Schoolmarm said:
I have sold a bunch of stories to anthologies, was a guest columnist for a while, and put out a (forgive me, all) a POD compilation of my stuff. In my own defense, I plead ammonia inhalation asphyxiation.
LOLOL! Too much stall mucking, huh? Yeah! That's the ticket! Too much work! That ought to give you an excuse to lay off it for a while. *snicker*
I went to your site and read about your book, then promptly put it on my "Want List". I especially liked this line from the book page: "
A horseman’s most important piece of equipment is a sense of humor..." Love that! It's SO true! Lots of patience and a great sense of humor are so important when dealing with horses! 
I've done quite a bit of reading and writing on the subject of how horses communicate. It's fascinating, isn't it, how a flick of an ear by the dominant mare can send four geldings scurrying while their human herd leader can beg, shriek, threaten and cajole without one of them moving a single step out of the way of the tractor? Obviously we need to stop reading training books and learn to control our ear movements if we're ever to make an impact on their behavior.
I've actually thought that very thing ~ attaching a set of "puppet" ears to my head with wires to my hands so I can work them.
And yes, I completely agree that it's incredibly fascinating watching the Alpha mare "work" the rest of the herd! Just a look can send the whole herd running. I've been working on how to put those looks into words by posting a description of it on the main horse forum I go to. I think I've gotten it down pretty good to where the reader understands exactly what I'm saying. That's one of the things I'd love to write about ~ how to make yourself the leader in the "herd" with your horse so you can "flick one ear" (or give them a look) and they straighten up.
After doing this, I can see why most trainers use video to teach those lessons! LOLOL! MUCH easier to show instead of tell in this subject!
You can visit my place here:
http://gallanthopefarm.com
I went there and it's NICE! You have a beautiful place! And the horses ~ just gorgeous. You have Paints and Quarters like us! I love your mare, Missleading. She's beautiful! I think she's a tovero though. The white on her chin is a big sign of sabino, so I'll bet she carries two pattern genes. Does she have any roaning anywhere or "ragged"/indistinct (not crisp) edges to any of her spots? Those are two more big signs, but just the white on the chin is enough. APHA just recently started registering horses as "tovero" instead of only either tobiano or overo, so if she's older than about five or so, she could be listed on her papers as tobiano, but in reality be tovero. Do you have any pictures of her full body? I'd love to see her if you have time to post one, even if we weren't talking about color. I just love her head. She's such a pretty girl.
And I LOVED your "Notes from the Schoolmarm". That's me in a nutshell! LOLOL!
Nice to meet you, too!
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ANNIE said:
Josephine, Of course I have pictures but for some reason. I can't get thm to download - too big! i don't kno how to make them smaller
If you really want to and have the time ... Download Irfanview from here:
http://www.irfanview.com/ It's free and it doesn't have any spyware or hijackers attached. It's wonderful to resize pictures! Once you get it downloaded, poke around in there to see how it works. Open one of your pictures and save it as a different filename (in case you accidently hit "Save" when you really didn't want to) and play with it. Go to "Image" then "Resize/Resample" and change the width and height. You can also click and drag your mouse pointer to select a section of the image, then go to "Edit" and "Crop selection" to cut out everything outside what you selected. When you save the image, be sure to click "Options" in the window that pops up (right below the "Save" button) and set it to 75%. That's the right amount to compress it enough that it loads fast, but not compressed so much that you lose a lot of quality. And save it as a .jpg file if it's not already ~ .jpgs are the most universal file type that can be uploaded most anywhere.
Then you can attach images to posts here on the forum. If you'd rather post them right in the message, give me a holler ~ I can walk you through that, too. It's really easy peasy once you get the hang of it.
What training methods do you use? I'm a John Lynos fan myself- a certified trainer of a cetified trainer - if that makes sense.
Annie
Most all of the "natural horsemanship" ones. I like John Lyons, too, and Chris Cox and a couple other new ones who I can't remember their names right now. I
REALLY like Mark Rashid, Ray Hunt, and Clinton Anderson is pretty darn good, too. Pat Parelli and Monty Roberts have gotten a bit commercial for my taste. It seems like half of their shows are pushing some product, mostly their own creations that you could make/buy elsewhere for literally 1/4 the price (and CA's getting dangerously close to doing the same thing now *sigh*), but I still watch them when they come on RFD-TV. I watch/read all the trainers and usually learn something, even if it's what not to do.
Mostly, though, I watch my horses and learn from them. I watch closely to see how they communicate, then try to emulate that when I need to get a message across. I like to read and learn about why they do the things they do, learning about "horse psychology" so to speak, then sit and think about ways to apply that so they'll be more comfortable with the next thing I'll expose them to. It's helped a lot not only in keeping my horses calm and learning, but keeping me from getting the crap kicked out of me. LOLOL!
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Hey, September! Are you anywhere near Texas? If so, come on over! We'll put you up on Bon, the horse in the top picture. She's a sweetheart and great with newbies. Late spring would be best for us since we've still got some of the girls getting over a sickness the whole herd got earlier this year. By late spring or early summer they should all be back in great shape and we can have horses available for you and any friends or family you want to bring with you.
I live my vicarious life with great enthusiasm.
