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been trying to update for days...
Apr. 27th, 2018 11:03 am- Riding last Friday: rode another of the newer horses, Bodega--she's a bay and white paint with one blue eye and one brown eye. The group of three horses that came from the trail riding ranch up in Saratoga have all been learning how to be more independent horses, from traveling along different routes all the time instead of the same old trails to working on their own instead of in a big group to having their own freedom in their non-working hours. It's neat to see that process, and with Bodega on Friday I felt like I was as much a part of her learning process as she was of mine. The focus of the lesson for me was refining my skills in convincing a horse to do what it is reluctant to do, and the focus of the lesson for Bodega was learning that sometimes you will go counterclockwise around a ring instead of clockwise, and if a person asks you to walk through a big puddle, you are going to walk through the big puddle. She wasn't mean-spirited about any of her initial unwillingness to try different things, she was just deeply uncertain about the difference. So I had to step up my confidence and convince her that if I was telling her a situation was okay, then it was okay. By the end of the lesson we were doing quite well together. She's going to be a good riding horse as she figures it all out. (Seeing how these trail horses have been blossoming at the Ponderaia and watching their personalities emerge has been a wonderful thing. Those three horses don't know how lucky they were that L and C decided to go for a ride on a nice afternoon up in Saratoga. Then again, maybe they do.)
- Bird banding finally on Sunday! I felt like I'd forgotten half my technique, but at least I still remembered the other half. Lots of Golden-crowned Kinglets, which are lovely *little* birds and a definite challenge to get out of the nets, as they are small enough to often push half their bodies through the net and then the wingpits and primary flight feathers become an awful tangle. And their tiny feet and legs are often tough to get a good grasp on. Good bird to relearn on, I suppose, because most birds aren't that tricky. My final bird of the day was a nice big Fox Sparrow who comparatively rolled out of the net into my hands, so that was a good confidence booster. It was good to hang out with all the banding folks again, it was an excellent group of people that day. There's one or two individuals who I think we all find a bit stressful to work with (argumentative and don't handle the birds all that well), but Sunday's group were entirely copacetic.
- I've had sales tours nearly every day this week, most a bit tough in their own ways. Worst was a divorced couple shopping together for burial space for their daughter, who passed away at age 34 in December, and they only realized as they were arriving at the cemetery that the next day would have been her birthday. The mom cried pretty much throughout and it was tough for me at points to keep my composure. I kept focused on my role as somebody who is helping people in need, and that got me through, but as I said to M later, I know I do good work, but sometimes you really feel the *work* of it. Last week I also worked with a mom who had lost her daughter, around my age I think, and I am starting to feel like this might be the hardest type of scenario for me. The next day I had an 88-year-old man who had lost his wife the previous week--or maybe longer, as he had a pretty strong case of short term memory loss. Fortunately his two adult sons came along and made sure they took careful note of what I was showing them. It wasn't their mom who had passed away, and I don't think they were close to the deceased. It was moving to see their care for their father, but it was also heart-breaking to see this very intelligent man looking so lost. He was jolly, at any rate. And then yesterday, a couple came in to look at our least expensive casket spaces. Our prices were clearly beyond their means, but the wife really wanted to go look at spaces, so I gave them the same tour I'd give anyone else. My sense of it all is that for an hour or so, I let her live in a fantasy world where she could buy expensive burial space in a beautiful place. They came back a bit later as she'd forgotten her umbrella, and she gave me a hug. So while I don't expect to hear from them again, I guess I feel good about how it went? And now in a little while, I'm taking out somebody looking for cremation space for her mother, who is not yet deceased but I'd imagine there's a reason they're looking for space. I'm still processing how *I* cope with all of this once the appointments are over and the sales have been made. Spending time with a horse on Friday afternoons at the end of it all definitely helps (though today looks likely to be rained out).
- Things are coming up all over the garden, including eleventy-gazillion little maple seedlings that will need to be pulled. I was thrilled to see yesterday that the 40-some bits of trout lily root stock that I planted in the front yard are coming up. Planting root stock always feels like such a gamble, putting these twisted dead-looking bits of stuff in the ground and expecting a lush green plant from it later.
- I feel like there was more I wanted to write here, but my brain is empty.
