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The 2005 Wisdom and Haflinger Humor of Jenny Rausch of Brush Prairie, Washington

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August 2005: Booger's Day Out

Our older QH, Tiny, dropped weight suddenly this last month. In his case, it is certainly old age and a change in feed, from a good eastern orchard grass to local grass, which is like styrofoam. The reason we buy styrofoam for our horses is that most of them are Haflingers, and even the older ones seem to stay fat on air. Not
old Tiny, darn it. So we have to fiddle around with his feed and try to get him all pampered up with 8 Haflingers standing around offering opinions and trying to figure how to get in his paddock to "help" him eat the goodies. I have had a very amusing afternoon today, incidentally. We have a 3 yr old gelding, Woodstock, full brother to Booger (WY'East), whom our daughter, Kate, has chosen as her personal play thing. (Actually, she thinks that all of the horses are her personal playthings. Works for me- beats wanting a boy as a personal plaything!) She has been working with him and playing with him in the time that training her own gelding, Vinnie, allows. I decided to go sit in the fresh air and rock babies and see what she was going to do today to see a peeved little Haflinger tied up to a tree, and my daughter with Susan Harris' book Grooming To Win in one hand, the other full of mane and thread as she practiced trying to build a good scalloped mane braid on a Haflinger's neck. And a good tight french braid. And button braids (pretty funny, with all that hair. Where do you put it when it is all "buttoned"?). She tried quite a few other types of hairstyles as well. This was not what was frying Woody, as he likes Kate very well and shows proper appreciation of her attention at all times; no, what was upsetting him was the ornery little 4 month old foal, Wingnut, who was initially curious about what Kate and Woody were doing, standing by a tree reading books and fiddling with Woody's hair. Being a Haflinger, he realized very quickly that Woody, for some reason known only to that funny two-legger, was not moving away from him as usual when baby Wingnut gets annoying. In fact, Woody did not try to bite him, chase him, kick him, or even teach him any new bad words. Wingnut thought that was a FUN GAME. Soon, there is a little fuzzy trojan-horse head up there interfering with everything Kate and Woody are doing. There is a little head trying to eat the library book. The yarn ball. The daughter-unsuccessfully, as she whacked him for biting her arm when she was trying to read a difficult passage in the book, and quite offended his little sense of Haflinger dignity. He was angry for all of two whole minutes, until he forgot and went to see what Kate and Woody were doing now. Biting the lead rope on Woody. Chewing the tree. Chewing Woody. Woody finally got so irritated that he tried to run at the
little bugger and bite his insolent little-tiny Haflinger bottom, but the lead and Kate's voice brought him up short, a fact that did not escape Wingnut, who then spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to get him to do it again. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time- it is so good to see someone else suffer the way I usually do. Kate ended up chasing Wingnut down finally, catching him, and tying him up next to the big boy, which ended the worst of Woody and Kate's torment and shared the misery a bit more equally between the two young horses. That kid will make a great mother someday. It would probably have been kind of me to warn her what was coming next, but I am not a particularly kind person, and it was a lot more fun to let my daughter, who was once a rather difficult smarty-pants child herself, find out for herself. Wingnut discovered that it is fun to pull the leadrope end he could reach, thereby letting the other guy loose. I haven't seen my serene little girl
enraged like that since she was about two, herself. It is a good day to die (laughing). That's the news here from Brush Prairie, WA, where the sun is shining, my
daughter sits in a chair panting, and Wingnut is trying to get the taste of dirty lead-rope out of his mouth...

March 2005: Boys that Ride

My son, Daniel, age 14 almost 15, rides english, jumps, drives, and hacks. He is not real competitively minded, though he has done well when he competed,
but loves horses and is also surrounded by "hens" at events we have done. Especially when we had both kids (son and daugther, two years younger) in Pony
Club. He was the only boy in our club, and there was one other, much older boy, whom we really did not get time with. He is still flustered at the mention of
the attention given to him at the last D camp... Eck. Fortunately, he was able survive this with minimal scarring, and still loves riding. I would love having another boy close by to ride with, but so far, no luck. If we were to get involved in Cowboy Action Shooting, I am sure we could find a male mate or two, but then Daniel would start drawling, sucking on toothpicks, and having to wear historically accurate button fly pants, and I am not sure if I am ready for that. Lessons with a male instructor definitely would be helpful for his budding sense of masculine roles, etc. Daniel does not feel uncomfortable with English, realizing the benefits of the more classical form of riding to begin with, also riding Western when he wants to- he does get lonely though. So we got him his own horse, which seems to have taken care of that. Now, his male mount, Rigby, provides male companionship enough to encourage him. I recommend that you prepare yourself for an unfortunate share of youthful feminine attention if your son continues in this sport, especially riding english. Get him body armour. It is awful, especially if your son, like mine, looks older than he is. You might want to lie to your son a lot about why he is getting attention from the opposite sex...(It's because you're ugly, son, and
you will have to get used to it; makes the girls stare and giggle uncontrollably, they can't help it. Be polite and just ignore it, boy.)

January 2005: Dust and Go

Actually, because I live in the very wet NW, I scrape 'n go. We have so much mud, it takes forever to get them ready, what with the hair and whatnot. The fact that we have 6 Haflingers and 2 QH lends a certain air of speed and desperation to our scrape 'n go operations, but what the heck. They get ridden. Pretty regularly, actually. There are few pleasures that compare to getting on a haflinger and going to "work", in my opinion, though at this time of the year, it is often hard to distinguish between the mudslide one is riding down and the mudslide that is wearing the saddle...But I do get out and ride. I find it rather a kick to ride
in a downpour, though I don't like it when the lightning strikes and wind come up, as I often ride in a heavily forested area. Right now, I have been putting serious trail miles in our two 4.5 yr. old geldings, my daughter is riding my dependable mare DD and is planning to event on her next summer, while two of our mares are bred and far enough along for me to just have them walking/free longeing for the remainder of their pregnancy to keep them reasonably active. The mares go back to work about a week after foaling, usually. One of these mares is a very talented jumper, who is currently unaware of my plans for her in eventing; I may have to wait a while to campaign her personally, though, as I am expecting our fourth child this July. At this point, I am spending as much time in the saddle as back/neck and life allow, knowing that I will soon have to grease certain parts of my anatomy in order to fit into my saddle. You know, they don't make maternity riding
breeches? Pity.
I think that Haflingers are much like border collies: Give them a job, and they love it. The more they work, the more fun they get to be. Haflingers that don't have a "real job" are a total nuisance! <grin> So, yes, we dust/scrape and ride quite often- planning on enjoying it while we can. 'Sides, I have to keep up with supply and demand, what with kids that keep stealing my trained, finished stock from me for their own mounts. Someday, I hope I get to ride real, trained horses and lay off the greenies for a while. Speaking of greenhorns, I took my sister, a fairly experienced rider (Karol) and had her riding our gelding Adventure ALLSTAR (Vinnie) on his 4th or so trail ride. He is pretty solid already, very nice to ride. He also has a fondness for jumping/crossing obstacles, which I did not think to warn my sister about in advance. Sure enough, in the course of our ride, we came up on a downed tree, high enough that I personally decided to dismount and lead across, as I don't start jumping with our stock until they hit a good solid five years of age. I was riding ahead, so dismounted, led across, and remounted, then scooted up a bit to watch and see if Karol needed help or advice in crossing. As soon as Vinnie sighted the tree lying across the trail, his engines began to rev. Karol hollered "what is with him? He is really puLLEEEEEENG!" and before I could warn her, he leaned hard on the bit, pulled her forward where she lost contact, broke into a canter, and proceeded to jump this (3' running sharply uphill to 5') log across the trail. His face was nearly as funny to see as my sister's was. He had an expression that said "Okay, hold on, siddown, and shaddup," very serious total concentration, while his rider's face broadcast the simple message: "AHHHHHH!! IMGONNADIE!" Fortunately, she has jumped (many years ago, back when she bounced better!) and knew how to ride it through without interfering. He sailed over the low end like a pro, calmly allowed her to balance him and bring him to a halt, then stood there looking really smug while she tried to get her breath back, as her kind, sympathetic sister hung limply from one stirrup and shrieked with laughter while her mount kindly trimmed the blackberry bushes on the side of the trail. So, we have now acclimated a couple of geldings to having a couple of middle-aged women lolling half off their muddy little Haflinger backs in bouts of hysterical amusement, crying helplessly and banging their fists repeatedly against the saddles. It was very productive, as you never know when you will come upon something extremely funny when riding along on a trail up here. Yeah, we do dust off and ride, too. Fun, isn't it?
JR, Vancouver, WA, where the horses are knee-deep in beautiful mud and I am going to ride this week even if we have to take a plastic bag to collect my falling vertebrae along the way.