Diary of a Happy Appy

  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...