Zelda was the most challenging sheep ever for us. She knocked me down more than once, trampled Red, led two breakouts off of the farm and down a busy highway, knocked off farriers and vets. She has mellowed. She seems to defer a bit to the two wethers, Liam and Pumpkin, she never messes with Red (or he with her) and she often comes up to me or Maria hoping for a treat of some kind or even a scratch behind the ears, something she would never have permitted.
She lost her lamb last summer, and that may have softened her spirits. Or maybe the good life of being a sheep for Maria, lots of good hay and attention. She even came up to me and posed for this photo, and I didn’t get knocked on my butt.
Her epic breakout is still talked about by our neighbors, she busted through a hot five-wire fence and lured the other sheep onto a highway and took off for a half-mile. Red and I gave chase, he got there first, turned them around and escorted them back and forth across the road – many honking horns – and back to the farm. On our farms, animals lead a pretty peaceful life, I like to think it was good care that mellowed Zelda. Maybe it was life, the great mellower of us all.
Scott invited me into his sugar house this afternoon, a cold and cloudy day, mud and ice everywhere – the frost in the ground has not yet melted, more mud to come. It was warm in the sugar house, the sap was flowing into the pans, Scott was pouring it into the jars, it is good stuff, we had a toddy together and talked easily and openly, as we do. Friendships ripen, I think if you stay with them there comes a point of comfort and trust, the friendship is a given, it is nourishing and soothing and affirming. I liked this portrait of him, it works in so many ways.
Scott works hard, every day, all the time, the most relaxed I have ever seen him is in the sugar house. I worry about him sometimes, but then I realize this is the way he is, and that is his decision, not mine. The friendship is very gratifying, I appreciate it. It was quiet and warm and lovely in there, Red got so close to the fire I thought his coat might flame up, but he seems to love it in there as well.
I was taken with Maria’s new crow quilt, which is hanging in her Schoolhouse Studio, and is almost done. Something very special and very different about it. I love the studio, Maria and I talked and talked in her first studio, at the first Bedlam Farm. The pink chair she used to sit on is in the new one, she was sitting on the chair when I first told her how I really felt about her, it was there that we decided to be together. A special place for me.
I don’t know if I ever had a great teacher or not, I was a very poor student and a very distracted and unhappy one. I saw a great teacher yesterday, and it was a joyful thing to see. Great teachers can light up lives and open us to new experience and help us feel competent and encouraged and can change our lives.
I’ve known Eli Anita-Norman for a decade or more, she is the wife of my friend and farrier Ken Norman, the Grumpy Care Bear, I like to call him, with a heart as big as his body. Eli has often come to help Ken take care of our donkeys, she helped Ken bring Simon back to life. We rarely got to speak to her outside of the barn and the usually rushed visits there. Horses are Eli’s life, she rescues them, boards, them, breeds them, rides them and teaches people how to care for horses and ride them. She is teaching Maria how to care for and ride her new pony, Chloe, a Haflinger-Welsh mix.
When Simon died, Ken was in the hospital, Eli rushed over to be with us. We didn’t ask her, she just came and we were very grateful for her presence. She and Maria became friends that day, they connected in some way I could feel, but not really explain.
(For those of you wondering – a number of messages – if ponies are big enough to ride adults, you might have fun checking out their history. They took Attila and the mongol hordes all across Asia, they did the same for many Native-American warrior and nomadic tribes. They were often bred to be war horses or working animals. Most are very strong and powerful animals, riding Maria around is not much of a strain, neither it is hard work for draft horses to pull carriages in Central Park. Why, I wonder, do so many people seem to see horses as fragile and weak?)
I don’t usually come along to Maria’s lessons, it is her thing, not mine. But she invited me to come for awhile yesterday and I am a sucker for that, I wanted to take some photos, and it was liberating to watch. As it was, I don’t think Maria even knew I was there, she was so engrossed in her lessons.
Ken came and sat next to me, we grunted and grumbled for awhile.
It was uplifting and inspiring to watch Eli work with Maria, who does not have a warm history with instructors or people telling her what to do. With Eli, lessons are fun, and they are productive. It is unnerving to take on a new thing like a horse, but she looked completely natural and at ease to me. One of the reasons was Eli, who has the gift of teaching. She stays close, offers support, is clear in her instructions, yet always encouraging and warm. She never makes her students feel small. Like good animal trainers, she focuses on what her students are doing well, and gently reminds them of what they could be doing better.
I could see Maria get it right before my eyes, the ride was so different at the end of one lesson that it was at the beginning. I loved hearing how the horses sense movement and intention.
Eli loves horses very much, they are her life, and she conveys that passion in her teaching. She sees the animals as partners, yet she also reminds us that they need leadership, consistency and clarity, what every good dog trainer knows. She is honest but always positive, and Maria trusts her completely. These things are the key, I think, to great teachers. Maria can be as high-strung as any horse, but she is completely relaxed around Chloe, and around Eli. The three of them seemed to move and communicate as one, in sync, there was only learning, no tension or feelings of being overwhelmed or inadequate.
Riding a horse well is not easy, as I could see. It is complicated, it requires patience, physicality, attention to detail, a small person getting a large animal to move in tandem with them, understand them. You really have to pay attention, you have to master equipment and movement, you have to be safe and keep a hundred things in your head.
It takes trust and time and experience. In a way, that is how I feel about training a dog. And I was proud of Red, also. He sat out in the ring, showed himself to Chloe, let her walk right next to him. The two are fine with one another, that will be helpful when she comes to Bedlam Farm, that is why I brought Red. We are working hard to acclimate her well. I like Chloe a lot, all the more so because I don’t have do anything but give her carrots and brush her.
Sitting out there in Vermont, I was grateful for our friendship with Ken, and with Eli. She is a great teacher, and her presence will help this new experience be a loving and responsible one. We already love Chloe, and now we are learning how to take care of her – and ride her – in the best and most thoughtful and loving way. Great teachers can do that.
