FIVE BOOKS TO START WITH ...

I'm a story teller. Always have been. I love to capture my listener's attention, love to watch their face(s) and hear their reactions. Sometimes I paint the story, sometimes I write the tale...and sometimes I tell it. 

I read too, all the time. We haven't watched TV in years. You'd be surprised how much more time that gives a person to pursue the things they really love, the stories that feed their soul. 

I saw this article today, written by another story teller, about the five books that have influenced him. Now I've read a LOT more than five books and there have been more than a few that have influenced me. I've been reading since I was three years old...taught myself (my children did too. Comes from reading books to them from day one. ). I used to spend my free time when I was very young reading, because, again, we had no TV. Best thing my Mom ever did was to take me to a library and say "There are more stories here than you can read in your lifetime. Even better, you get to use your imagination to make the pictures to go with the stories. AND IT'S ALL FREE! Doesn't get any better than that!"

So, I'm going to choose five books to write about today. Even better, you can still find them in your local library and read them FOR FREE! Really doesn't get any better than that. (Thanks Mom!) Make no mistake, there are five more and five more after that and five more after those books that have left their mark. I'm choosing five because I have to start somewhere.

"THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD" There've been so many versions of this book that the original author has been lost. The first use of the phrase, "I think I can." traces back to a Swedish journal published in 1902, the first English version was published in the New York Tribune in April, 1906. 

The book I read was probably a reprint of one published in 1930 by Watty Piper under the pen name Arnold Munk. It was my first real book that I owned. And I read it until the pages fell out and the binding had to be taped together. It was also the first book I bought for my sons. I still have it too. I dragged it out, dusted it off and read it to my Grandson when he was here last November for his first visit to his Kansas Grandparent's ranch. It's become a family tradition.

I loved that little book, especially the landscape with all of the animals and the train cars with more animals. It was such a plucky little engine. It never gave up even when it got tired and the hill was too high. I can recite the book cover to cover. And when I get in to one of those adult corners, where I'm feeling overwhelmed, I pull out my memories of figuring out how to read that book...and I read it again!

" I think I can...I think I can...I think I can!" My nick name in High School was Can-Do, by the way. Uh huh...really was. Funny what one simple parable can do to shape your life. I'm still a taker of chances, a person who keeps leaping...who keeps chugging along.

THE WIZARD OF OZ, by L. Frank Baum
Well, you knew this one had to be included. I'm Kansas born and raised. My Grandparents had a homestead that was started in 1856. And I watched the movie every single year at my Grandparent's home when it was on, always on a Sunday evening. We'd have a fried chicken dinner with apple pie for desert and then settle back on to my Grandma's scratchy sofa with pop corn and cocoa, to watch the 1939 version with Judy Garland in the title role. 

But it was the book that I really loved. The version I read was one that my Grandma had, published in 1900. I have no idea if it was a first edition. But I know it was old, well read and cherished by my Grandma. I wasn't supposed to take it outside, but I always did. I'd lay down in the shade under the old Elm in the side yard with Penny, their farm dog, draped over my stomach. I'd read it cover to cover too while Grandma brought me lemonade to drink and molasses cookies on a plate. " I thought I told you to read that inside? " And then she would turn to go inside, smiling, because she knew I wasn't going to listen to her. Some books are better read while laying in the grass under a perfect blue sky.

I'd read my favorite sections out loud to Penny, especially the parts about flying to another magical place and then traveling down a never ending road where anything could happen. That book and the rest of the series took me to places that opened my imagination to the idea that anything was possible!

BLACK BEAUTY, by Anna Sewell 
Just writing the title of this book brings tears to my eyes, a very feminine reaction. But also a very humane reaction. 

Anna Sewell wrote the book originally to bring attention to the way horses were treated. It was an immediate sell out in it's first publishing in 1878. Miss Sewell lived only five months after it was published, just long enough to enjoy it's success. It remains, to this day,  the fifth most successful book printed in English. 

I read BLACK BEAUTY when it was given to me as a birthday gift. I was just seven years old. I remember sitting up all night with a flashlight under the covers, reading. My Mom had already been in to my room twice to tell me to turn out the light. " You need your sleep young lady. The book will  keep until tomorrow."  No, it couldn't! I had to find out what happened each time the beautiful black horse was moved to a new home, to a new set of circumstances good or bad.

That story taught me, again, that you never give up no matter how hard things seem. Something better will come around the corner. You really are loved even when you feel like you're all alone and forgotten. It also gave me my first look at man's inhumanity to animals...and man's capacity to love greatly. 

Just two years later, in 1880, a million copies of BLACK BEAUTY were published in the United States. People were so outraged at the description of what it was like for horses that the "bearing rein" was outlawed for use in both the US and England. Now that's what I call walking your talk. It's the perfect illustration of the power of one voice that is STILL being heard almost 140 years later.Anna Sewell and her BLACK BEAUTY taught me to question authority, to find out why the so called status quo is accepted and to make a noise loud and clear when it needs to be changed.

 A WRINKLE IN TIME, by Madeleine L'Engle
My Mom gave me a first edition of this book, published in 1962. I was eleven years old. It was autographed by the author too. She went to a local book store and waited in line to buy the book for me, to get it signed. Years later, after my Mom died at much too young an age, my father sold it. It was in my Mom's secretary. I remember it sitting there on the shelf with all of the other books that were most important to her. She had kept it safe for me until we had our own place, to give to me after the rolling stone years when we moved from here to there and back again. It was one of the few things I grieved for after she was gone. And I still do too. 

This book was another birthday gift, probably why I still love birthdays.  I always got a new book to add to my library. This one came along at just the right time in my life. I was a geeky, gawky teen with big feet and ears that flapped in a high wind. I felt awkward inside my body, was too smart (taking courses at the junior high level in grade school and college level in high school) and very shy. And so was Meg, the protagonist in A WRINKLE IN TIME. I identified with Meg right away and fell in love with Calvin before she did! 

My Mom was a mathematician and chemist, one of the scientists who started Midwest Research  Institute in Kansas City. She communicated with me through math games, while looking through a microscope or telescope. She was Meg's Mom, a loving but remote person lost in her laboratory. This book was our bridge. We read it together, stopping to talk about where the author was taking us and why. It was my first introduction to the fine art of book reviews.

It also took me to other worlds through the tesseract and the world of quantum physics. Math and the sciences came easily to me, so I chose the path of an artist. That's something for another essay but it's also why I read this book over and over. It introduced me to a reading genre I hadn't tried before, Science Fiction. And the protagonist was a girl too boot, something unheard of in those days. 

It's easy to say that this book reinforced the themes of my first favorite books ; never give up, follow your heart, question the status quo, remember that you're never alone and always loved. 

There are five books in this series and all of them well worth the time to read them. 

TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, by Harper Lee. Last for best...
What can I say about a perfect gem? That's the way I always think of this book. It was perfect in every way...the language, the use of metaphor, the rhythm and cadence of the words...all of it. 

This was another one of those books given to me as a gift. I read it every year. I never miss a Summer reading of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, not even the years of babies, lack of sleep, full time work and full time school, the teen years with my sons or any of the years since. And every time I read it I see it from the point of view of another character or see a part in a different light. If I wear a teacher, no matter what grade, I would either read this book to the students or require that they read it.

The story, narrated by Scout, takes place in the deep south during the hardest years of The Great Depression. It takes the reader on a journey through Summers and Winters when people were so poor that work was paid for by barter with a bag of nuts and a quarter was a fortune. It was about a coming of age for Scout and her brother, Jem during a period when their father, Atticus, defends an African American accused of rape. It deals with racial injustice and, on a secondary level, prejudice created by gossip about a neighbor of the Finch's family who later saves Scout from almost certain death at the hands of a white trash drunk.

I think it's one of those books that everyone should read before they die. If nothing else it will take you to a time when things were hard and straight forward, complicated and more innocent. Again, it reinforced the ideas of honesty, questioning rules that need to change and never judging any book by it's cover.

It's cold, in the thirties, and raining here today but tomorrow the temperatures will begin to climb  and the two pairs of mockingbirds that we have here will begin to sing again. When they do, I will get out my worn copy of TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD and read it again for the fifty third time. And I will sit with Scout and Boo Radley on the front porch while they wait to see if Jem is OK.

When you read a book, you take a walk with the author through their imagination. It's one of the more intimate forms of art. Anyone who is published puts them self on the line, waiting for the reader to understand or to slice and dice the author's heart. I read because it takes me to places I would never go on my own. It keeps me open, thinking and believing that anything is possible.

It just doesn't get any better than that!

  I am, ever yours, Nancy ... reading and dreaming

TURNING A CORNER

Sometimes an event pushes you past your comfort zone boundaries, in to a place that just plain hurts. It's how you decide to react to that event that determines what comes next. Do you sink in to a "sea of misery" or do you rise to the occasion, learn how to swim and push yourself to the next shoreline so you can move on?

Last week a well meaning, just a bit too enthusiastic young animal activist sent me a video. It was titled "A MESSAGE FOR YOU FROM A KILL BUYER". In the name of keeping to my word for this year, Center, and because I've always thought the other opinion was important to understand before I make decisions, I opened it. I thought maybe it would be from one of the people who used to work in that industry who had a story to tell or a suggestion to make about how to help. Or maybe it was even their side of the story, about why they thought horse slaughter had merit. On that one I already knew I wouldn't agree but listening and learning is always important.

It was an opinion, no doubt about it. And it was probably one of the most shocking videos I've ever watched because my guard was down. I was sitting here, drinking an afternoon cup of tea and catching up on email. I was relaxed, the sun was out and my huge, sweet smelling St. Bernard puppy was draped across my feet. I was open to suggestion and ready to listen.

It was a video made by a man from New Mexico, surprisingly well crafted. It starts with a handsome, young gelding standing in a small, slightly messy paddock. Sweet tempered young horse too, no fear on it's face...just curiosity. In the next frame you see the man,a skinny guy wearing a cowboy hat, walking towards the camera leading the gelding. He stops to pet the horse, then pulls a gun from a holster and shoots the handsome sorrel gelding (found out it was only two years old, later when I started to investigate the background on the video) in the forehead. The horse falls to the ground and, while the horse lays there thrashing, the man turns to the camera and says "F8ck you, animal activists!" He turns and looks at the dying horse and says "Good!" and walks out of camera range, leaving the horse there to die. 

I reacted all right. I cried so hard it made me sick. I cried for two days. I lost sleep, couldn't eat, had a hard time focusing on anything. I also ran for my own horses and Willow to check on them right away. It was an instinctive thing to do. The horse that died in the video looked exactly the way Lucky did when I brought him home...open to anything I wanted to do, ready to go, sweet tempered and willing. Beautiful too. I felt like I had been sucker punched, right through the computer screen. I'd been accosted by a stone cold killer. That was the way it felt. 

It's taken a week of cleaning and organizing (I think better when I move) to make myself look at it from a different point of view. It's not easy to look death in the eye and do that.

This person, single handedly, has galvanized a much larger audience in to action with that four minute video. People who have been ignoring the issue of horse slaughter are paying attention. And people who've been vocal but not particularly active are doing something. Make no mistake, I would never condone that kind of video...ever. But he did kick the so called industry of horse slaughter in the pants when the video was published. 

I was already an activist. I sign petitions, write emails and make regular calls in support of the S.A.F.E. Act before Congress. If passed, it will make horse slaughter for consumption illegal in the USA and make the transferal of horses for slaughter,  across the borders in to Canada and Mexico illegal. It's a bi partisan bill, maybe the first in a long time, and my hope is that it will pass.

But what do I do? How do I react in a more effective way? My goals have changed direction because of that video. I need to pass, officially, through the upper levels of the Parelli program. I want my skills at a higher level so that I can begin to rescue horses, one at a time, and help to find them new forever homes. To do that I'm going to need help from a Parelli Professional or student who is much higher up than I am. I've pushed myself through Level 2 but I need to pass Level 3 and 4 (at least on the ground). I need advice on how to do this as safely as possible.

I've started an outline of steps ... my own patterns, so to speak. It's kind of scary when I begin to look at the whole picture. I can flip over to a RBE kind of panic when the goal begins to look like it's on the other side of a mountain range. So far I've been doing things by taking millions of baby steps, looking ahead but not too far. I can be very goal oriented and when I get like that with my horses things just don't work out the way I want them too. Much too direct line. So, step number one is : CENTER, my word for this year. Keep a balanced point of view. Use this huge wave of emotion to learn how to surf and reach the shore still standing.

Step number two : Improve my knowledge of technology. I'll need it to make audition videos and to send videos to the Parelli folks I would like to work with, so they can give me on line advice. Right now I'm more likely to be able to afford that rather than trying to get to a clinic. There aren't many of those in my neck of the woods anyway. (although I would probably go to one close in as an audit).

Step number three : Print out the list of things needed to do and begin to check them off, record them on Parelli Connect. I have a barn book that I write things down in but I lost my way a bit last year when I had an accident and scared the silly willies out of myself. Turns out that it's much harder to recover from brain freeze than broken bones. That will be my "million tiny steps".

Step four : Organize my time better. I'm an artist. I have a tendency to be intuitive about the way I structure my day. I've begun to change my habits and set times aside to reach my "million tiny steps" goals. Mornings have always been for barn chores and feeding horses, tidying up the house, and exercise. Now I need to set aside specific times to play/work with Lucky and Apache, Willow too. 

I need to clean up my act, so to speak.

Step five : Find a way to save money. I've already started making our own yogurt and kombucha, buying no packaged food at all. I'm going back to conserving the way I did when we were in college all those years ago. I need to be able to get myself to an instructor and spend an intense week or two being pushed outside my comfort zone HARD. We'll be growing the majority of our own vegetables this next year too. Buying organic is expensive and it's one of the places I won't give in or give up. Good food, exercise, sleeping well and being happy where I am, when I am and how I am are the best things I can do to help myself reach my goal. Those aren't hard goals to stay with. I already do that, fading hippy chick that I am.

My list goes on, but this is a good place to start. This is a hard old world. The only way to balance out the bad energy is by putting out my own little bit of good energy, staying positive and believing I can do this. I've stumbled through this so far. Now I want to dance.

Look out world, I'm coming through. 

I am, always, Nancy, smiling and taking a really deep breath... in with the good, out with the bad. " I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I KNOW I CAN.

EVERYONE LOVED JOE

Everybody loved Joe. In all the years he lived with us, more than fifteen, even the people who went out of their way to tell us they didn't care for dogs would say " Well, maybe he's the exception. I sure do like this little dog." But I'm skipping ahead to the end. I need to take you back to my forties, back to the beginning of the years of the Three Amigos.

Crazy Joe Cocker was the dog I thought I didn't need to have. We already had Gypsy and Newman, the coy dog my son had rescued. Two was enough while living in town, more than enough.

I met Joe at the local pet store. I'd gone to pick up kibble, canned food, cookies, bones to chew on, new collars ... all the things you need when you have dogs living with you that are barely a year old. They were growing and chewing us out of house and home. I didn't mind that. I expected to loose a few shoes and an occasional sock to puppies. What I DIDN'T need was another puppy.

At the back of the store were all of the dog aisles and so were any of the new puppies that came in. (This was the last year they sold puppies there. After that they had the local Humane Society come in for adoption Saturdays. They still do too. ) In the corner was a big tub where puppies were bathed and brushed until they shown, all ready to go home with the people who couldn't resist them. Standing next to the tub was a panicked young man with four soapy, excited puppies in the tub barking, playing and trying to get out.

He was new. Just the year before he'd been one of the young volunteers who helped around the store, acting like a young ambassador. He lived down the street from us too so I recognized him. I stood there and watched for a moment, waiting to see how he was going to handle his dilemma. And I have to admit I was enjoying the puppy rodeo he had going on there too. It was obvious that the puppies had the upper hand.All five of them, four leggeds and two, were soaking wet, covered in bubbles and the flood was heading down the aisle towards the dog beds. What a mess!

I walked over, took off my jacket and set down my bags, rolled up my sleeves and said " Let me help before this gets any more exciting. Don't want you to loose your job on the first day." And I smiled too. I knew this kid. He was shy, not many friends and in that horrible 16th year when your knees grow before the rest of you can catch up. " Thanks Mrs. Ness. I think I made a mistake when I put all four in at once. Guess I bit off more than I can chew."

"No worries. We'll get it done before anyone notices. You just knocked your nose a little bit, learning on the job. I'll keep these three occupied and you wash them each, one at a time." Actually, we made a pretty good team. Both of us got pretty messy but we did manage to get it done. He washed and rinsed, took the next one and handed the clean one to me. I'd rub that puppy down with a towel and set him in the puppy play pen with the warm air dry fan going and be there to catch the next one before he jumped out of the tub.

They were pretty too, four Cocker Spaniel puppies, big ones. They were big enough that I'd thought initially that they might have been Springer Spaniels. I have to admit I was really enjoying all of the puppy smells, kisses and wiggles. And I was also chanting to myself " I don't want another puppy. I don't need another puppy. It's the last thing I need." Uh huh. You already know how well that went down.

 One of them, a little male with all of these wonderful spots and freckles, kept following me around. He had these huge brown eyes and paws that were so over sized he kept tripping over his own feet. "Nope. No ... huh uh, nope. Don't need another puppy. You go on back with your brothers and sister. Go on now!" And then it happened. He sat on my foot. 

Every dog I've ever brought home sat on my foot...all of them. Oh noooo! I was in troubles. And I was in love. And I was also taking another dog home with me. Needless to say, that Pet Store loved me. It took two trips to get all of the stuff and my new puppy out to my truck. How in the world was I going to explain this one to John! We were now a three dog house. Every night was going to be a three dog night. 

Joe fit right in. And it didn't take long to see why, either. EVERYONE loved Joe. Gypsy and Newman rolled him over, sniffed all of the important parts, let him up and he fell right in to place. All three sat down in front of me, in a line, wagging tails and ready to go! Sheesh. It was full out pandemonium and mayhem having three puppies in the house together. Shoes were sacrificed to the dog gods, food bags were robbed, beds run over the top of with muddy feet and trash cans tipped on a regular basis. I was in dog heaven! And there wasn't one day, in all those years, when I didn't have something to laugh about. They saved me more than I ever saved them. Bringing home Joe was the best decision I ever made!

Everyone has a gift. Joe's was being stinky. He would jump in to the shower with me, get all soapy and squeaky clean and then run outside and roll on something dead 10 minutes later. His registered name was, I kid you not, Crazy Joe Cocker. But I think I may have missed the boat by not naming him Stinky Joe. 

When we moved out of town, on to the land, Joe discovered the unbelievable joy, the indescribable wonder of HORSE POOP. Mountains of it. It was Nirvana for Joe. He ate it, rolled in it, slept in it, carried it around, buried it and dug it up. After a few weeks he smelled so much like the poop that the horses stopped caring whether he was there or not. I'm pretty sure they thought he was a moving hill of poop. No worries there!

And then there were other joyous smells, like deer poop and little dead animals, chicken poop and compost piles. I mean, what's not to like? His people were throwing garbage out in piles of poop and then stirring it around! It was dog heaven only better. For Joe, life was grand, perfect and always just so Joe. 

This morning Joe died. He'd been sick for several days and I knew we were close, but he hadn't told me it was time yet so I didn't call the Vet. He was afraid of the Vet's office. He saw Gypsy when she came home, gone from her body and smelling of chemicals. And he watched Newman die in the front yard, again with the help of our Vet. He didn't want to go. He needed to do this his own way. It was the only time in his life he'd made a request of me, asked to have it his way instead of mine. I knew it would be hard for him. But I honored his need to die at home in peace. And that was exactly what he did.

It was a long weekend for all of us. Miniver never left his side and Annie, the cat that loved Joe and groomed him (an endless chore since he never staid clean for very long), curled up between his front paws. John staid home with me today, called in sick. Joe was his best buddy, his truck driving dog. He needed to be here too. 

Somehow Joe made it down to the barn one last time last night. It was hard going in the deep snow. We'd dug out paths for him, taking him to all of his favorite places, so he could go out to do his business where he always wanted to go. I'd even dug paths over to the compost piles for him so he could easily follow me as I went back and forth with the muck buckets. To the end he carefully sniffed and selected the very best pieces of poop to sit on. He couldn't roll anymore.

The walk there and back was long and arduous for him. He would take a few steps and collapse, then get up and walk a few more. He hadn't eaten since Friday but he was not going to let me be alone. He needed me as much as I needed him. Miniver followed him, laying down next to him to keep him warm, deferring to his status as "oldest" and letting him have the choice places to lay down. I would take a few steps, Joe right behind me and Miniver behind him. Then we would wait and start all over again. 

This morning he managed to make it down the stairs one more time and then collapsed in the hallway. He just couldn't go any further. I sat on the floor with him after wrapping him up in soft towels and we talked, Joe and I. We sat there and remembered the Cement Donkey the neighbors in town had on their patio, the one Joe would pee on every morning. We'd sneak up between the back yards before the sun came up, giggling, so Joe could make his secrete deposit. We talked about how he could open doors and taught Gypsy and Newman how to also. We remembered ruined shoes, the sofa cushions he decimated one afternoon when I went to the store without him. Who knew there were so many feathers inside a sofa? It was a sea of feathers!

I held him while we talked about the bunnies he would chase, the deer he almost caught but, being the nice guy he was, would always let go at the last moment. The truck rides with his head in my lap even when the windows were open because it was me he wanted to be with, not whatever was going on outside. 

His last and most wonderfully infamous trick was when he figured out how to steal Miniver's food. He would finish his first because he never ate anything slow and then would turn around and run at the deck doors, barking and growling. Miniver would leave her bowl to go bark and growl too and Joe would run around the back of the table and steal the rest of her food. No matter how many times he pulled his trick, it worked.

He died quietly, peacefully. He went to sleep like he had a thousand times before, in my lap. But this time he didn't wake up. He was gone. I felt his energy leave, gently changing the room as he moved on. 

John grieved in his own way, crying while he dug a grave for Joe outside next to Gypsy and Newman. I cried while I was down in the barn doing morning chores. 

Everyone was quiet, the air was grey and the sounds weren't as crisp. Miniver sat next to the pile of hay, the Joe nest, waiting for him. He didn't come.

And then Mrs. Miniver jumped up, running out the barn doors barking. I followed her to see what was going on. There she was, running in these big loopy circles out in the field next to the barn. She'd stop, put her tail in the air and wag so hard and fast it looked like her tail was wagging her, then she'd run and jump and turn back, running to the same spot to start all over again. 

My phone rang. It was John. He said, " Look up." There, flying in circles above us, were Canadian Geese. They stopped over here every year to visit the ponds. Joe loved to chase them, until they turned and chased him back. It was a ritual every Spring and Autumn. While we were watching, two of them broke off and circled down, flying over the barns, house and to the field where John was digging Joe's resting place. They flew around one more time, not more than thirty feet off the ground and then they rejoined their flock and they all flew off towards the East where the sun had just come up.

Miniver had stopped playing with her unseen friend and had come to me to sit and lean against me, watching the geese too. When they flew off it felt like a circle completed. Joe was gone ahead and we were here, left to celebrate his life.

Everyone loved Joe. 

GOLLY...I'M DRUNK ON COLOR

We are in a full blown, mind boggling, amazing Autumn  here. All of the photos I use are just as I took them. Gorgeous, isn't it? We've had one of the worst droughts ever recorded here in Kansas this year, worse even than the Dust Bowl years my Grandparents lived through. 

You can see the pond there in the back ground. It's just a mud puddle now and I have to admit that worries me, but oh ... THE COLOR! I'm in a daze. I can't get anything done. All I do is stand out in the fields and look at the color.

I am bedazzled. We've had just enough rain to put a tiny bit of green back in to the ground. It's so thirsty, though, that none of it has run in to the ponds. One is gone, just a hole full of grass. This one is nearly gone and the last, the biggest, is still there but choked with lotus.

This was taken yesterday evening as the storms went past us, again...sigh, and the sun peaked through right on the horizon. Everything was on "fire" with color. It just doesn't look real, does it? 

How am I supposed to concentrate when the colors are like this? 

I had this story to write about the past week, working and playing with Lucky and Apache and all I can do is look at the leaves and grass.

Even the scrubby locust trees are an eye searing yellow. And the sky today is a deep, crystal clear blue, like someone squirted cobalt blue straight out of the tube. 

I'm just too boggled, to goofy with color to say anything intelligent. 

I'm going back out to stand in the field with Lucky and Apache and just groke the world. Words have failed me.

I CAME UNSTUCK!

Some years are more challenging than others. This has been one of those "Million Little Things" kinds of years. I'm not going to list all the woe-is-me stuff. That's dwelling on the negative. I don't want to go in that direction. 

I do have to admit that I let it get to me. Shouldn't have, but there you are. I got stuck. Yup...couldn't move forward, couldn't even move backwards. Sideways would have been nice. Heck, at one point I would have taken any direction offered. 

I'm not very good at waiting in line. I have to talk myself in to it. I get bored, frustrated and start thinking about things to get people moving, or at least just get them out of my way. 

Sound familiar? That's my Left Brain Extrovert side. If I were a horse, I'd love cows! In fact I do love cows, but more for their gentle nature than the opportunity to move them around. 

And that's my Left Brain Introvert side. I'm an artist by profession, a designer, an illustrator, whatever it takes to pay the bills. Like most artists I keep several balls in the air at once to keep my head above water. I'm a lone wolf. I love the quiet, those times during the day when all I can hear is my own breathing.

But this year I've been a deer in the head lights, frozen and barely breathing. Sheesh. I've been making myself crazy with it. Yup. I've gone tharn. Couldn't move, feet stuck, neck tense. You've got it right if you're thinking Left Brain Introvert. 

It's been months of "Don't touch me, don't even look at me!" Lucky and I have had a lot in common this year. 

This morning I was hiding out, down here in my lovely, messy studio sneaking around on Facebook, lurking in the background, when a Parelli Friend of mine popped up and said " Hey, Nancy, how are you?" AACK! Busted!

It was Petra Christensen, Two Star Parelli Professional. I'd told her earlier in the year about some of the woe-is-me's. She saw my name pop up as "on Facebook" so she messaged me. There was no way to hide so I took a deep breath and told her just how stuck I was. Frozen is more like it!

We "talked" back and forth about what was going on, some possible strategies to use and then I said " OK. I'll give it a go and send you a video." 

Whew! Talk about going Right Brain Extrovert! I tidied up my studio before I went upstairs, swept the hall way before I made it to the stair case, stopped to fold laundry and scrub the laundry room floor where Joe, my ancient cocker spaniel, had lost it during the night ... and that was just the first fifteen minutes. I was in full blown "RUN FOR IT! ASK QUESTIONS LATER." mode. 

I put the dishes up and cleaned the kitchen, dusted and vacuumed, made the bed, scrubbed the bathroom and went out to do the same to the barn. When I run for it, at least I get lots of things done!

Except I was using all of that frantic activity to put off what I really wanted to do, what I needed to do, what I promised Petra I would do. I had to break the ice, get the runners unstuck and go out there with Lucky and Apache and begin the scary, leg shaking, fingernail biting job of just being with them. 

Uh huh. Going out in the field and hanging ten with my "boys" looked mighty BIG to me, Rocky Mountain high. So I decided to do my own Approach and Retreat on myself. Butterflies flying? Step back out of the gate and wait. Breath. Take a step forward when all the tension is gone. 

I didn't time it. A clock would have added to the fear. I was there long enough, just working myself up to sitting on the chair in the middle of the field, that they finished eating all of the hay in their slow bags. The sun had moved around behind me by the time I was out there and they were off at the back of the field. Sitting down felt good! 

What a gorgeous day to make a breakthrough! I sat there and reconnected with the Earth, grew roots through the bottoms of my feet and enjoyed the quiet. Things have greened up a tiny bit since we had some rain this past week. I rested my eyes on all the tiny, new bits of grass and waited.

It took quite a while before the "boys" acknowledged me. I sat, and I waited. They came closer by degrees ... and I sat, and I waited. " Ahhhh ... I could get used to this. The sky is perfect today!" And I sat, and I waited.

I wasn't watching the clock. I was just being. It was a place I hadn't been in a long time. 

And then Lucky came up to me and offered to play! I'd carried a cone out with me and set it up about fifteen feet away. I'd forgotten it was there. I wasn't tharn anymore. I'd forgotten how nice it was to be in their field, just enjoying the breeze and quiet. I was ready and Lucky knew it! Talk about calling a teacher and having them come just when you need them!

Petra this morning and Lucky in the afternoon. It just doesn't get any better than that! I didn't leave my little stool. I'd decided it was Home Base. I sat on it, stood on it and kept my foot touching it. And we played! Lucky, my LBI/RBI came to me from six acres away and we played! He even did Circles around me, his least favorite game. And he stood next to me while I stood on top of my stool and let me lean on him and over him. 

Lucky was teaching me. He said, in so many horse words, "Nancy, we were always here, waiting for you. And we haven't forgotten how to play with you either. Glad you're back!"

The hardest part was stopping. He was so excited, and so was I for that matter, that both of us were chortling! He said " Wuh uh uhhhhh huh!" and I said " You are awesome!" 

Lucky helped me to step out of the shade, in to the open again. 

We, all of us, walked back to the barn together. Apache was part of this too. He did something that was very hard for him to do, LBE that he is. He waited politely. 

I'm sitting here, still dirty and all over horse smelly, and smiling! Today I took my first tiny baby steps back on to the path. 

I am, ever yours ... at last!, Nancy, smiling BIG TIME!

SUMMER, TIME SUSPENDED ...

When I was a girl, Summers always seemed to exist in a period of suspended animation. Everything moved slower, and sometimes it felt like nothing moved at all. There was no sound. It was hot and so humid you slurped the air in like a thick, hot broth. 


Ever so often a cricket would try to rub it's legs together or a bird would make a wobbly chirp from the top of the maple in the front yard. Sprinklers would run non stop, trying to keep the new turf alive,sending rainbows across the yard,and everything would stop in the afternoon when the sun was at it's height.


We didn't have air conditioning. Mom would try to create cool areas in the house with a floor fan that had wet washcloths draped across the front of it. Mostly that just added to the humidity. There was a constant supply of lemonade, Popsicles and iced sweet tea, anything to keep liquids in us.


There were no sun blocks, no neighborhood swimming pools, and in our area no ponds or lakes to swim in. Just the Kansas sun, field after field of wheat turning yellow and an occasional tractor going by on it's way to plant corn or soy beans. The dogs would go to sleep under the front porch and the cats would disappear where ever it is cats go when everyone hunkers down to wait out the passage of the intense Summer light.

My favorite place to spend my endless afternoons was under the maple, leaning against the trunk in a place that had split and healed years ago, forming a round dimple in the bark where my head fit like a pillow. I'd wiggle around until everything was just right and read a book from the library...or maybe a comic book stolen from one of my older cousins.My chores were done and no one was expected to work too hard when the temperature soared past 100 every day. 


Grandma would bring out glasses of lemonade and plates of cookies to keep me and Penny, her wonderful stinky old farm dog, company. Penny would get fat off of those cookies while I was there. I'd eat one, then give her one. She'd lay there, draped across my stomach sighing and, occasionally,drooling with contentment. I'd drink the lemonade and she'd lick the condensation off the outside of the glass. It was perfect, laying there in the shade and watching the late afternoon clouds slowly build out on the horizon. I thought it would never end.

But physics is inevitable. Turned out there was an end and time kept moving on. Sometimes time goes round in circles though. And it always happens when you're not looking.


This is one of those Summers, where the clouds are always hanging on the horizon, the heat is thick and the grass is crunchy. I don't like to turn on the air until July, maybe because of those wonderful sweaty memories from my childhood. Or it could be to keep the bills at a manageable level too. But I'm a romantic, so I'll go with the sweaty memories. It's going over 100 today, much earlier in the year than normal. The yard looks like August and I'm down to watering only the vegetable garden to keep it going. The flowers, except for the native wildflower garden, are fried. We're in a drought and the wind has been blowing straight out of the south for a couple of days now. The windows are open, curtains flapping, dogs under the deck and cats off to sleep in the barn where the fans are blowing to keep the hay from getting moldy.


But that's not why it feels like I'm in suspended animation today. Today my status changes from Mom, Wife, Artist and Horsewoman to Grandma! My youngest son, Ben, called to let us know that he and his wife, Lauren (my lovely daughter in law! I love having a daughter.) were on the way to the hospital. When I heard from him via texting a few minutes ago, he said that she's already 8cm's dilated and her contractions are 2 minutes apart! MY GRANDSON IS ON HIS WAY IN TO THE WORLD!


I can't seem to stay focused on anything except my memories of my Grandparents place in the Summer...my Grandma's cookies and fresh made lemonade, pop cycle trucks and library books, even the smell of stinky Penny (that could be Joe adding in that little sensory note). Now I get to be the Grandma and our little converted barn/house will be the place he comes to visit. It will be my horses, dogs and barn cats providing the background and the frogs that sing at night who add in the sounds of our Summer symphony. 

  
Tomorrow will be his very first whole day and it will be mine as Grandma Nancy.


It's time for me to freshen up my bed time stories, my rocking chair skills and to do my best to give him some of the same timeless Summer heat and lemonade memories. 


Oh, the stories we'll tell. Let the laughter begin! 


I am, ever yours, Grandma Nancy, smiling so big and so hard my cheeks hurt!

  
































Pulitzer Photo Mural, image taken while in DC at the Newseum                          

LISTS, NATURALLY...

Lists... I use them all the time. My desk top is covered in old, dusty, curled up bits of paper with snippets of lists on them. There are lists of projects to start, people to contact, chores to be done and questions to look up on that wonderful tool called the Internet (love Google!).

I use lists to write a story, lists to garden with, lists to paint from. Sometimes I even glue into or smash on to a canvas one of my lists or parts of an old list that's floated to the surface.

It's an easy motivator for me, a habit I formed when my sons were little and I was in the "Super Mom" stage of my life. I went to school full time, worked part time at two jobs and was a Mom (and Wife!) 24/7. I'd end my day with a list for tomorrow and start the next one with a revised list. Then I'd go my own way, forgetting to check anything off and, somehow, I'd still manage to do most of the things on my list! The reward was finding that list a day or two later and reading it, discovering that I'd completed that set of tasks.

I've just finished a major project and I'm in that "waiting in between" place, where the new lists are being made and the juices are flowing. I love finishing something I've worked on for a long time, but even more I love the beginning. And part of the beginning is the lists and doodles on scraps of paper and envelopes, the backs (and sometimes the fronts!) of bills, that I make. I'm sitting here typing and stopping to make another list. It's my way of thinking out loud.

A professor I had in school started one of his lectures by saying " I can always tell who the graduate students are. They're the ones that, when I say 'Good morning!', their heads go down and the note taking begins. The undergrads are the ones who sit with their legs crossed, foot bobbing up and down, and their eyes glassy."That was one of those eye opening moments for me. By then I was in my twenties, back in school and I was personally and financially invested in my education. Every single minute spent in those classes was time away from my family so it all had to count, had to be worth my while if I was going to give up precious time with my sons. To keep myself organized, I started the LISTS.

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This morning when I was outside, cleaning the stalls and paddock, filling buckets and all of the other hundred and one things I do to have my horses here with me, an idea popped in to my head. While I'm here, in my "in betweens", I should make a list to share with you! It's a list of some of my favorite products that I've made up over the years, things that are taking us further from the corporate idea of what chemicals we're "supposed to have to be happy".

One of our goals for the past several years has been to put as little as possible in to the rubbish bins, to make do with what we have and be happy about it. Turns out that was a much harder goal to reach than I thought it was going to be. I was more hooked on commercial stuff than I thought I was. Keeping recyclables separated and getting them in to town is a job all on it's own. I'm not good with clutter, well except in my studio. I'll grant you I'm pretty messy in there, part of my creative process.

The more aware I am of what we don't really need to be happy, the more Zen my life becomes. So do my interactions with my herd, with people, and in my studio. Even my photos have taken a new direction, verging on the abstract with a new focus to the 'quiet' inside. Our meals are simpler, with the colors, textures and smells of raw food being the center of our table. And part of that is the things on my list that I want to share. This is not a complete list, just some of the things I know work consistently.

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THINGS TO CLEAN WITH :

1. Vinegar and Orange Peel spray.
I use a pint container and fill it about 3/4's full of plain white vinegar. I add the peels of several oranges over two or three days, about four. Put a cap on it and let it be for about two to three weeks. It will turn a pretty shade of pale orange.
I put that in an old Windex spray bottle and fill it up with water. It will be about a half and half mixture.
Voila! the best surface cleaner I've ever used. It smells good and cleans up everything! And it's all natural, no chemicals at all, you get to reuse an old plastic container over and over (recycle it when it breaks) and the ingredients are something you have in your house all the time and cheap to boot. Doesn't get any better than that!
2. Put white vinegar in your dish washer, about a cup or two, when you use it. We're also using an all natural, plant base dish washer soap called "Homesolv Citradish". (locally we buy it at the Community Mercantile in Lawrence). Weirdly enough, it's the cheapest stuff on the shelf too. Go figure! The dishwasher smells great, the dishes are sparkling again...no more grungy stuff on the cups or grit stuck to dishes...and it's all natural, no chemicals.

FAVORITE THINGS FOR ME :
1. "Herbal Armor" It's a lotion that is made of organic and all natural oils (cedar, geranium, lemon, etc) that keeps the bugs off. It isn't cheap, but it is definitely worth the money spent. It keeps the ticks, chiggers, flies and mosquitoes off of me and I smell good to boot!
2. Olive Oil and sea salt scrub : I make this. Super easy. Take a tea cup saucer and pour about a teaspoon of sea salt in it, add a teaspoon or two of organic extra virgin first press olive oil to it and use it to clean your face. I rinse my face first with warm water, pat it dry, then use a little bit of the salt/olive oil mixture on the ends of my fingers and rub it in circular motions on my face (avoid the delicate eye and temple area). After I've massaged, not scrubbed, for about a minute or two, I rinse it with warm water and pat my face dry. Leaves my skin super soft, taking the dead skin cells off along with any grime from the day. There's enough on your saucer (up end another saucer over it to keep it clean and, if you have a really big dog, to keep her from eating it!) for two or three days in a row. I like to use it in the evening before I go to bed. I do that every week or two. Again, it's stuff I have in the cabinet...no extra packaging or waste and all natural, no chemicals.

THINGS FOR THE HORSES :
1. Horse spray. Recipe :
1/2 cup AVON Skin So Soft
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup Repel X concentrate (made from carnations and other flower oils)
6 cups of garlic water (Boil 1/4 cup garlic granuals in 6 cups water for 10 minutes. Let it sit to cool. Strain out the garlic .. I put it around and on my apple trees to keep pests away ..)
I mix this in an old bleach bottle.( I know no one will accidentally drink from a bleach bottle.)and pour it into old spray bottles saved from years ago ... those suckers are tough!...that used to have the more toxic bug sprays for horses in them. I recycle when the bottle breaks. It's a win win for all of us. And it works too! You get about four hours of complete protection, keeping them comfortable. Really nice when you're work/playing with them. No jumping around when you're on top!
2. Hoof and Coat Supplement from Springtime for the horses. It's an all natural supplement made here in the US, processed here, and harvested here. The horses love it and their coats are super shiny all year long.
3. Bug Off Garlic, again from Springtime. I give this to them in low doses in the Winter and, when the Summer is like it is this year ... super buggy ... in double doses in the Summer. It stops ninety percent of the bugs, enough to make it much nicer for them. And I use it to make a paste when there's an abrasion or small wound. Keeps the flies away and speeds up healing. Super easy to use and all natural. Especially effective on my donkey. The flies never bite her and she used to be bloody with wounds all Summer long from pests biting her.

Last but never least, all things Parelli! Their learning system is set up to allow the human to mark off on a chart and on lists, things to do with your horse. And it's set up in a logical progression, taking you through from the very basics on the ground right on up through high level riding. I love my Parelli Lists! They let me know where the "holes" are in my game time with my herd and keep me moving forward, even when I'm feeling overwhelmed and out of that famous comfort zone they talk about, the place you need to be to learn new skills. I can always look at my checked off accomplishments, hone those skills a bit more to remind myself of where I've come from and then plunge in to new territory.

Doesn't get any better than that!

I am, ever yours, Nancy, making a list and checking it twice...smiling!

Keep it natural!