Our First Horse

I have a bad habit of holding things in my mouth to free up both my hands. This afternoon I stuck the cap to a tube of Quest Plus dewormer in my mouth - with the inside of the cap facing my tongue. I couldn’t even see a trace of the gel (it’s orange) on the cap, but I sure did taste it. NASTY!! Made my tongue and lips numb too. I did feel bad giving it to Valentine after that - but keeping him parasite-free is more important than saving him from nasty-tasting stuff. So be sure to worm your horses on a regular schedule, preferably under your vet’s advice…just don’t put the cap in your mouth.

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Many of you have followed the Our First Horse blog for the more than four years we’ve been around. You’ve read about us starting with our first horse (Valentine), purchasing our second horse (Moonshine) soon after and later our third and fourth horses (Romeo and Cash). We started out as total newbies with a nice horse barn and a decent fenced property and gradually, slowly we gained knowledge and experience. And I’d like to think along that way we gained wisdom, as well. It’s a piece of that wisdom I’d like to share with you today.

Someone once said that hindsight is 20/20 and this we have all proven in our lives. After more than four years of horse ownership, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve made some poor decisions, especially early on. I love all of our horses and have no interest in selling any of them. We’re emotionally attached to them now. But even though we can ride any ride-able horse and even though we know how to take care of them, we’re in a way still beginners, unskilled and without a lot of time. I had an epiphany recently. For people like us who don’t have much time but love horses enough that they want their own, it’s better to buy a well-trained, excellent horse right in the beginning. What we should have done was spend $5,000-$10,000 each on two already-trained, good horses. There, I said it. Our horses are great but they need a lot of training. The trouble is, I need training, too, and I don’t have a lot of time for me to learn, become an expert and then train my horses.

So if I could do it all over again, I’d start out with better trained horses. I’m certainly not giving up on our horses and we will invest time and money into training them. But there are days I wish I could just saddle up any of them and head off on the trails (we can mostly do this with Romeo). So my advice to you if you’re a beginner looking for your first horse - save your money and invest in lessons for you (critical) and a well-trained horse.

For those of you with horses, do you agree/disagree? What would you do differently in hindsight?

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In addition to being on Facebook, Our First Horse is now posting updates on Twitter. Both Twitter and Facebook are great tools for getting quick updates. Detailed posts and pictures and videos about our horses will still be shown first right here on OurFirstHorse.com while quick musings and anecdotes about our crazy first time horse owner life will be posted on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll update all sites when something new is posted on the Our First Horse blog, of course.

To follow Our First Horse on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/OurFirstHorse and choose “Follow.” We’ll see that you’ve done that and if you Tweet about horse things too, we’ll follow you back. That link will live over there on the sidebar so it’ll be easy to find.

Also, we’re working on a new website. Time flies and the other day I realized this design has been up for more than three years. That’s pretty stale in internet terms so behind the scenes we’re working on a new design. When we get past the alpha stage, we’ll open it up for you to see in beta form before making it live. We’d love to hear your comments.

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If you’re a member of Facebook, please check out the Our First Horse Facebook page. While much of the same content will end of there, we’ll mostly be making shorter, quicker updates there. Don’t worry, we’ll still keeping this blog format but I often feel like sharing some small tidbit and I don’t like filling the blog up with tiny posts, especially because many of you subscribe by email and get an email notice every time we post something. With Facebook we can make those small posts and communicate back and forth with our “fans”. So please check out our page and become a fan!

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For the past few years we’ve been passing this junkyard on our way up to the big city for provisions. One day we noticed piles of horse poop so we paid a little more attention next time we went by. Sure enough, there was a horse in there! I have never before seen a “junkyard horse”. I wonder if he bites.

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First of all - I am SO sorry to have neglected this blog for as long as we have. It’s inexcusable, really, but we have been very, very busy. My father retired at the end of September and I spent weeks getting ready to go out to California to help them move, then the actual time there getting them packed (about 2 weeks), then the week driving back, and since then we’ve been getting them settled (driver’s licenses, new doctors, new banks, etc.)…so I’ve let a lot of things slide. Y’all aren’t the only ones I’ve neglected, believe me!

But I DID find time to read this great book, and I highly recommend you do too. Although it’s not technically about horses, horses do figure prominently in the story. It’s the story of the author’s grandmother’s life, told in the first-person. Her name is Lily Casey Smith. She had quite a life, and she thankfully shared stories about it with her family. Ms. Walls and her mother, Lily’s daughter, remembered a lot about Lily’s life, and Ms. Walls created this wonderful book from those stories. She calls it a true-life novel because she couldn’t know everything about her grandmother - e.g., conversations she had with others, her thoughts about events that took place, other little details. But Ms. Walls fills in the gaps beautifully, and wove together a riveting, moving, even inspiring life story that I think her grandmother would be proud of.

What a life Lily lived - she was born in a dirt dugout in West Texas, became an itinerant teacher in Arizona at the age of 15 (riding her horse alone from her home to Arizona), ran a cattle ranch with her husband, survived the Great Depression, raised two children while earning her college degree, learned to fly…and those are just a few of the highlights. Ms. Walls’ writing style really connects the reader with Lily - you feel like you are really hearing Lily’s voice. She was a spunky, no-nonsense character, and I wish I had known her in life - but I’m glad I could meet her in this book.

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