Cowgirl Down

Work with any kind of animal for any period of time and you're more than likely to meet up with adversity. Animals, after all, are animals. They have mood swings much like humans. But many, lacking the ability to communicate vocally with humans, give clues too subtle to alert their handlers/owners that it's not a good time to mess about. And even the smallest of misread signals, coupled with a temperamental, impatient animal, can have unfortunate results. Animals kick, scratch, bite, trample, gore, and maul (sorry mom... sic vita est). And did I mention buck?

There's a saying among horseback riders that goes "the hardest part about riding is the ground." The owner of this ranch, along with the horse trainer, have made a concerted effort over the years to cull their stock such that all of their horses are "safe." When the odd horse has come round that has had issues too serious to fix or too unpredictable to prevent, they've sold it right away. Save Halle.

Over the past four or five weeks Halle has become my project, my pet, my friend, and my all-around favorite mount. A gorgeous, 6-year-old chestnut mare, she could be described as broke, but green. Having only been ridden now for two years, Halle still has a lot to learn. But where she lacks the experience and even temperament of an older horse, she makes up for it with her sweet nature and loads of potential. Halle was acquired on trade. Shawnee, a big "starter" barrel horse that Trina (the main benefactor of the ranch) had outgrown, was sold to another family in exchange for thousands of dollars-- and Halle.

At first, Halle was fine. She worked well with Trina, and Marlene (the horse trainer) could see she oozed untapped promise. Then, just over a year ago, Halle cut herself badly while turned out to pasture. The injury took months to heal... months where Halle was unable to work. When she was finally sound enough to ride again, everything had changed. Where once there was a happy, energetic young horse working well under command, there now was a stubborn, pig-headed mare who'd buck, rear, and crow hop when asked to do something she didn't feel like doing.

Marlene rode with her for weeks, getting her to the point where, although she occasionally complained about doing her work, she'd no longer pitch a fit. They chose not to keep her, deciding that the older, more stable horses were better for Trina. She was listed for sale and exercised less frequently, with a once- or twice-weekly tune-up from Marlene. And then I came along.

I needed a horse to work with, to really teach and learn from. I wasn't challenged by their older horses, and I'm not quite good enough to work their hot-to-trot high-performance horses. I'm more than capable of exercising their high-performance horses, but can't work on patterns, such as barrels or poles. So Marlene suggested I start working with Halle. Halle needed the attention, and I needed a more challenging horse. It was a perfect match.

We bonded quickly once I began riding her every day. She'd come when I called, nuzzle my back as I picked her hooves clean, and wait patiently in the arena for me while I worked other horses. When her turn came she was responsive to my cues, and we started working barrels and poles and doing sprints along the fence line. She'd bend to my legs, turn with the slightest pull of the rein, trot or canter off at the exact speed I'd specify. In short, she was a dream. Marlene, Debbie (the ranch owner), Trina, Max (the ranch hand), and Britt (who boards her horse at the ranch) all noticed how great Halle and I were getting along, said she'd been making huge improvements since I'd started riding her, that we were looking great. There were talks of my taking her to barrel races on Tuesday evenings, of keeping her around for a while longer to see if she'd continue to progress.

One afternoon, Halle and I began loping barrel patterns, and her turns were looking good. Another day, we loped two flawless pole patterns back-to-back, and I was on cloud nine. She was really shaping up. I felt great riding her. We just seemed to fit one another.

But then, there were little things that troubled me on occasion. She'd spook sometimes at silly things: the pig, the silhouette of a car through the trees, the goats butting heads... an inexcusable behavior for having been constantly exposed to each of these things for over a year. There were other things, too... She'd pull her turns wide when cantering around the arena, flick her tail when I asked her to lope off, pin her ears and duck her head when riding alongside another horse. I did my best to correct each of these things, and took to wearing spurs and carrying a short crop on her bad days.

Then came the cold snap. Two weeks ago, Nearby Town experienced some of the most brutally cold weather in years. Temperatures were consistently below zero, with wind chills dipping to twenty-five below or more. Coupled with a few days of continuous, light snow, the weather made riding of any kind impossible for around six days. It wasn't until the sun showed face and the arena could be properly cleared of ice that we could get out again.

When I started back on Halle she seemed fine-- at first. She wasn't nearly as responsive as she had been the previous week, and the little, pig-headed behaviors started showing themselves more frequently. The crop and spurs found a permanent place in my arsenal. And for a few days, she was fine. She'd work for me much as she had before, if not instantaneously then very quickly following some gentle encouragement from my spurred heels.

Three days ago, Halle spooked badly in the arena, attributed to long shadows, wind, and Bob (Marlene's husband) roping calves close behind us. I rested easily on her, let her get her head back together, then trotted her out for around twenty minutes, and she was fine. Marlene was pleased. It seemed that Halle was finally past that troublesome stage from a year before.

Two days ago, I got on Halle just as I had for weeks. I'd already worked Cash and Target; Marlene, Romeo and Cryssie. Marlene mounted Peach and I hopped on Halle, and we each went through our separate patterns. Halle responded well. She pushed away from my leg, turned the corners appropriately, and did some excellent pole patterns with me. She wasn't spooky, as she'd been the day before. Marlene and I stopped and chatted, and then I decided that I would do just one more barrel pattern and one more pole pattern before calling it an afternoon and going up to the barn to feed.

Halle hadn't been worked hard. I hadn't pushed her, she wasn't tired or sore or sweating heavily or out of breath. We made a great turn around the first barrel and I pushed her on to the second. She lagged slightly, and I gave her a little kick to give her some extra speed. She crow-hopped slightly, but Marlene and I both assumed she was energetic and excited. We turned the second barrel nicely, and the third. But as Halle came round the final barrel she slowed again. I pushed forward in the saddle and gave her another kick to urge her on. I wasn't asking for rocket speed. I just wanted her to lope.

And evidently, that was all it took to piss Halle off. Instead of stretching out and giving some extra push to the finish line, Halle ducked her head low and threw her back feet up. Once, twice, three times. I thought I had her beat. Marlene thought I had her beat. She hesitated, just a microsecond, then gave another buck-- with a twist. I lost my stirrups. I had one hand firmly gripped around the pommel of the saddle, the other grasping frantically for the reins. In the end, it was the reins that did me in. I'd given Halle some rein when I'd asked her to speed up, and as a result I didn't have near enough to pull her head up and direct her back feet down.

Without control of Halle's head there was nothing to stop the little twist in that final buck from unseating me entirely, and the ground and I met up, if not unexpectedly, then much more quickly than I would have liked. The impact of every ounce of my body weight plus gravity was absorbed by an area of my pelvis roughly the diameter of an orange. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever experienced something quite as painful. Although I wanted nothing more than to lay on the dirt and moan, I stood up as quickly as I could, simply because I had to relieve the pressure off of my pelvis.

Halle had taken off, and Marlene had taken off after her. The best course of action in these situations is to get right back on the horse, to teach them that bucking someone off doesn't accomplish anything, but I couldn't have if I'd tried. Instead, Marlene did. She busted Halle's chops, literally, then nearly ran her into the ground on a short rein and with her considerably sharper spurs. Halle was the last to be unsaddled that night. She went without gain, and didn't get turned out to pasture the day after. The following day, she was the first to be saddled and the last to be un-saddled. Marlene put her though her paces, and then I did, too.

I'm not one to psych myself out about things. I wasn't nervous getting back on Halle. I didn't expect her to buck again. I gave her every opportunity to be the sweet, responsive mare she'd been before. And she was. She was fine. We did some pole patterns, loped around the arena, and I felt just as good on her as I always did, always do.

That's not to say, of course, that the whole incident occurred without repercussions. I will say that Halle remains my favorite horse here. Given a choice of horses to ride, I'd still pick Halle every time. But, at least for now, and maybe forever, I no longer trust her like I did. I can no longer ride her "casually." Every time I get on I'll have to be focused on every thing she does. And for the next few weeks, Marlene will either have to start her before I ride or tune her up several times a week. Halle will have to be ridden with a tight bit, short reins, and a tie-down. And regardless of how much I like her, I can have no mercy when it comes to her slip-ups. So I've lost something there.

Then there's the physical side to being bucked off a horse. The orange-sized area that took the impact of the fall was on my iliac crest along the sacroiliac joint. Although not directly weight-bearing, the area has become increasingly more uncomfortable over the past 48 hours. It doesn't affect my hip, nor does it rub in the saddle, but putting any pressure on the area or working any of the muscles connected to that part of my pelvis is far from pleasurable. I wouldn't be surprised if something in there had a hairline fracture or, if nothing else, a decent bruise.

And of course, there are psychological effects. The biggest damage done was to my confidence and sense of self-worth. I keep thinking there might have been something I could have done differently, either to have prevented the situation entirely or to have stopped Halle from bucking before I lost my seat. I wonder what Marlene thought of the whole situation, and I worry that maybe I'm just not good enough to realize when Halle is doing something wrong, or that maybe Marlene is starting to regret letting me work with Halle at all. Being in pain is no fun, either, and although I'd much prefer the respect of the barn crew to their pity, it seems more or less like nothing ever happened. Even Bob, one of the most sensitive guys I've ever met, said only, "I heard you joined the lawn-dart club."

So tonight, alone in the house, second-guessing myself, feeling bad about no one feeling bad for me, bemoaning my situation, and finding it nearly impossible to relax or take the pressure off my right side, I threw myself a pity party and then decided to update the blog. It's been a while. I'd been starting to worry that my life isn't nearly "wild" enough to merit the title. But I guess getting bucked off a horse counts for something, eh?

I'm a Mac

I know, I know... It's been weeks since my last post. I will concede that I am less inclined to do weekly blog postings now that I'm no longer working regularly in the field. My "interesting" experiences are fewer and farther between, and I get just as tired writing about grad school applications as I'm sure you all get reading about them. But I have more excuses this time round, and it all starts with a virus.

A couple weeks ago I was surfing the internet looking for replacement wheels for a dishwasher rack (don't ask) when my trusty, five-year-old Dell laptop sunk into protected mode and sent up notification of a viral infection, a dastardly rogue anti-spyware program that took control of my internet explorer, prevented access to task manager and my registry editor, and made a host of pop-up adds explode on screen. I went through the basics of removal, but to no avail. Not even my previously undefeated Symantec antivirus software could catch the culprit.

I spent three solid days doing everything I could think of to remove the malicious software, finally succeeding in regaining control of my internet and registry editor, so that I could at least use it to submit applications. But all the while the processing speed became slower, to the point where even opening up MS Word was taking nearly half an hour. That's when I saw the advertisement for Apple's Black Friday sale online.

I'd been planning on buying a new laptop before graduate school, sometime in the late spring or early summer, if I were to get accepted someplace. I knew I'd need a faster computer with a larger hard drive to handle the punishment of five or more years-worth of intense studying, report-writing, fact-checking, and online journal-researching. My long-in-the-tooth Dell may be able to keep up for a while, but the threat of it giving out at an inopportune moment and having to rush to try and save things/get a new computer set up all while keeping up with my studies was not a scenario I ever wanted to face. So a new laptop pre-grad school was already in the plan.

Of course, as is typical of my brain, I started thinking... If I was planning on getting a new one anyway, and there is a sale on Macs on Black Friday, and my Dell is struggling just to start, and I still haven't been able to get rid of the nasty virus, then why not now?

Well, the obvious answers to those questions would be a.) because you don't have a job and because it's almost Christmas and because it would be a huge expense, and b.) why wait? Of course, I chose answer b. The Dell had been good to me, but I wanted something with faster processing, better graphics, a larger hard drive, and better customer support. I didn't want to have to deal with antivirus software and system checks and, heaven forbid, another rogue anti-spyware program. Plus, Macs are sooooooooo cool! So I bought one.

So much for upgrading my DSLR. :(

And that, more than anything, is the biggest reason I haven't posted an entry here in several weeks. My Dell crashed and was more or less unusable, then I had to wait for my new Mac to be delivered, and then I had to port everything over and get accustomed to using it.

By the way, the Mac is awesome. I've been running it on battery power for the last three hours, listening to music, watching videos online, and writing up documents, and the gauge says there's still five hours left on the charge. It's fast, it's sleek, it's shiny, and it's incredibly intuitive. The controls take a while to get used to... some of the quick keys are different than on a PC, and the command button is used as opposed to the control button to do things like cut, copy, paste, etc. So it's taken me a few days to find the appropriate keys. But the touch pad is awesome. It recognizes how many fingers you're using and thus allows you to scroll, go back and forth between pages, rotate pictures, and open applications instantly. Very cool. And I've found Firefox to be head and shoulders above internet explorer.

So if you're thinking about getting a new computer, I highly recommend you go for a Mac.

Anyway.... It's been snowing here for the past few days. Not heavily, but enough to make the streets slick. It's been cold, too... down below zero at night with terrible wind chills. It's very pretty down here when it snows, and it's fun to watch the horses run and roll and play and become dusted with coats of white. Not much riding happens with the weather like this, but it's good to have a few days inside.

Watch-- now it will be 60 degrees and sunny on Christmas.

I've completed five of my six (planned) applications, the last of which, for U of New England Place, isn't due until January, although I'll likely try and finish it next week if I can. I'm so sick of applications I could vomit. I found Ivy League School's 1000-word limit challenging, but it was nothing compared to UC Somewhere Else's "4000 characters (including spaces)" restriction. How on earth am I supposed to tell UC Somewhere Else anything in 4000 characters (including spaces)?

Now comes the waiting game. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Most schools make admissions decisions between February and March, although in some cases it may be as late as mid-April. If I'm a particularly good candidate I should hear sooner rather than later... Schools will often admit their first picks early (late January or early February), then wait until March before sending out the second batch of admissions letters to the rest.

If I'm really lucky, I might even get invited to go a visit a school sometime in January, almost a sure sign that the school is planning on admitting an applicant. If not, I may be on the ropes until April. Occasionally, schools with admit one group of students, wait until they find out how many students are planning on attending, then, at the last minute, admit a "reserve" group of students to fill any empty spots. This happened to my best friend last year, who applied to seven schools' mathematics programs. She was accepted to one school in early March, but didn't receive admissions decisions from several other schools until April, only a few days before the acceptance deadline (April 15th). This left little time for her to decide on a school, and more or less made it impossible for her to visit schools before choosing. No fun at all.

For most of the programs to which I've applied, the acceptance rate is on the order of 10% or less. So please, if you're up for it, think good thoughts about me getting into grad school. I'd really, really like to take my pick of places. Ivy League School, U Big City, UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U of New England Place, Yet Another UC... they'd all be good. Especially Ivy League School. Or U Big City. Or UC Somewhere. Yeah... one of those. C'mon grad schools! Accept me! Plus, think about how fun it would be for you to read an entry here about me getting accepted to School of My Choice! I would probably even add graphics and lots of these: !!!!!!! and these: :).