Hope, Faith and Charity

Whiskey and Lily's children died the other day.

Grissette the cat (my favorite by the way) must have jumped up on the large floor standing bird cage, containing Whiskey, Lily and their youngest baby finch (about 5 weeks old) Charity. In doing so she knocked over Faith and Hopes cage on to the floor, releasing the door catch.

I'm assuming at least one of the birds escaped but I haven't found any trace of it. All I found was a set of orange-red finch feet near the cage. By the time I found the disaster, little Charity was dead on the floor of the big cage, most likely the victim of a heart attack.

On hearing the story, Michael Raymond from the Helium Writers Group, wrote an Ode to the three little victims:

Ode To Faith, Hope and Charity

Humankind's humanity, built on pillars three:
Faith, Hope and Charity,
no stronger virtues be.

Branches of a tree, birds singing free.
Lose one and lose all three;
dead. Dead and mangled breed.

Feline thief, stealing our humanity.
Lurking, pouncing. Devouring,
Faith, Hope and Charity.

- jmr, 27 Nov 07

An Eye To The Future

Here I'm playing with the camera. I'm testing out my photography skills.

I find it absolutely amazing what can be done with an artists eye! Not that I'm saying I'm an artist, but I think I would like Dreams eye blown up poster size, because it is so expressive for a horse's eye.

I decided this is my eye to the future. My Dream, my Willow, my future, reflected in his big beautiful eye. Of course, I could also put up the blooper shots I took of the eyes - the closed eyes, the out of focus eyes, the get out of my way or I'll stomp you eyes.

The upper eye is Gimme A Dream's eye as he looks way down at me trying to get a good shot. The eye to the right belongs to Willow Breeze. She is more at my eye level.

Gimme A Dream

This is photo is Dream as a yearling. I found this picture on the internet with his registration and linage. This was the picture upon which he was sold the first time. His poor conformation is well shown here, nevertheless he sold for $6,000, in spite of the problem, on the hopes that he would out grow it. If anything, the problem is worse now.

It is my belief that Dream is too heavy and I should try to reduce his weight while keeping the look of weight. How do I do that? He has such a naturally skinny-looking bum. If I reduce his weight, my sister will do nothing but criticize me for not feeding him enough. As it is he ate nearly the equivalent of three bales of hay a day, last week. Perhaps it was jealousy though having to share his food with Willow Breeze.

He is a difficult horse to get a good picture of because even here when the sun is high, he shadows himself.

Garden Statue

Dream , God Bless Him - tried to eat my garden statue. He broke the lady off at the waist and the boy off at the neck. I'm using a marine glue to try to get them fixed. Soon I shall take a tooth brush to the statue and clean the dirt off it.

I do like this statue. It was given to me by my sister, a couple Christmases ago. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I said something that goes outside. But I didn't mean something that the horse would like.

I put the statue on a stump under mum's apple tree. It is a large tree, an enigma here as I sure it would make a good substitute for Hogworts whomping willow. Every time I try to mow around and under the apple tree, I swear that the branches reach out and grab me, pulling at my clothes. I never knew what king of a tree it was until I planted an orchard not far from it. Then in the spring it came into bloom. Wow! Stunned! And I was going to cut it down. The fact that my precious mum planted it was all that saved it.

Anyway, getting back to the story, I put the statue under the tree on a stump of hardwood because the Border Collie pup I received that same Christmas started digging up the roots and I didn't want to lose the tree. Hence the stump and statue. But no on told me that a giant of a horse would decide to eat the statue.

So I saved the tree and now hopefully the statue. I liked it under the tree. It looked like it belonged there. That is where it will be returned next spring.

My Lastest and Greatest Picture of Willow Breeze

This is my latest mare to my small herd, Willow Breeze. She is a French Canadian Horse with a few special qualities. She has been trained for western riding, apparently has no toe commands but she does one-handed neck reining to an acceptable degree for trail riding at the very least, however I suspect she is better than she showed me. She is high spirited when under saddle and is not fond of being used. She is extremely intelligent though and is interested in learning different activities that she has never come across before.

I rode her yesterday and will do so again today. I found her to be far too energetic for a novice rider as she wants her own way constantly. In this respect, I found that her western training does not come through. She spent a lot of the time on two legs, trying to move out, instead of resting quietly in one spot. Now she wasn't vicious or mean, but I wanted her to stand at rest and she wanted to move out, so I kept bringing her to a halt. The problem could have been because I was using Coppers hack-a-more, which I don't believe she understood and also she is in heat, so she wanted to spend all her time with Dream. Her head is even smaller than Coppers because I needed to readjust the head stall for her by about two inches.

Today I intend to longe (lunge) her with the saddle on and side reins. See if that helps improve her. She is a good animal to sit on, comfortable to ride and sweet-natured, even if she is stubborn. She saddles and bridles well, even though she put her ears in the flat-back position when I cinched her. Gentle talking and the occasional patting of her neck, got her through the ordeal without incident.

Over all, I’m pleased with little Willow, I think she will make an exceptional ride once the kinks have been worked out. When she comes to the realization that I'm not going to use her hard, as what has been tried in her past, I think she will be very pleasurable.

I have the feeling that she would make a good equestrian mount in the English forum. Her natural inquisitiveness leads me to believe that there is not much that she wouldn't like to learn. She likes to bow her neck and have her muzzle near her chest when being ridden, which is quite not like western trained horses, but I'm certain she has had no English training. There again, it might have been her reaction to the hack-a-more.

The French Canadian Willow Breeze - Min

Jayne, I just got your message that you don't see Arabian in Willow. She doesn't have the classic look of anything, but it is just when I look at her and she is interested in moving out, she has this Arabian look in her eye. Extreme intelligence for horses, maybe. Her head is very well defined but not classic at all, just small and refined. She has a straight face which is not Arabian of course, but even still there is something finely chiseled about her head. Her attitude is classic Arab, which is strange for a French Canadian. I haven't found papers for her yet, which makes me think she isn't registered. I don't even know her name. She was brought to the islands as a pure French Canadian, with the high price tag to go with her. But as far as I know, papers never came with her. She is 8-years-old. Judes, the man I buy my bales of hay from was apparently her first islands owner. He is on vacation off islands presently. I will be speaking with him about her.
I value your input and can certainly understand your confusion on this one. All I have to go on, are my impressions. I bought her because I wanted an experienced horse for the beach because Dream was out of his element and I expect Frilly to be worse. I find that her legs are very tiny, small around. The neglect is showing in her hay-belly shape. I'm hoping that she will improve her look with time. Her head does look like the French Canadian above but her neck is thin, shoulders and chest are small. She is about 14.2hh maybe a little taller but she has no weight compared to the breed. This little animal looks frail when comparing her to the Canadian breed.

She has gone through some serious training in the western class but I don't yet know the extent of her training. She is at this point a throw-away horse, one that was destined for the meat market in Montreal. I find this mare to be extremely intelligent. She picks up new instruction in English at a phenomenal rate. This mare has only been amongst French speaking people. And yet it only took three turns before she lunged like she had done it all her life and learn the instruction walk and whoa just as quickly. This activity is not something that is known in the communities around here. She has never had this training. There is more to this mare then I first thought! I'm not saying she will be a favourite, but she has some very special qualities. This picture was taken a couple minutes after she arrived.

LOL an unusual fence - yes! And all those traps were pushed into the paddock by about three feet. I still won't leave them in it because the electricity will not stop a truck from doing damage.

Spring, The Hand Fed Raven

Spring has been assimulated to the wild for seven years now, but he continues to nest with his long time mate, close to where he can find his favorite foods - near human habitats.