Julian & Friends

[Callistemon]

Where to begin.

In 2010, we were both working in professional positions and were in the process of making offers on houses in a small coastal town nearby when we had a curveball thrown at us. There was a 62 hectare rural lot in the hinterland in our price range: 50 hectares of beautifully preserved, highly flammable Australian sclerophyll ecosystem, and 12 hectares of pasture currently running beef cattle.

It was, miraculously, in our price range, because the price reflected that properly managing 50 hectares of native vegetation is time-consuming, expensive and requires specialised skill sets and a ton of passion, while providing zero economic return. It turns out that I have a science background that includes ecology and my husband has extensive experience at preventative fire management, which is totally necessary in Australian sclerophyll - and had been conducted for over 30,000 years by Australia's Indigenous people, in a very different way to the combination of neglect and overburning that has characterised post-colonial management of Australian fire-adapted ecosystems.

It was off-grid, with nothing but bushland and mostly bare, wind-blown pasture. It also turned out we were bloody-minded and into DIY, nudging 40 and able-bodied. So what we did is buy the place, put in the necessary amenities, plant shelterbelts in the pastures by hand, and design and owner-build our own eco-house on a shoestring budget we firmly stuck to (we're neither of us high-income earners, nor did we rob a bank or win the lottery or come into an inheritance - we just know how to do frugal in order to save up for things). This is what it all looked like coming up to ten years later - in the middle of a summer drought, after three years of getting less than 60% of average annual rainfall:

Kindly provided by a guest with a drone

We've since had an apocalyptic winter that flooded much of the South Coast, washed away bridges and roads, gave pasture animals footrot and killed some of our fruit trees and tagasaste hedges.

It's been quite a journey. Looking at the clip I can see why we've been so busy since we bought the place. We're now downshifters living off-grid via solar panels plus four bottles of camping gas a year for cooking, and we grow much of our own food (F&V, beef, honey - and getting pastured eggs and milk from neighbours). My husband works in town four days a week and I run the smallholding and an eco-farmstay, and write. We'd never have imagined we would end up doing this, but here we are. It was our chance to save 50 hectares of native ecosystem that goes all the way back to ancient Gondwana from being cleared for "development" or overrun with goats or otherwise degraded.

Here's some of the flora and fauna in the area we are stewarding:

Red Moon Sanctuary Flora and Fauna

Because of the pasture, I was able to retire an old mare I'd had since childhood at our own place for the last three years of her life, and keep my (ex-harness, DIY re-educated) riding horse here too. The Donkey Society got in touch with me about a group of donkeys with special healthcare needs (two obese, one blind) and we adopted those in 2012:


Don Quixote, Mary Lou, Sparkle

...and another two from a neighbour three years ago (and now we don't need any more, thank you very much - I trim all the horse and donkey hooves every 4-6 weeks and have enough arthritis already).


Nelly & Benjamin on wash day

I also had the chance to retire some old harness-racing horses I felt sorry for, that I'd known since they were young and had helped to educate in my summer breaks. (I really loathe horse racing for all sorts of reasons, but enjoy working with horses and being around them, and going on adventures with them, and maybe doing a bit of "ballroom dancing" with horses that enjoy it.)

These adopted horses went from living in dry lots and stables with hand-fed hay and concentrates, most of them solitary, to living free-range in a herd at our place, with a WIWO shelter and rugging during wet, windy, cold conditions. It's been really lovely to see them enjoy their golden years here.

At various stages we had to put old horses down.

My mare (cancer, 32) - 27 in this photo:



...and on a special beach outing when she was 27:


Romeo (34, no molars left in lower jaw, geriatric), who spent his last five years with a free access pass to our garden, photo at age 33:



Another mare (28, pituitary tumour) who was the dam of the ex-harness horse I had adopted to ride, pictured here at our place in 2016 with her chocolate-coloured son Sunsmart (named for his habit of always finding shady spots to rest in from when he was little) and her full brother in the background:



This was Sunsmart and me in 2015, when we were still in the middle of building our farmhouse...



And this is a photoessay of a ride with him through the Australian sclerophyll, with ecological commentary, from 2019:

Aussie Trail Outing With Camera – Sue Coulstock

Late last year I had to put this horse down two days shy of his 25th birthday, after a three-year war with Cushings. He was put on medication after an early diagnosis to try to curtail the development of symptoms, and initially it seemed to work, but the following summer he rapidly started developing serious problems with electrolyte balance and thermoregulation and dropped weight rapidly. We tripled the medication but he kept falling down into a hole, and then, incredibly, after looking absolutely terrible, he recovered five months later, and even got back to 95% of his previous physical condition and levels of fitness. We were riding again with the dog and him chasing each other up the hills at rocket speeds. That lasted about a year - and then he went downhill again. This time he didn't recover and we called time for quality of life reasons - he'd had enough and it wasn't fair to keep trying and hoping.

I found out the morning after he died that Australian Indigenous icon David Gulpilil had died on the same day, also of chronic illness in advanced years. It was sad and yet strangely comforting that they went together. I wrote about that here:

The Kingfisher, the Horse, and being on Country – Sue Coulstock

In the next post I will introduce Julian.

 

[Alexej]

Looks like a great place you have there and have done a lot of work to get it where it is

 

[Alexej]

Reading again and looking up all the words that are unfamiliar to a pom (of which there are many), but I enjoy widening my vocabulary and knowledge so thank you for that.

 

[Callistemon]

JULIAN

Julian as a racehorse, before we adopted him

Julian is the most recent horse we adopted, back in 2017, when a space became available because another horse had died. He had spent 16 or his 17 years so far in social isolation - being kept in a separate run from the time he was weaned from his mother. This is common practice with horses in race training and racing, because many owners are worried that they will hurt each other when playing together, and that this will cause down time. Additionally, Julian, like Sunsmart and his dam's full brother Chasseur (AKA "Mr Buzzy" - he buzzes, but that's another story), had all been racing stallions - and stallions tend to be a high injury risk unless run naturally in a herd of mares, so these were kept all their lives in separate 100m x 20m sand yards with double rows of electric wire between them, and they wore deep grooves into the ground adjacent to these fences from pacing up and down all day like caged tigers.

I had adopted Sunsmart back in 2009, after his retirement from race training, and re-trained him to saddle then. I agisted him in a paddock down the road from where we lived at the time, and gradually got him used to socialising with other horses. He had been gelded before adoption, since I wasn't planning to breed from him and as that makes re-socialising much less risky. He, like Julian, had been classed as a dangerous stallion - both of them used to run at people and try to bite them over their electric fences and stable doors, and would easily have put inexperienced people in hospital. This is him in the first year of his saddle education, on an outing to Albany Harbour, with Brett kindly taking photos.

Sunsmart, 2009

By the time we had bought our own place in 2010, I was able to socialise him with my mare, other adoptees, and our donkeys.

Julian came to us in November 2017, after we lost Sunsmart's mother. He had never, ever run in the same paddock as another horse after being taken off his mother, and never known what it was like to graze a pasture. Because he was entirely new to our place and our other horses were already social and also quite assertive, we were able to put him straight in with them the morning after his arrival on the late-night horse bus service, after observing everyone's friendly body language across both sides of the fence. (Note that there is one electric line across the resident horses who know it's there and won't accidentally touch it, and a parallel rope to keep Julian from getting too close to the others while they are checking each other out - and no low wires to accidentally tangle their feet in if they decide to kick.)

This is all very civilised and "Hello, pleased to meet you!" - and in the last photo, Sunsmart is saying to Chasseur, "Hey, don't forget you're my buddy!"

There is plenty of space here for horses to run, and plenty of grazing, which is important when introducing horses to each other - accidents can happen when the spaces they are locked into are too small and they can't retreat, and when they can't spend their time feeding naturally - horses are trickle grazers and if given the opportunity, spend around 16 hours a day eating. So based on the good body language meeting across the fence, we let him in with the others.

I'll give you a personal context for the next lot of photographs. I had grown up, in the second half of my childhood, on a horse stud where the very animals you are about to see in these photos getting to know each other as a herd, each spent over ten years in solitary yards, with double electric fences between them. They paced up and down their fence lines in frustration for large parts of their day, like deprived zoo animals in the olden days, before the building of more appropriate enclosures and the introduction of enrichment programmes and appropriate socialisation. It was a sight which always deeply saddened me, and there was nothing I could do about it - besides the bandaid measure of taking them out for walks or a bit of work when I had time.

And I can't see the photos you're about to see - ordinary photos of horses getting to know each other and running as a group - without also seeing in my mind's eye the many years they all walked up and down their respective fencelines with dull staring eyes and set faces, trying in vain to get away from their confinement.

After all these years. In these photos, Julian is 17, Chasseur 24, Sunsmart 21. Julian was alone for the longest, out of these three.















Between the last two snaps, I took a little film:

They still sound like stallions. Kind of like bad opera singers!

The acoustics on this clip are very good - listen closely, and you'll hear the typical early morning birdsong at our place in early summertime.

 

[maycontainthunder]

Those are some very shiny horses. What polish do you use?

 

[Callistemon]

Those are some very shiny horses. What polish do you use?

They get canola meal in their evening bucket mix - what's left over after canola oil extraction. It's high protein and contains a good amount of residual oil, excellent quality nutritionally and really puts a gloss on horses, which is good for their skin and coat.

Looks like a great place you have there and have done a lot of work to get it where it is

Thank you. I can see where that decade disappeared to, and why I have so much maintenance work to do! But it's satisfying to see the results of our hard work, for ourselves, the domestic animals who live here, and the wildlife. The "hedgerow" system we've introduced on the previously bare pasture is chockers with birdlife now, and even more insects...

Reading again and looking up all the words that are unfamiliar to a pom (of which there are many), but I enjoy widening my vocabulary and knowledge so thank you for that.

My husband only missed being a pom by three years - was born here after his parents emigrated from the UK. His folk are from Kent and Surrey. He totally sounds like the BBC...

I'm glad you are happy with the vocabulary. I've never dumbed down my writing, but tried to make it engaging enough for a non-specialised audience to want to pick up on the words. Usually I explain things a bit better; this time I've been leaving bits of it to the dictionary...because I'm trying to get the back story out of the road before posting what I actually wanted to write about today.

I think words are fabulous - they're great symbology for hanging thoughts off. I take the opposite view to mainstream newspaper editors - I don't bring my language down to the lowest common denominator, I try to lift people to a higher level of language if necessary, and make it fun. I've done formal technical and scientific writing, articles to explain science and technology to the general public, written and marked countless essays, done a fair bit of creative writing and poetry, magazine articles on farm life for an audience of hippies, etc. And I love reading...

PS: Here is a handy online dictionary of Australian words and expressions!

Australian slang dictionary

 

[Alexej]

Australian slang dictionary

So now I know - thank you

 

[Callistemon]

SADDLE EDUCATING JULIAN

Julian was 17 when he got here, which is not hugely old for a horse. Most horses live to between 25 and 30 years old if looked after properly, can often be ridden well into their 20s, and typically will senesce rapidly only in the last year or two of their lives.

He is very like Sunsmart in his work ethic - both horses always loved to do training; they are/were highly active, adventurous types with great curiosity about the world. That they were similar is partly explained by being half-brothers through the same sire; and both are grandsons of the famous Albatross, and look it.

Albatross (If this photo doesn't show up in the browser, try here: https://harnessmuseum.com/sites/default/files/hof_images/Albatross-3.jpg)

Here's a clip to show a bit of Sunsmart's nature - and you can see how much like Albatross he looks in type:

It was a total fluke getting that clip - we happened to be out with the camera when he started herding the cattle (a stallion behaviour, and he's just enjoying playing here, not being aggressive). It's so funny how the horse changed course and came up to us to see what we were doing, at the end of the clip!

One of Julian:

...and one of Sunsmart and Julian in the paddock together in 2019:



I did actually begin to work with Julian not long after he got to our place, because he showed such an interest when he saw me working with and riding Sunsmart. So here's some photos of us taking him for walks on the lead in 2019, to a neighbour's bush-and-pasture block where we have permission to walk and ride.





A really important part of preparing a horse for trail riding is to get them used to the area you are going to start off taking them out into under saddle. That way, they don't have to worry about new and scary surroundings at the same time as they're getting used to being ridden. Because horses are a bit like this:

Thelwell always drew horses and their reactions so well!

Julian, like Sunsmart, can turn on a thread - I've seen both spin around 180 degrees in mid-air if startled and then go racing off in the other direction. I've even ridden these mid-air turns and attempted getaways when I was first getting Sunsmart on trails and he encountered scary monsters, which six months later stopped bothering him, but it was an interesting six months...

Julian is remarkably unflappable about wildlife appearing suddenly in the bushes; but he's quite sensitive to unexpected noises, so we're still working on that.

In the next photo I was free-walking him back on our place. A horse that knows you well will stay with you unless it gets startled.



So the early walks all went remarkably well, and Julian enjoyed getting out and exploring the world with us. But then, Sunsmart had his first major Cushings crisis, and I decided to enjoy whatever time I had left with him by focusing on spending as much time as I could with him, so Julian's training took a back seat

 

[Callistemon]

JULIAN'S LAP OF HONOUR

This is an abridged version of what I wrote on my blog earlier this year.

February 13, 2022

It’s been over two months since my long-time equine friend Sunsmart died.

My husband Brett and I are both at the tail end of two and a half weeks’ leave. This morning I finished the Sandman story – I read the last volume of ten; Brett gave me the first one when the writing was on the wall for my poor horse, back in October. These were exactly the right kinds of stories and the right kind of artwork to help get me through this time – the most imaginative, profound and educational graphic novel I’ve ever read (and there was formidable competition in Maus). Here are some taster panels from the last volume, The Wake.

from View Comics Online

The girl in the red dress is Death, one of the most lovely characters ever invented. She’s no Grim Reaper, she is more like a social worker and a friend in need, and so utterly kind (except when her brother Dream occasionally needs his backside kicked to spur him into a change of perspective, or when another sibling, Desire, goes way too far in their characteristically low standards of conduct).

I commend this ten-volume work to anyone who would like a literary companion for some serious thinking, or who needs solace in times of grief. The conclusion to this story was so beautiful that I found myself with the energy and the impetus this morning to do something symbolic and ceremonial of my own.

The last time I led a horse up our bush track it was to put that horse down, and today, for very much Sandman reasons I decided we were going to do a lap of honour with his half-brother (same sire) wearing the deceased horse’s kit, just because that itself seemed fitting and something that needed to be done.


Sunsmart and Julian grazing together in 2019, half-brothers through the paternal side, and grandsons of the famous Albatross.

The aftermath of Sunsmart’s death resulted in this kind of partial paralysis for me that meant I just could not bring myself to deal with anything that had belonged to the horse. His useless tablets continued to lie in the shelf above the feed bins while I loathed their pink presence and all that had meant. His saddle and bridle had been gathering dust since August last year, before he went downhill, because that was when the entire landscape became too saturated from a record wet winter that also killed lots of trees to be able to continue riding – except perhaps on a giant seahorse. Several sets of old horseshoes and hoof boots past and present continued to sit in the shed and attic while I practiced selective blindness in their presence.

This morning I put a dozen carrots in the pockets of my cargo pants and went out to the shed. I threw a set of ancient, long-decayed EzyBoots into the garbage bag a decade after their purchase – we’d gone onto Renegades after finding them wanting, not to mention constantly breaking. His first worn-out set of those was kept in the attic for parts; his new set sat on the shelf near the bridles still. I don’t have a horse they will fit but decided I’m keeping them anyway.

Next I ripped a cobweb-infested saddle blanket off Sunsmart’s Ascot Roma All-Purpose, a specialist saddle for horses built like beer barrels. I threw it on the ground together with the part-used pill packet, to deal with later. I’d slid out and hung up the sheepskin half-pad I’d bought last winter to give the horse more padding around his backline, thinning from a combination of Cushings and lack of consistent riding in the winter weather. I don’t need it for this horse; I dug around for my deceased Arabian mare’s erstwhile saddle blanket in a drum because it was comparatively clean. I dusted saddle and bridle off as best I could – mental note that a thorough clean and oil is urgently needed – and hauled them and the grooming kit out to the tie rail. Then I set off with a lead rope and Sunsmart’s red “for best” halter with the gold catches to collect Julian from under the horses’ favourite shade tree.

It was already warm, with the UV beating down; I was in my uninspiring but practical farm hat and oversized long-sleeved collared linen shirt for sun protection. I wasn’t expecting to take any photos except of the tacked-up horse at the tie rail, but Brett thought it was a wonderful idea to have Julian do a lap of honour in Sunsmart’s riding gear and wanted to come along, which is how we did get some more photos out there while I was busy with the horse.

It took me a while to groom off all the dust; meanwhile Brett brushed Chasseur, who is crazy about “scratchies” and bugs anyone with a brush to pleeeeeease attend to him. He’ll stand on your feet if you’re not careful, sidling up close hoping you will get the message; then he’ll crane his neck and wiggle his lips in the biggest display of horse ecstasy I’ve ever seen in that category. We really should film it and add it to this post…

Sunsmart’s bridle needed letting out several holes; Julian has a longer head. He was a bit puzzled about the port-mouthed Spanish snaffle and chin chain, having mostly been driven in jointed snaffles of some type or another, but I’m not riding a horse with as much rocket power as Sunsmart or Julian without proper brakes, plus it’s gentle and comfortable for riding, where I wish the horse to think differently to his driving days too and to have a different head carriage. Harness-racing horses have this uncanny ability to stick their face into the sky and take off at top speed when they want to run, because that’s exactly what they do when racing. I’m half a century old and wish to avoid ending up in hospital in smithereens.



This bridle is in fact over 40 years old and came with Sunsmart’s great-grandmother. It originally had a blue and white checked headband which we replaced with this blue-striped one four decades ago. I had a nice new black-and-white bridle for Sunsmart for most of his riding career, but two years ago, coming back from a ride, he took fright at something while I untacked him and stepped into the reins before running off dragging the already-removed bridle, which was torn to pieces by the time I caught him. So I patched something together from old bits and pieces instead, after that.



Julian has had an old saddle on him a couple of times when I was doing preliminaries with him several years ago, but I’d never led him around in one and never put the “good saddle” on him before. Sunsmart’s fit was always going to be a reasonable fit for him; I may tinker around the edges a bit down the track, and have a re-fit done if it turns out necessary.




Typical for Nelly that she’s always hanging around when there’s something going on. I usually have donkeys hanging off me when I’m foot trimming too. They’re highly curious and very sociable, and seem to be into giving peer support to their friends. Nelly is still wearing a veil because she has no pigmentation around the eyes and gets burnt easily. While we don’t need the veils for flies anymore now the dung beetles have moved in for the summer, they are still really good UV protection for animals lacking in skin pigmentation, or to prevent long-term eye damage from UV, which is why our equines wear veils for most of spring and summer, excepting overcast or rainy days where they do prefer a break from them.



Julian tends to get a bit more rotund than ideal over spring when the grazing is good. I did restrict pasture for a while and was considering muzzling him. Work would certainly help him with that; also, he actually enjoys it. He’s got a work ethic and a fondness for adventure like Sunsmart had.

As we set off today, Brett was opening gates in front of us so I could concentrate entirely on the horse and his initial reactions to moving around with a riding saddle on him. If they’re going to be jumpy, this will be the time. Considering I’ve done nothing with him in that line for years, he was remarkable – just a tiny bit hesitant and nervy for not even half a minute, that an onlooker would have had to be looking for to notice – but then I was his “babysitter” for his harness training when he was young, as well, so I guess that confidence role goes back forever for him. Next time it will be “old hat” from the start to carry a saddle around.

 

[Callistemon]

And then we had gone around the house to the trail head behind it, just like I had done so many times with Sunsmart, including that one last time to end his life. And while Julian has been on this bush trail free-ranging with his friends, and quite a few times when we took him on walks with us years ago, today he was the first horse to walk there with me since Sunsmart the day he died.


Sunsmart heading down the trail behind the house in 2019 with Jess and visiting dog Max

We walked the track, with Brett up ahead and the entire equine entourage following us in single-file: His companion horse and five eager donkeys, who all decided to tag along. Because he is the herd boss, nobody crowded him or tried to overtake him. It was quite humorous looking behind us at the procession of assorted long-ears and the big lanky chestnut horse in the middle of them making his usual conversational-sounding buzzing noises.

The long-ears have a more sedate walking pace than ex-racers, and got left behind eventually. When we got to the south boundary, Chasseur decided he was going back to the donkeys and kindly excused himself. Brett, Jess, Julian and yours truly continued our loop by turning left at the swamp track, where Brett got the camera out.




As you can see, Julian isn’t fazed if the rest of the herd suddenly deserts him out on walks with us, as has happened before. Like Sunsmart, he’s very independent and self-reliant; and he’s had a lot of solo track sessions as a harness horse.

Horses like this are “been there, done that” when it comes to strange equipment attached to their persons; the main issue with turning them into trail horses is usually to get them used to being in a natural environment with wildlife jumping out at them, which bothered Sunsmart more initially than it ever did Julian.



Because I left off the chest rope today for simplicity, Julian accidentally stepped into the reins when sniffing the ground at one point, which broke their buckle. THAT is one reason this little rope is part of my standard riding equipment – it prevents that completely as it keeps the reins from dangling when the horse has the head on the ground, which they may frequently do to check out things on the ground and convenient snacks when I’m dismounted between gates etc. Oh well, I can probably fix it; today I just knotted them back together.

We met the new weanling calves near the entrance to the Middle Meadow, lying in the shade of a paperbark tree, which got a raised eyebrow from Julian – he knows who they are, but he’s never seen them there before. Horses react to things being different from what’s usual to them – and likewise, we’d had some raised eyebrows at a fallen tree which wasn’t there last time Julian did this loop. That’s always an easy fix: I go ahead of the horse and touch the fallen tree, sit on it, and let him come up to me to check it out when he’s ready. Julian isn’t particularly jumpy – occasionally he’ll leap in surprise, but mostly it’s just raised eyebrows, hesitation and the odd snort, and easily fixed by reassurance.

The Middle Meadow still has green feed in it mid-summer, so I’m happy the calves found it – they’re an independent bunch, not always following the older steers around but instead usually doing their own thing. We left them to it and made our way through knee-deep reeds and dead annual grasses. When we got to a relatively clear bit, I started walking Julian in a circle, and Brett again got the camera out.





You can see he’s an active horse keen to run. Racehorses don’t muck around as a breed, they’re the opposite of plodders. Harness racers need a fair bit of groundwork with circles and tight turns when you are training them for riding – their previous work was 99% straight lines and gradual turns. Also halting and standing still, and rein-back.



He’s a super alert horse. Normal riding breeds tend to only look like this when they’re in a strange environment or they’re checking out something strange in the distance. But he’s in a familiar area where he grazes frequently, in this photo, and he’s not worried, just switched on and curious about all sorts of things. He’s the kind of horse who finds himself interesting things to go look at, when he’s free ranging – he enjoys adventures and checking things out. It was a particular delight to adopt him into free-range herd life back in 2017, from solo yarding in the same old yard for years in his previous home, because of that.




Now that’s a super photo of a typical interaction between an alpha dog and an alpha horse. Our stock dog thinks she’s the boss of every animal on the place, but horses like Julian and Sunsmart beg to differ. His body language is saying, “I’m not afraid of you and if you keep this up you will feel my teeth and hooves.” Sunsmart made a big point of telling Jess this when we first got her and started taking her on rides in 2013. He’d go stomping towards her if she didn’t back off quickly. As time passed, they became friends of sorts and toned down their displays, preferring to race each other when the opportunity arose. This scene reminded me so much of her early days with Sunsmart.

 

[Callistemon]

Julian is fun to work with because he’s thoughtful, adventurous, independent, generally sensible, quick to learn and interested in doing “extra projects” on top of his herd life. This maybe, maybe not one-off lap of honour for his half brother was also such an enjoyable work session that I now find myself keen to repeat it – when before I couldn’t face the idea of ever saddle educating and riding again.

You can’t replace a four-legged friend who has died, but you can be friends and co-adventurers on fresh terms with another four-legs. Every horse is a different universe, even if you can see similarities and parallels that recall another horse for you. Julian has striking physical and character traits in common with his deceased half-brother Sunsmart, his deceased uncle Romeo, his deceased sire The Sunbird Hanover, his deceased dam Juliet, and his famous deceased grandsire Albatross (in whose case I can see it from 1970s film footage). He’s streaks of each of those, and also his own thing.

Like in the Sandman cartoons, the new Dream of the Endless has overlap with the old, but is definitely his own thing.

from Read Comics Online

We walked into the main pasture, where we met Ben and Nelly coming back from their outing. Nelly doesn’t like losing sight of Julian and was happy to see him. I took the saddle and bridle off Julian there in the field and let him join his friends. He bid me a friendly goodbye before walking away to graze, and we carried the riding gear back to the shed.

When it was stowed, this was the view from the garden:



They’re a social bunch, and Julian tends to follow me around after I’ve worked with him and be extra affectionate. He seemed to enjoy the outing – just as in past outings, before Sunsmart’s diagnosis. He’s tagged along with Brett and me before on dog walks, of his own accord, and sometimes with Sunsmart when I rode him. He’s not waiting for treats, this is just what he does. When he first came to live with us, he often left the herd to follow me around as I was doing maintenance work out in the paddocks – he’s curious and sociable. You can show him tools and he will sniff them and watch what you’re doing with them. While none of this bunch say no to treats, they are just very social and interested in what we do. The donkeys often tag along when we are showing visitors around the nature reserve on eco-tours, which has resulted in amusement and lovely photos for guests to take home.





Julian gets on well with the others in the herd, but is definitely the boss and occasionally asserts this fact. Here he’s snake-facing Nelly and Ben to say, “Back off, this is my party.”



Seconds later, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.




And then Julian’s horse friend re-joined the others in the meadow, after our herd outing went its various ways at the halfway mark.




Julian is STILL interested in what I’m up to, here. I’m not trying to attract his attention. It’s just what he does. Only when I turned my back did he go off to graze – and I surreptitiously turned back around to take two more photos.




Nice animal. Well, aren’t they all, at our place anyway. And a good lap of honour for the friend we lost, which has somehow made the loss a little easier.

The Wake frontispiece by Michael Zulli

 

[Slim Jim]

That's a nice life you carved out for yourself there. Sounds challenging, but it must feel real good being so close to nature. I know nothing of horses. My grandfather loves them though. He was a jockey in his youth. Actually rode them at races. Really into horse racing. Followed it all this life. (I never asked him about it...so I plead ignorance on the entire subject.)

Oh so thats what you look like Cali...I see you in those photos. (That's funny, you don't look like an E.T. to me.) Yeah,not only good hearted, good lookin too! good on you. I envy those who live in such places. But it has it's own set of problems. And I'm sure I would miss the lack of conveniences. (It's very easy going here in UK.) Being out in the middle of nowhere.Things can be more tenuous. I imagine. They say more risks, more reward. I see you are living life on your terms. That's always admirable.

 

[Callistemon]

TODAY'S TRAINING SESSION

So now, we finally get to what I wanted to record about today. Because after several weeks of to-do lists, bad weather and guests, we had a lovely sunny autumn day and I decided two things:

1) I was doing a training session with Julian

2) This weekend, I'm getting on the horse, because this is getting ridiculous. This is the longest lead-up I've ever had on riding a horse, and that includes the Arabian yearling I trained entirely from scratch and on my own starting when I was 11, with the help of the following book and its three companion volumes: Horse Control- The Young Horse by Tom Roberts (9780959941319) | Books On Horses Australia

Here's a photo of us when she was two and I was 12. And yes, that's the grey mare in my earlier posts, when she was growing up.

It's 37 years since I first got on this mare's back; and I've re-trained and saddle educated half a dozen horses since. So it's time I pulled myself together and got on with it.

So today was the dress rehearsal for actually getting on his back. I brushed him, tacked him up, and took him for a walk. He is herd leader and all the other equines were following him in single file as we headed out onto the bush tracks today. I wish I'd had a camera on me because it was hilarious. One horse, five donkeys all walking behind him one after the other.

This is an earlier photo which gives a small approximation of what this looks like - but this photo only caught the horse and the first two donkeys of the procession...



Sadly I couldn't find any decent horse and donkey emojis, but I will use substitute animals to give you an pictorial idea of what our procession looked like:

The photo above does show the same route we embarked upon today - up out of the valley floor, onto the western ridge and into the forest there, on our western boundary track. And then the donkeys decided to make mayhem! Something bothered them - it may have been our naughty stock dog, or a bot fly - and they began to race around and bray like full-on trumpet practice, running hither and yon and whizzing past the horse and me, then whizzing by us again in the other direction.

If you have a green horse, this is exactly the sort of thing that can cause disaster.

But Julian isn't a green horse; he's seen and done lots of things and little fazes him - sudden strange noises are one of the few things that can still startle him into leaping about like a kangaroo. So he and I had a good look at the donkey mayhem, and then continued walking along the track, away from them. Pretty soon the donkeys settled down and decided to start following us again, in single file. Very hilarious. At this stage we had lost the other horse, who'd gone back to the pasture, and the procession looked like this:

Mary Lou and Sparkle were at the rear of the procession, Mary Lou having waited for her blind friend to work out what was going on. She never leaves Sparkle alone; she's like her personal seeing-eye donkey.

We turned the corner at the south boundary, descended the ridge, and then parted company with the donkeys, who decided to continue towards the swamp track. We took the main sand track home, and now I let the stirrups dangle down for the first time since we began the saddle education process, to get Julian used to having his sides bumped in case a rider loses a stirrup. I also started slapping the saddle gently with my hand to make strange unexpected noises, while talking to him; at first he startled, then he settled down and wasn't bothered anymore.

We did some trotting and transitioning back down to a walk, rinse and repeat half a dozen times - this time with the stirrups really flying about from the motion. All went well and there were no unexpected lift-offs or attempted rocketing into the distance. I have to say, he's a total pro at going into a trot the moment you ask, and then back to a walk likewise. Always very good to have that communication established from the ground, before you get on a horse's back. He also enjoys being told how clever he is.

Back at the tie rail, I decided to do unusual things before taking his saddle off. I pulled on the stirrups, and bounced up and down next to him, gently at first, more wildly later, all the while having a conversation with him about all this stuff I was doing. He looked attentively at what I was doing, and decided it didn't bother him.

I took off the saddle, let him have a good sniff of it all over, put it away, and made a fuss of him before letting him go graze with his friends. Once again, he wasn't in a hurry to leave, and he continued to stick around and look at what I was doing, when finishing up chores.

It all bodes well for this weekend. We're ready to go.

 

[Gerontius]

Always very good to have that communication established from the ground, before you get on a horse's back. He also enjoys being told how clever he is.

No wonder your horses all seem to be good ones; you're able to communicate with them & vice versa.

This has been a very impressive thread; congratulations on your educated horses and donkeys.

 

[maycontainthunder]

I know very little about horses apart from you don't want them to stand on your feet. I'm learning things today!

 

[Jeff T]

Wow! just Wow!

 

[Magna]

Thank you for sharing so much, @Callistemon . Your life is interesting and full of activity. Aside from the horses, you and yours share things in common with me and mine. Namely the level of self sufficiency.

I admire the dedication that "horse people" have to horses. The few I've known would give up everything for their horses.

You would probably appreciate this song; at least the lyrics if not the music:

Since She Started To Ride by Jonathan Richman (he's not a country singer but he put out a Country album of which this song is from)

She's got a brown suntan startin' just above her collar
Her lower arms they're brown, but the rest is kinda pale
She'd buy betadine if she only had a dollar
And she'd live out in the pasture if she only had a tail

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

Well her jeans they get like a wet saddle blanket
And her boots are like you'd figure
And her car is full of hay
Horses, humans: if she had to rank it
You'd bet on they that canter
And them that need fly spray

And you see I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

Go boys, tell 'em all about it!

(guitar)

Canter and fender, barrel and mane
Don't see her much since she started to train
Cannon bone, knee bone, forearm and arm
I don't see her much when she heads for the barn

And she's so satisfied when she's riding and trainin'
She must just love that smell of the barn i would say
She's so satisfied when she's groomin' and grainin'
And she's tired in the evening and she's gone in the day

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

 

[Gerontius]

I know very little about horses apart from you don't want them to stand on your feet. I'm learning things today!

They seem to like standing on people. They also can't take care of their own hooves so if you take a hoof-pick & go clean all the mud and rocks and such out of their feet, some will try to lean on you while you're working on them.

I love everything about horses.

 

[Callistemon]

I admire the dedication that "horse people" have to horses. The few I've known would give up everything for their horses.

You would probably appreciate this song; at least the lyrics if not the music:

Since She Started To Ride by Jonathan Richman (he's not a country singer but he put out a Country album of which this song is from)

She's got a brown suntan startin' just above her collar
Her lower arms they're brown, but the rest is kinda pale
She'd buy betadine if she only had a dollar
And she'd live out in the pasture if she only had a tail

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

Well her jeans they get like a wet saddle blanket
And her boots are like you'd figure
And her car is full of hay
Horses, humans: if she had to rank it
You'd bet on they that canter
And them that need fly spray

And you see I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

Go boys, tell 'em all about it!

(guitar)

Canter and fender, barrel and mane
Don't see her much since she started to train
Cannon bone, knee bone, forearm and arm
I don't see her much when she heads for the barn

And she's so satisfied when she's riding and trainin'
She must just love that smell of the barn i would say
She's so satisfied when she's groomin' and grainin'
And she's tired in the evening and she's gone in the day

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

@Magna, those song lyrics are hilarious!

...and I've seen too many examples of people who are like this to want to be that way myself, starting in childhood. I was also in a journal group on a horse forum for seven years starting in 2014, and saw a lot of horse monomania - people dedicating their entire lives and finances to horse pursuits and making it into a kind of religion or drug or existential escape - and then others who, like me, think there are too many fascinating and important things about life to embody that kind of tunnel vision, and who don't want their dearest human relationships to run second fiddle to their recreational interests.

Even as a child in Europe, I remember how my parents chided me because sometimes I did not want to go to the barn with them - I remember one time in particular when I was around 10, and at a friend's place. She was teaching me to braid bracelets using a special technique that made the braid very round, not the usual three-strand plaiting. Bracelets like this:

I loved this friend and spending time with her, and we were in the middle of learning something, so I wasn't just going to drop everything and go tend to the family's horses in the middle of all of that. It was beginning to take away from my friendships. Sometimes I would take this friend to the barn, and pop her on the mare that became Sunsmart's great-grandmother bareback, and pretend to be Native Americans with her, escaping the cowboys with our superior horse skills and connection to nature. But even though I liked horses, I didn't let that get in the way of everything else even back then.

Here's a photo of Dame du Buisson (Sunsmart's great-grandmother and Chasseur's grandmother), when I was learning to jump around that same time. Sadly I have no photos of my friend on her bareback.

If you look at the bridle, it's the same on I had on Julian for his Lap of Honour. Just here, it's got a different bit strapped to it - a soft padded hackamore, which is actually bitless, and good for learning to jump and balance because you can't hurt the horse's mouth with it.

The other horse we had loved jumping, and this is the day I dared myself to jump the highest obstacle I'd ever done on horseback:

I had far better balance on the second try - but let the reins go too slack. These things take time. I remember being really nervous about the size of this jump, it seemed like we were jumping Mt Everest but of course, it was only about 1m.

My family's life was so obsessively revolving around horses that it ended up consuming nearly all our time, after they decided to relocate to Australia and breed and race horses. I didn't think that was much fun at all, and Sunsmart's great-grandmother died because they decided to do that - because they had to have a foal from her, because she had race winning progeny in Europe - even though she'd been sold by the breeder as a child's riding horse, due to her wonderful disposition and because the birth of her fifth foal had damaged her. There was veterinary advice never to breed her again as the risk was too high. I was also mortified that the mare - my best buddy - was suddenly taken off me after I'd spent two happy years going all over the countryside with her. I missed the birth of her sixth foal by five hours because I was on middle school camp, but came home in time to have her die in my arms from post-partum haemorrhage. She was on the ground with her face in my lap sighing and bleeding out and there was nothing anyone could do. It broke my heart. It's one reason I adopted some of her progeny.

Pain like that shapes you. That horse was like my adoptive mother, and I was like an orphan - I never had a warm relationship with my own mother, and grew up in a very dysfunctional and violent family. I was often sad, and this mare had come along in my life, just separated from her previous foal, and she and I filled vacuums in each other. She lavished me with care and affection and would slow down if I lost my balance riding her, so that I could safely ride her bareback anywhere, on my own. She would lower her head so I could slide across her neck and then gradually raise is so I could slide from that onto her back, so I could get on the 16hh mare from the ground - and that was her idea, she showed it to me. I read the story of Mowgli and could relate - because animals filled the yawning chasm for me that the unhappy family life produced.

I'm giving back to this mare even today, with looking after her grandson who looks so much like her and is nearly at the end of his life too, at 29 later this year and starting to lose teeth. I will still be giving back to her when he is no longer, just by how I treat animals. She taught me well.

But to get back to the song lyrics, @Magna - I know so many horse people who make everything revolve around horses; who put up palatial buildings for them and lock them into those when they'd rather roam free, while themselves living in little cardboard boxes, and when we bought this land, I swore never to do it like this, and never to let my relationship with my animals degrade my relationship with my spouse. So they got the best free-range social setup I could make them, and we built a very solid and comfortable eco-friendly house for ourselves - as befits Equus caballus and Homo allegedly sapiens, respectively.



The horses can be happy without our constant attention, because they can roam and graze and socialise and explore 62 hectares at will - they aren't locked into a building or small yard awaiting our pleasure. They have an independent, full life of their own and go on adventures as a group, with the donkeys, all around the farm tracks, and when the winter fronts come in and the Roaring Forties start to blow, they are warm and dry in turnout rugs and don't even bother using their WIWO shelter, which the donkeys will go stand in when it rains.

We attend to them twice a day - in the morning to let them out of their 4 hectare nighttime space into the rest of the property if they want to go on adventures, and in the evening at bucket o'clock. When I was riding, that was about every second day. Hoof trimming and general health care when required. The rest of the time we're doing other things. Of course, if I'm going around the farm, I often have little meet-ups that look like this:



Brett says I'm frequently surrounded by a cloud of animals. They just like to come say hello. Even the cattle do it. Maybe I have some kind of special fairy dust on me from being mothered by a mare when I was a pre-teen.

But my husband knows that if he were ever to become unhappy living where we do, I would decide for our happiness as a couple, above anything else. I do not have to do this forever and it does not have to interfere with our other life goals and interests. And he's definitely my favourite animal. ♥

 

[Callistemon]

By the way - I have not attempted to gain copyright over the phrase Homo allegedly sapiens - anyone is free to adopt it.