Put me back to sleep...Jack

I still have the hat...and just bought some more cowboy boots

Poco Hijack - the horse, that is. Last night I woke up dreaming I was trying to fix a PowerPoint. Because - you guessed it - that's what I needed to do at work today. Unfortunately, once awake, I began obsessing (just a little bit) about it.

So in order to put myself back to sleep - I needed to think of something else. Something calming. Thanks to Jennifer Deter's recent Facebook post about aging cowgirls, where a bunch of former Atlantic cowgirls reminisced about riding horses around town, I've had my horse Jack on my mind recently. I decided to think about a day in my life, taking care of Jack.

His full name was Poco Hijack - out of Poco Bueno and High Life Beauty. He was a Registered Quarter Horse. I was proud of that fact, and loved looking at his papers. I got him as a three-year old, when I traded in my mare Frosty in for him. I bet you didn't know you can trade horses in like cars. The people I bought her from in Yale, Iowa (with Wayne Rodger's help) wanted her back - so they offered Jack to me (plus we had to pay some cash, since he was registered an all). That winter we took him to Les Walker, a horse trainer in Bondurant, which wasn't contiguous with DSM back then.

A group of people in Atlantic were pretty forward thinking - they decided to build a condominium for horses. Mostly it was Wayne Rodgers and Ron Guttenfelder it was on his land) - but they rounded up some more investors, who included Leroy Nelson and me. I'm drawing a blank on others. I received a bit of cash when my mom's parents passed away so I used that money.

The place is a steel building with an small indoor arena. It has eleven stalls - six with outdoor runs - a place for the ponies to step outside, and five indoor only. There is a wide center aisle that I think was asphalted. Wayne hooked old leather straps to wooden posts on each side of the aisle so one could hook a horse up to groom him. There is a small tack room next to a hallway to the arena and the saddle room. Above the stalls there is a storage area for small bales of sweet smelling of alfalfa hay. Above the walkway, a hinged door was built so you can drop the bales through to the floor. In my day, one of the stalls held oats and bags of Bright Eyes feed from Walnut Grove, where Wayne was the General Manager.

Before I could drive myself, my mom or my sis Cindo used to drop me off at "the barn" as we called the condo. Even if I didn't have time to hang out with my fave guy, Jacko, I had to feed him each night - 1 flake of hay and a quarter of a coffee can of oats. There was a guy named Dean (yeah - that's another owner) who fed in the mornings. I paid him $.25 a day. That was my first experience with a checkbook and at being responsible to pay for something.

Working with Jack was so relaxing. Even cleaning the stall. Little did I know that I was recycling back then - using sawdust as bedding, and dumping the dirty stuff into a spreader for Ron's fields. We got an electric waterer - heated so it wouldn't freeze up. It still needed to be cleaned periodically. The best part was grooming. I was thinking about my tools - the wide flat leather brush, the aluminum mane and tail comp, and that thing we used when they were shedding - a long serrated blade with leather handles. It was perfect to scrape off his dead winter coat. And the hoof pick, to clean the crap out of his feet - taking care not to damage the frog - that's the tender part in the middle.

As I said, Jack was a youngster when I first got him. I was a bit scared of him! After his trip to Les Walker's, he was much better behaved. And once he and I settled in - we were fast friends. He was quite a character. One time at a horse show in Audubon he not only ate ice cubes, but a french fry! I liked to take him carrots and apples. Outside the barn there was a "loafing" area where I could turn Jack out while I totally cleaned his stall. Sometimes I would just lay on his back with my head on his butt, thinking teenaged thoughts while Jack grazed.

I didn't even start to think about riding Jack last night, when I fell asleep. What a joy it was to have a horse like Jack. I have been blessed in my life with many wonderful people who helped me - my parents who supported me in my desire to have a horse, my grandparents who made it financially possible and Wayne and others at the barn who helped me care for the horse. That big animal taught me a great deal.