A blogger at the Western States Horse Expo 2008: 1

I just returned from a fun vacation at the Expo. This is, I believe, my fifth year in a row there. This time we only went on Friday, as that was the day with most of what we wanted to see. My sister and I arrived shortly after the gates opened, and after walking around a bit we headed over to watch part of the Mustang Challenge, the in-hand competition. This event is based on the Extreme Mustang Makeover which was such a huge success. The horses in the Mustang Challenge were taken off the range and given totally wild to the trainers, who had 90 days before the show to train them.

We did not see more than 6 or 7 of the horses, but there was one trainer and horse who really stood out to me. I hope she won. The horse was VERY attentive and precise. In the trailer loading, it did exactly as requested, down to stepping out one foot at a time, waiting on her cues. It was already trained to ground tie, and she demonstrated that. If I were the type of person who didn't like training my own horses and I had a young horse to send out, she would be on my list of trainers. I believe her name was Jamie Thomas, according to the program.

Ray Ariss (and Hail Yeah, the mustang from last year that brought $50,000 after the Makeover) was there and did a demonstration and talk. We also saw more trainers from the Makeover later and I cannot remember who said it, but I loved this line: "The difference between training mustangs and domestic horses is, with mustangs you get to be a trainer. With domestic horses, you get to be a psychiatrist."

I can't remember who the picture above is of, though, I'm afraid. Sorry!

While we were watching the trainers later on, guess who sat down about four rows in front of us. He is publisher of Western Horseman magazine, and among other things, takes the official photos of the Magnificent 7 winners every year. Yes, Darrell Dodds. The sad thing is I've probably sat very close to many other famous horse people and not even realized it, as I do not frequent shows... Oh well!

Later we went over to the Toyota Arena and spent quite a while watching the Breed Demos and the Mounted Shooting Demo. During that time, my sister and I spotted a really gorgeous black Arabian stallion. I don't believe in breeding horse for color only, of course, but everyone likes a truly correct and gorgeous black stallion. So, of course we went over to pet him and take pictures!

He happens to be a son of Bey Shah, and his name is TC Bey Cedar. You may have seen him in Hidalgo. His owner was really nice, and it was fun meeting the stud. He was very well behaved, but you could tell he was a stallion by how he kept moving his muzzle around and lipping at the air. Not nippy at people, just doing stallion stuff. At the end of the Arabian Breed Demo, he came in and did various tricks, including rearing, which you could tell he heartily enjoys being allowed to do! He was very light to cues and counted out his age for us, as well as other tricks.

The last photo is right as he came down after a rear.

Anyway, after we finished petting him, we climbed back up to our seats in the stands to find that my aunt and brother had just sat down right below where we were, without realizing we were around! They had come over after we did, and wandered around separately, and we figured we'd run into each other eventually, but hadn't made any plans. I guess Sis and I are rather predictable, though - I realized that we always sit in the far right and back of those stands!

More to come...

L

The Most Important Holyday

"You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.

He has risen! He is not here."

(what the angel said)



Happy Resurrection Day!



L

The Heart as a Garden

The last couple weeks I have been thinking about sustainable gardening/permaculture and conventional modern agriculture and how it compares in some aspects to the Christian life. I think I first thought about it while listening to a sermon in which the parable of the seed was briefly mentioned. The parallels hit me all at once.

In permaculture type gardening, one of the basic principles is the awareness of the effect of plowing on soil structure. A plow turns over the top few inches of dirt, exposing the underside to more oxygen, and burying the bacteria and organic matter that were on top. This disruption and extra oxygen creates a temporary flurry of activity among the soil organisms that make up a soil’s fertility. However, the effect is not exactly the most healthy one. It is better compared to the effect of drugs on a human, making them “high” for a while before the “crash.” We all know how drugs eventually ruin a person’s health. It is the same with soil. Too much plowing, and the bacteria will exhaust all available resources in the soil, and then die. Then you have dead soil. Permaculture gardeners have developed many ways to garden and farm without needing a plow, and the techniques and results are truly fascinating, to me anyway. :-)

However, my point today is this. I was thinking about how often I have gone to church or somewhere else, and felt God really speaking to me about something. Sometimes I am really convicted about something I need to change. But then I leave, and so often I blithely and easily forget all about the conviction. Many other Christians do that as often as I do. We don’t mean to, but we do. Then we listen to another sermon about the good soil and bad soil, and our guilt feelings are so strong that we resolve for the 276th time to be good soil from now on. Maybe we make another “I’ll be good, really,” promise to ourselves and God, and we go home and figure out all the ways we’ll make sure to read our Bible more and decide to get up early to pray, and do all sorts of "good things." We start well, but two days later, we are already burned out. After enough cycles of this, we have so many different floating guilt feelings that our hearts grow harder. We try not to think about what we should be doing, and we ignore messages telling us to do this or that better. We feel like it’s impossible to make ourselves “be good.” Isn’t this like a plowed field? Cycles of frenzied, unhealthy activity, leading to an eventual absence of life and growth.

The last few years it seems like I’ve been learning about what is really a Christian’s responsibility for personal growth, and what isn’t. I am not my own Shepherd – it is not my responsibility to force myself to “be good.” That is NOT what Christianity is about AT ALL. However, like a careful gardener works daily to monitor relationships between plants, animals, bugs, microbes, and minerals as he enables (not forces) the ground to grow its crop, my job is simply to keep doing my best to monitor my relationship with God and other people, planting and fertilizing biblical relationship patterns, and weeding out things, especially time wasters and sins such as resentments that interfere with those relationships, so that God can grow the crops he wants in me. Like permaculture, doing that is a daily process that should happen without extreme effort, unlike the massive amounts of energy that sustaining conventional agriculture/fake Christianity takes.

In case I sound like a horrible goody-goody here, I’ll just say right now that my main purpose in posting this is to remind me of this in the future. I’ve let myself slide off track in some areas lately, and I’m not really proud of myself. Sometimes it helps to not only verbalize something, but to write it down, too. Basically, I have some weeding to do, and even more fertilizers to focus on. And now that I have more time, I really need to make sure I use that resource wisely, rather than filling it up with unproductive time wasters…


L

New video with unreleased song!

This is cool - my favorite musician, Todd Agnew, is coming out with a new CD called "Better Questions" this July, and here is a preview video with one of the songs! The video includes clips of the photo shoot for the new CD.

http://dabble.com/node/10391839

(It's amazing, isn't it - a NON horsey topic today! ;-D Er, except I just realized that's not quite true... dogs and fishes and donkeys aren't exactly horse-related though, right?!? Anyway, just go watch it!)


L

Easter

Happy Resurrection Day!!!

I pray that this day has caused you, like me, to stop and take another look at Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection, and what it means to you. In a word, "Everything."

I was really struggling with some issues the last few days, and I have been thinking so much about why would God love me? I mean, really, it is just so incredibly hard to fathom, yet I know that He does love me, even when I'm being rebellious...

There were 2 people baptized at my church today. What a perfect day to be baptized!!! It was beautiful.

Just thinking out loud here, so this is short and sweet. Any thoughts of your own on what this Easter has been like for you, or what it does (or does not) mean to you? (Honest skeptics always welcome here!) :-D


L

P.S. More photos of Mira tomorrow!