Yeah, he was bucking, too

November 8, 2009 by Hal Walter

A few more words about Friday’s near disaster with Harrison and Spike . . . First off, Harrison got back on a burro the next day, riding Redbo for a short ways, about a mile total on the dirt track over to the west of here.

“Spike is bad behavior,” he said from the saddle. “Redbo is better.”

Rehashing the incident, it had been in the back of my mind that Spike was actually bucking during Friday’s rodeo episode. Everything happened so fast I wasn’t certain.

However, Spike’s bucking was confirmed by Lorie Merfeld-Batson, a neighbor and one of the moms that witnessed Spike’s blow-up at the arena. Lorie said she was amazed at how well Harrison stuck in the saddle as Spike ran away bucking.

Lorie also mentioned how surprised she was that a burro would do something like this. She said the behavior was more like something she’d expect from a horse. I would agree. Rarely do burros spin, run and buck like this, especially when there is no apparent reason for spooking. As I previously wrote, Spike’s meltdown bordered on psycho. Never say never when discussing equines.

I also was reminded that my first horseback riding experience was on a Shetland pony that ran off with me when I was about Harrison’s age. This was at my great uncle Glen’s farm in Missouri. I have a dim memory of the horse running fast across a pasture and stopping short of a fence. Somehow I stayed on. When I visited the farm as an adult shortly before Glen’s death in 1997 none of the landscape was how I remembered it but I sure remember that ride.

So now we have some new rules around here. First, Harrison won’t ride Spike anymore. Secondly, nobody will ride anything around here without some serious hardware — a bit — in its mouth. My apologies to the bitless bridle crowd — I know if I had been able to turn Spike the situation Friday never would have gotten so out of control. And a bit would have made a big difference.

Today I took Redbo out with my friends Peter Hedberg and Jeff Gillingham. I rode along with them on their horses, and did some hiking, running and thinking as well. We were out for nearly four hours. We took some of the rugged trails on Bear Basin Ranch up a rocky hill known locally as “Grouse Mountain.” It’s also called “Camelback” by some. And on the USGS topo map it’s “Bears Ears.” A rock formation that caps this mountain actually looks like the ears of a bear. The trail, one of the few that is snow-free around here, winds up the south-facing slope dotted by Gambel oak and mountain mahogony. The view from up there was stunning.

It was a fine outing, and between Harrison so readily returning to riding Saturday and this time spent outside today, I felt the weekend had indeed been salvaged.

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An unexpected rodeo and a bruised psyche

November 7, 2009 by Hal Walter

It happened so fast I had no time to think, and perhaps that explains why even now I can’t really piece it all back together. Harrison was on Spike, and I had the lead rope. We were watching the 4-H kids practice their equine drills in the neighborhood arena.

Suddenly Spike spooked for no apparent reason. The next thing I knew I was sprinting down an embankment, trying to keep a grip on the rope. I found myself “climbing” the lead rope hand over hand as I ran trying to gain control of the berserk burro, who was running away with my son.

A split-second decision — I knew that I had to somehow get a grip on Harrison and pull him out of the saddle before the whole thing got away from me. I remember getting my arm around him and pulling him off the burro just as I lost my footing. Then, for what seemed like forever, I wrestled in mid-air, flying, twisting and contorting in an attempt to hit the ground first myself and break Harrison’s fall.

We landed in some shallow snow, and miraculously nobody was seriously hurt. Harrison appears completely unscathed. I have a chunk missing from a middle finger down to the meat (I think from rope burn), my lower back is really torqued, and I feel pretty beat up in general.

And then there’s the bruised psyche.

All the magic of the connection between animal and child can come undone in only a few seconds. And then the second-guessing sets in: Is this therapeutic riding thing really helpful, or is it merely my ego at work? Is this just too dangerous? Spike should be a “dead-broke” burro, but one can never fully know what goes on in the mind of an equine. What he did today bordered on psycho.

Despite today’s rodeo I’m hopeful Harrison will get back in the saddle soon.

My friend Mad Dog has lost a friend, an older gent who lived next door to him. Speaking from experience, it’s a hell of a thing when you are in middle age, or maybe a little bit on the other side of it, to lose an older friend, someone you really admire. I know because I went through that when Virgil Lawson passed on a few years ago. It takes a while to come to the full realization that this person is really gone. For a long time the notion of his death would strike me . . . I might be driving somewhere, out running or just outside working. I would feel a deep sense of loss and just think, “Damn, I can’t believe he’s gone.”

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Horse tricks and more cooking

November 1, 2009 by Hal Walter

Each morning when I dole out feed to the horses over at Bear Bones Ranch, one horse, Tony, strikes a pose. He arches his neck, cocks his head and lifts his left front leg. He’ll stand like that next to his bucket until I scoop some Manna Senior into it.tonypose

I didn’t teach him this trick. I don’t know how a person would teach a horse to do something like this. But someone likely did — probably a previous owner. Or perhaps it’s a self-taught gesture of reverance to the bearer of the food. Whichever, it adds to my amusement each day to have this character take a bow as I deliver the pellets.

Speaking of food, I’ve had some further thoughts about the chowder I made the other night using Stan’s recipe as a foundation. As an addendum I’d like to explain some swapping of ingredients and additions.

First, I added chicken purely for the protein. I traded the arrowroot powder for the wheat flour because I keep my wheat intake to a minimum and I like the silky texture arrowroot lends to a sauce. I also opted for a cup of heavy cream instead of the half-and-half, thus avoiding the lactose in the latter (cream is pure beautiful fat); then I made up the liquid by adding the vegetable water. Lastly, I added additional nutritious vegetables — carrot for color and leek and garlic for subtle flavor (onion might take over).

Now, having enjoyed the leftovers for a couple days, I’ve had the chance to do some experimental doctoring of this chowder. Next time I make it I’ll swap the broccoli for a pound of frozen cut green beans. They’ll hold together better for subsequent rewarming.

adovadaThere are times as a parent and chief household cook that you just have to cook two separate meals. In other words, you have to make something you used to eat all the time B.C. (Before Child). Tonight I did just that and cooked up the famous carné adovada, a delicious dish of roasted pork cooked in a feisty red chili sauce. It’s a fairly involved recipe and I make it slightly differently, using whole pork steaks and cubing them up after they’ve cooked in the saunce. I like to serve it with some fresh lettuce, tomatoes, red onion and avocado on sprouted corn tortillas. It provides an evening’s worth of internal warmth, and usually the leftovers are better the next day.

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Dressing and cooking for cold times

October 30, 2009 by Hal Walter

It’s always amazing on a frosty morning how it can be just as much work to get properly dressed for my ranch chores as it is to do the actual work.

I start off with a base layer that’s basically my running outfit — loose tights and some sort of T-shirt. Over this goes a pair of Carhartt work pants, a quilted pullover shirt that was a gift from a friend who worked at Nike back in the 80s and is essentially a sleeping back with sleeves, and a Carhartt canvas vest. At the extremities I wear a pair of lightweight insulated snowboots and fleece gloves with waterproof overgloves. This is all topped off by an Outback fleece-lined oilskin cap, a gift from Amy Finger.

Dress too lightly and you’ll simply freeze your arse off. Trick or treat horses as Michelin Man and you’ll not be able to jump out of the way when equines do the things they inevitably do — launch themselves sideways for no apparent reason, kick at one another, or simply try to run you over.

This morning after feeding the cows and breaking the ice on the stream so they could drink, I saw a band of ravens hassling a big red-tailed hawk on the warming breeze, a sign of better weather on the way. The sight made putting on all those clothes worthwhile.

Speaking of rugged activity, it always warms my heart to read about a man doing real man’s work, like cooking. Stan, over at The Nightsider offers a recipe for a hearty cold-weather chowder, and it sounded pretty darned good.

Despite Stan’s kind words, I’m really what writer and food expert Jim Harrison might call a “fey hash-slinger.” But Stan’s recipe got me to thinking  . . . and the next thing I knew I was driving to town for ingredients. Here’s my rendition of Stan’s Broccoli-Mushroom Chowder, which I made tonight.

chickchowder

Chicken-Broccoli-Mushroom-Carrot-Leek-Garlic Chowder

1 whole chicken breast, skinless and boneless

1 quart chicken broth

1 pound fresh broccoli

8 ounces fresh mushrooms

4 carrots

½ leek, properly cleaned and sliced

3 cloves garlic, pressed

2 sticks butter

1½ cups arrowroot powder

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

¼ teaspoon tarragon

The instructions are similar to Stan’s chowder, only you’ll need two pots. Start by putting the broth and the chicken breast in one and bringing it quickly to a simmer. While you’re doing this you can chop up all the vegetables and steam them using a colander and about 3 cups water. Don’t steam them too much and hold onto that water (there are nutrients in there and we’ll need more liquid later).

When you think the chicken is thoroughly cooked, pull the breast out and set it aside on a cutting board. Now you can make a roux by melting the butter in the other pot over medium heat and adding the arrowroot powder. When the roux is suitably thick, quickly stir in all the broth. Do this quickly or bad things will happen. And once it bubbles and thickens, turn the heat down as low as it will go.

This will form a thick gravy, and when it is smooth, you can add the cream, vegetables, seasonings and the vegetable water. Mix up thoroughly.

Cut the chicken breast into chunks and add them to the chowder.

My thanks to Stan for the inspiration. Just like his chowder, this one’s suitable for the cold evenings we’ve had lately. Keep it warm but don’t let it boil.

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Thoughts on a snowy October evening

October 29, 2009 by Hal Walter

It’s October but outside it’s like deepest January. This beautiful doe showed up at the Hardscrabble Times world headquarters this evening just as I was signing out from an afternoon of work on a technical editing job. I actually took the photo through the window.

deer

Dr.Phil Maffetone has weighed in on the flu vaccine and the debate over the H1N1 “swine flu.”

Since finishing “The Horse Boy” the other day hardly an hour has passed that I have not thought about the book, the story and autism. Of course I’m reminded of autism all the time since my son

Harrison is an “autist,” a word I picked up from the book.

Harrison goes to the Custer County Kid’s Club after Kindergarten some afternoons. Yesterday when I went to bring him home I had extreme difficulty getting him into the car, seated and buckled up. I’ll spare you the details but just know that there was no reasoning with him and this ended up being a 25-minute ordeal. At one point I was so frustrated I actually considered sitting down in the snow in the parking lot to cry. And I’m not overly prone to shedding tears.

There is a certain obsessive-compulsive component that goes along with Harrison’s autism. For instance, when leaving for school in the morning, he has to stand against the refrigerator and see the headlights through the front door window when I start the car. Then, he has to run to the car, get in the front seat and “steer” the wheel four times. Not three times and not five, but four. Then he will usually get in the back seat and we can drive to school.

Then there’s the blender. We make smoothies often, starting the Vita-Mix on low, then dialing it up, and finally hitting the high switch for a few seconds to crack the flax seeds. This is simple enough except we need to consider Harrison’s sense of order. He must be in the room when we turn it on. Sometimes he will turn it on for us. Then he runs to the bathroom and closes the door as we dial it up and turn it to high. Once there, he runs out and turns it off, first switching off the high switch, then dialing the speed down, and then finally turning the machine off.

Any deviation from this order and a tantrum is certain. For instance, the other morning he was in the bathroom when I started the blender. Bad idea. If you don’t allow him to turn it off himself all hell can break loose. If you didn’t add flax seeds and don’t need to switch it to high, you better switch it to high anyway or there will be trouble.

Yet even with all these strange challenges, there are moments that are truly amazing. This evening he pulled a book — one that we don’t often read to him —out of the bookshelf, and started reading it out loud. Had he memorized this book word and verse or was he actually reading it? I believe the latter, but either is remarkable.

According to several sources, Ted Andrews, author of “Animal Speak,” the most comprehensive book of animal totems, died this week at the age of 57. This book has been an amazing source of spirituality to me and I actually learned of Andrew’s death after looking up deer tonight in “Animal Speak.” His words on deer say it all: “When deer show up there is an opportunity to express gentle love that will open doors to adventure for you.”

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Weather animals and ‘The Horse Boy’

October 26, 2009 by Hal Walter

Generally speaking, I think most animals know more than humans do.  And certainly, in my experience, many animals are smarter than many humans.

So I startled myself a bit yesterday during a discussion with my neighbor Patti about our dismal October weather. She said her horse Sterling had put on quite the coat, causing her to wonder if winter was going to be really bad.

I flipped back something to the effect that if horses were smart enough to predict a winter’s worth of weather they would not be living in pens and subservient to humans.

So do I really believe this? I don’t know if I do or don’t. Is it possible that a horse can intuit things like El Niño, the tracking of the jet stream, polar air masses? And then grow a coat accordingly? Or is this cosmic weather station just hardwired into a horse’s central nervous system?

And what about the horses that didn’t grow a long coat for winter? Are they just not “in the know,” or do they merely like it cold?

Regardless of Sterling’s heavy coat, when I drove my son to school this morning the temperature on the Subaru thermometer was 2 degrees.  Last week we had 2 feet of snow. Even this human knows that’s way too wintry for October.

And speaking of the mystical world of animals, I just finished a book by Rupert Isaacson called “The Horse Boy.” This is the story of a father’s quest to heal his son who has autism. I found the book compelling on many levels. For starters, the story is an epic real-life adventure told in a very raw form.

Most familiar to me was Isaacson’s description of his son’s speech habits, peculiarities of behavior, and tantrums. Most valuable was the manner in which this father openly discusses his very personal feelings about his son’s condition, and the impact it has had on every part of his life, including his own physical and mental well-being and his marriage.

I also found the story intriguing in light of my use of saddle donkeys as therapy for my son Harrison.

Without spoiling the story, Isaacson discovered his son Rowan to have connections to the world of shamanism and also to horses. So he decided to take him to a place where shamans and horses are still an integral way of life — Mongolia. The resulting story is one of courage and triumph. I recommend it not only for people who are close to someone with autism, but also for anyone who likes a good adventure tale.

If I have any small criticism it is the appearance that Isaacson foresaw the marketability of this story well enough to bring a video crew along for the adventure. The film is due out this fall at special screenings all over the country.  Still, I think the richness of the story, along with the fact that the film will give millions of people an honest glimpse of autism, offsets this minor quibble. Plus, Isaacson has donated part of the proceeds to helping children, and I can’t blame a writer for wanting to make a buck off his work.

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How much snow? This much

October 22, 2009 by Hal Walter

snow102209

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Making the difficult H1N1 vaccine decision

October 19, 2009 by Hal Walter

A major topic has been the H1N1 flu following closure of Custer County Schools, and the death of a local girl due to an illness that turned out to be Strep A. She did not have H1N1.

These events of the past few days have caused me a lot of angst over whether to vaccinate my son for H1N1. This was an especially difficult decision for me because many health-care professionals believe autism may be related to the vaccine preservative thimerosal, which contains mercury.

I’ve questioned many health-care professionals I know about what to do and the answers run the gamut. In the final analysis, I decided to have the county health nurse give Harrison the nasal mist vaccine, which does not contain thimerosal. It seemed the best choice given all the information I considered.

The most influential advice came from an MD who is not particularly gung-ho on all vaccinations but who said in the case of this particular flu, which seems especially dangerous for children, vaccination for H1N1 makes more sense.

Here’s the deal on thimerosal. The multi-dose injections contain thimerosal; single-dose injections and nasal mist do not. This is not to say that any of these vaccinations may not contain other questionable ingredients.

The single-dose injections for H1N1 are difficult to obtain; two local clinics do not carry them, which is why I opted for the mist.

Another difference: The injection versions contain killed virus, and the mist contains a weakened live virus.

If you want the “official” word on vaccination safety, go to the CDC.

If you want affirmation of the CDC’s advice, go to the media.

Rarely do we hear about strengthening the immune system. It’s not a bad idea whether you do or don’t vaccinate.

There are some health-care professionals who are questioning the vaccinations, and I think it’s not a bad idea to consider what they have to say. Dr. Joseph Mercola, M.D., has pointed out many reasons he does not recommend people, especially children, take flu vaccine, and notes a Canadian study indicates those who take the seasonal flu shot may be twice as likely to get swine flu.

After weighing all this, I feel like I made an educated decision, concluding there is really no good choice, but vaccinating my son for H1N1 using the mist seemed the lesser evil.

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A day late and a deer head short

October 15, 2009 by Hal Walter

Due to various hunting-season duties, our wildlife officer wasn’t able to make it out to check out the mysterious flopping deer until Tuesday. By then, the carcass had been eaten by scavengers, and the head, as evidenced by tracks, had apparently been carried away by a bear. Did the deer merely take a fall and injure itself? Was there some wound we could not see? Or did it have some disease like chronic wasting? We’ll never know, mainly thanks todeer hunters breaking  laws and keeping our wildlife officer from investigating this case.

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The mysterious flopping deer

October 11, 2009 by Hal Walter

Out for a run this afternoon, I was on a steep downhill trail that cuts from one cul de sac to another in a nearby subdisivion. Downhill and to my right I saw a doe deer literally flopping down the hill. The animal appeared unable to gain its balance.

I stopped and watched as the deer came to a rest, then I walked down to get a closer look. The doe flopped over a couple more times then lay still. I looked her over as closely as possible and could see no broken legs or apparent gunshot wounds — which was my first guess since the first big game season opened yesterday.

A view of the Sangre de Cristo range from Bear Basin Ranch in the Wet Mountains.
A view of the Sangre de Cristo range from Bear Basin Ranch in the Wet Mountains.

I couldn’t see a thing outwardly wrong with this deer other than it could not stand on its own. So I continued on home and called Alex the homeowners’ association chief to see what he thought we should do. We decided to meet so he could get a look at the deer.

After looking it over we decided to call Colorado Division of Wildlife District Manager Zach Holder who after hearing the story over the phone asked if we could put the deer down since she was obviously incapacitated and in pain.

After the deer was dead, Alex and I inspected her carefully for wounds but could find none. I ran my fingers through the doe’s hair forward and backward looking for a wound. I was startled when I received a jolt of static electricity right through the fingertip of my leather glove, a strange machination of cold, dry air and hollow hair. Both Alex and I suspected some sort of neurological problem with the deer.

I reported all this back to Zach, who is coming out tomorrow morning to retrieve the deer’s head to be tested for chronic wasting disease. He said with only one confirmed case in this game management unit, fewer that 1 percent of the deer in the area are believed to be carrying the disease. It will be interesting to see what tests reveal about this deer I found today. Stay tuned.

For those who are interested, here’s a longer version of my tale, “Goodbye to Summer and Two Horses,” which started as a blog post but then became an essay that appeared in Colorado Central magazine this month.

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