So, What Happened?

I'll keep it brief. I still don't know about permanent plans (are there such things?), but right now, I work for a horse outfit. I never sit down long enough to write because I'm so busy riding horses, feeding horses, grooming horses, doctoring horses and looking at horses! I'm happy, and I'm still looking for God.

Nothing notable has happened yet, but let's keep watch. I'll let you know what happens next.

Oh no. He's At It Again.

If you’ve read the post below, then you probably knew something like this was coming. There was change in the wind, but I didn’t know it until a couple of days ago.

So how did it come to pass that I suddenly decided not to go back to PHC, and have surprised my family and disappointed a few of my friends…all in the space of a couple of days?

There’s not much to the story, really. I had everything packed, and was planning to arrive in Virginia by Wednesday at the latest. Ahead of me was a semester of managing the women’s soccer team, editing The Soundboard, soaking up more and more about journalism, life, God…and enjoying close friends. I was starting to load the car and realized I couldn’t go. I couldn’t go back to Virginia.

I’ve struggled with the back-East culture, I’ll be honest. But I had a gut feeling I just needed to throw it all to God. He’s in charge, right?

To all my friends and family, I hope you are watching closely. I don’t want you to blink and miss seeing something God does. I’m actually expecting him to move now at any moment. My heart is God’s, you see. And as flawed as it is, some of the desires in it originated with Him. Those are the things I am looking toward now…

I feel awkward, at this moment in time, and uncertain of what the heck I am doing. Just watch. See if God can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

I would absolutely love to hear from any of you, so please talk to me. You have not seen the last of me yet.

Via con Dios…and so will I.

But I Do Struggle...

If I may make a confession, I’d like to say that I have purposely neglected everything but the ranch and the horses and the dogs all summer long. I haven’t checked my email since sometime in May.

I have been daily training pups, helping them learn the ‘dry commands’ like ‘come’ and ‘down’ and ‘heel’ while helping my parents keep things up. And I have been doing things like halter breaking my filly, riding my own and my sisters’ horses since she has been gone most of the time, and helping my grandfather with his cattle. I saw it hot and dry here until the very tail end of June. Then it started raining. About 3 weeks ago, we got four inches in one day, and the house flooded. We had to sweep the water out the door with brooms.

I went with a small documentary film crew last week to Colorado and Wyoming. We rode up in the Rockies on mules and filmed the Oliver Ranch crew driving their cattle to summer country. That was Colorado. Further down the road we met and interviewed Miss Rodeo Wyoming and spent a whole day observing three different bands of wild Mustangs in the Great Divide Basin. The week finished out with getting some footage and photographs of the Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

This week, I found out that my sister Karah is engaged (yippee!) and that my brother, Kile, is finally coming home. My other sister, Callie, turned 17 yesterday. I was given a Border Collie-Cattahoula cross pup as an early Birthday present around the 4th of July. Her name is Beque (pronounced ‘Bek’). She’s a tiny thing, but she’s been a welcome source of joy and amusement as I contemplate returning to Virginia.

I must be honest. The prospect of heading east is truly depressing. I wonder-again-if this is what God really wants me to do. When I hear nothing from Him, by way of signs and wonders, I ask, “Father, is that your final answer?” Silence from God is ok when the question belongs on the shelf. ‘God, will I live to be 80?’ No answer. ‘Ah. No big deal.’ But the urgent questions, like, “Should I transfer to a different school?”-inquiries of this type make me anxious when I don’t hear from God. I find myself thinking about how I can get an answer out of Him. While I’m at it, I may as well get the answer I want. But herein is another difficulty. I want a PHC education. I want the diploma, too. I know that may be solely because so many people told me I couldn’t do it. But is it right to shut the windows of my soul, coil up my dreams and my natural gifts and live in a stuffy back east town? Am I going the wrong way?

I do not even know my own mind. How can I manipulate God, the Universe Maker? Confession again: I’m wrong to try. I’m selfish. I’m…scared. The bottom line is that I need to draw a deep breath and trust Him one more time. Whatever He says, I need to be ready to hear it.

To those of you who will, please pray for me to be ready for the answer that I know is coming. Thank you all for your patience with me.

Hank the Cowhorse

The horses we use on a ranch are not all special. Some of them are just horses. Some of them are outlaws. But some of them have a way of warming your heart with a good character and an honest willingness to please. Believe it or not, character counts for horses, too.

On a dry spring about 14 years ago, I met Hank for the first time. The one broodmare we had, a buckskin named Jenny, had been turned out on the Robinson ranch all winter. I remember rattling out in the feed truck to the Buzzard Well, searching the brushy hillside for a glimpse of Jenny. It was about time for her to foal, and we needed to find her.

Mom was driving, and although I now know it’s not a good idea, I was using the binoculars out the truck window. (Looking through binoculars from a moving truck makes you sick…trust me.) Mom honked the horn and sure enough, Jenny topped out over a ridge. Clinging tightly beside her was a flickering red flame. As they came closer, I realized that it wasn’t fire-it was a coppery sorrel colt. Solid red from nose to tail, he only had a little white marking on his left hind leg. I was impressed with him at the time, thinking he would someday become a famous halter horse or race horse or something like that. When you’re little you don’t realize that there are limits to things. No ranch raised Quarter Horse has ever won the Triple Crown. But I was happy with my dreaming and christened the little fella ‘Hank’.

I got to help halter break him, and he made me proud. He wasn’t the gentlest, but he didn’t throw many fits. When he was a weanling, it became clear he wouldn’t be a world champion halter horse-his big head and Roman nose made him look like a little red pumpjack. So much for pretty. And he wasn’t very big yet-he kinda had short legs. So much for the Triple Crown. I figured he would prove to be the smartest horse anyone had ever seen, so I had my hopes up for him to become a famous cutting horse. Dreams are resilient things when you’re young.

But life interrupted my dreaming, and Hank was sold so we could have enough money to move to my dad’s new job. I was so busy growing up and learning how to be myself in a new place that I let go of Hank completely. It wasn’t until years later that I caught up with him again. I’d had a rough few years but I was still dreaming. By then I was a teenager and had finally gotten the chance to rodeo in the New Mexico High School Rodeo Association. I went looking for a roping horse and lo and behold, I wound up buying back my very own Hank.

Now a full-grown horse, he was stout and muscular with a thin wiry tail and not much of a mane (which made his oversized ears look even more oversized). He had been ridden on ranches and sent to a roping horse trainer. If horses had GPA’s, I reckon his would have been below a 2.0. Luckily, I graded on a curve and took him home.

I hauled Hank for two years to rodeos all around New Mexico. I soon learned his quirks, not the least of which was his claustrophobia, his love of Dr. Pepper, and his uncanny knack for getting hurt. But there was nothing he loved more than roping calves, and nothing he hated more than speed events. Calf roping was his niche. We were often outrun, so both of us finally learned to break quicker and swing quicker-before that calf left us in the dust.

Hank wasn’t just a rodeo horse. That was as much his weekend hobby as it was mine. Dad, Mom, and my sister and I used him for ranch work. He was ridden hard some weeks during spring and fall works and still got dragged to rodeos on weekends. He was also the horse we gave dudes to ride, because he was gentle and tolerant. That’s not to say he was patient-he would take advantage of their ignorance in any way he could. But we knew we could always count on Hank for whatever job we had to do.

There was a time in high school when both my mom and I were day working on some of the bigger outfits around where I live. Between the two of us we had one pickup and trailer and three horses. And Hank picked up the slack, sometimes working two days back-to-back during gathering time. He may have been really tired, but it didn’t keep him from trying.

Last spring, Mom was checking heifers and rode down the canyon. I guess there was a boggy spot at the crossing, and Hank sunk to his belly in black mud. He didn’t panic, he just got out as fast as he could. I was surprised, as accident-prone as he is, that he didn’t really hurt himself. That makes the first time he’s gotten into a jam that didn’t require 10 days of doctoring and a vet bill in the aftermath.

Last summer we jumped a coyote down in the Big Pasture. Mom was riding Hank again, and all I heard was “Get out of the way,” just as Hank thundered by. Mom had her rope down and they caught up to that ol’ coyote; Mom threw but that sly dog just ran right through. We chased him for the better part of 20 minutes until he disappeared into a hole. On the way home, Hank was strutting like a peacock. He had tracked that coyote at a blistering pace and rated it perfect. He knew it, too.

This January, I left Hank behind for college and dreams of a different kind. Hank never won a single halter class; never won a race. In fact, I don’t think Hank can be credited for a single trophy buckle. He never did become a great cutting horse, either.

Today, Hank stands in the corral with the younger generation of cowhorses here on the ranch. He still does the same things he always did-at the same steady pace. He hasn’t gotten any prettier, either. Now, my little sister hauls him to rodeos on the weekends, and my Dad still drags calves off of him in the spring. We still put dudes on him, too. And he is the same horse he has always been. I think in a way Hank the cowhorse not only lived up to my dreams, he exceeded them. Looking back on Hank’s life, it seems to me there is greater value in being dependable than in being a champion. I hope we can all take that lesson to heart.

The Heart of a Lion, Part IV

Finally, part four.

Nine months after the colic surgery, Macho paces up and down in the little pasture he used to rest in. The dull roar of the Bobcat backhoe is the only thing breaking the routine serenity of another Mesa Ranch day. Cindy stands by the gate, her hat hiding her face. She's crying. Wes is beside her. Macho is only a scarecrow now. It's finally the end of the trail. His kind eyes still glitter with determination, but that is the only thing that is the same about him.

Immediately following his surgery, the incision became infected. Macho spent several more days at the clinic, and was given a high powered antibiotic to fight it. Less than a month after returning home, Macho was still weak and still losing weight. When Dr. Franklin examined him, the news was ominous. His kidneys were failing. Thorough research revealed that the kidney failure was caused by a reaction to the antibiotic.

His coat, once brilliant now looks like an old penny. The magnificent, sculpted body is now jagged and bony. His head, so keen and alert, barely clears the ground. He paces like a big cat, but it is taking all the strength left in him to keep from folding into a heap on the ground. This is goodbye to the horse whose destiny didn't wait for him. No amount of try could delay death.

Macho was put down and buried in the paddock that he always used be turned out to run in.
The pacing figure is now nowhere to be seen. The pasture is empty, except for Cindy and Wes, walking together away from a fresh mound of soil. Macho is gone.

Sherry Evans' heart sank when she learned Sadie was not carrying Macho's foal. Sherry had been given a free breeding to Macho as a birthday present. The colt out of her mare, Poco Peppy Concetta (Sadie) would have been able to do anything, be anything. Tears stream down her face as she stands with one hand resting on Sadie's pale, cream colored back. "I knew better than to hope for too much," she says slowly. "It was a great hope and dream to have a colt out of such a classy horse as Macho Little Lena, but it wasn't God's will at the time," Sherry says. "I felt like he had a heart that was out of the ordinary. If I had a colt out of him that had a heart like him, then I'd have a once in a lifetime horse."

"It's heartbreaking," says Walt Evans, Sherry's husband. "Macho was an exceptional cutting horse, exceptionally athletic, exceptionally talented at reading cattle. He had a future in front of him."

The loper stirs and reaches for his pocket where his cell phone is ringing. The nap's over, it's back to the whirlpool on another blue-blooded cowpony. The crackle of the microphone prepares its audience for the announcer's voice, "Thank you, boys. We're gonna pick up with Little Blue Tutu owned by Janet Keller, A Lil Tachita and Albert Rolwing Jr. be ready please."

There is a hush in the coliseum while the sounds of the warm up pen continue in a monotonous flow. The cutting world goes on spinning today just as it did when Macho was a rising star. New faces and new horses make the headlines now. But if you were to mention the name of the bright colored cowhorse, you can be sure someone would remember him. In Wes's words, "Macho, he goes down in the books. He'd been dealt a terrible hand. Sometimes things aren't fair. But he had the heart of a lion."