Seasonal transitions

NEWSLETTER Volume 1, Number 4, November 2004

It is a glorious fall day as I write this column. The wind is chilly, but the sun is shining, and the tamarack needles are a rich golden color in the nearby woods. A few days ago, though, it was raining hard enough to turn the paddocks to mud and hard enough to soak the horses - leaving a couple of the thinner skinned members of the herd shivering and in need of turnout rugs. Then this morning, for the first time this season, I had to break a thickish layer of ice on the stock tanks. Winter is coming.

But there were signs of the seasonal transition long before the ice formed in the water tanks, the horses had already prepared. There were the obvious physical signs. Our gelding Shadow's coat showed it most clearly when he started to put on hair in late August. Shadow loves winter and thrives in the cold, snowy Idaho climate. For our elderly horse Legend, winter brings challenges. He can nibble grass and get some nutrition out of it, but come winter his 29 year old teeth are no longer adequate to chew hay. As the grass dries up in late summer, I carefully monitor his weight, trying to avoid any drop before winter. So as the seasons changed, Legend's diet changed. He eats a senior feed, soaked beet pulp, and soaked alfalfa pellets, a diet which involves a seemingly endless collection of buckets and feed pans emerging from the grain room throughout the day and evening. He wears a turnout rug at night and during the day if it is too wet or windy, but likes to go "naked" on sunny winter days so that he can roll in the snow. It is all part of the transition.

There were also emotional signs of the seasonal transition, most noticeably from the mares. Savannah tolerates winter. She is firmly convinced that like her Arabian ancestors, she is a desert dweller and wants no part of wet or cold. She retreats to the back of her run-in shed in wet weather and knickers hopefully when I come out with hay - could I just bring it to her so that she won't have to get wet? For the youngest member of our herd, Naiobi, this will be a different kind of winter. Naiobi was adopted from a rescue organization this spring and six months later looks like a new horse. This year her winter coat has come in lush and thick, physically she is ready. But she has grown used to running in a large pasture all summer and is not at all sure that confinement to a paddock is acceptable. She turned pretty owly when the mud formed and has some strong opinions about the end of summer! For her the transition has been the most difficult emotionally.

There are other seasonal transitions that are less practical and obvious than getting the stock tank heaters out of storage, and bringing out the turnout rugs. Soon, I know there will be three of four feet of snow on the ground and the options for riding and groundwork will be limited. I always feel pangs of regret at this time of year, knowing that the best riding weather is over until next spring, but it is also a time to refocus and look for other opportunities to be with my horses. I need to switch my horsemanship goals and plans. Above the grain bins in the barn, I have pinned up a copy of a "Credo" that Samantha Moore wrote in her Naturally Speaking editorial some years ago. #1 states; Natural horsemanship is about our relationship with horses. The first and only priority above and way beyond the little skills and things we "teach" our horses is the quality of our relationship with our horses. Winter gives us time to spend with our horses in different ways and to do things with them that we might not take the time to do when the trails beckon. For Legend it is a time for him to be pampered. He enjoys the ritual of my checking his blanket, of being talked to while he eats his mash, and knowing that he has the prime real estate on the ranch! Shadow is an "easy keeper" whose grass intake needs to be monitored and whose weight needs constant supervision. Winter offers him some freedoms where he can run and buck in the snow covered fields and burn up calories in pure play without packing too many calories in! Savannah loves to trot down the trail and to see new territory, but she also loves to be brushed, massaged, and talked to. This fall we have started playing with Linda Tellington-Jones' TTouch; winter will be a good time to practice techniques and to spend some quiet time together. For all the horses, but especially this winter for Naiobi, the credo about building a relationship with our horses is uppermost in my mind. Naiobi is still learning to trust and respect people. In many ways she is still learning who she is. Clearly she feels good now, physically and mentally. I should no longer describe her as a "rescue horse," she has moved beyond that status and become a member of our herd. She has an energy that she has probably never experienced before and her personality is evolving and revealing itself to me. She has, as my husband recently called it "pizzazz." I want to learn to enjoy who she is becoming. This winter we will spend time together, learning about each other, and trying to bring out the best in each other.

So I'm trying to see the possibilities in this transitional season, and to recognize the beauty of this time not just in the fall colors and the crisp frosty mornings, but in the time it will give me to spend with my horses at home and to work on the quality of our relationships.

Anna Banks
Moon Hill Ranch, Idaho