You never quite know what is going to motivate you. When my Dad was sick, health suddenly became important to me. I was afraid of losing my Dad too soon, and was afraid my own odds had just changed rather dramatically. I didn’t know then what I know now. Education and learning the statistics really empowered me. In today’s video, I share a bit more about what I learned:
One of the very first things I learned, once I had decided to try to understand the role of the food we eat in our health and our lives, was that certain foods contain enzymes. Specifically, raw, unprocessed, unchanged-from-their-original-state plants, seeds, berries, nuts, etc. contain enzymes.
While enzymes aren’t nutrients, per se, they are the catalysts which enable or prevent almost every chemical reaction on the planet. When they are in our food, in abundance, our bodies don’t have to work very hard to digest food. When our food is cooked, processed, and otherwise altered, the enzymes are gone, and our bodies have to come up with 100% of the energy to break the food down, extract the nutrients, and make them available to the degree that they can.
This is all exhausting! One reason you might be tired is simply that your body is using 50% of it’s energy to digest what you eat. That’s not a very good return on the investment of your time, energy and resources!
In this video, I share a bit more about this topic – I’d love to hear if you’ve learned about enzymes and raw food and what your experiences have been:
Today was my day to do a bit of running around, picking up more produce, so that I have some things on hand to get the ball rolling in the right direction. In this short video, I explain the focus of my efforts with my food! Enjoy!
Jen
Perhaps it is the time of year, or my heightened awareness of my own mortality, or my two young horses developing really well, such that I want to be my fittest and also look good in my show coat next Spring – whatever the reason, I find myself ready to truly implement, at a more impactful level, what I know about food and eating and prevention and health.
I’ll be doing a series of videos, posting them here and sharing on FB and IG (once I figure out the tech) and I invite you to join me on my journey, if you are finding yourself in a similar spot, or simply want to be a voyeur 😉
Here is the link to my first video, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas and stories:
Arabella has been transatlantic at least twice that we know of. One of her trips was in the 50’s, and her then-owner hired a photographer to be a part of the crew and journal the summer. He then has a set of three albums made from a compilation of the photos. We have seen these albums at Mystic Seaport Museum, but unbeknownst to us, each of the guys aboard received a set of these albums.
Here’s the fun part! The daughter of one of them found her Dad’s set of albums in and amongst his things. Rather than just throw them out, she decided to do a quick Google search and see if Arabella was still around, and if there was a current owner. There was and there is! She found this site, apparently, and then emailed Henry. We PayPal’d her postage, and the albums arrived in less than a quick! Here are some of my favorite pics:
I’m traveling over this Christmas break, and so I’m away from Rudi for a couple of weeks. This isn’t an issue, since its wintertime, he was recovering from an abscess when I left, and he needed time to just heal. However, since being out here, I ran across a post on Facebook, which blew my mind.
For a long time, I’ve been hearing about how important it is that the horse be able to make a heel-first landing. I’ve also learned from watching this incredible video by a veterinarian (who is an amazing educator), that most horses have thrush, and we should be assuming our horse has thrush to one degree or another. Here is her talk, aptly entitled ‘Is the Hoof Smart?’:
http://www.thehorse.com/videos/34609/is-the-hoof-smart-adaptability-of-the-equine-foot
After watching this video, I realized that those thin cracks up in between the heel bulbs, albeit small, were holding thrush and were causing a measure of soreness for Rudi. So, I have started diligently treating for thrush.
Then I found this post on Facebook by Sound Hoof Trimmer, and she posted the graphic below:
When I compared that to the photo I happen to have on my phone out here with me on my Christmas travels, I realized Rudi also doesn’t have enough hoof at the back of his hoof. Now, I have had people share with me, both freely and also via paid advice, that he needed to grow some more hoof. Several people have even mentioned the heel buttress. But I had no frame of reference, and so a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Until I saw this very detailed graphic, I just didn’t have any comprehension of what the back of his feet should look like. Without this structure, imagine how uncomfortable it would be to land on the heel?
I am now quite anxious to return and see what his feet look like, currently. The mind doesn’t see what it isn’t looking for, and I haven’t been looking for these structures, so there may be more heel buttress there than I’m remembering. I haven’t trimmed anything off for quite a while, so I’m optimistic. The picture posted at the top of this is from August, and I’m hopeful that there’s been some significant growth since then, but I honestly can’t remember.
Go take a look at your horse’s feet today – I’d love it if you’d post and share what the heel bulbs and heel buttresses look like. I’m happy to share how I’m treating the thrush, too – just comment below and I’ll connect with you on the details.
Thanksgiving is next Thursday (a week away) and my mind is still thinking it’s August. Time truly is relative and definitely moves at different speeds, at different times. So much has happened over the past 6 months, that were I to write it all out, no one would believe me.
One of the topics on that list is Rudi’s feet. Suffice it to say that after a disappointing Summer, thinking I would be able to back Rudi, I am now the one doing his feet myself, and I might, perhaps, be able to back him next Spring or Summer (but the jury is still out on that).
I do agree with Napoleon Hill (of “Think and Grow Rich” fame), that every adversity brings with it the seed of an equal or greater opportunity. And so it is, with Rudi’s feet. The program I had been following ended up causing more issues (abscesses in both front feet, vet calls, more pain for Rudi), instead of creating solutions. But I guess I needed that extreme situation in order to step up to the plate and be willing to take over the care myself.
I am learning, through reading Pam Grout’s amazing series of books, E Cubed and E Squared, to look at everything which transpires in every day, and say “Awesome!”.
being able to respond with “Awesome!” to everything which happens is certainly a new skill, and there is very little cultural support for this perspective, but I’m kind of used to functioning without cultural support, because of our business. (If you don’t know our business, we are on the cutting edge of food: we have encapsulated produce and vertical aeroponic gardens, so that people can get more produce easily). In my work, every day, I face the challenges of being on that cutting edge, and it apparently is a space where either I feel most comfortable or I am attracted to, because I am there with Rudi and his care and rehabilitation, too.
Currently, I am letting his feet grow in very different ways than we had been doing before. I’m not following any one system, but instead, reading and researching a variety of approaches and then applying what will apply, to his particular feet.
Fortunately, I have been able to spend quite a bit of time just training him, and this, too, is another seed of equal or greater opportunity: Frankly, I know myself. If he had been sounder sooner, I would have skipped a lot of this basic ground training, hopped right on him, and started training him under saddle the way I’ve always ridden and trained.
This time, I have been forced to wait out weeks, actually months, until some modicum of soundness has returned, and that has made me look for other things we could work on together. As a result, we’ve got a much better connection on the ground that I have ever had with any other horse, and it has shown me that much more should be established before I even consider climbing up on his back.
So this next few months will be spent developing my skills (and his) with in-hand work. Thanks to my former trainer, Peter, I’ve done a lot of in-hand work, but mostly using long lines. This time, I will be working up close, with a short line off of a cavesson. I have so many bridles, that I took one bridle to a shoe repair shop, with my old lunging cavesson (which never fit ANY horse well) and I’m having the hardware taken off of the lunging cavesson and put onto the bridle cavesson. That way, I will have the ability to use an outside rein while using the cavesson ring on the front of the bridle. It should allow things to be much lighter, and keep me from creating too many problems.
Rudi does understand the whole concept of training now, which is also very helpful. Rewards are a part of the deal for him, as they should be, but even without treats, he is into trying to figure out what we are doing on any given day. He likes to work, he likes to move, and he also is enjoying discovering that he is quite the athlete. Its going to be a great journey!