t really want to look for the next husband and anyway, where would I find someone as talented as he is? Maybe I’ll just stick with this trailer…I’m kind of attached to it now anyway…if you would have seen all the glue and varnish on my hands I should be stuck to it permanently!

February 14, 2009

Simple Pleasures

Filed under: All My Posts,Family and Friends,Horse Talk,On the Serious Side — Tags: , , , , — Dawn @ 10:49 pm

Simple pleasures in life. What makes you happy? Is it an evening spent in the barn listening to the contented munching of hay by your horse? The warmth of the cat’s soft fur as it is curled up on your lap purring. Is the wag of the tail and joy on your dog’s face as he runs up to greet you enough to make you smile for a few hours?

Getting back to the basics of life and shedding material things can be an enlightening moment. Time stands still as you stand by your horse and bury your face in his mane. Silence and peace reigns as you watch the hawk float overhead in search of his prey.

Happiness can be found in every nook and cranny of this crazy world. Just try watching the joy on a child’s face as he takes his first solo ride on “his horse”. Confidence builds as he loosens his grip on the saddle horn and reaches forward to pet him on the neck. We can learn a lot from children. The simple joy of soaring high on a swing and pretending you are flying. Screaming when the frustration gets too overwhelming and yes, even throwing an occasional temper tantrum can help to let that pent up steam off.

We, as adults, need to let go of the tight grip we have on life and learn to go back to the simple pleasures of life. Life will go on, the world will not stop if we just take a few moments to enjoy ourselves. Enjoy the satisfaction of your horse performing his best, taking care of you in bad trail conditions and showing you what he has learned. My friend, Kerry, related her feelings of riding Cody in team penning competitions and trail riding and how he did so good and how she feels when she rides him. The joy and admiration in her voice showed me the reason we have horses. To slow down, enlighten our lives and feel the satisfaction garnered when your horse responds to your faintest of cues.

Your horse is a master at enjoying the simple pleasures in life. The twitching of his lip when you scratch “the spot.” Nuzzling his pasture buddy in the warm sunshine or kicking up his heels and going for a buck and run just because it’s Tuesday. Their eyes tell of their satisfaction as they take that long drink of fresh cold water and then go roll in the dirt after a hard ride. After a day on the trail, my horse will plant his nostril upon my face and inhale as if saying, “Wow, can you believe what we just did? That was a blast!”

Simple pleasures heal the soul, calm the mind and sooth the spirit of the tired. Scents of freshly mown hay, flowers, leather and of course, horses refresh the staleness of life. The bowing of your head as you join in prayer with family and friends, thanking God for all he has done.

Open your mind to the simple pleasures of life and allow yourself to enjoy them as you once did when you were a young child. Let the laughter bubble out as you joke with friends, scream, dance and let go of that saddle horn to allow yourself to embrace life and enjoy it to the fullest. Simple pleasures – What makes you happy?

February 9, 2009

The Rest of the Story Behind Harley’s Name

Filed under: All My Posts,Family and Friends,Horse Talk,Humorous Ponderings — Tags: , , — Dawn @ 6:28 pm

I thought I’d catch you all up on the reason I named my new horse Harley! The following article is in part, from my Into the Sunset column

My brother and I, like all siblings that love each other, used to fight continually in typical sibling rivalry fashion. Then in our high school years things started to change and my big brother looked out for me. I was his copilot and tagged along with him and his buddies whenever I could. He’d get annoyed with me and once even told me he didn’t need a copilot all the time, but he still let me tag along. Once I went off to college, distance forced us to follow our own paths but I like to think he missed me. The fights disappeared as we grew busy with our own lives of raising families, working and spouses.

Now our “fights” are returning as we find time for each other again. Doug is a big old gruff sounding guy but under that tough exterior is actually a teddy bear. He also loves his Harley motorcycles and each time I talk of fixing fence, cleaning barn or any problems with my horses he retorts, “Get a Harley. My Harley stays where I put it. My Harley doesn’t need to be fed unless I use it. You don’t have to clean up after a Harley. My Harley doesn’t shed in the spring.” And the list goes on. I, of course reply, “Harley’s don’t give hugs and kisses. Harley’s don’t run and play in the pasture. Harley’s don’t nicker at you when you walk out of the door. Harley’s don’t miss you when you are gone. If you cry on a Harley’s shoulder, it will rust.” And of course, my list goes on!

The battle progressed this spring after I emailed him a video showing a horse performing an exquisite freestyle dressage routine. “Can a Harley do this?” I asked him. Doug zinged back an email reply with something about wondering what type of drugs they gave the horse to coerce it to move like that! He also pointed out that he had just put on 300 miles on his Harley in the past two days, “It would take a good horse a week to see that much country. Some of us don’t have time to take the slow horse instead we take the IRON HORSE. Times a’ wastin’.”

Hmmm, in my horse orientated mind, 300 miles in a week of riding would be the best thing to happen since they combined caramel and chocolate! Little sis had to explain to big brother how the slow horse teaches us how to slow down and enjoy life. On the slow horse we can get off the beaten trail and see things that the iron horse can’t reach. An iron horse will scare off the biggest elk you’ve ever seen but on the slow horse, you can almost reach out and touch it.

Doug, in typical big brother fashion, hates to not have the last word in our fights. And I admit, I honestly couldn’t think of a reply to his, “Live fast. Die young. Make a good looking corpse.” But some day soon, just for him, I’ll get a Harley. But my Harley will have four legs, a mane and tail and smell like a horse and in true Harley/equine fashion sport a fancy name like Harley Davidson Ultraglidehorse aka “Harley.”

I now have my “Harley” and he is truly a Dream Horse…in fact his registered name is MP Harley’s Knight Dream, aka Harley, or HairBear; as he is sporting a typical hairy Harley Davidson hairdo right now with his winter coat! Harley is full of love, enjoys his BearHugs and I can’t wait to see how he rides out in the spring! Thanks Bro….for the excellent name choice! It suits him to a “T”!

February 6, 2009

My Journey through Cancer

Filed under: All My Posts,Family and Friends,On the Serious Side,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Dawn @ 8:04 pm

I recently had an email, via the Twitter site, questioning me on my diagnosis and recovery from Stage IV cancer. I have always said that if I can help someone out from what I went through, it was all worth it. And this is exactly why I am sharing this story with all of you! The below text is my answer to this frightened gentleman from Hungary, just diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkins Lymphoma….A diagnosis I heard 18 years ago. Along with being happy to offer any support, prayer and advice I can to Norbert, I am amazed at how far and wide the internet reaches. I only wish I would have had the option of the internet when I was experiencing the very same thing.

My diagnosis was non-sclerosing asymptomatic Hodgkins Lymphoma, (stage IV as you know) My main tumor was mediastinal (under the breast bone) and very large…can’t remember the exact size but it was fist size so probably about 6 inches? I also had lymph node involvement in my neck..nothing below the diaphragm. Bone marrow was clear and as far as I know, no other organ involvement but they didn’t have the PET scan back then so its hard to say where exactly all of the tumors were. CT scans do not show everything and that is all I had. I was treated with 6 months (12 rounds, one every 2 weeks) of AVBD (Adriamycin, Vincristine, Bleomycin, Doxyrubicin – if my memory serves me right!) and then 6 weeks of radiation treatments. No treatments after this initial set, I responded very well.

What my oncologist said was if you are going to have cancer, this is the type you want to get. It is very treatable and curable even in Stage IV. In fact, my father just finished his treatments for Stage IV Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (Non Hodgkins, at least 18-years ago, was termed less treatable than Hodgkins) and is now in remission…treatments have come so far in the past 18 years.

I had excellent Doctors (Thank you Dr. Harris!) who never gave me any doubt that I would not be cured. I was 30 years old at the time with a 4-yr. old boy so I had lots of reasons to live. I truly believe in and stress the power of positive thinking and prayer. Your body responds as you tell it to. An excellent book to read is which explains this principle is “Love, Medicine and Miracles” by Dr. Bernie Siegel. It speaks of visualization, and the power of positive thinking. I have given many of these books to friends that are diagnosed with cancer.

Going through treatments: Now this will sound strange but many visualize and pick their own scenario…My dad used “pac-men” from the old video games! I would visualize the chemo as being men with hand sprayers spraying my tumors with acid. I would picture the tumors getting smaller, smoking and burning away. This visualization works as I could “measure” my tumor in my minds eye and it would be exactly that when I went in for my xrays. Towards the end I had a hard time visualizing my tumor….because it was gone! Think Positive, visualize healthy tissue in place of the tumor. Visualize the tumor shrinking and then disappearing….it works!

I’m not going to lie. Chemotherapy and radiation will not be a picnic but with the anti-nausea medication they have now, its sure not bad! My Dad never had a day of nausea throughout his treatments. I just had a few days of it towards the end but they didn’t have the “good stuff” back then like they do now! You will feel tired, you will lose your hair. That is not the end of the world as mine grew back thicker and extremely curly… Its finally calming down now as the grey sets in. You will have “chemo-brain” so don’t make any big decisions throughout this time….you may not remember them! There is alot from that time in my life that people tell me about and I don’t remember…now I just have senilty to claim as an excuse for forgetting things!

The hard part is right now. Not knowing what you are going to be facing as far as treatments and how you will tolerate these treatments is what is hard. Waiting for the tests to come back is hard. But once you can start DOING something, start your treatments and the way back to the healthy side of life, then it will become so much easier. Someone else with Hodgkins’ coached me a bit when I was first diagnosed said, “You will not believe how wonderful life is and how much better you feel when you get through this. You don’t realize how bad you were feeling until you start feeling better again.” My father backs up this statement 100%, he didn’t realize just how sick he was until he started feeling better.

The Power of Prayer: I have always felt this was my major turning point in my beating cancer…When you have your first treatment, they will probably hospitalize you for the first night. This is because from the first treatment, the tumor breaks up so fast, it could clog up your kidneys etc so they have to make sure you stay well hydrated (along with no severe side effects from the chemo) and keep the tumor cells flushed out out your system (through IV fluids). I was hospitalized that first night and I was scared. My old pastor (Thank you Pastor George Dahl!!) who had confirmed me many years before stopped in to visit. This was thankfully when the list of names on the hospital roster was open to clergy as he was with a different church than I belonged. We visited about the people from home, family and friends and then he asked if I wanted him to say a prayer….I agreed and he took my hand and started praying. I, being scared and emotional, cried but for the first time in my life really and truly and deeply opened my mind and heart to God. During the prayer, I felt a jolt pass through his hand into mine and up my arm…almost an electrical shock. From that point on, I never doubted that I would be cured. My main tumor after that first treatment was reduced in size by 50%, the Drs. were amazed!

The Healing Power of Laughter: My father claims fame to this treatment for cancer. A truly inspiring man with a gift for laughter, jokes, teasing and finding humor in almost anything; we laughed our way through his treatments and became closer and stronger as a family. I’m sure more than a few eyebrows were raised outside his infusion room on more than one occassion from the peals of laughter that escaped…we didn’t care! I have fond memories of our time spent in that little room and am so proud of the way he handled the cancer experience. Dad’s positive attitude rang through with the laughter we shared during a troubling time. “Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All in all….cancer is NOT the death sentence it used to be. Today, I know ALOT of Stage IV survivors of many different types of cancer, including Hodgkins. In fact, we have a “club”…unorganized and just joked about but its there and we are all alive and well!

Cancer is a life changing experience. My father now is a believer. It is a hard time but it changes your life, it teaches you what is important in life…not the material things but the little things like a sunrise, a sunset, a bird, a baby colt, a flower, and more importantly the hug of a friend. It teaches you who your true friends are – some people do not have the fortitude to stay with you through this experience…let them go as they are not worth hanging onto. Angels in the form of people you barely know will appear magically out of the woodwork and help you along the path and I hope that I am one of them. Cancer is just a mere roadbump in the journey of life…be brave and follow it and you will be amazed at where it will lead you. Keep your faith, friends and family close and most of all…”Never underestimate the power of positive thinking and prayer!” You are young and strong and you will make it through these hard times…and I promise you, you will not believe how wonderful life is when you start feeling better!

Join me, everyone, in a prayer for healing for all those undergoing the frightening times of cancer or any other life threatening illness, surgery or injury. And don’t forget to thank God for the little things in life that matter. Take care and God bless!

February 2, 2009

Tales of the Trail

Filed under: All My Posts,Horse Talk,Humorous Ponderings,Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Dawn @ 6:37 pm

Working on an article on trail riding this time of year is sheer punishment for me. On one hand, I get to plan ahead and think of where I’d love to go this coming year when the weather mellows. On the other hand, when I think of the 2 months at the minimum before that ride will be possible (other than quick day rides) in this northern climate, I start chomping at the bit! To pacify myself, I start remininiscing about past rides, stories, yarns and all the humor and mayhem that goes along with a good ride and a good crew that I always ride with!

 

Campfires and trail riding always seem to go together. Around the brightly burning embers of the fire as the stars start to twinkle high above, the traditional campfire stories also come out to show their true spirit. These are often stories of past rides, wrecks and tales of misfortune and they are told with bolder embellishments as the night goes on. By the time the moon is bright in the sky and the coyotes are howling, we have already spent a few hours doing some howling ourselves. Because as long as the person and horse survived the wreck without injury to anything other than their pride, they become prime targets for the next tale to be told.

 

Of course, when you are a cowboy, you never simply get bucked off a horse. The correct terminology is, “You are unloaded, ground piled or dumped.” You may also “part ways with your horse, put the sky between the britches and leather or plant the Wranglers on terra firma.” If you refuse to admit you “bit the dirt” you vow on a stack of Bibles that you, “Stepped off.” Yeah right, like you had a choice when I saw you hanging on by your teeth!

 

Tales about close encounters of the slithery kind come about from meeting Mr. Rattlesnake along the trail. The best one I’ve ever heard is “The Snake in the Outhouse Tale.” While I won’t get into the gory details, this tale ended with the two legged occupant running and screaming out of the biffy with her chaps and jeans down around her knees. PS….wasn’t me!

 

Close encounters of the steep kind stories are often started out by saying, “And there we were, sliding down the ridge with my toes wrapped around his ears and my head banging off his butt. I reached around and grabbed his tail between my teeth just to keep from sliding off. Then when we were just about down to the bottom, the other guy solemnly said, “We gotta turn around and head back up!” Of course, my friends will relate about a certain problem I had one year which ended with my saddle half ways up my horse’s neck. I didn’t think we were ever going to get to a spot where I could bail off without adding an extra 10 feet plus to the drop!

 

Mud wallowing and water sports are always fun tales to tell. Certain horses are known to love mud and water and some are terrified of it. Now you usually don’t know what type of horse you have until you get him out on the trail for the first time and try to water him in the local stock pond. Either the brakes will come on and you’re off headfirst into the murky slimy mess or he’ll hop in with all four and take a quick mud bath. When your chosen trail happens to cross a bottomless bog like ours did once, the lucky riders first to cross over got to cheer and bet on the remainder of the group yet to cross. Wagers were quickly laid on the table as to if the horse would take a flying leap or bravely trudge through the belly deep swamp. This event never happens in clean fresh water, by the way, so the rank aroma of swamp follows you around for the rest of the day.

 

But the best campfire story that I will never live down is, “Remember when Dawn’s pickup doors locked all by themselves just as we rode back into camp that day?” Now I and those with me on that eventful day will swear on that stack of Bibles that I was nowhere near the pickup when it happened and both sets of keys were INSIDE the pickup when it locked itself up tighter than those jeans I can’t get into anymore. (One set was in my purse inside the pickup and the other set was dangling neatly from the steering column.) We all heard the horn honk as the doors were triggered to lock by whatever unseen gremlins, ghosts or UFO’s that flew through our camp at that moment. After numerous phone calls (which took climbing to the top of a butte to get cell service) to various park rangers, deputies, locksmiths and my Dodge dealer back home, we finally got a deputy to come out with his Slim Jim and unlock the door for me…the next morning. But it was worth it since we ended up staying for an extra day of riding…and you all know how much I hate to do that!

 

What are your Tales of the Trail? Its only fair…you laughed at me and now its my turn to laugh at you!

 

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