Here is why I love my new and improved Montana system so well:  When my horse is facing a fearful situation… why create more fear/anxiety/frustration?  That’s just going to get in the way of learning.

Here is what Tim walked me through with Caspian:

The only caveat was that I was not allowed to him take a breather in any direction except facing the mud, and  if Caspian showed any hesitation on his own while facing the mud, I was to immediately let him take a break.

We must have done 10-15 rollbacks in a row without a single stop.  That may not be a lot for a well-muscled horse, but it was certainly taxing on Caspian.  They were good rollbacks, too – Big K was giving me pointers on how to get him to follow through, and how to cue him better.  It literally felt like an arena lesson, only it was taking place on a churned-up, narrow cow trail.

And the thing was, with something else to concentrate on, and with the feeling of success on each rollback, both Caspian and I relaxed and unclenched our buttholes (Dude – it’s crass, but you know exactly what I’m talking about.)

“Let him rest now,” Tim said, one or two turns before Caspian was going to become sluggish.

I pointed Caspian at the mud hole, and let him breathe.  He took a few breaths, and then noticed where he was standing, and began to tense up.

“Work him some more,” came Tim’s voice from behind me, a moment before I was going to cue him on my own…. but I guess that’s why one of us is paying to attend clinics, and the other one giving them. On a side note – another interesting thing I learned at the clinic came from listening to Tim and Janet and realizing just how “off” my timing was for corrections and release was.

I worked him again, and almost immediately I could feel Caspian roll his eyes.  Rollbacks? he seemed to say.  Aren’t you tired of those yet? Because I sure am.

We did a few more of them before Tim called for me to stop him.  This time, Caspian stood easily, a bit out of breath, his front hooves actually sinking a bit in the mud without him even noticing.

“See if he’ll go forward – if he starts to turn away, go back to more rollbacks.”

I asked Caspian to move forward with my legs, and I felt him consider it for a moment, right up until he realized he was actually touching the mud with his front hooves.  Omg, it’s gonna eat me!

I used his horror and turned him into a neat little rollback, and went back to work.  I could feel him rolling his eyes as he forgot about the yawning mudpit of doom and became bored and slightly irritated with the constant maneuvering.  Dude.  The rollbacks are getting old.  Why are you so obsessed with this maneuver?

This time, three sets of rollbacks in, he asked to stop.  I felt it beneath me – a slight hesitation as he faced the stream, a questioning slowing of his movement, so I turned him towards the mud and let him breathe.

“Good,” Tim said in a quiet voice, and I found myself feeling absurdly pleased at the small bit of praise.  Caspian lowered his head, sniffing and snorting at the mud, trembling slightly underneath me.  I felt him rock backwards slightly, preparing to flee, and I settled my seat, reaching to gather the reins so I could ask him to do more rollbacks.

Woman, you have GOT to be kidding me.  No.  NO.  No more rollbacks – I am so, SO sick of that stupid thing you’re so obsessed with.  You will not make me do another one of those stupid maneuvers.
Caspian’s a quiet horse, but when he’s disdainful, you can feel it surging up from underneath you in a deafening roar.  Sensing my intentions, he stepped forward into the mud before I could ask him to work some more.  He quivered beneath me the entire way, snorting and blowing and trembling with nerves, but once he took that first step he crossed  it without a single complaint.

I know that may sound overly elementary to some of you, but when I was learning to ride horses, somehow I ended up with the mindset that I had to “win”.  If a horse balks, be more stubborn, and force them over, force them past.  Don’t give in.  Don’t lose.  It’s for their own good.

And the thing is… it doesn’t have to be like that at all. You always hear “Make the wrong choice hard, and the right choice easy,” but to have it work so easily, with so little fight…. for the first time ever, it just really sunk in.

That said, I think a lot of the open communication I’m starting to feel with him comes from the Jedi mind tricks I learned at the clinic.  I’ve owned Caspian for almost a year now, and I’ve never once fought with him.  That is just so weird to me.  And I don’t mean “fight” in the physical sense.  I mean it in the “I will win, and you will NOT win” kind of a way that usually accompanied my approach to butting heads with horses in the past whenever I encountered a problem.

I don’t have to fight Caspian… and in the 11 months I’ve owned him, I haven’t had a single fight with him.  Not once.   Do you have any idea how crazy that is to me?

I think the mud crossing would have been enough to chew on on its own, but there was this other point in the clinic, where the big arena was muddy so we had gone into the indoor to work the mechanical cow.

We’d been inside for almost two hours before I realized that Caspian was nervous about the entrance to the arena – something about the mix of bright and shadows was making him uncomfortable, and even though he was doing a great job “cutting” the plastic cow on a string, when we would approach that side of the arena his canter would transform from practical into a beautiful, lofty, very high thing.  I’m sure it was gorgeous to look at, it felt really cool to ride, and I’m sure it would have made a dressage instructor drool…. but it made me uneasy.

Instead of turning to follow the cow, I whoa’d Caspian, and turned to face Tim and Mugwump.

“I have a question.”

“What’s up?”

“Well, I know he isn’t really spooking right now, but it kind of ties into that semi-rearing thing he did with me at the mud.  He doesn’t like this side of the arena.  And he still canters toward it, but I can feel him getting really light in the front end because he doesn’t want to be over here, and it just makes me really uncomfortable.  I feel like it’s a baby step in the rearing direction, and I’d like to just make him quit before I even start.  It’s not like I’ve got any real pressure on the reins blocking him.  I’m not sure what the best way to handle it is.”

“Well, do you need to be over on that side of the arena?”

Huh?  I blinked at Tim a few times before answering.  “Uh… I guess not?”

“Well, then, there you go.  Don’t go over there.”  Tim nodded once, as if everything had been answered.

“Uhh…. But….”  But Tim, that’s kind of the most confusing, obviously wrong answer I’ve ever heard in my entire life… “But Tim, doesn’t that, you know, let him ‘win’?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve just…. Well, you know how you’re always asking us ‘how would we do it’?  Well, if I were home, and this was happening, I would take Caspian over to that corner, and just force him to do his work in it until he got over whatever was bothering him.  Just… just kind of make him stay there until he wasn’t nervous anymore.”

“Well, if you don’t really need to go over there, then I say don’t make him.”

“But…. but why?  I just don’t understand how that’s the right answer.  It seems like I would be letting him win – that he would learn that trying to avoid an area results in me avoiding it.”

“If it were important for you to work over there, then yeah, I would say you need to make him go over there.  But you said it yourself – you don’t need to be in that part of the arena.  The thing is, if you come in here, day after day, and just work on the things you need to work on, and ignore whatever’s making him nervous about that area… well, eventually you’ll come in one day, and realize it’s not a problem anymore.  He’ll have worked through it on his own, and it won’t be an issue.  There’s no sense fighting him over something that’s not important – he’ll pick it up on his own along the way.  You’d be surprised.”

Guys, I really hope that makes as much sense to you as it does to me – and if it doesn’t, and if you want to “get it” better, ask me a question in the comments and I’ll try to explain again…. because this has been the most absolutely life-changing thing about the way I’m interacting with horses.

I mean, in the spirit of complete honesty, at the time I heard it, I disagreed with what Tim was saying.  Sure, that method would work, if I was ever going to come back to this barn.  And sure, that might work if we were all on horseback 8 hours a day with a velcro seat, and we didn’t get nervous when horses started to act up…. but it seemed like a useless approach for someone like me.

Still – I paid good money for the clinic, so I wasn’t about to just ignore the advice I’d paid to receive.  I did what he asked – stopped concentrating on that half of the arena, stopped mentally willing Caspian to move into it, and stopped caring when his canter got all airy and lofty and dude-if-my-hind-legs-were-still-this-would-be-a-Lipizzaner-rear.

And you know what?  Somewhere in the  middle of that rainy morning…. Caspian quit caring about the doorway.

It was the weirdest darn thing I’d ever had happen – and again, I really, REALLY credit my horse and his big, calm brain for allowing me to make all of these mental breakthroughs.  A flightier, stupider horse wouldn’t have taken five giant mental steps for every single tiny shuffle that I made that weekend…. but Caspian did, and because of that, I’ve been able to have epiphany after epiphany with him.

I’ve had a couple of months to chew on what I think Tim was trying to say, and I’ve bounced the idea off of Mugwump and she agrees with my interpretation.

Ignoring the door and Caspian’s lack of forward movement wasn’t “letting him win” – it was just… just not arguing with him over stupid, small stuff.  Did I need to go over to the doorway to accomplish my goals?  No?  Then it didn’t matter – why argue with him unless it really mattered?  Sure I could have made him do it in the end, but I should only “force” him if it really matters, and not fight over useless stuff, just to prove I can “win”.

And the beautiful thing is, CASPIAN UNDERSTANDS THIS PREMISE.  I don’t know when I became aware of it, but somewhere along the way, as we built our relationship – and as I explored this “don’t butt heads” way of approaching a horse… Caspian told me he understood the rules.

It was kind of funny, in a way, because I didn’t even realize I was giving him rules until he told me  he understood them.

A couple of weeks ago we were out on the trails at our new barn.  There’s never anybody there to ride with me, so both Caspian and I are learning how to ride out on the trails, away from any signs of houses or fences or anything, with only each other for company.

Both of us were pretty unnerved by this idea at first, not that we’re 100% comfortable yet, or anything.   I actually tried approaching it in a different way that I got from a book, and it seems to have worked… but that will have to be another post, because this one’s already stupidly long.

Anyways, our new trails are several hundred acres of rolling cattle pasture – and once you “cross the creek and go through the gate”, you are on public land – or at least land that belongs to some giant logging company (or something) who doesn’t mind if we ride on it.

I swear this creek is mythical, because I still haven’t found it yet.  On the day in question I had about three hours before work so I decided to find the creek to see if Caspian remembered his rollbacks lesson.  Despite surviving an entire Oregon winter, he’s still a little iffy about certain types of mud, and I haven’t had any chance at all to work on water crossings yet.

We threaded our way through the hills, him a little uncertain but walking calmly on a loose lead.  We made our way up a hill, then up a road, before we arrived at a flat muddy road-type area about a football field or more in length that was churned up by countless, fresh cow hoof prints.

Well… the road was wide, and obviously well-traveled by cows… and it sloped downwards…. there was probably a creek at the bottom? (Spoiler:  it totally wasn’t.)

Still – I eyed the mud dubiously.  I could feel Caspian underneath me doing the same.  I had no idea how deep it was, but it looked bad, so I decided to get off and lead him through it (it’s part of my “training a solo trail horse” thing I’m doing – lots of leading in uncertain situations until we’re both comfortable alone.)

I got off and began to slip, and slide through a couple hundred yards of the slimiest, suckiest clay ever. At one point I sank down so deep that the pooled water on the top of the mud began pouring down into my boot.  Man, that’s a nasty feeling.  I even lost my boot twice in the sticky, slimy mess and had to take a step backwards for it.

I thought about turning back, but by that time I was more than halfway through, and I figured there had to be another way around this mud pit so I never had to go through it again.

Caspian followed me respectfully as I edged my way through there – the two of us sliding like Bambi as we made our way through, the lead rope loose and his nose about a foot or two behind my shoulder.  He’s good as gold when I’m on the ground leading him, and has been for some time.  We got to the bottom and I began to look around for another way out.

An hour later I’d bumped into every single fence the farmer must have had, some of it serving no other visible purpose than to keep me from getting back to the barn.  I was annoyed, and frustrated, and worried about getting to work on time….

And lost.

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I could point which way the barn was, but I had no idea how to actually get back there.  I’d criss-crossed so many times I couldn’t remember the way I came in.  Every hill I climbed seemed to dead end in barbed wire.  I was hot, and sweaty, and really out of breath, because somewhere along the way I’d gotten so involved in searching that I’d literally forgotten to mount back up on my horse.  Caspian follows on a completely loose lead, so several times I actually forgot I was even leading him and would spin around and almost bump into him as I marched back down the hill, frustrated and muttering.

Eventually, I gave up.  I knew where home was.  I knew where we were.  I just didn’t know how to actually get back there.

“Alright,” I said, as I led Caspian over to a stump and heaved myself back up into the saddle.  “Your turn.”

It took only a few steps before he realized I was letting him decide the path, and he turned around and made a beeline straight for the barn.

“It’s not going to work,” I said in a sulky tone.  “There’s a stupid fence up there.”

Either Caspian didn’t speak English or he decided to ignore me, because he continued marching on, with pricked ears and a happy expression.  Hooray!  We’re finally going home, where there are other horses and no mud or wolves lurking in the shadows.

He reached the top of the hill and stopped short, staring intently at the fence in front of him for a few moments as he flicked his ears.

“See?  I tooooold you there was a fence.”

Proving once again that he’s more mature than I am, Caspian ignored me and turned around to head back down the hill in another direction.

A few turns later I recognized where he was taking us- we were heading straight back to the ugly mud pit.  I hadn’t wanted to cross it again… but I’d told Caspian he could choose the route home, and he probably remembered what lay there, so I decided to let him. Besides, I needed to be in my car in 40 minutes if I was going to make it to work on time, and we were rapidly running out of time.

He walked calmly to the edge of the stretch and stood for a moment, catching his breath from the long trek up the hill.

I sat quietly on top of him, to see what he would do.  After a few moments he lowered his head and blew on the mud, nostrils flaring as he snorted quietly.  And then he just stepped into it.

I mean, to understand what this really means, you have to know that I never once worked on Caspian’s phobia of mud.  There were a couple of times I had to lead him over a small patch at his old barn, and each time I did it was a barely-controlled, frantic skitter.  But I never worked with him.  Old-style Becky would dragged him over to every single patch of mud she ever found and forced him to cross it, time and time and time again until he got over it.  And in the end I would have had exactly what I trained for:  A horse that didn’t like mud, and tensed up when he saw it, but crossed it because he knew he had to.

But New-Style Becky… well, I just worked on other stuff.  And if mud happened to be in the way when we had to go somewhere, then so be it.  The only time I’d ever deliberately walked him over mud had been about an hour before, when he’d followed me willingly and without complaint over it the first time.

And now I had a horse that could feel me wanting him to go forward, and knew it was important to me…. so he did – because he trusted me, trusted that I wouldn’t ask him to do it unless it mattered.

I sat as still as I could on top of Caspian, doing my best to keep out of his way as he skated and slid and dragged his legs out of mud that made a deep, sucking SCHLOOOOOP noise with each step.  At one point he stopped, catching his breath and eyeing the chaos in front of us, trying to figure out which way to go.

Since I had a better vantage point I decided to chime in.   You should maybe go that way—over to the left, right around that big mud puddle…. oh, never mind.  Because even as I began to softly touch my request with my calf I thought – he’s doing great.  Why are you micromanaging, Becky?  Let him figure it out.

Except….as soon as I said something, he listened, even though I was just mumbling with my legs.  Oh, left?  Through the big mud puddle?  That way?  But there’s a huge puddle.  Well, I think that’s a stupid way to go, but if you think it’s the best way, then I believe you.

And without a single hesitation Caspian continued forward, splashing calmly through a deep puddle that sprayed up dirty water over my boots and his belly, willing to trust and completely in tune because to him, I made sense.

“Well, we can probably handle that.”

Honestly?  Not having an agenda really left me open to learning some truly awesome things…. But in the future, maybe I should sit down and think about my goals ahead of time. 

Tim flat out refused to tell us “his way” of doing things.

Me:  “What’s the best way to cue for a stop?”
Tim: “Well, how do you like to ask for it?”

The downside is that it’s also left me a little bit lazy.   How do I cue for a stop?  Uhhh… I dunno?  However you want me to?

But right then, on the first day of the clinic….   I was in the mood to be spoon fed, darnit, and apparently everyone expected me to chew for myself.

Tim didn’t expound upon much when he explained things, but there was theme he kept coming back and repeating over and over throughout the weekend – there is no magic “method”.  If you had a way of getting things done, there was no reason to throw that just to adopt “Tim’s method” simply because he was the clinician you’d paid for.  At the end of the day, that was just going to confuse you more.

Instead, he wanted to help us be more effective with the tools we already had.

The goal was to lope your horse in a couple of big, fast circles, and then slow your horse down and lope several smaller, slower circles that fit inside your bigger circle.

The trick for the circles was that you had to touch the same beginning point on the circle each time, whether it was big or small – in other words, if you were going to do a figure eight (which we eventually did), you started at the very center, and you needed to touch the center point of the 8 every time, whether it was a big circle or small circle.

For those of you who do reined cowhorse, you’re probably wondering why I’m bothering to explain this.  It’s pretty elementary stuff.  But I know that somewhere out there there’s someone just as ignorant as me who might go to a future clinic, and now that person doesn’t have to lean over and whisper “What the heck does ‘Go do some circles’ mean?” 

Anyways, after a little glancing around to see who was going to go first, Summersmom  volunteered and headed out to the middle of the arena…..

And that’s where I’m going to break in and say that it kind of sucks for you guys.

The problem is, I learned most of the cool stuff by watching other riders – seeing what they did right, and what they did wrong, and how they used (or misunderstood) the directions they were given.  In other words, I learned a lot by watching other people learn…. And with a few exceptions, I’m not going to write about most of those lessons.

The problem I’ve run into is that I don’t feel comfortable critiquing other people’s riding, and some of the strongest lessons came from seeing someone do something, and thinking, “Well, if they just did ‘X’ like he told them to, it would work so much better,” etc, etc.

That said, here is one lesson that I saw that did kind of stick – I’ll call it the “Ten/One Rule”:

Gtyyup was far and away a much better rider than me.  She knew what she was doing, and you could just see the partnership between her and big bay gelding,Colt – long hours spent with each other, and a solid understanding of where they were, and where she wanted to be with him. 

“Tim, when I ask him to blow bubbles (or whatever it was), he braces, I correct him, he does it for a bit, and then he quits as soon as I release.”

“That’s because you’re not really correcting him. You’re nitpicking, and then never really releasing.  Here’s what I want you to do – think of correction in terms of 1 to 10.  When you correct him, I want you to correct him at an 8.  Really get after him –  and then as soon as he responds, release him down to a 1.  Right now you’re just doing more of a 4/3, 4/3 – you’re never really getting after him, but you’re also not really releasing him.”

And so off the two of them went again, Colt loping smoothly under a morning sun that was gradually getting uncomfortably hot.  As Gtyyup rode, she corrected him – harder than she was before, but, honestly, it wasn’t anywhere near an 8.

Twisting in the saddle, Tim looked over at us.  “So, what do you guys think?  Where do you think she is on the scale, correcting vs releasing?”

None of us really wanted to venture a direct opinion, but after a few moments and a little murmuring, we finally came to a conclusion – instead of the 4/3 she had before, now she was more like a 5/2.

Tim nodded, and we all went back to watching the pair lope their smooth circles in the arena.

When she came back, Gtyyup was all smiles.  “Boy, that made a huge difference – thank you!”

Tim nodded, and then looked over at Summersmom.  “So, what did you see with her out there?”

“Well, you weren’t really getting after him.  You didn’t really step it up like he said.”

“Really?”  Gtyyup looked shocked.  “I felt like I was really getting after him, and then throwing him away.”  She looked at all of us, but all of us were kind of shaking our head.  

So out she went again – and this time, when she corrected Colt, she corrected him at an 8.  His head flew up and his eyes bugged slightly, but the second he did what she asked, she laid the reins completely down on his neck, and gave him miles of slack in the reins.  Before she’d even finished her second circle, even I could see the difference.

And that was the beauty of the clinic – learning from other people’s mistakes, and then making your own.

Speaking of my mistakes…. In my nervousness at Caspian’s nervousness, I had decided to leave the spurs behind at the trailer.  During his skittery warm up it had seemed like a good idea, but after more than an hour of dozing in the hot summer sun, both of us were feeling really lazy. 

Of course, even though I’d relaxed as I watched every other person ride, the second it was my turn I felt my stomach go all cold and nauseous again.  I’m sure there are some people out there who enjoy people watching them ride, but not me. There’s something about riding with eyes on me that makes me freeze up.

Caspian stepped out in a big, smooth gait (at some point I’m going to have to figure out what he does – is it a running walk?  A foxtrot?  A pace?  Eh.) Whatever it was, it wasn’t a lope.

I cued him harder – pressing my heel into his side, and gave a long, loud kiss.

He gaited faster.

I kicked a little harder.

He ignored me.

I twisted my toe out so I could really dig my heel into his side, and kicked him. Hard.

He ratcheted his head up into the air, and broke into a hard, jouncing trot. 

Anyways, I’ve figured out how to sit his trot now, but on that particular morning, with  only three or four rides on him under my belt, and with me sitting all stiff and awkward in the saddle under the weight of all those stares ….

I tried to sit my way through that trot so I could push him past into a lope, but I felt like I was going to fall off at any second.

So I stopped him, collected myself, and tried again.

 I made it again to that hard, jackhammer extended trot, right to the point of feeling like I was about to fall off/be bounced out of the saddle, and I quit. I couldn’t even post to it, because every third or fourth stride he would break into a pace before going back into the trot, so I was forced to “sit” and bounce on his back while I tried to convince him to lope – flopping about all over the place like a five year old on her first lead line lesson.

Caspian’s best gait is by far his lope (canter?  Eh, whichever.)  I’m pretty sure he invented the term “rocking horse” canter.  I’d only ridden it once before, the first time I met him after my parents bought him, so when he finally transitioned from that teeth-rattling trot into that smooth, controlled motion, it felt like I was flying…. Unfortunately, it still felt like I was about to fall off.   His canter was so big, and so up and down that I felt like I was slipping and sliding all over the place. 

When I mentioned it to Mugwump later on in the day she said I looked fine, but I sure didn’t feel like it.  I really was just one small lean away from completely falling off, and it was completely disheartening.  Had I completely lost my ability to ride a horse?  Was I too fat?  What the heck was going on, that I couldn’t even sit on a horse without almost falling off?  

I’d kick him into the lope, he’d comply, I’d start squeezing to avoid falling off, he’d go faster, I’d check him….And that’s the way we went around the arena – a few strides of loping, then trotting, then loping.  

Tim nodded.  “Sure thing.  Do you guys wanna break for lunch?” 

It actually sounds kind of gross when I describe it like that, but believe me, it was incredible.

I’d like to say I knew I was relaxing because I felt my shoulders muscles loosen, or something like that.

I knew I was relaxing because I began to burp. Apparently my stomach decided that since I wasn’t going to die, it should actually begin digesting all that food that was just sitting there, and the best way to do that was to make me burp.  A lot.

How does Becky Bean relax?  With great big belches that would do any 12 year old boy proud.

It was really hard trying to muffle them, too.  I mean, it was almost a shame.  These were epic belches, and I kept having to hide them behind a hand, or an elbow, lest I become known as “That Burpy Blogger” in everyone’s write ups.  I

Still, gross as it was, with every burp I felt better.  I’d gotten the worst out of the way.  I’d survived the drive up, my battle with nerves, the fear of failure, and the first ride.  It was Friday afternoon, and I was finally ready to get down to the business of learning.

Someone asked me that about four days before I was due to leave for the clinic.

Ha.

Ha, ha, ha.

Wednesday the 24^th was my birthday.   It was also the day I was due to start the roadtrip. 

I honestly couldn’t think of a better way to spend my 32^nd birthday than heading out to Montana with my horse.

COUGH.  HEADING TO MONTANA TO SPEND TIME WITH MY HORSE.  COUGH.

Y’all are going to get real sick of me repeating “my horse” and “I went to Montana” reaaaaal quick.  I’m like that barely pregnant chick who walks around with her hand on her still-flat belly, simpering about “the baby”… or the newly-dating couple who constantly drops “my BOYFRIEND/my GIRLFRIEND” hints  every other sentence.

Feel free to hate me a little – it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.  I’m just saying that you can hate me if you want to

Anyways,  instead of blowing out candles on a cake, I spent my birthday running around, sweating, and trying to shove various articles of clothing and tack into whatever bag I could find.

Actually, that’s not quite right.

I spent the morning running errands, doing laundry, and hanging out with my family…..

 and then about two to three hours before Summersmom (we carpooled to the clinic) was due to arrive I started frantically shoving stuff into suitcases and bags, dashing to the grocery store for food, speeding to the barn to get hay, etc, etc, etc. 

One day. 

One day I will pack things ahead of time, and spend the day of a trip lounging and relaxing  as I wait for my departure time to come around.

Of course, one day I’m also going to have tan, toned thighs… so if I’m imagining the “I packed ahead of time” scenario, I might as well imagine me in a cute little pair of short shorts, getting appreciative whistles from everyone who drives by.

Also, my hair isn’t dry and I don’t have any frizzy split ends.

I mean, if you’re going to imagine something, make it good, right?

By the time I was ready to head to the stables to meet Summersmom and load Caspian into the borrowed trailer I was a frazzled mess.  I had my stuff packed – at least, I thought I did.  I wasn’t  really sure what I had in my bags.  It might have been helpful if I could have referenced the cute little packing list I’d made a couple of days ago… but who the heck knew where that was?

I will say that it could have been a lot worse – my mom and stepdad drove up to help me take care of the boys, so I was actually able to get stuff done without having to keep the boys alive at the same time. 

Let me take a moment and say three big cheers for them – it made the clinic go SO MUCH SMOOTHER knowing my boys were in great hands.

And while we’re at it – three cheers for The Bean, who not only agreed to this crazy venture, but funded it through lots of overtime.

I mean, think about it.  How many husbands would agree to the following?

“Hey babe, I want to go blow almost a thousand bucks hauling a horse we can barely afford to a clinic up in Montana.  Huh?  How will we afford it?  I’m not quite sure.  I’m sure we’ll figure something out. 

What is the clinic?  It’s a reined  cowhorse clinic.  What’s that? It’s a horse sport.  No, I’ve never talked about it before because I don’t ride reined cowhorse, why do you ask?  What do you mean ‘Why go to this clinic’?  Are you high?  IT’S THE MUGWUMP CLINIC!

Huh?  Who is Mugwump?  Well, it’s some chick I know through the Internet – she wrote some blog stories about some dude, so I figure I should go travel almost two thousand miles round trip so they can tell me how to ride better.

How am I getting Caspian and I there?  Oh, I’ll be sharing a trailer with some other chick who has a blog –  her name’s Summersmom. She seems nice – I mean, from what I’ve read, at least.  We’re Facebook friends, so that means we’re, like, practically sisters… at least in the Internet world.

Who is hauling the horses?  Well, that chick I am hauling with once met some dude from the Internet, and he said he’d be interested in going if we paid for the diesel. so we’re going to go get in his truck and head off to Montana.  I’m sure he’s nice, too.  What’s that?  You want to know if it’s a safe vehicle?  Of course it is.  It takes diesel.  That means it’s big.  All big trucks are safe.  Really, after so many years in the car industry, I shouldn’t have to explain stuff like this to you. 

Where am I staying?  Well, the first night we’ll be staying at my carpool buddy’s  in-laws.  Who are they?  I dunno.  They’re her in-laws. What a silly question – how am I supposed to know who they are if I haven’t met them yet?  Where do they live?  Somewhere in Washington.  I’ll text you the address once I see it. 

Oh, you mean where’s the ultimate destination?  It’s in Montana, silly.  I told you that.  What’s that?  You want more details?  Umm… it’s on a ranch?  Does that help?  I’ll get you an address later.  I know it’s outside of Roundup…. Where’s Roundup?  I don’t know – I’m not responsible for driving.  I already told you it’s in Montana.   Geez, what’s with all the questions?”

Etc, etc.

Anyways, back to the story:  I pulled up to my barn about five minutes after Summersmom and Owen (the guy with the truck) arrived.  It would have felt weird, saying hello….  Except I was feeling too guilty about running behind.

I caught a glimpse of them as I scurried past – and was vaguely disappointed to notice that Summersmom was wearing a cute little outfit and was really quite pretty.  If I’d known we were allowed to be pretty I might have taken a little more time – but we were on a horse road trip.  I thought it was against the rules to wear makeup. 

Anyways, after saying hi to Summersmom, her cute little paint mare,  and her ridiculously intelligent little boy (the kid JUST turned four and reads better than most fourth graders), I met Owen… and Owen’s dog, Gracie.  Summersom had warned me that Owen would be bringing his dog on the trip.  Considering he had a giant diesel truck and a brother who lived in Montana, I expected to see a shaggy ranch dog – some kind of heeler or border collie mix.

Imagine my surprise when this came trotting up to me:

Gracie was the most disgusting, adorable little dog in the world, and she made the drive a lot of fun.

I’ve never met a dog who could so thoroughly disgust me… and yet still make me want to pet her.  She sneezed on EVERYTHING, farted, burped, snored, and had a strange habit of wanting to press her little bunghole against you. 

See?  GROSS.  And yet… I still wanted to hold her on my lap.

She was a seriously cute little dog – mellow, happy, and just a likeable soul.

While Gracie cavorted around our ankles, we finished introductions and I ran in to the barn grab Caspian from his pasture and lead him to the trailer.  We let him and Summer sniff noses, and I was pleasantly surprised to see only a polite, friendly interest from both horses.  Sweet – we were off to a good start.

“Is he good about loading?” Owen asked, as I led him up to the trailer.

“Well… we’ll see?  I’m assuming yes, since he came off the trailer just fine earlier this week.”

“You don’t know?”

“Nope. I don’t really know him.  I’ve only owned him a week – he seems nice, but I really don’t know what to expect from him on stuff.”

I’m sure that look on Owen’s face meant he was happy for me and my new horse… it looked suspiciously like the “Oh, crap” expression I’m so used to on The Bean’s face, but I’m sure I was just reading it wrong.

It turns out that Caspian loads trailers like a dream – he stepped right up ,with zero hesitation…. And then stepped right back out when I directed him, because even though it was a slant load it was physically impossible for him to fit in one slot – Summersmom and I had taken into account height when figuring out which trailer to use, but I honestly hadn’t considered how LONG he is. Whoops.

Thankfully it was a four horse trailer, so we had plenty of room to pull out a divider and give him two stalls while still having enough room for hay and tack.

Owning a BIG horse really is a new experience for me.

A couple of bits of tack and a little rearranging later, and we were on our way…..

Right into downtown Portland traffic.  Drat.

It took less than ten minutes in traffic before I turned to Owen and asked him what he did for a living…. And had my suspicions confirmed that he hauls (He used to be a truck driver and now started his own business.)  It was obvious from the way he handled the trailer that he had a LOT of experience hauling things – the trailer never jostled once, even when people cut us off.  If you’re ever looking for someone to move your horses for you, I heartily recommend him. 

See?  The Bean’s a worrywart.  I obviously had everything under control.

The first night’s drive up to Summersmom’s in laws  (the Tri-Cities area of Washington) was uneventful… and tons of fun.  To be honest, half the fun of the clinic was the drive.  The three of us hit it off and had a LOT of laughs on the way up, and even when the conversation slowed or stopped, it was a companionable silence.  It’s been awhile since I’ve been on a fun road trip like that. 

We arrived in the Tri-Cities area a little later than we had hoped (closer to midnight), and after we unloaded the horses and got them set up, we didn’t get to bed until closer to one in the morning.

Despite the comfortable air mattress they had set up for me, I had a little trouble falling asleep. When Summersmom woke me up at a little before 5:30 in the morning, I was pretty groggy.  I stumbled off to the shower, hoping it would wake me up….. but it didn’t.  I finally gave up, and shut off the water.  I pulled back the shower curtain to grope sleepily for the towel.  I couldn’t seem to reach it, so I leaned over further….

And promptly fell out of the bathtub onto the floor.

I want all of you to know that when I fell, I floated gracefully to the ground, like a dainty fairy elf.

I did NOT sprawl out of the tub and slam onto the floor with a giant grunt and flop around like a beached seal trying to get to my feet.

Also, since we’re talking about stuff that didn’t happen, Summersmom definitely didn’t start making fun of me the second I got out of the bathroom.  She also didn’t share what happened with her in laws.  And Owen.  And Mugwump.  And The Big K.  And, basically, everyone who was at the clinic.

We left her son at her in laws  and got on the road at a decent hour – which was good, because it was a loooong day.  We stopped every three hours with the horses, giving them a break, and offering them food and water.  Neither pony was interested in drinking water until late in the evening, which was a little concerning….. but we soaked beet pulp and rice bran in a LOT of water (basically turning it into runny gruel) and got liquid into them that way. 

The drive was long – not gonna lie, but WOW, it was beautiful.

A beautiful photo of Wednesday night’s giant full moon cresting the hill – isn’t it magnificent?

Yeah.  I don’t know what I was expecting, taking that photo.

The drive on Thursday did get a little boring at times.

Some of us slept through the boring parts.

Others of us amused ourselves:

Aarene (from HaikuFarm) loaned me her hat when I visited back in June… and I accidentally brought it with me when I left.  Since I kept forgetting to mail it back, it went with me on a roadtrip to Montana.

As we left big cities behind and headed deeper into more rural territory, it got a little…..different:

(This billboard contrasted so much with the “Botox now!” and “Free breast enlargement consultation!” signs I was used to in SoCal that I just had to take a picture.)

And now for a confession:  I have to admit – I’ve been kidding myself ever since I moved to Oregon that it was as beautiful as Montana. 

I’m sorry Oregon.  You know I love you, baby, but… yeah.  You’re not Montana.  You’re Montana’s easy-going sister – you kind of look the same,  and you’re more chill to hang out with, but it’s obvious you’re not the beauty in the family.

In order to fully understand, these photos are all Montana – taken with a cell phone with a blurry camera (weird – cell phones and their cameras don’t seem to like being dropped in toilets.  Whodathunk?).  I took them from the backseat of the car, through a dirty windshield.  Also, those hills in the distance are actually mountains in most of the photos – the sky of “Big Sky Country” is just so clear that the distance is misleading.

I had to stop myself at some point, because I didn’t want to take 600 photos and fill up my memory card.

With all the stops for the horses, we didn’t get to Roundup until really late.  The Big K had us call once we hit town so we could ask him for directions….. which was a little silly, since our GPS worked just fine, and the directions Mugwump wrote on her blog were clear as day. 

I was all for just using the GPS and  blog directions…. But Owen drove the ENTIRE way, so I owed it to him to sit back and relax and allow him to do what made him feel comfortable… and what made him comfortable involved following K’s directions to the “T”.

This involved quite a bit of “I don’t see that street sign… it’s closed off for detours. We’re on Fourth Street now, but I don’t the turn you’re describing isn’t there….”

I sat in the backseat, fidgeting, and doing everything I could not to howl “JUST PAY ATTENTION TO ME – I KNOW HOW TO GET US THERE.  HANG UP THE STUPID PHONE AND GO WHERE I SAY!”

I don’t know about you, but I deserve +10 life points for refraining.   I’m normally more patient than that, but by that point I just really wanted out of the truck.

Finally, FINALLY (Did I mention FINALLY?) we pulled up to the ranch.  By that point I think we were all over the excitement of the road trip, and just wanted to be out of the car and in bed…. Or maybe it was just me. 

One of the hardest part about becoming a parent, for me at least, is the lack of alone time.  I really enjoy hanging around with people… provided I get some time to myself.  I prefer at least an hour or two each day, but I’ll settle for five minutes, even if it’s just five minutes of hiding in the bathroom from the children.

The road trip was TONS of fun… but a truck is not a big area, and there’s really no chance to be by yourself when you’re trapped inside it with two other people and an adorable, farting pug.

All this to say… by the time we parked the truck and unloaded Caspian, I was in a foul mood.

I know, I know.  I should have been giddy at being at the clinic, and ecstatic to be in Montana, and thankful for my horse and family who made it all possible, and overjoyed at the blessings in my life…..

But I wasn’t.

I was in a sour, nasty, no-good, very bad mood.

I wanted to be left the hell alone. 

I wanted to be by myself, in silence, to settle in my horse, and take a few breaths.  Basically, I needed to find my center again.  I felt like my skin was raw from too much contact with other people – even if they were people I genuinely liked.

Of course, that wasn’t possible.  We had to get the horses settled, and the tent set up, and a whole host of other stuff.

Basically, this means that the first time I actually met Mugwump, all I could think was LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE. Don’t look at me.  Don’t touch me.  Don’t even get near me.  I don’t want to say hi.  I don’t want you to have an actual face that I need to look at, or a voice I need to listen and respond to.  GO THE HELL AWAY BEFORE I HIT SOMEONE ON THE HEAD WITH A ROCK.

Nice, huh? 

I could tell I was being a complete jerk so I did my best to stuff it down and just avoid eye contact.  I’m not sure how successful I was – probably not very.

Both horses unloaded like a dream, with no drama.  Caspian did give one call when we arrived, but frankly, I love to hear him neigh.  Jubilee had a silly little whinny – he sounded like a weanling filly. Caspian has a deep, almost sexy neigh.

Yes, I said sexy.  And yes, I’m totally in love with my horse.  Nooo, not like that.  You know what I mean. 

Anyways, aside from being a teensy bit stocked up on the leg he had to brace with (his stall was doubly wide, so he couldn’t lean on the sides), he seemed fine.  The Big K had set up large pens inside an enormous indoor arena, so Summersmom and I tossed our ponies in pens next to each other and made sure they had feed and water.  Caspian walked into the pen like he’d lived there his whole life, rolled, and started eating and drinking.  He seemed to be doing great, so I left him alone to have some peace and quiet (at least one of us got some) and went with Summersmom to set up the tent.

The tent.

That idiotic, who-the-heck-designed-it tent.

I feel like I shouldn’t complain, because it was a lovely tent, and even better, it was borrowed (yaay for free things!)  As far as comfort goes, the tent was incredible.  It felt like a Harry Potter tent – it was large from the outside, and absolutely palatial inside.

But, oh lord… setting it up. 

We opened up the box it came in…. and out fell three large bits of canvas, 712 strange-looking poles, and a bunch of stakes.

Normally I can figure out tents easily – but this one was confusing.  Now, in addition to a blurry picture on the front of the box it did come with an instruction book… an instruction book that started on step 7, contained a picture of an already set-up tent, and showed how to stake the already set-up tent down. 

Gee.  Thanks.  That’s very helpful.

The problem with figuring out the tent was that while there were slots for the poles to thread through at the top of the tent… but there was nothing for them to attach to on the sides or on the bottom.  I wish I’d thought to take a picture of what it looked like. It was weird. Every tent I’ve ever set up had slots for the poles to go through that went all the way down to the bottom, and then the bottom of the poles connected to little tabs in the tent.

Not this tent.

This tent had poles that sort of attached at the top, and then just kind of balanced on the ground – completely independent of the bottom of the tent.  The way you stretched out the bottom of the tent was to physically pull it out and stake it down.

The way the poles kept it upright is that there were three upside bars (Imagine an upside, square “U”).

The center upside down “U” was vertical.

The left and right upside down “U”s balanced at a forty five degree angle, with the top leaning to the outside, and the legs leaning towards the center of the tent.  There was no set angle for them to be at – you just wiggled and adjusted them against each other until it felt like the tent was going to stay up by them “pulling” against each other.

Weird, huh?

It seemed like such an unstable design that I just couldn’t believe that was the way it was supposed to be set up.

To make it a little more stressful, the whole time we were setting up the tent I felt like The Bad Neighbors.  It was late.  Like, really late.  We had to use the lights from Owen’s truck to see things, so he couldn’t go to sleep until we did.    Also, as a diesel, his truck made enough noise to raise the dead, so I’m sure Gittyup and her husband had a fun time trying to sleep through the ruckus.

Basically, in Aarene’s book Endurance 101, she has a chapter where the Bad Idea Fairy pulls into ridecamp… we pretty much followed the entire script, only we substituted a diesel truck for a generator.

Sorry, Gittyup.

More than once, Owen hinted that we should consider just sleeping under the stars and figuring out the tent in the morning…. But Kacy was in a good mood (frickin’ night people) and said she didn’t mind trying to get it set up tonight, and I was in a pissy I’VE DECIDED I’M GOING TO SET UP A TENT AND SO THE TENT IS GETTING SET UP EVEN IF I HAVE TO DIE DOING IT mood (frickin’ morning people), so I ignored him.

Setting up that tent took over 45 minutes, and by the time we were done I’d thrown all civility out the window.  “PICK UP THAT POLE AND PUT IT OVER THERE.  MUGWUMP, GRAB THAT CORNER AND PULL.  I DON’T  CARE IF IT’S DIFFICULT WITH ONLY ONE HAND, JUST DO IT BEFORE I EAT SOMEONE. ”

Finally, FINALLY, we got the tent set up.   We dug out our sleeping stuff and tossed it in. 

I was really excited about my “bed”.  In addition to normal sleeping bag and pillows, I’d brought an old queen-sized futon I’d found in a “Free” pile at a garage sale.   Sure it was bulky, but this was my extravagant vacation – why not indulge a little, if we had the space to bring it?  I was really, really excited to stretch out by myself, all alone, on my beautiful queen sized “mattress”.  The thought had warmed me those last few hundred miles – I just had to hang on, and soon I’d be all by myself on my little futon.  Summersmom could sleep on her little air mattress waaaaaaaay on the other side of the tent, and I could be by myself in my little corner.  It was going to be wonderful.

Unfortunately…. none of us felt like trying to find, much less figure out how to inflate Summersmom’s air mattress at past midnight.

“I’ll just roll my sleeping bag out on the ground for tonight,” she said, cheerfully.  “I need the air mattress for my bad back, but I’m sure I’ll be fine for tonight.”

I glanced at the lumpy ground, with the rocks clearly visible through the bottom canvas of the tent…..  and then glanced at my spacious queen sized futon mattress.  And I seriously thought about it.  I seriously thought about ignoring her, and letting her sleep on the rocky ground, so I could be “by myself”.

Because deep down inside, when it’s late, and I’m sleepy, and grumpy…. I’m a jerk.

But at least I’m not a total jerk. 

“Fine.”  I stifled a sigh. “You can sleep on my futon with me.  Just DON’T TOUCH ME.”

“We’ll be snuggle buddies!” joked Summersmom, smiling broadly.

“No.  I’m serious.  DON’T TOUCH ME.  You stay on your side of the futon, and I’ll stay on mine, and DON’T TOUCH ME.”

And no, sadly that’s not an exaggeration.  That’s exactly what I said, and at that point in the evening (morning?) I meant it.  I’m not sure what I would have done if she had tried to touch me – probably snarled something incoherent and dragged my sleeping bags out of the tent, or something. 

For the record:  Sorry I’m such a pill sometimes, Summersmom.  I promise I’ll be nicer about sharing my futon at the next clinic.  I was just having a… a “moment”.

I realized I sounded like a pissypants, so I tried to soften it.  “It’s okay if you touch me.  I mean, that sounds weird.  That’s not what I meant.  I mean… oh, never mind.  We’ll make it work.  We’ll just have a nice nap, and worry about it in the morning.

About that point Mugwump decided to head back to her trailer to get some sleep.  “Morning comes early.  I’m glad you called it a ‘nap’, because that’s what it will be. See you tomorrow.”

With Brockle trailing at her heels she headed back down the road.  Summersmom and I zipped ourselves into our sleeping bags (with me wedging myself onto the absolute furthest corner of the futon to avoid any accidental contact)… and lulled by exhaustion and the sound of the wind in Montana grass, I passed out and slept like the dead until my alarm went off at 6 the next morning.