the first official day

Today was my first official day of work. I got up at quarter til 8, double layered my hoodies, put on my jeans, boots and work gloves and followed Claudia down to the barn. I'll be her constant shadow for the next two days. It was cold this morning, with a bit of a breeze, but the way that the sun hit the hills through the holes in the clouds made bearing the cool weather well worth it if only to have that view. Claudia instructed me in feeding the older horses and which ones require water in their Senior so to make it easier to chew. It looks as though we spend most of our time working with the older horses, which makes sense as they require a great deal more care than the rest. The mustangs are pretty much self-sufficient, needing only for hay to be tossed their way and that their water buckets be checked daily. The younger domestics are similar.

It is at this time that I think I will take a moment to introduce you all to the horses whose names I have learned thus far. There are about 200 horses on the sanctuary grounds, plus the 12 new mustang foals, so I don’t expect to learn the names of them all, or even half, but I’m told there are several horses, primarily due to their pestering, that I will grow to know quite well. First, I have already introduced you to Annie, the ancient thoroughbred who is perhaps the most docile horse in the park and a particular favorite of Claudia. Her other favorite, Rio, you’ve also met - the former champion thoroughbred who seems to think he’s a bit too good for the rest of the horses here and tends to be a loner, but at the same time feels the need to observe your every action. Then there’s Memphis, the beast of a horse that I got to ride bareback. There’s Jelly, an incredibly sweet and aging white Arabian who has melanoma on her jaw. Cloudy, a gorgeous cream colored Arabian who has only one eye. He’s constantly followed by who everyone simply calls “Claudie’s girlfriend,” a bay colored horse that I’ve settled on calling either “Nuzzle” or “Nudge” depending on whether I decide her tendency to rub her head against me is an act of affection or a demand that I move out of her way. That determination will come with time. There is also Derby, a gorgeous horse whose breed I don’t know but he is what they call a “white” because he is pure white with blue eyes. He apparently loves people and was one of the domestics that introduced himself to Lauren and myself on our first day here. He is also apparently at the top of the pecking order amongst the domestics. Let’s see, there’s Rosie and Georgie, a mother-son pair that though separated by the colts being grouped together in a corral, are normally found side by side, Rosie outside the gate and Georgie just on the other side. Lucy and Lady are two elder reds that I’ve met. Sierra is a bay-colored saddlebred known as the “baby stealer” since she apparently tries to take any young foals that are born on the ranch away from their mothers and raise them as her own. There’s also “the witch” a white horse with brown speckles whose actual name seems to be unknown, but who was banned from the barn since she apparently beat up on the other old horses regularly. She spends most of her time now sadly hanging around the gate to the barn, not quite understanding why she’s not allowed back in. There are two gorgeous Paints, mother and daughter, one brown, one black, who apparently were great riding horses, but contracted a lung disease that apparently causes bleeding in their lungs when they get too worked up. Last but not least, is the elderly horse that I think is becoming my personal favorite. She’s an appaloosa named Emily. She has a lame front leg so she walks with a limp, but she’s full of personality. Claudia said before that if her dog Elsie was a horse she think she would be like Jelly, and I think I can say the same of my old lady beagle and Emily. Miss Emily loves attention and is incredibly affectionate, but is also constantly on the hunt for food and that motive underlies her every action. Before my time here is done I’ll have pictures of each of these horses so that names can be connected with faces.

So after we fed the older horses and made our rounds checking and filling up the water buckets, we started the fun job of raking out the corrals. Once a week we thoroughly rake out each of the eight corrals and the rest of the week we just clean up any large messes they’ve made. Today was the day for the massive cleanup. We got through four before other more pressing requirements demanded our attention. That seems to happen a lot here. Barbara decided today was the day to move the last mustang stallion. He was residing with the colts in the large corral next to the barn but needed to be moved across the road to the large field where the other mustang stallions are kept. He had managed to stake his claim to half of the corral, not letting others near the section where the old lady horses bordered the corral. After several attempts we managed to guide him out of the corral and across the road by blocking alternative exits. Once we had him safely removed we moved the rest of the colts from a pen next to the mustangs over to the corral with the other colts. The whole event caused quite a stir. The newly relocated colts were devastated by their removal from their mothers and they yelled back and forth across the lot for most the afternoon. Also unhappy with the relocation was Jelly, who apparently was quite taken with the mustang stallion that we just moved to the other side of the road. She threw quite a tantrum and we had to do our best to quiet her for fear the stallion might jump the fence.

After the move and our break for lunch Claudia showed me how to properly groom the horses. She was going to be leaving for the afternoon to run errands since she and Adam are leaving Thursday morning for 10 days so to return to New York and drive back with the rest of their belongings, and she thought grooming Annie and Emily might be a good way for me to spend my last couple hours. So since I had no other items on the agenda for the day I took my time. I probably spent close to an hour on each horse, first brushing the dirt off, then using a softer brush to make their coats shine, then using the massage brush and ending by brushing out their manes. It was a calming experience and allowed me, as Claudia said, to really get to know the horses. There’s a lot of trust involved in grooming, on both sides of the equation. When grooming you hug right up against the horses, thus one wrong step and you could end up with a crushed foot, and if you get too far behind the horse she might back into you or kick you because you’re out of her line of vision. On the other side, these old horses have a lot of battle wounds they have acquired over the years and they have to trust you to be careful with all their trouble spots when grooming them. When brushing their manes I found myself treating them as I would another person whose hair I was brushing knots out of, grasping tightly at a clump of hair and brushing out the ends so they wouldn’t feel the pull while I tugged at them. Miss Emily tended to rest her head and neck on your shoulder while you brushed her from the front. A tendency I absolutely loved though sometimes she would rest so heavily that you would have to duck out from under her due to the weight.

While grooming Emily I found myself left on my own. Esteban and Diana, the two permanent workers, left for the day, Barbara had run in town to get parts for the truck that had broken down (broken equipment is apparently a constant happening), Claudia was running errands, and Adam was taking a few hours break before having to go switch the irrigation wheels again. The grounds were completely vacated of human activity save for myself. For the next half hour it was just me and Emily, and the 200+ other equine occupants of the grounds. Not even a car passed by to break the isolation (but then again why would one pass since we were 14 miles off the nearest highway on a road that appeared to lead only to our sanctuary and a few other deserted-seeming ranches). I was detached from humanity to a degree that I feel fairly certain I have never experienced before in my life. It was thirty minutes of a kind of tranquility that will stick with me for a lifetime.

After I finished with Emily I called it a day and spent the rest of the evening journaling in an attempt to catch up on the first few days of activity. Oh yeah, two other events: 1) the last of the pregnant Spanish mustangs apparently had her baby yesterday too – it’s a baby Paint; 2) we have a new resident, Prairie, the two-year-old daughter of another of our residents. She’s absolutely gorgeous and for those of you who watch Disney movies, she looks exactly like Spirit – a yellow/cream coat with a black mane. Gorgeous horse. So yeah, that was the end of my first day. Excellent times.