Diary of a Happy Appy

  Proverbs 17:22 – A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. I am not sure that I have ever been around a happier horse than little Miss Honey.  She generally greets you with ears up and a gentle nicker.  Of course, she could just be hopeful for a cookie or an apple… But she is generally a happy little horse.  She likes to go out to explore the world when we go on a trail ride, looking forward with wide eyes and pricked ears.  Happy to see what is around the bend.  If we are doing some arena work, she is bouncing through that with a spring in her step looking for the next challenge.  I am wondering, do we have a choice to be like Honey?  To greet each day with our eyes open and ears perked up looking for the next adventure that is coming our way?  Maybe the adage “Happiness is a choice” could be applied?  Maybe when circumstances threaten to crush people’s spirits and sink them into the gloom, they need ...

  Matthew 17:20 “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” Sunday was a difficult day for Louie.   Nothing seemed to be going the way he wanted it to go and he had a little bit of a melt-down.   There was cotton blowing from the cottonwood trees, people walking on the path across the creek, bicycles going down the road, and then there was a truck.   The truck was his undoing that morning and everything went downhill from there.   Louie had a hard time standing next to the block for me to get on him; this was due to the cotton blowing on the ground.   That and I wouldn’t let him eat the weeds that had been sprayed with weed-killer.   So, he snorted, blew, and got a piece of that darned cotton up his nose.   Most of the time Louie is very good and will wait patie...

  "LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” — Psalm 30:2 Little Miss Honey has been battling a respiratory infection the last few weeks.   We took her in to the vet this past Monday for bloodwork and a check-up.   She was not exactly happy with the poking and prodding and at one point tried to hide behind her “mom” when the vet was talking about doing more procedures with her.   So, we decided to do another round of antibiotics and see where she was after a week.   Honey does not like the new antibiotics.  They are liquid and I have to give them to her by squirting them in her mouth.  She makes ugly faces and sometimes walks away from me.  Just as we sometimes don’t like to take medicine that can help or heal us, Honey feels the same way about her twice daily medicine.  I am thankful that the vet (horse dr.) has the knowledge and skill that God helped her acquire to know how to run the correct tests to diagnose Honey....

  6/4/21 Matthew 7:7-8 ~ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.   For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door opens.” I think little miss Honey has been reading this scripture regularly.   She has been asking and knocking at the door to her stall for treats, snacks and extra meals like a hobbit looking for 2 nd and 3 rd breakfast.   She is teaching the little colt next door how to beg for snacks and treats.   Louie pretty much ignores her unless she is successful in getting on of her minions (me) to give an extra helping of hay or dinner snackies.   Then he joins in on the begging.   Honey and Louie even do a pat down to see if I am hiding cookies in my pockets when I go in to clean their rooms!   These horses have it made.   Breakfast and dinner in bed, Mani-pedies every 6 weeks, spa days, personal chauffer, all the cookies, and houseke...

  Faith isn’t a feeling.  It’s a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain. ~ Dave Willis Faith and Trust, two words each with  5 letters. Both on the surface seem so small but yet are so big.  Have Faith and Trust you hear people say.  I myself have often said the same thing.  But what does that really mean? In working with horses I have to trust in my instincts and have faith that what I am doing is the right thing.  After working with these wonderful animals for many, many years I have learned to read their body language and subtle cues that they give me when working with them.  Some say that it is “whispering” to horses.  No, not really; I am just listening to what they are telling me as if I was having a conversation with anyone else.  The flick of an ear, the tightening of facial muscles, swishing of a tail… Those are all ways that horses speak to us if we listen.  Just as your pet dog or cat “speaks” to you...

  Proverbs 3:5-6 5 Trust in the  Lord  with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Trust, such a simple word; yet in so many ways it carries tremendous weight.  For fun I regularly ride horses, they weigh over 1,000 pounds and have a mind of their own.  There has to be a mutual trust between us for our relationship to work.  I have to trust that they won’t plant me in the dirt and they have to trust that I won’t put them in a harmful situation.  If I had a relationship based on fear or force with my horse, I couldn’t trust that he would perform to his highest level in a tense situation.  I wouldn’t be able to ride him without the fear of him running off and brushing me under a tree or into a fence.  It would be difficult for me to calm and reassure Louie when he gets frightened of the tree that he has calmly walked by for two previous weeks… Just as ...

  Ephesians 4:2  ~  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. A humble person is not proud and does not believe they are better than any other person.  Being gentle is to be moderate in action, effect, or degree; not harsh or severe. And patient, is being able to accept or tolerate delays, problems or suffering with becoming annoyed or anxious.  You’re probably thinking to yourselves... “ok Carrie, why the lesson on words?”  Well, it ties in with two things: working with people and horses.  When I was younger, I didn’t know as much about working with either and had a pretty quick temper, so as a result my horses were pretty quick too.  As I’ve grown older and more observant, I’ve learned that working with horses and people have some similarities. You should remain levelheaded in all situations.  The more fired up and quick tempered you are, the more fired up the other person or horse is going to be....

  This past weekend I was on vacation.  I say that term a little loosely because when I take a couple extra days off, I am either at a horse show or I am at the farm in Kansas working on something to help Mom.  This past weekend was no different.  The exception was that I brought the horses back with me this time.  But, while down there I was able to help make Mom’s sheep pens a little better.  There are times when you are out in the field working that it is just you, the tools and nature.  You forget that there is a whole city waiting for you to get back to when you are done with your vacation.  So, while I was pounding t-posts into the ground and putting wire panels up I had a chance to listen to What a wonderful world that God has truly gifted us with.  I heard meadowlarks singing, pheasants and sparrows; there was the far off sound of the cattle lowing and the horses chewing their hay as well as the wind blowing through the prairie grass ...

  I read an article years ago written by Jane Savoie called “3 Secrets to Making Every Ride a Great Ride” It was about seeing things in shades of grey and not black and white.  Stop expecting perfection every day of yourself and your horse and things will gradually get better to where you want them to be.  I use these things for my position; are my hands quieter? Did I sit straighter? Are my eyes up or looking down? For my horse, is he straighter? On the correct lead? Am I clear in what I am asking of him?  Did he spook less at the scary corner in the arena? Another thing to do is develop an attitude of gratitude.  Remember to say thank you.  I get to have a relationship with these wonderful animals.  Just yesterday I was getting ready to leave Lincoln to head to KS to pack the horses up from the farm to come back to town as I left the barn where they will be staying I heard a “ker-thump”, not long after; you guessed it.. low air pressure light came on...

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; man never is, but always to be blest; The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”  - Alexander Pope I am ever hopeful that the future will be better than the past.  That my fellow man will do the right thing.  But, then I turn on the news and there is another shooting, another death and I am brought to tears.  I am ever hopeful that God has a plan and that somehow there has to be something good come out of all the mess that the world is in right now.  Although, I am not sure what that is.  I have to trust that God has a plan, just like Louie trusts that I have in my hand a peppermint after I unwrap one.  He is trusting and hopeful that I have his best interests at heart.  There is no way that I would trick him with an apple and not the most loved peppermint! I have to hope that there is a greater plan in place for us, that we can turn this corner together and li...

  Jeremiah 30:17 ~  "But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD" A couple years ago Louie was out with some of his pals for the day in their turn-out pens and when he came in, he was limping.  There was no obvious sores or marks on him.  We could not figure out what was wrong with my buddy.  Of course, him being a horse, he couldn’t just tell me what was going on, so we had to start looking for the problem. We narrowed it down to his back foot (hoof).  It turns out, that he had picked up a nail in his foot and it was rather painful.  We had to have the vet take an x ray of his foot to see if there had been any damage done and then came the long hours and days of soaking it to get any infection out from the rusty piece of nail.  We sat in the barn isle day after day with his foot in a boot, me talking to him, to God and get quite a few things figured out. Sometimes people, and animals are hurting and they can’t tell y...

Every now and then again, A good horse comes along, You better pay attention, Be a shame if you go wrong.   When you see him comin’, You must not hesitate, “Cause you just might miss him, If too long you wait.   The good ones are attractive, People look for build and color, And if they’re at an auction, Will out-bid one another.   Why, just last week in Cow Town, One brought a hundred grand, Lord knows I was honored, Just in the barn to stand.   But out there in the country, When you can have some time, To look at what you’re seein’, You’ll sooner come out fine.   The width of hip, it matters, You’ll want a pretty head, And if he’s moving graceful, Broke but not plumb dead.   Does he look closer at you, Or does he look on past, Does he seem to know you, Is that feelin’ gonna last.   It’s not unlike the Savior, When He sees us, we are known, The one He paid the price for, And will take us home.   And bonded there forever, He with His love will heal...

  I smile when I catch God watching me through the eyes of my horse…   There is nothing quite like the innocence of an animal or a child.  If you are unsure of what I am talking about, watch as a puppy or a dog plays in the new fallen snow.  I know I cannot remember the last time that I have unabashedly just gone out and played in the snow or jumped in a pile of leaves. Do you?  These past few days here in Lincoln we received 12 – 14 inches of snow depending on where you were in the city.  I don’t know about you, but all that white fluffy cold stuff did not entice me to come out and play! But my neighborhood kids sure do love playing in it.  I know our pony Honey loves standing outside in it and watching it come down.  Louie… Not so much.  He’s more like me.  He wants to be in his cozy house out of the weather with a blankie, slippers and a peppermint cocoa watching tv. But, regardless of if it is snowing, sunny or if we are just lazing ...

  Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings in tune without words, And never stops at all.  (Emily Dickinson)   Have you ever had one of those feelings?  You know the one that I’m talking about, that feeling that you get where you know that something you want is going to happen, your pretty sure of it, but you’re not 100% sure of it but you have that gut feeling?  That is that hope feeling that trust that we have in the Lord that everything will work out the way that God has planned.   Jeremiah 17:7 –  Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, an whose hope is in the Lord.   I moved to Nebraska in 2009 from East Texas, I knew no one and really had nothing except my two horses and my little dog Brady.  Fast forward a few years, I now have no little dog (old age) and one happy appy gelding named Louie and two degrees I didn’t have when I moved here.  I also gained a new family in KS and a church family.  The...

  Out to the barn I go, to lose my mind and free my soul… I am taking a few days off this week to spend in KS with my horses.  They have been at the farm since October 2019 for the winter off.  Well, that turned into the CoVid Quarantine with everything including boarding barns on lockdown.  So, my normal horse time to destress and maintain my equine level of happiness has been lacking! There are introverts, extroverts and then there is me; I am a horsetrovert… I rejuvenate not by being by myself reading or meditating, or around people and parties, but by being in the company of horses and riding.  I feel at peace and find comfort with these wonderful animals.  Sometimes I can be my most prayerful self in the barn where it is quiet and peaceful.  Louie has been happy to help me destress and give plenty of horse hugs and even a ride this week.  The last year has been difficult for everyone and we all need to take time to destress and find our happy...

  For the first time in 800 years we saw the Christmas Star.  This is after almost a full year of CoVid 19 and shut-downs.  One has to wonder, if God can send a rainbow to Moses after 40 days of rain and flooding.  What does 2021 hold in store for us?  We have seen things in 2020 that most have never seen.  The last pandemic that shut down countries was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.  One has to have faith that God would not give us more than we can handle, right? But, we are tired.  Our health care system is tired.  Our country is in turmoil and we needed a sign.  I am not sure how much more clear God could have gotten than this.  "Trust and know..."