Tuesday, July 14
This is an incredible experience.  As Mona says, "You're getting to see the inner workings of a rescue."  The plan is that after the morning session, Sharon and I are going to read up on essential oils that they use on the horses so they can place an order.  Among other things, they find that Frankincense calms them and heals certain ailments.  Peppermint helps to keep flies away but does need repeated applications . . . and some of them would love to drink the stuff.  It is way too expensive for that!

Koal's assessment comes first.  Mona puts him on a lead rope and he quickly proves "naughty but not bad.  The horse is challenging you for leadership of the herd," says Mona.  "It's something horses look for."  In fact, he broke away taking Mona for a run down the arena and she had to let him go.  Then I got to see "hooking up" firsthand.  As I understand it, you put pressure on the horse, keeping him moving which is what both Mona and Sharon did approaching from either end of the ring.  Then stop.  Take off the pressure.  Drop the energy of your body language, drop your arms, breathe out, maybe step to the side without making eye contact, step back the other way.  Wait.  And you may need to do it again.  Wait.  And then it happens.  The horse who ran away from you and maybe with you, takes a few steps toward you.  And maybe a couple more.  And then he's in front of you with head lowered, maybe a nuzzle, and he let's you touch him.  He lets you clip the line on his halter.  He's made a choice.  It's a melding of personalities and acceptance.  Trust and respect.

The first time I watched Mona do this I was concerned and, unfortunately, stopped recording right when she was entering the "hook-up" phase.  I wondered if she was okay.  Was she out of breath?  She tapped her chest with her hand and lowered her head a bit.  But it was her role in their partnership.  She said with a twinkle in those blue eyes that "It felt like if Koal had a white flag that he'd wave it, not much, down low, but enough for me to see."  Then Koal stepped close and gave her a gift of trust and respect.  For now.  It's so often for now.

Mona measures him as 15.1 hands and 1010 pounds. . . weight is measured with a special tape around the girth.  My role is to write down the information onto the sheet. Given his antics, Mona is not about to take his temperature and he isn't standing too well to listen to his heart though she does hear a strong beat.  She has Sharon and I listen but I don't hear much.  Later she tells her granddaughter Lydia that Koal has "bad manners.  He's rude."  He stiffened his neck and pulled away from Mona several times.  She just couldn't hold him.  After all that, she could understand why the former owner had trouble with him.

Barn Buddies
Cheyenne & Tenaya (the Buckskin)

Once Koal was penned with hay, Mona figured she'd work with him again in the afternoon.  Now she, Sharon and I crowded into the "office" to be in shade and look at essential oil catalogs.  Cheyenne and Tenaya were next to us in their pen so we pulled grass for them that was just out of their reach.  Mona was called away and Sharon and I took it easy since she had a tough headache, likely from dehydration.  Neither of us were drinking enough water.  I massaged her head until we heard Mona yelling for us.

Three "boys" had got out where their fence was in tough shape.  The chase was on!  A volunteer has been building a fence on Sunday mornings but it's time consuming and a lot for one guy.  Lydia went out in the field and had one boy in tow and the other two were walking behind . . . not far from the barn but close to the mares' corral.  The "girls" charged their fence, maybe because some of them are in heat, and the boys spooked and bolted out to another open field.  While Mona was worried about their escape, I'm not sure I hid my joy watching three buddies gallop loose in the field.

Lydia, Sharon, and another volunteer walked out to round them up but the boys weren't having it.  They cantered back and forth and finally one horse stopped and allowed Lydia to catch him.  I offered to go out if they needed another body waving their hands but even though I've signed every legal release they have, Mona is keeping a tight rein on me.  I walked far enough down the path so I could see what was going on but mostly trying to stay out of the way and not give Mona more concern.  "Looks like they're heading in the right direction" I said as the other two were running in the general direction of the barns. "No, no," said Mona. "They're going to run into more fence."  She walked down to the field gate, calling and clapping her hands.  She says she saw them relax and come her way.  I wouldn't have called it relaxed but coming they were and still at a fast clip.  Mona yelled to me to "open the gate and be very, very careful to stay out of the way."  I ran up to the gate, unlocked it and swung it in in time to hear them neighing, hooves pounding the ground.  There's one.  There's two.  Swing that gate fast and make sure I'm on the outside.

Uh oh.  It looks like one is at Koal's pen and they're posturing.  Koal's the new kid on the block since coming back yesterday after two years away.  I was imagining a fight breaking out and shouted to Mona but number three was still out with Lydia so a few bites and kicks were not the priority as Mona told me later.  The question seems always, as with much in life, which fire is smoldering VS flaming.  The third prodigal returned home to the arena, and then the barn gate was opened for them to head to their stalls.  Mona and a couple of young volunteers went out to repair the fencing and Lydia got "the boys" settled.  So cool.  The greenhorn helped in a round-up!

The only other time I've seen horses running "freely" is in California when I was stopped along a roadside.  I saw no fence to hold them so they must have had large land to roam.  That's what I chose to believe.

Time for lunch break and Mona shows me the horse paintings that are one type of fundraiser.  Blobs of paint are placed on a canvas and then plastic laid over it and grain or some treat on top.  The horse nuzzles the treat thus moving the paint around.  A picture of the horse artist with some bio information about her is included.  Prices are on the back of the art.  We should all buy one!

Okay, lunch is over and then it's back to work.

Just another day, it's time to clean Brave Heart's sheath.  Yep, his penile sheath.  Seriously?  Again, as I understand it, if male horses were still in the wild, they'd be doing their stallion thing in a way they don't get to if they're gelded although, according to the linked article, stallions may still need attention.  I realize that kids in 4H and Pony Club learn how to do these things, so as lunch winds down I say, "So, time to clean a sheath?"  Lydia, a former Pony Clubber, grins at me.

Brave Heart is a big "blue roan" with two long black stripes on his face and two shorter ones above those.  Physically big and big in manner.  You know he's around.  If he isn't led back to his stall, he may do a fast trot down the barn aisle, passing his stall, checking things out, "Hey, I'm here," and trot back up the aisle into his stall.

Since cleaning his sheath  can be an uncomfortable process, Brave Heart is sedated.  Mona and Lydia clearly care about him and stand quietly near his head, talking to him, petting him, watching him closely as the meds take effect.  I can see the changes and once time has passed and he's in a good place, they put on clear gloves the length of their arms and start feeling for "beans" and anything that feels like it doesn't belong in the sheath.  That process takes about twenty minutes or so and judging from the repeated shakes of the glove into the pail, there was clearly stuff up there that didn't belong.  Brave Heart starts to come back to his usual self and is walked safely into his stall.

There's still work to be done with Koal and this afternoon he is so much calmer.  Lydia longes him first (that link shows a seven year old able to longe a horse and I try not to judge myself).  Besides being a knowledgeable horsewoman, Lydia is young and strong and can match Koal.  I sense Mona's pride of her granddaughter.  Mona also puts him through his groundwork and then Sharon and I each take a turn walking him through a series of obstacles so we can assess how light or heavy he feels in response.   "Like a feather," says Mona.  That means how easily he responds to our body language and I am always in tune for his body language.  I can't help feeling incredibly small with this thousand pound creature at the other end of a floppy rope and hoping that he'll put up with my ineptness in how I ask him to do some skill.  Ideally, I would feel and act confidently so that the horse is not confused by me.  Ideally.  Mostly, I'm trying to act "as if" I'm not intimidated by his size and trust that he already knows enough to deal with my clumsiness.   Mostly he bears with me and is the feather, tugging only a few times.

After the horses are cared for and the barn is closed up, Mona and I head for Shain's of Maine in Sanford and grab a yummy lobster roll and great ice cream.  We both get the "Turtle" flavor with hot fudge and caramel sauce.  We sit outside and talk some more and Mona gets telling me about her horse history which she lets me record. Then she gives me the tour, driving through Kennebunk to Kennebunkport, showing me the Bush compound on a rocky chunk of land called Walker's Point that juts out into the ocean.  Jeb recently built (crammed) yet another house on that land.  The security gate looks surprisingly low key but I imagine all kinds of action should one try to breach it.  Mona's husband used to work for the Secret Service in the first Bush era so spent a lot of time in Kennebunkport.  Mona and I have more getting-to-know-you conversation and then it's time to call it a night.