I was just laid off for the second time in my life.  The first time was back when my daughter was just an infant.  I was unemployed for about 2 weeks.

This time I’ll start working for myself bright and early Monday morning.  Whether it produces and income remains to be seen but with the Internet comes the opportunity to seek your own fortunes, without a middleman, at least answering the question – can I do it?  A very tall order in this economy.

Working for myself will mean a lot more efficiency.  I won’t need nearly so extensive a wardrobe since I won’t be appearing in an office every morning.  The dress code at my new office is very casual since I have the place entirely to myself, at least during the school year.  As soon as the work day ends, I can walk right out the back door to one of my favorite places, the barn.

Sebi and Mick will see a lot more of me once I settle into something that resembles a routine.  I have a lot of work to do in getting squared away but once all is in place I plan to start and end each day with some time in the barn.

If you’re at all curious how I intend to make my living so I can pursue these plans, have a look at my personal blog that contains links to my many projects and also journals how I’m going about things.  If you’d rather shop, just check out my main source of income – White Oak Attic.  You will want to come back often, all are about to receive a lot more attention, right along with the horses as I’ll be working on them full time.

Do you have horses?  Blog about them?  I would love to add yours to a blog roll I intend to start in the margin – my own community of horse people and their horses.

Finally, one other thing, my daughter and I love to collect model horses.  That’s something that’s fallen by the wayside in recent years and one of the things I intend to revisit.  I’ll be covering that here too.  Please share your thoughts and resources.  We’re excited about getting up to speed.

Stay tuned, pictures are coming soon.  I hope to see yours too.

~Lisa

I read a story today posted online by our local newspaper.  It seems two neighbors are at odds.  One is a horse owner in violation of city ordinances, the other a resident who moved in after the horse owner who already had the horses.  The new neighbor wants the horses out of the neighborhood.

In my opinion both are in the wrong since the horses were already in the neighborhood when the complainer came and the city ordinance is very clear about the amount of acreage required per horse and the horseowner is violating that portion of the ordinance (she should own 2 instead of 3 which still puts things leaning her way in my opinion since one of the horses is a mini and doesn’t really need the same acreage – some dogs are the same size).  The article does not say which came first, the horse ownership or the ordinance – that would change my view if she already owned the 3 horses before the ordinance was put into place.

Anyway, it does make an opportunity to discuss something that has always surprised me.  That there are people in the world who don’t want to be anywhere near horses.  I never viewed horses in the same light as other livestock but it seems non-horse-people sometimes see them as just the same as cows and pigs (this neighbor who doesn’t want the horses there seems to equate them with cows).

After the stunning victory by a 50:1 odds Mine That Bird this past Saturday in the Kentucky Derby, my passion for horses is again invigorated.  I believe they are the most beautiful of God’s creation next to the human race and cannot imagine anyone not wanting to be near them.  The horse racing industry has plenty of warts and issues I don’t agree with but it was still thrilling to see an “average Joe” kind of horse win the most popular of all horse races.  For many, this is the only glimpse at horse ownership they’ll ever see, the examples of equine masterpieces that parade across the television screen leading up to the race. Who could dislike them?  Who could not want to be near them?

So how do you view horses?  See them as livestock like the complaining  neighbor referenced here?  Or do you not notice the stinky business associated with horse ownership and just see the sheer beauty of the animals?  I admit, I catch a whiff of unpleasant odors occaisionally in the summer time around our place but I go out and busy myself cleaning up a little after them and that seems to remedy the problem for the most part.  It only happens occasionally when the temperatures are very high (it gets in the high 90’s low 100’s here with maximum humidity – even many people stink then ).

Just sharing some observations.

It is a fantastic day here in Alabama.  The sky is very blue, white puffy clouds pass overhead, a breeze is blowing, the perfect day for a ride.  Kaylee, my daughter, was up with the chickens and waiting by my bed this morning ready to get to the barn and get saddled up.  I don’t see that kind of enthusiasm from her on weekdays at this hour of the day.

We had to make an early ride or none at all.  Our days are so packed with responsibilities its tough to find saddle time.  In recent years I’ve not made enough time for the recharging of  batteries and have decided it’s long past time for that to change.  So, off we went.  It wasn’t a long ride.  Just a two hour treck around the neighborhood and back home.  Sebi and Mick even seemed to enjoy themselves.

You never know what might happen when you take these little rides with horses.  They sometimes have a way of taking a trivial occurence and turning it into a heart-thudding, see-your-life-flash-before-your-eyes, mini-adventure.  At least that’s been the usual experience with Sebi.

Several years ago my husband Mark and I rounded up our horses, joined several of our friends and went on a day ride through several open cotton fields and other scenic spaces.  We were all chatting merrily and enjoying the outdoors.  It was a day very similar to today (made me think of it on our ride earlier) with the whole blue skys and light breeze thing happening.

We came upon a little fenced-in lot housing a little horse and a pig.  Horses are herd animals and do much better with a pasture buddy of some sort, in this case the buddy was a pig.  We all stopped to see the horse, comment briefly on the pig and just take a little break.  Should have been an ordinary moment that would pass quickly from memory, except Sebi was there.

It seems Sebi didn’t appreciate the mundaness of a pig.  He saw the pig, his attention was riveted, he reared straight up, pivoted, landed facing the opposite direction, and launched forward…only there was a fence there.  Fortunately for me, still on his back, he didn’t continue the forward motion.  Instead he wheeled this direction, then that direction, frantically trying to get away from the pig. A pig.  My horse was terrified of a pig.  It wasn’t even a very big pig.

Of course this drew a symphony of laughter from my friends, yes, my dear husband laughed too-maybe the loudest   I like to think they made sure I was okay before they started laughing.  Once I recovered from the shock of going from fully relaxed to that state I mentioned earlier with my life flashing before my eyes I laughed too, a bit of a jittery laugh at first but a laugh never the less.

I really think the perspectives of those with sound mounts who don’t flip out at the most ordinary things are vastly different from those of us with horses like Sebi. Sebi was well seasoned when this little incident took place, he’d seen a pig before, he’d seen other horses before but surprise, he exploded as though it was his first time outside.  Maybe that’s why the Western saddle attachment I mentioned in my earlier post.  Having a lot of places to hold on in case of emergency just seems to make a lot of sense.

I’ve never really ridden any horse but Sebi for any mentionable length of time.  We both have some less than stellar skills and habits because of this.  Nobody there to teach one or the other any different .  Both being beginners when we met, we’ve evolved into a synchronicity that usually works well for us.  I can usually feel the tension, even when it’s subtle, building before he reacts to something and take evasive actions. As we see with the pig story, it doesn’t always work that way.  Maybe he wasn’t paying attention and was just surprised to see a pig.

I don’t think of pigs as scary.  There was a fence between us and the pig.  There were a pretty large number of other horses all around him that didn’t think the pig was scary.  So why did Sebi try to run for his and my lives?  I’ll never know and I don’t think I’ll ever get the opportunity to forget since the story is brought up again every time we see a pig and there’s always laughter.

For all the years I’ve owned Sebi I’ve had the same saddle.  A Western saddle that I bought just months after I bought him back in 1986.  Both the horse and I were and still are amateurs.  I had never owned a horse before and Sebi hadn’t really had much experience being owned.  He’d been left on a pasture to starve until I came along so the combination of zero experience on both sides was a dangerous one.

As a family we collectively have two additional saddles, both of these are Western too.  When you’re not much of an expert rider all that leather and places to hold on seems to add an element of security.  I shyed away from English for a couple of reasons. First my riding is limited to trail riding strictly for pleasure and second it just didn’t look like you had much there to help keep you on the horse if something unplanned happened, like the horse under the saddle bucking, spooking and shying unexpectedly.

In the early days something unplanned seemed to happen with fair regularity when I was on the trail with Sebastian.  If something startled him it was almost a matter of course he would put his head down and buck for just a few seconds in response.  Once he nearly pulled my arm off as I was leading him through the hallway of the barn.  Someone moved a trashcan from the left side to the right side and the unexpected presence of the can in a new spot scared Sebi enough to produce a sudden backward retreat that caught me off guard.

A wide variety of these kinds of experiences produced a response from me that I’m sure isn’t recommended in any textbook or training program.  I adopted a firm policy of “if I find something that works never change it” strategy that 20+ years later has resulted in my using the same saddle, same bridle, same bit, well… you get the idea.  For a brief period of maybe two or three years I did ride often enough that the horse settled down substantially and I got comfortable enough to actually ride frequently with just a bareback pad (it was the kind with stirrups and a small nylon handle where the horn would be on a saddle).  Sometimes I even rode without the bareback pad.

When my children came along I wasn’t able to ride as often so some of the not so pleasant behavior from Sebi returned and had me again clinging to my old western saddle for security.  That routine has continued over the years as life has gotten in the way of much riding.  I have made a firm promise to ride more often.  I made an impulse purchase this past weekend brought about primarily due to a brief experience last summer on a borrowed English saddle and as a result of this renewed vow to get back to trail riding.

On the 4th of July last year I was invited by a neighbor of mine (you’ll be hearing more about her later – her name is Sandy) to come as near as I could to dressing like a Colonial soldier and riding my horse around The American Village during their 4th of July festivities that day.  Let the kids pet the horses, add to the Colonial atmosphere there, etc.  I couldn’t very well show up with a Western saddle so Sandy let me borrow an English saddle of hers.  I loved it.  It gets blazing hot here in the summer, especially July and August, and having a lighter saddle that was easy to manage was a welcome treat.

This past weekend my husband Mark and I attended Bluegrass & Burgers, a fund raising event held annually at The Spirit of Hope Youth Ranch (something else you’ll hear me talking about a lot if you come back often enough).  They had a room set up where you could pick out some leftover tack in exchange for a donation.  Among the many offerings were a selection of several English saddles.  The prices were just too good to ignore, so I bought one.  As I was leaving, Missy Cox, the trainer out there at the Ranch explained the saddle I now own belonged to a former Olympic gold medalist and this was the very saddle he used during that win.  Since I was on my way out I didn’t get a chance to absorb those details but don’t worry, I’ll be revisiting that topic with Missy as soon as I see her again and will share what I find out.

I have a new, old saddle I’ll be testing out soon.  You’ll have to come back and hear how it works out.

{Note: I wrote this post when it was hosted on another service – moving it here seems to have created some formatting problems-actually I suspect it might be the template – but anyway, it has caused the picture captions to be in the wrong places, it should go pretty much picture caption picture caption in sequence, looks fine in edit mode so I don’t know how to fix}

Ahhh, Spring is in the air.  When you spend time around horses at this time of year you will notice something else in the air too, hair.  Depending on the breed of horse, sometimes a lot of hair.

I always dread this particular two or three week window of time.  If you take any shortcuts in grooming before going for a little ride you will find weeks worth of work when you’re finished – everything is coated with hair.  To avoid this (or at least cut down on it), a good, thorough grooming is needed before you throw that saddle blanket on the horses’ back.  In my case, I have a horse who grows an exceptional winter coat and sheds an exceptional amount of hair come springtime.

To quote my husband, Sebi looks like a furry stuffed animal when the hair loosens and tufts of it are sticking out everywhere.  It also looks pretty uncomfortable since it’s bound to be very itchy for him as all that hair loosens.  Take a look at these pictures I took yesterday when I gave him his first big, grooming during the shed out (we’ll have to do this a few more times before all that loose hair is finally gone for the summer).  There was enough hair on the ground to build another horse.

Also bear in mind we just got over a stretch of wet weather and Sebastian just loves to roll on the ground.  So in addition to the shedding hair he had tangled his mane pretty badly (the rolling twirls the hair around and makes some pretty nasty tangles) and looked like he’d been in a mudslinging contest.  I thought this would make for some really strartling before and after photos.

Sebi before the big grooming…

You can see the hair coming out, doesn’t it look itchy?

This close up really shows the mess he was in…

Just touch him (or even stand downwind of him) and you’re covered in hair

But it got better pretty quickly.  Here are the after photos, the time stamps show the elapsed time from before to after.

It took a little while but oh what a difference, the sad thing is a few days from now it will be all tangled up again, the price of a long mane and free roaming spirit – Sebi is loose in the pasture and rarely stays in his stall.

And the hairy aftermath….

Now for comparison, here’s Mick, he doesn’t create near the drama when he sheds out, but he also doesn’t grow near the coat Sebastian does…Mick hadn’t been touched with a brush or shedding blade recently (he got his turn after Sebastian and after this photo was taken)

The cat watched all of this with interest…this is Ramses…he’s the barn mascot of sorts, he used to hang out on the ledge of the stalls on cold days when the horses were inside.  Now he just gets underfoot when something’s going on at the barn (just in  case someone decides to add more cat food to his bowl). Ramses joined us a year ago this past December.  I picked him up on the side of I-65 one night a couple of weeks before Christmas, just south of Cullman, AL. He acts like he’s been here his whole life.

He’s wondering who is going to clean up all that hair!

While you’re here don’t forget to visit us at our website, there is a link to this blog and I’ve added several more features including a “Links” page.  Check it out!

Bye for now, Lisa Isbell.

For years, I have prayed for God to use my natural talents in a way that would allow me to really make a difference in helping someone else.  Over the years that prayer has seemed to attach more to finding a way to help children on a grand scale.  Maybe parenthood caused the honing in of the purpose, I don’t know.  At any rate, I believe I’ve found the perfect fit.

Recently, I attended the Greater Shelby County Chamber Luncheon and happened by the booth of the Spirit of Hope Youth Ranch.  I had briefly noticed their newsletter at another function and made a mental note to find out more about the organization a few months ago but at the time the holidays were near and I’d just assumed a new role at work so it just dropped off my radar.

I called some time later and struck up a conversation with Joy O’Neal, the group’s President and expressed a desire to get involved and help.  Incidently, the changes I experienced at work put me in a much better position to help than I was in when I first became aware of Spirit of Hope.  God at work perhaps?  I’ll leave that to you to decide.

So what is Spirit of Hope and why is it such a great fit for us horse lovers?  It addresses two problems and allows a natural love of horses to place you in a position to effortlessly help kids who really need someone to step in and just be there.  Spirit of Hope takes in abused, neglected and abandoned horses and puts them to work through a riding program for children who have been in the same predicament as the horses that have found homes here.

We can help this program grow so easily by volunteering to help out.  The ranch needs experienced horse owners to help supervise the kids as they get familiar with the horses.  They also need volunteers to help care for the daily needs of the animals.  Feeding, watering, grooming and the long list of other small tasks we all love so much that go part and parcel with the keeping of horses.  Since these tasks are mostly a labor of love for “horse people” you can quickly see how this truly is the perfect way to give something wonderful, not only to our community but mankind in general.

If you want to find out more, please get in touch with me at www.whiteoakattic.com (contact us page) or contact the ranch directly http://wwwsohyr.com.

I’ll be talking more about some specific ways to promote the ranch and the services they offer so stay tuned.  What I have in mind will ask for your input but don’t worry it’s all free and will likely fit right in with what you’re already doing!

Talk to you soon, Lisa I.

In my last post I talked about our ride, here are some pictures from that day in December 2008…

Here’s Kaylee and Mick as we prepared to leave

We struck out and went across the road from our house and up the mountain.  At the top we took these pictures…

Here is a photo of Me and Sebi at the top…

…..an old barn we explored on the way back in

Here is some of the bramble we had to forge through to get to the top of the mountain and to get to the barn to take a few pictures…

plus, some of the meaner stuff…

Another view of the old barn

I just liked this view, the power company recently cut this pathway to clear the way for the power lines, a good spot to ride since all the bramble and tree branches have been cleaned up. Referring back to my earlier post about Kaylee suffering her first trailblazing injury – those experiences are why these kinds of views get my attention – nice clear path to ride down, no tree branches smacking you in the face and no thorns digging into your hide

You get the idea, we had a good time, saw some mundane yet photographic sites and we were just gone maybe 2 or 3 hours tops. A relaxing way for mother and daughter to bond!

Well it’s now nearly 11pm ( 12/21/08) and I’m happy to say Kaylee and I took that ride today.  We had a spectacular time in spite of the gloomy weather.  We didn’t go all that far, just across the road and up to the top of a small mountain.  That put us in a great spot for looking down over one of the many rock quarries in the area.

It suddenly occurred to me as we entered the clearing at the top of the mountain that it was hunting season.  What a stupid thing that was to forget.  I’m happy to report it was only a realization and we didn’t suffer any actual consequences but it did jar me when I realized it.  I thought of it when I saw a tree stand at the top of the mountain we decided to visit.  That cut our ride short as I made a hasty retreat back down to the public roads, passing a small pile of shell casings as we descended.

Kaylee suffered her first trailblazing injury today.  She was scratched on the neck as we fought our way through a less than friendly spot on the path that had become clogged with overgrowth.  Just a small spot, but one we had to plow through and as we did, we found some of the bramble included the thorny variety.

I’ll post pictures from today’s ride in my next post, just too late tonight.  There is a view from the mountain top, a variety of other pictures we took today and photos of an old barn we briefly explored.  I’ve been trying to get over there to look in that barn since we moved here.  Just idle curiosity since it has stood empty for countless years now.  I also included some photos of those wicked little thorns and the tangle of growth we clawed our way through to get to the mountain top.  It felt like Everest to Kaylee

It was a thrilling day.  Sometimes it’s the little things in life that seem like a big treat.  Not having had the time to ride in the recent past has made me really appreciate even small excursions like today.

Happy trails.