Learning From the Mistakes We Make in the Horsemanship Journey…aka the Best of the Wrecks

We are thrilled to have this week’s guest speaker Carolyn Coleman Waller, pen name Carolyn White, join us again to share her best of the riding wrecks as a guest ranch guide and what she learned along the way. 

Carolyn's writing career began after she got a guiding job on an isolated, off-grid guest ranch outside of Elk City. The first publication, a two-parter for Western Horseman, was on loading mule strings and braiding three-strand cargo ropes.  Many other magazines followed, including Equus, The Natural Horse, IDAHO, Colorado Life, and most recently, History. She also spent 12 years as a columnist and feature writer for The Fence Post, a weekly ag periodical. 

Three memoires topped the writing career, each of them about growing up with and eventually, living off-grid with horses: Bricks underneath a Hoop Skirt, Trucks are for Girls, and Like a Swarm of Locusts.   

“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.” - Swami Vivekananda

May you always be one with your horse,
 Caroline

Transcript

0 (1m 4s):
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Caroline Beste (1m 6s):
You're listening to Everything Horses & More! Podcast with me, your host, Caroline Beste. I am the founder of my Tao of Horsemanship method, a pioneer in horse training and development, and a true advocate of the horse. I bring an intuitive and educated eye along with an experienced and intelligent perspective to understanding both horse and human nature and behavior. My experience and skill sets are the cornerstone to my worldwide success in training methodology. My experience with horses as intelligent sentient beings is what inspired me to create my highly acclaimed and proven training method. Consensual Partnership Training for horses and humans.

Caroline Beste (1m 48s):
A model I pioneered in 2008. Consensual Partnership Training provides a comprehensive and impressive curriculum, teaching horse owners how to fully develop their horses using a holistic, empathetic, and natural process. My training system teaches you how to achieve true partnership with horses and without the use of pain, excessive pressure, dominance, force, or coercion. In addition to being a world-class trainer for both horses and people, I'm an artist, author, entrepreneur, speaker, radio show host, licensed working equitation trainer in Riding Foundation Specialist, I offer one of the largest and most comprehensive online educational platforms, the Tao of Horsemanship, where I host a variety of courses produced and personally taught by me and my amazing school masters.

Caroline Beste (2m 37s):
In addition to sharing what I know in my in-person training and online courses, I invite special guests and students each month to my radio show, Everything, horses and more. This platform allows us to engage with all of you and share our very personal and transformational journey with horses. I invite you to listen in and hope you find something that helps inspire you to reach your personal goals and aspirations with your horse. Thank you. And may you always be one with horses.

0 (3m 29s):
Oh,

Caroline Beste (3m 29s):
Welcome back everybody. You know who I am. Your co, your co-host, your host, Caroline Beste of Everything Horses & More! Podcasts where we are educating, liberating and inspiring horse owners around the world. You know who my lovely co-host is, Lydia Primavera. And today welcome back, our guest speaker, Carolyn Waller. Welcome back. Thank you.

Carolyn W. (3m 52s):
Glad to be here again. It was fun the last time.

Caroline Beste (3m 55s):
Yeah, there's gonna be many more. I can see that in the future. Today's topic, Carolyn's gonna be talking about learning from the mistakes we make in the horsemanship journey, AKA. The best of the Rex. I can't wait. No, it's be, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So we're thrilled. We're thrilled to have this week's guest speaker back. Your pen name is Carolyn White, and you have three books under your name. Bricks Underneath a Hoop Skirt. Trucks are for Girls. I love these titles, In Like a Swarm of Locusts.

Caroline Beste (4m 36s):
So that's exciting. And I think a couple of our, couple of our students and listeners that are, that are live on Facebook have like, they've bought your book, they're already reading it. They mentioned it, mentioned it the last time when I announced that you would be on or something like that. It was pretty cool. Becky. So I'm just gonna do, Oh, Becky, Becky's one of 'em. Yeah. I'm gonna do a little bio real quick about Carolyn. Carolyn's writing career began after she got a guiding job on an isolated off-grid guest ranch outside of Elk City. Where is Elk City?

Carolyn W. (5m 9s):
In Idaho. In the mountains,

Caroline Beste (5m 11s):
Of course, Idaho. Where I, Where Lydia lives the skinny part of the state. Got it. The first publication, a two-part for Western Horseman. Loved that magazine, was on loading mule strings and braiding three braiding, three strand cargo ropes. Wow. Many other magazines followed, including Equi. Yep. The Natural Horse, Idaho, Colorado Life In most recently history, she's also spent 12 years as a columnist and future writer for the Fence Post, a weekly ag periodical. So she has the three memoirs that top her writing career, each of them about growing up with and eventually living off grid with horses.

Caroline Beste (5m 54s):
And that's where it takes us and leads us into today's podcast. So I'm just gonna let you lead, Carolyn. I'll, I'll jump in with questions or you know, whatever I wanna add to, but I love, I love what you wanna talk about. So we're just gonna do a bunch of storytelling, aren't you?

Carolyn W. (6m 17s):
Well wind her up and let her go.

Caroline Beste (6m 23s):
Yes, let's go.

Carolyn W. (6m 24s):
I, I I, I like the idea of this podcast because I like talking about the mistakes I've made in the past. I like poking fun at myself and I, I like taking what could have been a really, really nasty incident and turning in into something to share with other people to learn from. So I, yes, I guess I, the way I need to start this is, you know, for the people who don't know me is, you know, yes, I grew up on horses, but I probably grew up on the worst possible horse anybody could start out on. All my friends had horses in southeastern Ohio where I was growing up, which is a horseman's paradise.

Carolyn W. (7m 4s):
I was nagging at my parents 24 7 to let me have one. We went shopping. My dad's a mechanical engineer, so everything was very meticulous. And the horse that I settled on was probably the wildest and most untamed animal anybody could possibly have. She wasn't in red appaloosa thoroughbred and Standard Bread Trotter mix, which basically meant

Caroline Beste (7m 32s):
What a great combo.

Carolyn W. (7m 34s):
Oh, Uhuh. No, not for me, because she also had been used as a contest or games horse before I got her, which meant that, you know, by the time she was sick, she had a mouth as hard as iron and she also was used to running. So when I got her, that's what she wanted to do, was run, run, run, run, run. And as a, a crazy tween girl, I wanted to run, run, run, run too. And the combination was so disastrous that I couldn't get her stopped. So one of my four H leaders suggested that I get another horse and here was lesson number one in my, in my, you know, rec learning. She was too much horse for me.

Carolyn W. (8m 15s):
I can see that now. I should have started out with something that was a lot more low key, but I loved this one. And consequently, at every 4-H meeting, I was coming in with bangs and bruises from getting knocked off under trees or falling off at a dead gala.

Caroline Beste (8m 32s):
Break off. Yeah,

Carolyn W. (8m 32s):
Yeah. So one of my four H leaders suggested that I turn her towards something solid the next time she took off with me. Okay, well that's cool. She took off with me across a baseball field one day and I saw a baseball backstop in the corner and I was like, Look, brilliant. The baseball backstop was unfinished and it ended up being, you know, about five feet off the ground. And we were going so fast, I didn't notice it until we were right there. And the rascal accelerated and ducked underneath it. Boom. You know, thank goodness I didn't have a saddle on or my, I might have gotten dragged, but I ended up hitting the ground on my back.

Carolyn W. (9m 13s):
I saw her butt disappearing up over the hill. Some housewife in the nearby who was watching her dishes came running down with her kids and her apron on. I, Oh my God. Oh god. Great. I get to add humiliation because somebody witnessed this. And the worst part was I went to school in sixth or seventh grade with a perfect chicken wire imprint on my face. A fat lip, you know, a black eye. And I had to explain what had happened. So right off the bat, there was that lesson, I didn't listen and I ended up getting hurt and I ended up getting hurt a lot.

Carolyn W. (9m 56s):
But I also did learn that really valuable lesson that falling off is not an option. And as I, as I got older, it did get harder and harder for this horse to get me off. But she never stopped trying.

Caroline Beste (10m 10s):
Oh my gosh. How long did you have her, Carolyn? How long did you

Carolyn W. (10m 16s):
20 years.

Caroline Beste (10m 17s):
Oh God bless you.

Carolyn W. (10m 18s):
20 years. And the last thing, the last time I rode her, when I hauled her to Idaho and was, had her in the back country, she still was trying to buck me off when she had arthritis and cataracts and everything else. She put her head down and, and you could just see her trying to

Caroline Beste (10m 37s):
Get me. Oh my gosh.

Carolyn W. (10m 39s):
So that was my first mistake that I like to share with people. Then I like to share,

Caroline Beste (10m 46s):
Well, hold on looking, you know me, I'm gonna dive into this a little bit. I mean, looking back on that, you know, now you had a long time. Do you believe you could've changed that behavior? Do you believe you could have?

Carolyn W. (11m 4s):
Yeah, now knowing now what I know, I could have found a trainer, I could have found a round pen, I could have worked on keeping my hands lighter, maybe changing up a bit or switching to a hack more. Just getting advice from somebody in the know and slowing everything down, including me. It kind of happened later in life for both of us. After I hauled her from Ohio to Idaho and was using her in the back country, because by then we're on these really steep mountain trails. And her energy was, yes, was put into something else.

Carolyn W. (11m 44s):
But when I was a kid, you know, I, I've used that word bulletproof a number of times before, but I really was bulletproof and I didn't wanna listen to anybody, didn't want anybody else putting hands on my beloved little horsey. And so as a result, there's a lot of people in Mariet, Ohio that saw that horse riderless running back to the barn with a reigns dragon and then a surly teenage kid talking through the same area. Oh

Caroline Beste (12m 13s):
My god.

Carolyn W. (12m 16s):
Back to the bar. You know,

Caroline Beste (12m 17s):
I, that would make such a great like TV series. I can literally vision envision you walking in, you know? What grade were you in when you had your face all smashed up? That's

Carolyn W. (12m 30s):
Sixth grade or seventh grade.

Caroline Beste (12m 32s):
Oh, that's so humiliating. I, I, I was about, I think it was sixth grade when I did something really stupid and I was so humiliated. And back then I used to turn beat red. Like my face would just get, I'd blush all the time, but it was sixth grade and sixth grade back in, I was in Ohio and well outside Cleveland, Ohio. You were in Ohio too, but it, it, sixth grade was a big open room and then you had like semi dividers. So it's pretty cool how sixth grade was just this big open, open room with all the different classrooms. I don't know why I did this, you guys, this is so stupid. I tried shaving my eyebrows because they were coming in puberty too thick.

Caroline Beste (13m 16s):
Now listen, I had a uni brow back then. Now with menopause, you know, I'm not losing any hair, ladies, God knows I'm not losing any of this. But my eyebrows have been thinning over the years and, and I was smart enough in my teens, in early twenties, I think I stopped plucking them because nothing grew back like I can remember it like mid twenties. I never had to pluck my eyebrows again cuz I plucked the hell out of 'em. But, you know, I had those like caterpillar eyebrows and I shaved and I cut myself. I don't even think I was allowed to shave my, I wasn't, I wasn't shaving my legs.

Caroline Beste (13m 56s):
I didn't even have any hair on my legs back then. But I shaved my eyebrow and I had, and the dumb ass me put in a bandaid. And I had this, looking back on it, this teacher who I never liked, never felt comfortable. He was really dorky and goofy. And he started this teacher, I forget his name, busting out, laughing at me and then everybody was looking at me and now you're looking at a whole open room of sixth graders. And it was the most humiliating experience. Can you imagine bandaid? And you've got you, you have your eyebrows shaved doll.

Carolyn W. (14m 39s):
I'd never tried that. I definitely didn't

Caroline Beste (14m 44s):
Have had to. Ok. So yeah, that's, that's a, that's a pretty, we're pretty self-conscious at that age, to say the least. Yeah. But I'm sorry, I, I interrupted you. Do you remember where you were gonna take off from there?

Carolyn W. (14m 55s):
Well, I, I do, cuz then, you know, there's a follow through story of a time somebody didn't listen to me. But I, I have to insert one thing that if you go to Marietta, Ohio and drive down what we kids called River Road, which is Musker River on one side and there used to be cornfields on the other. Now there of course houses and stuff, but that baseball field is still there and that baseball backstop is still there as well. It's covered with Ivy. It is, it's rusted. But I went back to my, like one of my first visits 20 years after I moved to Idaho and I was driving down River Road with an old friend and we got to where the baseball backstop was and she literally leaned over and said, Look Caroline, there's your old baseball backstop.

Carolyn W. (15m 43s):
She would go over and see if the imprint, your face is still in the, and it was like, shut up. I bet it's still there. I mean I I really do believe I hit it so hard, you know, 35 miles an hour, 30 whatever it

Caroline Beste (16m 0s):
Yes, yes. Holy, but they

Carolyn W. (16m 1s):
Crap. They should have taken that thing down. It was a death trap.

Caroline Beste (16m 6s):
Well, for horseback riders, it was for crazy horses for, oh my God, who the hell would riding a horse up there anyway?

Carolyn W. (16m 16s):
Well, yeah, eventually I was forbidden to ride my horse across the baseball field. All of us were, cuz we left huff prints in the grass. But

Caroline Beste (16m 25s):
Yes, either way

Carolyn W. (16m 27s):
That, that, you know, flashes forward, you know, another 20 years to when I was working on the back country guest ranch in Idaho and someone didn't listen to me. And I think that this, this is also an important part of the mistakes we make in horsemanship. When someone's had more experience than you, you need to listen to them and take them seriously, especially when it's their horse. So I had, I've mentioned in, in the other podcast, I had a beautiful big rangey quarter horse that I named Clay. I trained Clay to give me extra speed if I was hurting cattle with that man from snowy river guys remember that movie?

Carolyn W. (17m 8s):
He would, his horse, he would lean forward to the horse's name was Denny. And he goes, and Denny would just boom, we would give him more power. So I trained do that because every now and then we would get straight cows that came into the guest ranch and they would leave cow pies on the airstrips. You don't want them there. And it was a big deal when they wandered and everybody get the horses, get these cows outta here. So I'm busy in the, in the lodge cooking on the wood stove. And one of the students, big old guy named Craig, just 18, 19 years old, he comes running and he say, Carolyn the cow, can I use clay to herd him out? And I'm like, Oh, Uhuh, you know, and oh please, oh please, you've been teaching me me how to ride and you said I was getting good and please can I use clay?

Carolyn W. (17m 55s):
He's right up there in the corral. And so with great reluctance, it's like handing the keys to a Porsche through a teenage kid. I went, Okay, but whatever you do, don't run him. You know, he'll, he'll run out from underneath you, you can walk him or try, don't run him. I find out later, Craig had gone back up to the corral, which is now lined with morning guests, drinking their coffee, waiting for breakfast. Craig swings up on clay. Clay is standing in the corral just as quiet as can be. Like you, he was a great horse. And Craig his at him to show off to the guests.

Carolyn W. (18m 35s):
Clay ran out from underneath him. Clay took off with so much power from a stance till that Craig, you know, he lands behind the saddle, Clay goes tearing out, tearing out through the gate and down the hill just flat, you know, flat out with his tail, flat behind him doing his ears back. And the crew come, you know, I'm watching out the window like, where's Craig? Why hasn't he come by? Oh, where's Craig? The back door opens and the remaining boys come falling into the house. They are hyster they are laughing so hard they can't tell me what happened. And I finally, it's like, where's Craig?

Carolyn W. (19m 14s):
Where's my horse? And they were like, Craig went down the hill screaming, whoa, you know, but the rain's flying and Clay doing his job one after the house. And then they heard this, whoop, you know, Craig fell off, you know, and he came in later while we were having breakfast and his glasses were bent and he had grass dates on his clothes. Cause of course he had to catch clay first too. My god. And he didn't say a word, you know, we just, we all just kind of, we just kind of kept eating and passed him some platters and stuff. And I couldn't think of anything to say cuz it was so funny. But I caught him after everybody had left, you know, the guests and the crew.

Carolyn W. (19m 56s):
And I just kind of remember reaching out and patting him and saying, you know, Craig, every horseman hits the ground every now and then. And he just kind of, kind of nodded and he accepted it and he never pulled anything like that again. But what I really wanted to say was, Hello, what did I tell you? Don't accelerate the Porsche.

Caroline Beste (20m 19s):
Oh my God.

Carolyn W. (20m 19s):
He learned a lesson and it was all good. And it's, I think it's in that story is in in book one, the bricks, underneath the hoop skirt. And I never can't, I never can go over that without laughing my own rear end off because it was so funny.

Caroline Beste (20m 38s):
Oh, it brings me back to you only know what you know. You don't know what you don't know unless you experience it. You have no idea what's, Oh yeah, I can, whatever. I can handle that. And then the horse, Ooh, that's pretty great. Yeah, That's crazy. That's great though.

Carolyn W. (20m 55s):
Yeah, it's just important that, you know, we share our, our mistakes I think with people because nobody, they're willing in their horsemanship journey. No, every horse is different. Everybody has a, a book of mistakes that they can share or accidents that they

Caroline Beste (21m 12s):
Have, learning opportunities. I call 'em learning opportunities. I say, I say mistake is really a learning opportunity unless it keeps getting repeated and then it's the definition of insanity. Oh, Absolut absolutely the same old thing over and over again. When are you gonna, when are you gonna learn from it? But yeah, I mean mistake if you, if you learn from it, it's a great opportunity for growth. Absolutely. I've made plenty. Oh my gosh. Yeah. All the time.

Carolyn W. (21m 49s):
I'm time we're out.

Caroline Beste (21m 50s):
Yes.

Lydia P. (21m 50s):
When you, I love it when you mention in your book that you loved your job because there was so many different mules and horses in every single one of them was different.

Carolyn W. (22m 5s):
Absolutely. That, that was

Lydia P. (22m 10s):
My favorite part of your job.

Carolyn W. (22m 13s):
Honestly. That was a box of chocolates that really was the best part of the job is getting to get my hands on horses and mules every day. Find out what made 'em click, find out their different personalities. Learn the differences between horses and mules. You know, a die hard mule person will tell you that they're better than horses because they're smarter. The muer fluided, they don't eat as much. They process their food better. They don't founder. You know, all I knew was that if I could, if I could ride it and smell that wonderful horse mule smell, I was happy until they made me mad.

Caroline Beste (22m 55s):
And okay, give us a story of when one made you mad like Mule. I agree. I totally have worked with mules. I raised a donkey as a baby. I mean, they are so wicked intelligent.

Carolyn W. (23m 8s):
They are. And Lydia knows this story and we, we, we had laughed pretty hard about it over the phone. And this is, you know, another lesson. You don't get mad when you're working around horses unless they are, you know, being reprimanded for something. And, and even then you've, you, you've gotta you've gotta be careful they're horses. But I, I literally, you know, it's pretty much of a fireball back in the day. And when you're, you know, I, I've talked in the other podcast about how you, you know, you can't lead a mule string without learning how to cuss. And I'd already mastered that really well. But I was taking in five mules and five saddle horses to a, a high camp so that the hunters and their gear could be packed out.

Carolyn W. (23m 54s):
They were tied together. Horse meal, horse meal, horse mule, because mules are more sensible and pick their ways to the trees. And the horses are a lot better that way than if they were just strung together. And I was riding a big old Arab cross gelding. We called him, his name was Guppy, but they called him Gup head or stupid head or anything like that because he just, he irritated the crew and we'll talk about him later. But I had trained guppy to ground time and I only practiced with him a few times. And I mean, for me, a ground tie was to unhook the lead rope from where it was dolled around the saddlehorn, drop it on the ground, you know, leave your reins around the saddle horn.

Carolyn W. (24m 36s):
You don't want them breaking, but to just walk away. And, and I'd make a couple circles around him and we were in view of the ranch, so it was no big deal. But I thought that was enough. My lesson, we, we were going through the woods. We were on a trail that went straight up on one side and straight down, or at least curved gently to where it wasn't totally dangerous, but it was still beware. And I, you know, if packers ride sideways, I mean you literally, I think I've got like lower back problems from, you know, riding sideways. You keep an eye out to make sure there's not a leg over the lead rope in front of you or that you know, somebody's not getting jerked, whatever.

Carolyn W. (25m 17s):
The last meal of the 10 string animal that I had had her leg over the rope that she was the rope, the lead rope that had attached her to the animal in front of her. So you can't leave him like that. So I pulled everybody up, I dropped, I got off guppy, I dropped his leader up to ground high and then I went all the way back through the woods, 10 animals. And right about the time I was releasing that last mule, guppy started to walk, he was like, Well, I'll just go on without her. And you know, that's a long line of animals to run up and a lot of brush to jump in front, 80 to feet. It's, yeah.

Carolyn W. (25m 57s):
But I was fast, you know, I ran track in high school and I was like nimble as I could be and I, but by the time I got to the front, I was mad at him. I should have been mad at me because I didn't rehearse, rehearse, practice, practice, reward, reward. I just kind of took it for granted that he had heard my lesson and he was gonna stand ground type. So by the time I came out in front of the line, I was just about as mad as a hornet. And guppy took one look at this mad woman and he's, whoa, not going that way. So he turned around, went back into the line of animals, which meant that the next horse who was dollied around his saddlehorn followed him. And then that mule followed her and then that horse follow.

Carolyn W. (26m 40s):
And I ended up having this huge wreck. I mean, I had horses and meals with their heads overtop each other's saddles with their head pulled completely down to their feet or their hoves. I had Oh yeah. Under tails. Which, you know, nobody likes to have something under their tail. It was a mess. And I was just beside myself with bad person language and untying this and un taking my pocket night out and, and unhook or cutting this dollar rope.

Caroline Beste (27m 14s):
Yes.

Carolyn W. (27m 14s):
Well you have to take each one individually and tie them to different trees in the woods. Get everybody reorganized, you know, pull more pig string outta your pockets and redo the whole line. One animal at a time. Oh my god. And you know, I was mad, I was mad, you know, it was just all sorts of bad things were coming outta my mouth. But I'm the one who made the mistake. I didn't do follow through enough to train this horse, otherwise this wouldn't have happened. But again, I ended up eating it because by the time I got into camp, it turns out camp was just maybe 200 yards, a hundred or 200 yards down the trail.

Carolyn W. (27m 54s):
And the hunters had come in early to wait for me. And they're sitting around the cold campfire and they heard every word said and they, I found out later from one of the guys that you know, Oh yeah, I really carried over the wind. You know, did some really fine cousin there. And again, I had no, no.

Caroline Beste (28m 20s):
Oh my,

Carolyn W. (28m 20s):
That's what packers do. That's what you do when you're younger and you, and you've got a temper and you're more of a fireball. And I, I've had to learn the hard way. There's better way to handle things. And so that was just one of my many, many lessons that

Caroline Beste (28m 36s):
I Oh, that's a great story. I think, I think how many of us can relate to situations like that?

Carolyn W. (28m 42s):
How many people out there have ever cursed a horse? I just, you know, let's have a show of imaginary hands so that I know I'm not the only one. Yeah.

Caroline Beste (28m 53s):
Yes sir. You're not the only one.

Carolyn W. (28m 55s):
Yeah, sometimes I feel comfortable.

Caroline Beste (28m 57s):
Yeah, I cus I still cuss today, but it's, but my cussing isn't filled with emotions so my horses aren't scared. Like, like I can, I can say g d you know, Damn it. You know, and then they just look at me like, whoops. Yep. They're not scared of me. But that's cuz I'm a little bit wiser. But yeah, I can remember losing, being a hot, I'm a hot head big time losing my a firecracker like you and losing my temper long time ago. And, and Oh God, yeah. Not good. They run. Yeah, they're gonna run. Yeah. They don't be running that.

Carolyn W. (29m 34s):
Yeah, that's what, that's what everybody out there should remember. You go to catch a horse and you're having a bad day and you're mad. They're not

Caroline Beste (29m 44s):
Forget Sundance has been a great teacher for me with that, that white mayor of mine, I have a lot of stories with her. Put just pluck every nerve and put in smartest horse I've ever, I don't know, my whole trinity, all three of my horses were, are brilliant, have been brilliant horses, legend to smokey to Sundance. But damn if there's one horse that's made me cuss the most in my life and really probably the only horse that's made me cuss Yeah. Would be Sundance. Not anymore, but Oh yeah. What a learning journey that's been.

Carolyn W. (30m 17s):
Yeah. Thankfully we grow out of the, you know, the hot headedness as we get a little bit older, but I could still tell some stories about that.

Caroline Beste (30m 30s):
Oh, I love it. I love it.

Carolyn W. (30m 32s):
I'm glad we hinted on this at the last podcast and decided to do this best of the Rex type thing. I look back at that and I'm amazed I'm, I didn't break anything. I honestly never broke a bone and I should have with all those different horses and mules that I was hanging with and all the

Caroline Beste (30m 54s):
Different That's impressive experiences.

Carolyn W. (30m 56s):
Yeah. I'm,

Caroline Beste (30m 56s):
I'm taking in, Yeah. I'm still taking in that you were handling a string of 10 horses, five mules and five horses. You guys like that is like the kinda, who the hell can do that?

Lydia P. (31m 10s):
Well, and then, and then Carolyn, don't you have to like, when they get all tangled up, don't you have to strip 'em all the way down to their hair and start over with each one? Did you have to take

Carolyn W. (31m 21s):
Only the saddles that had rolled? You know, because you, you would get some that had slipped and were down on a horse's side from the, the stress of the horse behind pulling it. So those, yeah, you have to take them completely off because you can't just yank them around. It just doesn't work that way. So you have to undo the breasts collar, You have to lift the brin, you have to reset the saddle pad, you know, lift up your packs, that'll set it down and start. So it did take me a while and you know, when I got into hunting camp, I was in such a hurry to get back to the lodge that I just flipped the lead to the first animal, to one of the guide standing there and said hi.

Carolyn W. (32m 4s):
Everybody turned around and left. And I wondered later why all the hunters were so silent, you know, sitting around the cold fire, smoking their cigars and just looking at me, you know, Oh

Caroline Beste (32m 17s):
My God,

Carolyn W. (32m 17s):
We just hear that coming out. That sweet little thing that waits on us and our coffee at the lodge well would mess with.

Caroline Beste (32m 28s):
Wow. Well, and I'm also impressed that they didn't spook or, I mean, how many of us out there trail ride and I mean, whose horses could handle that kind of commotion? You know, having, having another horse rubbing up against them, pulling on them. You know, that's one of the things that I do in my training, you guys, It's one of the many things out of the box I do is when I'm preparing a, a horse in blue will be the next one. It's never been ridden or restarting a traumatized riding horse, unlike honing horses is number one. And, and making things happen like a mistake.

Caroline Beste (33m 11s):
So it prepares the horse with experience. So I'm recreating like I'm thinking all these things that I can do to create the situation for any horse that needs this. You know, a new horse restarting the traumatized riding horse, you know, what can I do so that we can make mistakes, right? So that shit can happen and they don't lose their mind or they're so flooded that they're, you know, they're, they're shut down and and stuck deep within themselves and then they don't, they don't know how to handle anything and then explode. So I'm super impressed with the fact that all of these horses remains calm.

Carolyn W. (33m 50s):
Well we're, you gotta remember one thing about the difference between my back country horse experiences and and other experiences is these horses on a day daily basis, they have new people put on them they've never seen before. They're either ridden on the trail or they're used to just go three miles to the trailhead or they're tied together in a string with a load.

Caroline Beste (34m 17s):
Hold on. So yes. So this is what makes you unique. How many, I know a lot of students that have worked in, in Lydia, you're one of them. So share your experience, have worked in, not as trail guides, but trail riding barns, but trail riding barns where you, you all over United States, you go out and and ride a horse for an hour on a trail, you know, you rent the horse and you go out in groups and nine outta 10 of those horses are ticking time bombs. They get people on 'em all the time. They have horribly fit saddles, they have horrible riders. They have people that don't know what they're doing. And most of those horses are so checked out that when the slightest thing happens, especially if the whole herd gets worked up about something, I mean they become fucking Bronx or they're galloping back to the barn.

Caroline Beste (35m 10s):
So, you know, maybe it's different as a trail guide, I don't know. But if you compare the two of you being trail guides in your experiences to 99% of the, the, what do you call 'em? You guys, You go, you run a horse to go trail riding in a group. Wranglers. Wranglers. Talk about not on the East Coast. Not on the East Coast. That does not our language. It's a trail. Erin, one of our other students worked for one for like 10 years up in Massachusetts. You just,

Lydia P. (35m 41s):
Yeah, I thought she was called a wrangler though too. I don't know.

Caroline Beste (35m 45s):
Maybe she was, but you guys can help us out in the audience. But there's a story right there. She has 10 years worth of stories, horror stories. So you guys, what's different? Why are your horses so prepared? Relaxed, safe. Safe. I mean maybe that's a big, big question too.

Carolyn W. (36m 6s):
Lydia, you wanna go first or you want me to go first?

Lydia P. (36m 9s):
I'm gonna take a whack at it because I believe for me personally, it was my extra attention and care and feel for them.

Caroline Beste (36m 22s):
That'd be both of you. Yeah. Yeah.

Lydia P. (36m 24s):
I think Caroline had it too without even knowing about it. Like she just naturally, you know, we met Carolyn. You

Caroline Beste (36m 31s):
Did, you talked about that you guys were more astute and aware and you cared and you went slower.

Lydia P. (36m 37s):
I had no trouble getting to know this woman. Right. None whatsoever. And I don't think those horses had any trouble getting to know her either.

Caroline Beste (36m 49s):
Yeah,

Lydia P. (36m 50s):
They knew exactly.

Caroline Beste (36m 51s):
Know Carolyn. Yep.

Lydia P. (36m 52s):
Her heart was and they trusted her. And the other thing I noticed too was that I could rely on two particular horses to keep the other ones calm. So if I had one of those two with me, they naturally allowed, held the space when something did happen. You know? And I think I told the story about the guy that dropped his hat and he was thinking about getting off a Sundance who was a mayor pal. And I said, If you get off, you won't be getting back on cuz she'll be back to the barn. And at that time that's when COIs calmed her down and we were able to get past that point, you know?

Lydia P. (37m 35s):
And if I hadn't had him something

Caroline Beste (37m 40s):
Else, something

Lydia P. (37m 40s):
Else would've happened.

Caroline Beste (37m 42s):
Yeah.

Lydia P. (37m 42s):
So I think that maybe too can be true. When you were on trail, I don't know if there was particular horses you relied on that stayed calm or you know, you just knew that horse was gonna hold hold the

Caroline Beste (37m 59s):
Hold it together.

Lydia P. (38m 1s):
Yeah, hold it together.

Carolyn W. (38m 3s):
I think for me, when I was working for outfitters, the general rule of thumb was if a horse was gonna be too flighty, it went back to the sail. They, they on purpose just chose the ones that were the most bulletproof. And then the horses were, they were on the same trail doing the same basic thing every day with, you know, variety. Cuz there, I think there were four out camps during hunting season, so they might like take a fork in the trail and go a different direction. But they were, they were accustomed to it. They were accustomed to having different people on and they were accustomed to having heavy packs when we were using them as pack animals. But there, there were times when you could count on them to be just a little bit flighty.

Carolyn W. (38m 47s):
And I, and this is one of my favorite examples, cuz the ranch that I worked on had a, had a, a stream that went through it and we would get hers and one of them made a nest in the meadow that was along the three mile road that went out to the trailhead where we parked the trucks in the summer. He had a nest or she, I should say, and you could, I could be riding behind people that we might be packing out to get to their vehicles or whatever. And you could see everybody kind of turning to the side and you could see him and I'd be, and I'd have warned him, it's like, hang on. And the hair would pop up in the whole spring, you know, they would jump to the left.

Carolyn W. (39m 28s):
Oh, we're so frightened when they knew that that bird was already there, that people would stay on. It would be fun. The, the main danger on the other hand was bees. I don't know if you guys are familiar with those nasty little bees that live in the ground.

Caroline Beste (39m 45s):
Yes. Yep, yep, yep. You'll make a horse crazy. They'll make a horse crazy.

Carolyn W. (39m 49s):
They will make, and they, well

Caroline Beste (39m 50s):
They get their groin. They get

Carolyn W. (39m 53s):
Their privates. I'm just totally lucky that I never lost anybody in terms of falling off. But I mean, if you were taking someone on trail ride and the crew at whoever was leading the string, there's always someone in the front and someone in the back to keep an eye on everybody. And you'd hear bees about the time someone's horse would start bucking and it would be like, go, go, go, go, go. And we would try to get through that area as quickly as we could while the bees were swarming around us. And so yeah, you had, it's a little more excitement I think than what would normally happen on a trail ride. But thankfully I never had anybody fall off and the, and the horses and the Neil settled right back down when they got out of it.

Carolyn W. (40m 34s):
But you know, I think anytime you get what I like to call a dude on a horse that's not a really good rider, you are kind of setting yourself up for danger and, and scary things that could happen. So for, for the guest ranches, they just made darn sure to keep that danger added absolute low by only keeping the, I mean like dog, dog general, slow easy animals. That was the key.

Caroline Beste (41m 8s):
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes, yeah, I get that. That makes sense. That really does. And I had a few, it's a little bit of a different mentality though, listening to the two of you. You definitely have maybe it's guest ranches out west that are a little bit different than a lot of what I'm used to on the East coast to kind of Midwest. Just different but good. Just stuff to, to learn from for sure. What Lydia, what were you gonna say hun?

Lydia P. (41m 38s):
I can't remember. It's okay.

Caroline Beste (41m 40s):
Oh, sorry. Well

Carolyn W. (41m 41s):
We were talking talking about the gentleness that's required from a, a trail horse. Do you have another story on that one from your experience?

Lydia P. (41m 50s):
I just feel like there was a certain particular horse and I think that he was a carriage horse and I think because of that, in his experience, everybody would just, he wasn't lead. He didn't seem to be lead gilding that was cowboy's buddy smoke, but he seemed to be who everybody looked to to see if it was a big deal, like the sad hill crane or you know, they'd go, Rio, is that a big deal? And Rio would be like, Yeah, no, that's not any bigger than, you know, a motorcycle going by me or whatever he was thinking. But you could see him process it quickly and then tell everybody Yeah, it's not, And then my voice, I would use a lot.

Lydia P. (42m 33s):
I didn't have a front and a back rider, I was in the front. It's where coach chiefs needed to be and I grew ears and eyes on the back of my head. And like I told Carolyn, I would listen to footfall all the time and I could tell when somebody was holding a horse too tight or had too much rain too because it would trip or whatever, you know, you just kind of start to get a feel for it.

Carolyn W. (42m 59s):
Yeah, you're right.

Lydia P. (42m 59s):
But that first year, I don't know, I would've been horrified to have done any of that without Rio and then he died, so I didn't have him the next year and I had to rely on a different horse.

Caroline Beste (43m 12s):
Oh wow. Oh gosh. I don't even wanna know how he died. I don't even wanna know.

Lydia P. (43m 16s):
Yeah, I don't get to know. It was in the middle of the winter, so I'm pretty sure it,

Caroline Beste (43m 21s):
It's not nice. Well and the fact that if he did die from what starvation or old age, just being ridden up to the point where they shouldn't be ridden anymore. But then the stories you told me, Lydia, how they're not taken care of in the winter. Some of those horses end up dying.

Lydia P. (43m 39s):
I would, I would be so careful about weight, you know, who got on which one and if they were in could handle carrying them too. I don't know if you did much of that Carolyn, but some people really wanted to ride that horse and I'd be like, you are too big for that horse.

Carolyn W. (43m 56s):
Oh yeah. I, I got pretty astute at, at matching the horse to the rider just from listening to the riders talk about themselves. And that's it, it's a skill. I mean it really is to, to make sure it's, it's even more important than matching the saddle to the horse. You wanna make sure their personalities are gonna flow together as best as we can.

Lydia P. (44m 19s):
Thank God horses are honest and you know, people aren't, when you first meet 'em, like they'll tell you all kinds of things. I've ridden on 44,000 acres for a month after cattle and he was the one that had one of my horses into such a sweat and I said, you've got to, you've got to quit holding her. You know, and

Caroline Beste (44m 43s):
He paid for it.

Carolyn W. (44m 44s):
I think going back to, you know, talking about trail horses and stuff, I think one of the things that, that we do do in the back country is we make sure that their horse that we are riding is one that we are accustomed to. And you know, I just, I just kind of flashed on this while we were all talking about it. I started out with my main riding horse, my old gray mayor that I hauled from Ohio because yes, she had been very crazy with me growing up and she was an excellent trail horse. She could work her way up a switch back without even breathing hard and we'd be stopping to

Caroline Beste (45m 20s):
Let Meal string breathe. But she was just really sure footed, she really enjoyed starting her career over again at age 20 That appy in her...

Carolyn W. (45m 31s):
Or 18, however old she was. And so she was consistently the horse that I picked when I wasn't testing out a new one. And then when I retired her clay had come along the big rangey quarter horse. So I retired her to the 500 acre meadow and I switched to clay. And there, there is something really settling about having that horse underneath you that you really, really trust in between all the new ones that you were testing out. And I tell you what, if we test, we were, if we were all testing out a particular horse, riding him as our personal mount and one, one kid or one guide after another came in and go dumbest horse I've ever ridden or flirtiest horse I've ever ridden.

Carolyn W. (46m 19s):
And if it was consistent back to the sale, that horse went because eventually got it, it was gonna end up with a hunter on it or a a day a day trip riding guest and you just did not take any chances. So that's, that was the big, the big thing. You just didn't want your company that flew in on the mail plane or drove a thousand miles to get there. You didn't want them to go home in a cast.

Caroline Beste (46m 45s):
Oh my god. No, that makes sense. That, that that is, so that says a lot about you guys as a group though, and the mentality, because I don't hear that on the east coast. I mean, in my student, you know, base they're either their personal experiences riding out or their friends or they've worked in these, these trail riding barns. I mean it's, it's, it doesn't matter, you know, the horses getting used no matter what. You just try to, you do try to, you just don't have the astuteness. And I mean, I I'm just blown away. It's so cool listening because it's so real with you guys, you know, it's a real job, it's a real responsibility for both the horse and the rider and I mean it's very, it's, it makes me so happy.

Caroline Beste (47m 37s):
It's so impressive because I hate hearing about trail riding barns because it's never a good story. I've never seen healthy horses, nobody cares. And they're just going out for an hour, you know, none of these are like long like what you're talking about a day ride or cross, you know, beautiful countryside where in Idaho or or something like that. So it is different. It's good to hear.

Carolyn W. (48m 2s):
Well Lydia wouldn't you, wouldn't you say too that the difference there, you know, you've got horses that are tied in the sun a lot of the time, all day long with the same saddle on 'em going out, you know, two, three even four times a day.

Caroline Beste (48m 16s):
Yes, yes.

Carolyn W. (48m 16s):
To me that just, that breaks my heart. But horses that, that are on a dude ranch situation a lot of time they have the same rider assigned to them every day for seven to 10 days or even up to two weeks. And they develop that bond where the rider gets off of him and Oh, I love you so much, can I give him a carrot? Oh you're such a good, oh I just fell in love with you. And they want their pictures,

Caroline Beste (48m 40s):
Horses and horses like routine horses, like routine like humans. And so that's a big deal.

Carolyn W. (48m 45s):
Yeah. And then, and then like with Lydia, you know, we remove the saddles, they're brushed really carefully. They're also brushed really carefully before someone gets onto introduction, there might be a lesson in how to steer the thing, you know, cuz people, that's what they say, how do you steer it? So it's a, it is a different type mentality I think on a, something like that than there would be a, a typical trail horse that's just tied up and waiting or even, oh no, not again. You know, the next

Caroline Beste (49m 18s):
Person that Yep, that's exactly

Carolyn W. (49m 20s):
Along, that's exactly it.

Caroline Beste (49m 22s):
Why they act out so much. That's why there's so many accidents.

Carolyn W. (49m 27s):
Yeah. Did you find that you have people for lengths of time to where they really bonded with their horses and

Lydia P. (49m 34s):
Yes, my favorite was, there was a woman I got to ride with every night, just her and I and get paid for it. You know

Caroline Beste (49m 42s):
This

Lydia P. (49m 42s):
Like,

Carolyn W. (49m 42s):
Oh yeah.

Lydia P. (49m 43s):
And she picked her and she loved him and you know, she picked her right. And she did that at home and so she wanted to continue doing it on her vacation. But I have to tell you, I did not find, I always ask everybody questions before we started, they had to get to know their horse before they got on. They had to tack their own horse and brush their own horse before they got on. They did not like that until after the whole thing was over. But at first they were like, the only kind of trail ride I've done was my horse's nose was at the tail of the horse in front of me. We did not get to ride side by side or six across or any of that.

Lydia P. (50m 26s):
It was nose to tail riding. And when horses were like that, you don't change which ones are in front of the other, they, they know their spot in the line and they don't even look into the woods. They're not gonna stop and even look at a deer half the time, you know. But when we give them their autonomy, then you can match personalities rider to horse and it's a, that's an amazing experience for them. Something that they'll never get again in their life. Kind of like when I took people scuba diving, you get to do it just so many times if you don't have certification to do so. But you have to do it with somebody who does and you need to listen to that person

Carolyn W. (51m 11s):
And

Lydia P. (51m 11s):
You could

Carolyn W. (51m 12s):
Thank you for bringing that up

Lydia P. (51m 14s):
And you could die. And so did My next question is, did you ever have to life flight anybody away out of your ranch?

Carolyn W. (51m 25s):
Oh no.

Lydia P. (51m 25s):
That's amazing.

Carolyn W. (51m 25s):
That's, No, no. I didn't even know there was such a thing as life flight.

Lydia P. (51m 30s):
Right.

Carolyn W. (51m 31s):
The, on the, really the only emergency that I ever experienced in the back country, especially on the, the lodge, which was completely off grid with no electricity. It had a, a radio phone that shut off at five o'clock or six o'clock every night after the groceries had been ordered for the next day or the mail plane piloted come comeback and then it was just dead air. And I had a, an older hunter that went out all day long and way overworked himself and he ate way too much at the dinner table and he pushed himself back from the table and he fell over backwards and he hit the, he hit the ground like a tree that had been felt and all these, all these other guys are turning in circles.

Carolyn W. (52m 13s):
Call nine one one, call nine one one and there is a, we don't have a phone, calm down, you know, we'll just deal with it as we can. And so the, it really was one of those times where you spent the night taking watch, putting him on the couch, putting a blanket on him, putting a cold cloth on his head, making sure he was still alive. And everybody, everybody, you know, I, I remember playing the piano with, I, I remember setting candles up on either side of the piano cuz there was nothing you could do. You were on the watch. And as the night got deeper and deeper, I just played and played and I'd check on the guy in the, I'd look back in the hunters, other hunters be sleeping in the chairs in the living room.

Carolyn W. (52m 56s):
Well this guy survived just fine, you know, I think he just got, had a dizzy spell or whatever. But we still sent him out to town to get checked and he came back in and he was ready to go hunting again and he hunted just as hard and he ate just as much. And the whole time, I'm just going, don't ever do that to me again. But it was fine. But you know, it was the only time that I can ever remember a, a real emergency back there and it didn't even involve horses. Go figure.

Caroline Beste (53m 28s):
I love that. I love how resourceful you all, you know, you had to be, especially you Carolyn, doing this for so many years, you know, all of you. That was one of the things I enjoyed when I would go out all day by myself with one of my horses on a long hack all day, you know, a couple hour trailer there, three to five hours by myself with my lab. And you know, we talked about that I think in the last podcast, just being in the elements and feeling that independence and being, you know, resourceful and autonomous and independent and in nature. I mean, I just, in the elements it'd be like a light rain.

Caroline Beste (54m 9s):
You'd have your, you know, your, all your gear on and I'd had a saddle so I could have my saddle bag and my theist with hot cocoa. I love that. I, you know, that's on my bucket list is to get back and I, I've shared this, you know, maybe we can all do this, you know, I've shared this before and the next couple of years is, is everyone meeting, you know, and going out for, you know, week at a time together, like where it would have to be somewhere out either the, between the Appalachian, you know, trail, I think, you know, to where you are Lydia, where you guys are

Lydia P. (54m 47s):
Glamping, old lady glamping

Caroline Beste (54m 48s):
With Yes. It would be the old lady, glamping senior citizens we're up

Lydia P. (54m 56s):
Go it. Yeah. We ask

Caroline Beste (54m 58s):
Can next year. Oh I love it ing but yes, I hear

Carolyn W. (55m 4s):
You. Yeah. My day's of sleeping the ground

Caroline Beste (55m 7s):
I love sleeping with my horses. I can't, I love sleeping with my horses.

Lydia P. (55m 13s):
Speaking of what, speaking of something that Caroline just brought up, Caroline is brought me to another part of a story in your book where you're talking about after you shot your own deer your first year, I'm only, I only killed one and that was enough as well. So, but what you talked about was going home in the dark and trusting the feet of the animal and having a, a light rain and a light touch on in the stir up too. Would you talk about that, what it's like to ride in the dark and have the horse in the mule know where home is, but you don't

Caroline Beste (55m 53s):
Oh, I love that.

Carolyn W. (55m 54s):
Well, has anybody, you know, indicated in the comments, if anybody has ever been on Space Mountain in the complete dark, never knowing which way the roller coaster was gonna go. That's the best way to describe it. And I, I had been taught, this is one, one of the rare times that I listened in my life. The older, more experienced horsemen and guides and packers had taught me that phrase ride light in your stirs, which means you're not sitting on your horse like a sack of potatoes. You've got, you know, a percentage of the weight on the balls of your feet so that as the horse goes back and forth, your your feet are actually catching you in the stairs.

Carolyn W. (56m 38s):
So riding home in the dark that night, I, I had to completely give it up to my horse. I mean we're talking the ultimate entrust because it was so pitch dark that I couldn't see anything. I could don't even remember stars because of the clouds and you know, my companion was in front of me. The deer that I had shot was on the mules between us and you just never knew when your horse was, you know, gonna step down like on a rocky ledge this far Wow. Where all of a sudden go down and then start going uphill or hesitate and then step into sucking mud and pick its way through the mud. So all you all you could do is ride.

Carolyn W. (57m 18s):
I didn't even have a light contact on my horse's mouth, honestly. Honestly, I made sure he had his head because I never knew when he was gonna put down cuz he was

Caroline Beste (57m 28s):
Yeah. Yes.

Carolyn W. (57m 28s):
Where he was going. And I know a lot of it is by smell. So that, that was pretty fun actually to, it was an adventure and a half to just absolutely trust that horse. And it would've been a mistake if I had tried to guide him, I can tell you that. But it would've, it'd have been a complete fool to try to guide something in the pitch dark like that. And it's just another one of those experiences that, that, that show you that the horse doesn't always need to have someone on his mouth doesn't always need to have you telling him what to do.

Carolyn W. (58m 9s):
That was of that.

Caroline Beste (58m 10s):
Yep. I've done a lot of nighttime riding, mostly to moonlight, but any of my students at the old ranch, Janine is one of them that experienced, you know, all the moonlight rides, but some of them it got, you'd get your clouds, it would get dark. No, the horses knew where they were. It was 500 acres. They were familiar with everything, what they could see, what they could hear, what they could smell. But I don't know what the statistics are with horses and their senses, but their smell eyesight at night is even better. Their eyesight is better at night. I get that. I get asked that often. And their hearing is just extraordinary you guys.

Caroline Beste (58m 53s):
But to trust them to surrender. And every time I've ridden at night, I probably every time I've had my sippy cup of wine, so I had a light buzz and my horses love it when I have a light buzz because I'm not in control. And they are. And, and there's been times back at the old ranch, we have a lot of coyotes here in Florida and, and a lot of, you know, breeding thoroughbred, you know, call is known for its thoroughbred breeding farms and they have donkeys out with their cattle and their, their baby horses cuz the donkeys will kill the coyotes and the coyotes will kill the babies.

Caroline Beste (59m 33s):
So, you know, you'll hear we've come up many a time in the past where you can't see, but you can hear two, even three packs of coyotes in every direction and getting closer. And you know, not once did any of my horses or the horses, you know, that were part of the herd ever get scared? Never scared to, No. We would get scared. We would turn back sometimes cuz you could hear them catch something and you know, ying yiping, you know, they're all excited and you could hear it getting closer or we were getting closer and we would turn back cuz but the horses never.

Caroline Beste (1h 0m 14s):
And I, you know, that's just, that's something really special to feel and have with your horse, to trust them so much to take care of you and get to a point where we were scared but our horses weren't and they took care of us. I just, I mean, I, to get to a place to be that, that have, I call it like a oneness with your horse, that partnership. And, you know, it's really cool because, you know, our, our horses are domesticated now. They're not wild. Doesn't mean they're not out there at night with all the animals. They are. But it's just, it's a cool feeling. I just, I really look forward to doing more of that in the future.

Caroline Beste (1h 0m 58s):
Getting back to that, I've been so, I'm exhausted with all this online stuff and course's educate.

Lydia P. (1h 1m 5s):
This is what happens when you try and educate people. It exhausts you, doesn't it?

Caroline Beste (1h 1m 12s):
Yeah. I just wanna, I just wanna like, take a year off and just ride. Yeah. But anyway, that'll come. But it's really cool. I

Carolyn W. (1h 1m 20s):
It's,

Caroline Beste (1h 1m 21s):
And you do too, Caroline. Get back into horses.

Carolyn W. (1h 1m 24s):
I'm actually, I'm kind of stuck on what you just said about having a little sippy cup of wine because, because that's something that I learned the hard way that, you know, personally, I don't do it. But of course I never could drink just a sippy cup. It was the bottle.

Caroline Beste (1h 1m 42s):
And

Carolyn W. (1h 1m 42s):
I honestly, my, my sister's story to that was coming home for Christmas one year from college and going riding with one, one of my best friends ever, who's since died of cancer, God, I loved her so much. She smuggled a couple bottles of wine out from the Christmas dinner table. And it was one of those rare Ohio days that was 65 degrees on Christmas day. And yeah, it was one of those, it's like, let's go riding. Well we also went drinking and we got out in the woods and we polished off those bottles and of course I'm on my crazy Appaloosa Thirded standard bed. And she knew right away that, oh, she's unstable, this is really good.

Carolyn W. (1h 2m 22s):
And as we had crossed the highway from the forest and we're heading back, you know, along our famous river road that's mentioned in my books, The corn fields of course had been plowed and they were wide open. So you had wide open fields and you had a mile of pine trees. And then on the other side of the pine trees was suburbia. And I can remember her kind of pushing against the bit and me going, don't even think about it. And that rascal took off with me because I was unsteady. I'd had a whole bottle of wine, she could tell that I was not in my wis. And so all I could do was just like, take both hands on one side and I plowed her head to the side trying to turn her head to my kneecap because they say a horse can't run when it's muzzle is turned

Caroline Beste (1h 3m 6s):
Into your knee. Yes, it can, it can run sideways.

Carolyn W. (1h 3m 9s):
Yes it can. I'm I'm here to tell you yes they can

Caroline Beste (1h 3m 13s):
Bullshit.

Carolyn W. (1h 3m 14s):
She went straight towards that line of pine trees and it's, it was like the baseball back where you look up and you like, Oh, this is gonna hurt. And about that time she ducked and she went under the trees and I got knocked off, but I was older and stronger by that time. And I hung onto the rains this time and she literally dragged me through somebody's backyard. And I held on and I just, it was just like mad, mad, inebriated, embarrassed. I thought half my hair was missing because I had felt the branches like grab and pull. What? I didn't even bother to check. I just knew that I was ripped bald, which made me matter. And I just remember reigning that horse in and just like, you know, there's, there's only one word you can use for this.

Carolyn W. (1h 4m 0s):
It's called bitch slapping. And I was the bitch slapping the bitch. And I just like that. And then Karen, my friend came up through the trees and she's like, Are you okay? And I'm like, Don't talk to me. Don't talk to me. And about the time I was trying to swing back up on this horse bareback, I looked up in the entire family having Christmas dinner that day was out standing on their balcony and they were all doing the same thing, looking down at me. And I just remember looking up to them just like, don't even ask, don't even. And I got on the horse and I had to wind my way, you know, back to the trees to get out and then keep a tight rain on her the whole way back to the barn because I was still inebriated and she was still testing me.

Carolyn W. (1h 4m 43s):
So you guys, if you're gonna ride, you be responsible. Caroline probably just had the one sippy cup and was good. Don't

Caroline Beste (1h 4m 52s):
Drink. No, no, no. Yeah, don't drink is. Yeah. But the point is, is you gotta train your horse. Not you gotta have a better relationship. I've never experienced that. I didn't. And I never, all, all horses will take care of you when you earn that. That's whatever it is. Like you're part of the family, they will protect the hell out of you. And that's what I'm talking about. That is because I ride bitless sometimes bridal list back in the, the day and in a bareback pad. So you gotta be safe. And I've never, I would never do that. I would never drink a sippy cup of wine and be reckless. I wouldn't ride a horse that was gonna hurt me. I wouldn't ride without a saddle or a helmet.

Caroline Beste (1h 5m 33s):
So you guys put this in perspective, you're talking to me, you know, I'm not just jumping on any horse or a horse that's gonna hurt me. I mean, I wanna be able to close my eyes, put my head on the butt of my horses, on the butt of my horse and let go of the reins. And that's what, that's how I like to ride.

Carolyn W. (1h 5m 52s):
We're gonna be exploring this. I I still, like I said before,

Caroline Beste (1h 5m 59s):
Magic

Carolyn W. (1h 5m 59s):
About that kind of riding.

Caroline Beste (1h 6m 0s):
So go look at my YouTube video. You'll see me in the big, big 500 acres with my group of girls a no sippy cup cuz it's during the day and, and we've got smokey loose like a dog, like every week. So smokey's out there and he's not, he's not the only horse of mine. You know, that's the dream when I get back into this type of trail riding with my students and all of us going out and, and, and enjoying life, you know, I'm not gonna just be on one horse. I'm gonna have two horses, two other horses with me like my dogs, you know, And that's, that's the way I want it. I want 'em like my dogs, I whistle, they come, they can go eat, go play in the water.

Caroline Beste (1h 6m 41s):
But when mama calls your name, you better be coming. And when you look at that YouTube video, you see it in action. There's nothing more magical switching horses. How about switching horses? Smoke, Get up here, let me take this halter riding, bitless bridle off of you Put it on smokey, I'm gonna switch and now I'm on smoke and this horse is loose. I mean it's, it's, it can happen. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. It's, it is amazing. It is. I don't, I don't, I don't ever wanna, like never not do that again. And I'm just waiting to get back to it. I'm so burnt out, I'm so waiting. I,

Carolyn W. (1h 7m 16s):
You know, I'm, I think of how different my life would've been, Caroline, if I had known the adult you when I was a teenage me and had you go ease up, love chop, calm down, let's handle your horse a different way, you know, breathe. That kind of stuff. It, it would've made all the difference in the world because as you know, as a result of my experiences, I learned a lot of lessons the hard way.

Caroline Beste (1h 7m 45s):
Yeah.

Carolyn W. (1h 7m 45s):
Not exactly proud of them, but you know, they, the horse was with me for 20 years and, you know, towards the end we really did have a, a wonderful, loving relationship. But she never did lose her hotheaded ways. I tempered mine with age. We met somewhere in,

Caroline Beste (1h 8m 3s):
They were meant for each other.

Carolyn W. (1h 8m 5s):
And, and I loved her. You know, I really did. I loved that old gray marere. And when before she died, she folded the most beautiful done colored Philly, which is a whole nother story. I mean, it was like, whoa, you're too old to be doing this. I did not breed her. She got accidentally bred and she, so I had between her and her daughter, I had those horses for 33 years. And by the, when the daughter came around, I knew a lot more about how to handle that particular spiritedness. I had matured to the point where I was able to have a wonderful relationship with that buckskin.

Carolyn W. (1h 8m 47s):
Without the teenage insanity, I still look forward. No, no, seriously, I, I still am really, really excited about learning more about your training techniques in what you do. So I it's worth repeating that in the future to those, those who are out there, I'm gonna be interviewing these two ladies individually so that those, the fans out there can get to know them on a deeper, much deeper level. Besides

Caroline Beste (1h 9m 13s):
Personal level. Personal level. I don't know how much more personally people can, I mean, I, I'm, I I look forward to it. This will be a challenge for you, Carolyn, because I, I mean, I'm an open book. Everybody can ask me anything and I'll, they all know my, my life experience, including my nervous breakdown as a young teenager. So, I mean, there's nothing I haven't talked about. But, but yeah, I want you to, I wanna be vulnerable. I'm really looking forward to this. This is gonna be quite, and you're the woman to ask the questions. You are the right interviewer to really get me uncomfortable. Get me outta comfort zone, get me outta my comfort zone.

Carolyn W. (1h 9m 54s):
I've had a lot of experience interviewing people for Megan's believe. And the beauty of doing that was I could choose who I wanted to talk to. Nobody gave me an assignment. I could choose the person who grew garlic in their backyard, or the person who was up on historic buildings in urate, Colorado, or the person who trained sheep dogs. And I could go and I could take my notepad and go in there with very little knowledge about how they operated and just start firing questions and then learn along the way. I loved the interview process. You learn so much about people and people do open up and they do get vulnerable.

Carolyn W. (1h 10m 35s):
You know, just like this podcast has been good for me. I found I've been really vulnerable on these podcasts saying, Man, I have messed up so many times in my life. I'm over it now. It's okay. We all lived. But no,

Caroline Beste (1h 10m 51s):
We learned more from that.

Carolyn W. (1h 10m 52s):
Yeah. And, and it's, it's made me a lot stronger and a lot wiser than I might have been if I had just grown up riding a pony in a circle all day long.

Caroline Beste (1h 11m 1s):
Exactly. And think of, look at all these great stories you get to tell us. It's amazing listening. I love it. I mean, I've got, I've got just as many girl, I don't, I don't tell 'em as well as you do, but we all have, we've all been there. You know, just because I I talk about this magical place I'm at with my horses. I, it didn't happen overnight, you know, How did I get there? You know? How did that all start?

Carolyn W. (1h 11m 26s):
Yeah, that's what I wanna know. How did you get to where you can ride bridals and Bitless? That is, we're going to explore that in future podcasts, Y'all. And I'm, this is only my second one. I mean, remember I'm still kinda learning the ropes here, but it is kind of addicting. It really is to get together and know that there's a horse population out there that is listening in with their own stories

Caroline Beste (1h 11m 51s):
That wants this. Yeah. Well, once, once, once, once to hear the stories. Wants to learn. Before we wrap this up, tell us where we can get your books again and the three books. Lydia, which book were you referring to with all the stories? Bricks. Underneath A hoop Skirt. Yes. Trucks are for girls and like a swarm locus. Where can we, because you don't have a website, Carolyn?

Carolyn W. (1h 12m 16s):
No, you know, I took a lot of that stuff down because it just was, it just was kind of a waste of money and time. I'll tell you what, the best way to do it is to get ahold of me directly. It's my, my email address is one long word. Living the Good life. Yeah.

Caroline Beste (1h 12m 34s):
And Lydia will add that. Lydia, when we're done with the podcast, since this part stays live on my Facebook page, we're gonna add your, Lydia has that information. I just want everybody else to know that.

Lydia P. (1h 12m 46s):
Make sure I have, you want me to use though?

Carolyn W. (1h 12m 51s):
Yeah, it's, it's living the good life underscore 79 @ m s n thats mary, sam, nancy .com . You can get used copies on the internet now, but I sell them out of my house or out of my truck. And so the easiest way is just to contact me directly. And I found that, you know, there were already, it was already selling so well, there wasn't any point in me continuing to keep up the, the GoDaddy website and, and it was really difficult to maintain too. And every now and then it would just go down and I'd have to get on the phone and I, after a while I'm like, I hate electronics. Anyhow, guys, just, you know, just contact me directly.

Carolyn W. (1h 13m 34s):
So that's, that's what you do. And I'll sign 'em and write a note if you want me to. And

Caroline Beste (1h 13m 40s):
Yeah. And let's re why don't you email me too, Caroline. I'd love to put them up on my shop, on my website and I can promote them for Christmas. So why don't you, why don't you, okay. Send me an email with a little blurb. We can talk later about this, but let's get a little promotion together for your books and I can put that out to my, my audience both in my email list, my posts, cuz Yeah, the holidays are right around you're, they're phenomenal. I have not read each one, but I have skimmed through them and, and just listening as you, you've, everyone's experienced, you already in the last two podcasts with you and they and they wanted more and they love your storytelling.

Caroline Beste (1h 14m 21s):
So I can, her books are the same obviously. So this will be good. So yeah, email me

Carolyn W. (1h 14m 27s):
The good, the good news about, or I should say the beauty of the books is they're not written, you know, in a continuum. You, you can pick any story in any of the books and it, it stands on its own and awesome. I kind, I kind wrote

Lydia P. (1h 14m 45s):
The outhouse book.

Carolyn W. (1h 14m 49s):
The what?

Lydia P. (1h 14m 50s):
It's book.

Carolyn W. (1h 14m 52s):
Oh,

Lydia P. (1h 14m 52s):
That's where's going?

Caroline Beste (1h 14m 53s):
I love it.

Carolyn W. (1h 14m 54s):
I'm so honored that you would keep my book in your outhouse.

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 2s):
Everyone else is like outhouse you guys live.

Carolyn W. (1h 15m 4s):
No, I get that because I had a three seater outhouse in the back country and I did have a magazine rack and I did have books in it. The crew did hang out there with the double dutch door with the top one. Open

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 20s):
Out the house. Out

Lydia P. (1h 15m 22s):
The house. Here's the fancy house.

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 24s):
Oh I love it. That's nice. That fancy.

Carolyn W. (1h 15m 27s):
You walked up those three steps, you had two adult seats and you had a little child size potty and then you could leave that upper Dutch door open for light. And of course I had candles and lns in there. The big mystery to me and you know, discuss among yourselves is why would anybody go to the outhouse with another person? I never understood why there was more than one hole. I never took anybody with me. But sometimes we'd get mothers and daughters or sisters and they'd go,

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 57s):
Yeah,

Carolyn W. (1h 15m 57s):
You wanna go with me? And I'd watch them in amazement go across the yard to walk

Caroline Beste (1h 16m 2s):
Up. I'm one of those people. No, not, no problem. I have no problem going to the bathroom with the door wide open.

Carolyn W. (1h 16m 11s):
Well

Lydia P. (1h 16m 11s):
My family,

Caroline Beste (1h 16m 11s):
I learned that from my mom. I learned that from my dad. Hey, there's a lot of psychology behind that, you guys. It's very interesting. Now don't get me wrong, it's for talking. I mean I do want other things private, but sure. Come in and ask a question. Sit down on the, on the and talk to me. But when I gotta get up, leave, you know, there's some things for me that's private, but I have no problem talking to you while I'm going to the bathroom.

Carolyn W. (1h 16m 39s):
Oh my goodness. I can't even go there. Cause I'm, I'm raised in a very straight lay southern family and not only would my individual siblings and parents go into the bath, they'd lock the door and they'd make sure you did not

Caroline Beste (1h 16m 54s):
Very interesting while

Carolyn W. (1h 16m 55s):
They were doing their business. And that's kind of how I am now too, is I don't need company.

Caroline Beste (1h 17m 2s):
I love when my cats, my dogs, you know, would always, like, if the door wasn't open, they'd push it open and if the door was closed they, I would be, I'd hear, hear scratching. Cuz it's like to this day, the two kit, they're not kittens anymore but the girls, it's like none of us can go to the bathroom in my house without the damn cats screaming at the door. Cuz we're kind of all that way in my house too. It's like the door's open, bathroom's time to sit. And

Carolyn W. (1h 17m 30s):
Olivia, you're being very quiet on this topic. I think we might have podcast here.

Lydia P. (1h 17m 38s):
No, my family is open door and so are my, my cousins. We had an outhouse at my cousin's backcountry cabin and inside the door there is a and marker, beware of the lurker. And my cousin Jane and o love this story because at the age of 16 I went to spend the summer with them and every now and then my cousins would bring boys in and it's, you know, you gotta go out to bring the boys in and if we don't like them, you know, we would hope that they would go to the outhouse because the lurker is basically a hole below the toilet seat where you can stick a stick of pine needles and jam it up underneath the toilet seat and the suspect or the user of the outhouse will come flying outta the outhouse.

Lydia P. (1h 18m 33s):
Going what? Going on down there. Anyway, we had like,

Carolyn W. (1h 18m 35s):
They thought that was a spider or something like that. You mean?

Lydia P. (1h 18m 38s):
Well at the ends don't feel like a spider on your balls.

Caroline Beste (1h 18m 46s):
Oh my gosh.

Lydia P. (1h 18m 47s):
Yeah. Anyway. And we'd be rolling on the back behind the outhouse, rolling on the ground laughing as the lake, you know, and so that's what that means. Beware of the lurker.

Carolyn W. (1h 19m 4s):
Oh my gosh you guys, we've got

Lydia P. (1h 19m 6s):
Everybody had to get initiated in the outhouse. That's all there is to it. Oh

Carolyn W. (1h 19m 10s):
You guys, we've got a,

Caroline Beste (1h 19m 12s):
I love it

Carolyn W. (1h 19m 12s):
When we start outhouse stories, it's like the potty mouth really starts pot mouth,

Caroline Beste (1h 19m 22s):
No pun intended. Right. Well we do need to, I need to wrap it up ladies.

Carolyn W. (1h 19m 30s):
I love

Caroline Beste (1h 19m 31s):
It. I do

Lydia P. (1h 19m 32s):
Love you. Right.

Caroline Beste (1h 19m 34s):
Thank you. Thank you Carolyn. Thank you. Thank

Carolyn W. (1h 19m 37s):
You guys.

Caroline Beste (1h 19m 37s):
Yeah, thank you love. And so we'll get that information. Lydia's gonna leave it on the, the Facebook page. How to email Carolyn for her books. Carolyn, you're gonna get with me on sending me some information about your books so I can do a pr Well you can write that you're the PR person, how I can promote them. And then everybody join Lydia in me the 16th for our next podcast where I'm gonna be talking about pressure and release technique with horses and how it is absolutely not necessary. And how we can develop horses and train horses and do all the things we want without pressure and release.

Caroline Beste (1h 20m 20s):
We're gonna talk about the history of it, how it started and dive deep into the topic. And then I don't know if we're gonna do any podcasts for December. We might have one more guest and then we're gonna hit January with Carolyn again. So we'll do some, Yes, we'll do some juicy interviews.

Carolyn W. (1h 20m 42s):
Yeah, we're gonna, we're turn the tables. I can't wait. Take the pressure off me man. Take the pressure on.

Caroline Beste (1h 20m 49s):
I like it. This is exciting. This will be good for us. Yeah, yeah. You're getting back into it. Yeah, it'll be a nice break for you.

Lydia P. (1h 20m 58s):
Are the jewels come after and before the podcast? Not during.

Caroline Beste (1h 21m 6s):
Yeah. Good point. No,

Carolyn W. (1h 21m 9s):
Sometimes

Lydia P. (1h 21m 9s):
Stories are, Yeah. At the end. And it's beautiful. Thank you so much.

Carolyn W. (1h 21m 13s):
Yeah, you girls are pretty easy to talk to. They kind of, we, it kind of feels like we bring out the fun in each other, you know? Let's put the fun back in dysfunctional.

Caroline Beste (1h 21m 30s):
That's easy. Get sippy cup.

Carolyn W. (1h 21m 33s):
I gotta, I gotta go.

Caroline Beste (1h 21m 36s):
Have a great day.

Carolyn W. (1h 21m 39s):
Bye

Caroline Beste (1h 21m 35s):
Bye. Thank you everyone. God bless. Bye.