Tuesday, November 03, 2009

NaBloPoMo and the Project Horse

If I knew what she was feeling, this would take no time at all.

Took a quick jaunt over to visit OmegaMom yesterday. She's heading into the long dark of an Alaskan winter and I wondered how she was coping with that.

In good spirits, despite the lack of sunshine, she introduced me to NaBloPoMo ~ while vacillating on whether to give it a go or call it a day.

I tossed my cowgirl hat into the proverbial ring.

When you're a blogger your life is an open book. Right? Wrong. This summer I adopted 2 horses and I never said a word. (What???) Details of such stupidity will no doubt be exposed during this NaBloPoMo of far too frequent blogging.

So, how about this? Since gardening season is over the subject of my daily blogging will be the slow and steady gentling of Belladonna. (A nickname that came about after some hellishly erratic behavior.)

High maintenance barely scratches the surface.

Day 1 of Bella's reprogramming went precisely as expected.
Bell loves me. She whinnies hello as soon as she sees my car. She runs toward me, eagerly shoving her nose into her halter, happy to go anywhere with me and then... a rapid evolution toward bonkers.

When we get near the barn and she sees a saddle, she starts breathing heavier. Sweating. Nervously looking around. Suddenly I'm on the fence between friend and foe. So, we worked a little bit. About 45 minutes. Before she reared up and made a half-hearted attempt to strike me. At that point I suppose a lot of people would have punished her severely. But, I kind of think that's what made her this way in the first place. I just stood there and stared at her. A minute later she came toward me, acting like a big, sad puppy.

* National Blog Posting Month is simply a challenge to post every day during the month of November. That's it. That's plenty!

7 comments:

Chloe m said...

Good luck! I saw this NBPM and thoght it was sheer insanity. I look forward to your posts and see what kinds of stuff you come up with. Your horses are beautiful!
Rosey

jan said...

Gosh, you sure can keep a secret! She is beautiful! I can't wait to hear more about the process!

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Thanks... she's a pretty girl but she's also pretty crazy. This will be an interesting month.

Hey, Jan -- Part of my deciding to blog every day came from watching you and Iron tag team. That was fun! :)

Anonymous said...

Wow, lots to digest here. Post every day? I began blogging that way and did for several months, could not keep up that pace though. Three times a week is working fine for now. If anything it would be less, not more posting! Your new Bella is amazing. I admire your wisdom in trying to train her. I think she must already sense your kind heart. :-)
Frances

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Thanks Frances, very sweet of you to say.

Re - NaBloPoMo - I doubt I'll make it the whole month. It's only November 4th and I'm already worn out! :)

Garden Lily said...

That first photo of Bella is hauntingly beautiful. I'll be very curious to follow her progress.

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Thank you, Garden Lily, very kind of you to say. She is a very pretty - and pretty screwed up - horsie. But I think we made some good progress this month. Because of the snows, she's on 'vacation' until January when I'll try my luck at doing more work with her in an indoor arena.