September 28, 2010, Walla Walla, WA Indian Summer 80+ degrees, nothing but sunshine.
This is the best time of the year to live in the Walla Walla Valley. Beautiful sunny days, cool nights, the smell of ripening grapes and apples. The early fall rains have reduced the dust to almost nothing and late season fall grasses are jumping out of the ground. The Blue Mountains have had over 3 inches of rainfall. They look wonderful as they prepare for freezing temperatures and the changing colors of autumn. Snow will come and go at least three times before winter finally settles in for keeps in the high country. We are back into a routine once again on the farm and at the church. I had my PICC line changed at the Cancer Center on Monday. There is a little suspicious looking pimple - like bump that was under one of the connectors directly attached to my skin. We will have to watch it for infection. It is not close to where the line enters into my vein, so there isn't much of a chance of that getting infected. I went to church on Sunday and only did the Mystery Box and the Prayers of the People. Even that was tiring and I rested all afternoon. They have organized meals to be brought out to the house on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There is always more than enough left over to get us to the next drop off. It is typical of our congregation to anticipate our needs and more than adequately meet them. As soon as Kriss is off her crutches, we probably will be able to take care of our own needs. My renown as a chef must have gotten out. Our children used to always dread the day when Kriss was gone for some reason. They still talk about the exotic fruit salad I made. I will start preaching again this coming Sunday, October 3, and continue through October and hopefully the first Sunday in November. We plan on returning to Seattle at that time, unless they insist that we come back sooner. I will have another R-CHOP treatment October 7. It will take 2-3 weeks for it to do its job shrinking whatever cancer hot spots I have left and then we will have another PET scan. We will be able to compare this new scan with the latest one in Seattle and see how effective R-CHOP has been. That may have some weight in treatment decisions and timing. Meanwhile the search is underway to find a sibling stem cell donor. Your prayers for both the treatment and the donor search are greatly appreciated.
While I'm here, I need to attend to some things at the church, as well as the farm. God must have known that we needed this time back in Walla Walla to wean calves, process some steers and work with several of our colts. We have had other people start some of our colts, without complete satisfaction. I have been too busy this spring and summer to do the initial groundwork and getting them to the next level of training. Kriss paid the price for that neglect. Her horse, Scarlette, has been ridden by three different trainers and she was still a timebomb waiting to explode. While we were home over Labor Day Weekend, Kriss wanted to keep her rideable and did all the right things to warm her up and she appeared perfectly calm and safe. Unfortunately, we were all deceived by her external demeanor. Before Kriss could even get settled in the saddle and gather up the reins, Scarlette blew up, bucking seriously. Now in her younger days, Kriss could wrangle broncs with the best of them, but at 58 years of age, she ended up on the hard pan dirt with 4 fractures of her pelvis. She walked on it for a week before going to the Emergency Room in Seattle. She left there with crutches and the prospect of not putting weight on that leg for 6 weeks. She plea-bargained credit for the week she walked on it and got her sentence reduced to 5 weeks on crutches, contingent on good behavior. Seeing how Scarlette reacted after all her training, I decided I would go back to square one with her and start her from scratch. I had already begun to work with Seamus, Ella's 3 year old gelding, and so I added Scarlette to my horse whispering schedule. Everything I know about horse training I learned from Robert Phinney who is a disciple of Buck Branaman. I have books and DVD's by Buck that teach you to do something with a horse that changes both of you for the rest of your life. Your goal, before you would ever possibly get on a horse is to have the horse willingly hand over their will and well-being into your care and leadership. Horses are herd animals that need to find an authority figure that will protect and look out for their best interests. In exchange for that security, they will "turn loose", "hook on", or whatever other phrase you run across. There comes a point in the training process that the animal gives their heart, soul and future into your hands. As long as you never betray that trust, the horse will choose to be with you above all other horses or activities. They evolve to a place where their greatest joy is in pleasing you. It is a bond that people have treasured for thousands of years. In the training process there are certain skill sets and transitional stages that clearly communicate when the horse is "turning loose" and blending their will into yours. I decided to find out if Scarlette had ever learned those fundamental skills which would tell me if she was "hooked on" or not. She hadn't. As a result, she was a timebomb waiting to explode. Unfortunately, Kriss was the one on her back when it went off. So, we started working with her as if she didn't know anything. Tie her loosely to the snubbing post; brush and clean her all over; practice picking up all four feet using a soft rope to keep from getting hurt; small corral circle up and change directions; backing up and learning to do longitudinal flexion; changing eyes while driving with invisible reins; desensitizing to rope, blanket, saddle and touch; large round pen work at walk, trot and gallop; drawing off the far side of the fence; changing eyes in larger pen; loading and unloading in horse trailer; learning to stand near a wooden corral fence and get used to someone working above with ropes and start putting weight on back; cool down back at snubbing post, reward with some horse treats and turn loose with proper attitude. It was obvious from Day 1 of her new life, that Scarlette had never been given the basic fundamentals that would make her safe to ride. The goal of most trainers is to push a horse as fast as they can. That means spurs and whip. They get paid for how many "rides" they put on a horse and so there is a real temptation to intimidate a horse through sheer strength, pain and force. The horse seems great when you go to pick them up in a month. You can even ride them there and think this is the real deal. However, when the horse has time to process that experience, you still have a wild animal that is motivated out of fear and survival instincts. When it came to introducing Scarlette to the critical lessons of trust and confidence, she knew nothing. By the end of Day 1, she knew what she needed to learn. By the end of Day 2, she could do 85% of the fundamentals and passed all the basic skills tests. I had her saddled and standing by the fence allowing me to put weight on the saddle. One area that will take a lot of work is that somehow she had been struck or hit on the right side of her head. She is so sensitive to that area, that we will have to spend special effort to get that taken care of. Day 3-5 will be perfecting all the basic skills and slowly getting her used to having someone in the saddle in ever increasingly larger pens. Day 6 is the goal to ride her in the round pen at a walk, trot, and gallop without any problems or anxiety on her part when transitioning from one level to the next. I have been doing the same thing with Seamus. He has successfully completed Day 4 and I have asked my Photo Pro, John Anthony to come out and make a Video of Day 6 of Seamus's Great Adventure. We will try to get a link of that Video on this blog so you can see what a day in the life of a horse looks like who has "turned loose" and is "hooked on". The French phrase of A. de Saint-Exupery from the LITTLE PRINCE as the title of this blog, translates: "Please, tame me!" St.-Exupery's profound story of the taming of the Fox in his classic tale is the essence of christian conversion. That miracle took place in my life the spring of 1966 and life has never been the same since.
A.C. Davis High School Auditorium, Yakima,WA May 1966
The Junior High School Youth Group from the Wapato Community Presbyterian Church planned an outing to see the Billy Graham movie THE RESTLESS ONES on a Sunday afternoon in May of 1966. I was a reluctant though regular attendee at Youth Group due to my mother's absolute insistence. Word had it that after the movie we would get to stop for something to eat on our way home and that sealed the deal, as far as I was concerned. I was familiar with Billy Graham Evangelistic movies. We had seen them before and my mother made me watch Billy Graham Crusades on TV from time to time. I knew the formula and the script. The movie we were going to Yakima to watch would be a story of rebellious, lost teenagers who would find themselves in increasingly difficult, if not dangerous situations. Some pastor or youth worker would befriend them in an attempt to change the direction of their lives. Somewhere nearby, a Billy Graham Crusade would be taking place and some of these youth would agree to attend. At the end of the service, Billy Graham would issue an "alter call", reminding everyone that all those that Jesus called to be his disciples had been called publically as a demonstration of their commitment and courage to follow Him. Sure enough, the script went exactly as I knew it would. A pastor stepped up on the stage and made the "alter call" personal for all of us in that auditorium inviting anyone who wanted to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior right now, today, could come up on the stage and a counselor would be there to pray with them and give them some free literature to take home. The counselors went forward right away to kind of prime the pump for others to follow. I was getting a little uncomfortable knowing that this was going to take some time and other groups would get to the food joints ahead of us and we'd have longer to wait to eat. As the number of seekers began to thin out, the pastor also invited anyone who would like to redidicate their life to Christ to come forward for prayer. Something, probably the Spirit of God, literally lifted me out of that theatre seat and I headed for the aisle. When I got there, I had to make the most significant decision I would ever make in my life. I knew I was the least likely kid in that Youth Group who would go forward publically to make a decision to follow Christ. I looked to the right at the EXIT sign and turned left. I walked up the steps onto the stage thinking to myself: "What are you doing up here?" Having a fairly quick and calculating mind, I figured out pretty quickly that my best chance of getting in and out of the hands of the counselor would be to state that I came forward to "redidcate my life to Christ". That would eliminate at least 25 minutes of hearing the entire plan of salvation and I was fairly certain that at some point in my childhood, I had accepted Jesus as my savior in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School or Good News Club. So, it wasn't a complete whopper of a lie, and knowing God's great sense of humor, I figured God knew my true motives which were to become a follower of Christ and seek to serve Him as his disciple. They assured us that the people who had brought us that afternoon, wouldn't leave without us, but I couldn't wait to get back to the car and go eat. I was the only one from our Youth Group who had gone forward. After all, we were Presbyterians and we weren't used to doing things like "alter calls". Decently and in Order was our modus operandi and all the rest of the group looked at me like I had done something indecent and disorderly. I had. However feeble my level of understanding and commitment that afternoon, God's Spirit came into my heart and I knew that I was one of Jesus' disciples. I may have been more interested in a Miner's hamburger and fries a few hours before, but now there was something amazingly new and wonderful in my soul and I would never be the same. Jesus "tamed" my heart and soul and I "turned loose" the control of my life to Him and "hooked on" for the ride of my life.
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