| Thanks for asking questions Gary,
I write a blog, but nobody asks questions, so I never know what people want to know.
I eat in all kinds of places. Sometimes in restaurants, sometimes I buy groceries, sometimes when I’m camping I cook over a fire or on my Jet Boil Stove. I eat a great variety of food, but I never eat anything I don’t love. I love fresh fish, sushi, seafood, lean meats, chicken, lamb, and occasionally an excellent rib eye steak rare. I adore ethnic food and especially spicy Indian food. I had Dim Sum for lunch today – my first real meal after my 10 day juice fast. I only choose really fresh, tasty food. Otherwise, why waste the calories?
When I feel like I’ve been overeating or overindulging (which I LOVE to do), I just fast for awhile to get my body back in balance and take off the extra weight. I have never found anything as fast, effective, and easy as the juice fasting. These days, I’m not very drawn to sugar, but I love chocolate, and keep a stash of fine truffles with me at all times! I bake my own homemade, whole grain olive walnut bread whenever I’m a guest at someone’s house. I drink a lot of pure water and herbal teas. Champagne, beer, wine, martini’s….I love em all, but in moderation and not very often. I love love love to cook and eat.
I believe it’s a healthy, succulent way to live and nourish my body, mind, and spirit. I love my current diet. It has given me the level of energy and enjoyment that I need to maintain this rough and tumble, physically challenging lifestyle I lead. Staying very active and challenging myself physically every day keeps my body fit. Yoga and horseback riding does it for me, with the added bonus of the strenuous chores involved in caring for three horses on a daily basis. I am the happiest, healthiest and strongest I have ever been in my life.
Regarding nourishing the horses, I buy horse feed at feed stores, from ranchers, and sometimes they eat what they are fed at stables where I occasionally board. I tried buying hay bales, but it was to hard to keep dry in the back of my truck and got ruined. I started out with a pick-up full of bales, but now I do it differently, and buy more often so the feed stays fresh. Also, there is a lot of waste with bales of hay. I started buying “cubed” alfalfa/oat hay, which is all the rage out here. It comes in bags and the horses love it. It’s easy to feed, carry, and transport, and costs about the same as hay bales. When I stay in a place for awhile, I buy grass hay/alfalfa mix and feed it. I just feed whatever I find, wherever I am. So far I have had no trouble finding feed. I also feed a mixture of high fat supplement, oats, and an equine senior mix. When I can find it, I buy and feed Rice Bran, because that really makes a shiny coat. My horses are very fit, and work hard for me on a daily basis. They deserve the best food I can find, and it is always the highlight of their day – as it is for me!
I have fed all kinds of other pelleted high performance feed. My horses eat whatever they get, and because they have a variety, it never bothers them to switch feed like a horse that is on a strict routine. I also vary the times I feed so they don’t stress about food coming at a particluar time. They get a lot of carrots and apples. They adore Jolly Ranchers, but that’s a special sugar treat they don’t get too often. I carried a couple bags on the Colorado trail and noticed that each horse had special favorite flavors. (Maggie only eats the green apple, Midnight likes berry, lemonade, and apple, and Magic loves them all).
I think I should write to Jolly Rancher (Hershey) and ask them to sponsor me. I could be the Juan Valdez (the coffee guy with the donkey) of Jolly Ranchers!
When I win the audition (thinking positive), I think there are sponsors that will provide a lot of feed. It’s a big part of the reason I’m trying out for the show. Big winnings are possible, and could finance a lot of my dream trip. First place is $25K….
I have decided for my freestyle portion of the audition with Maggie to perform “Equine Yoga”, which is a series of yoga stretches and poses done together that benefit horse and rider. It’s a beautiful practice and should make great photos, video, and a 45 second freestyle audition piece! I’m hoping to get some photos soon – if you’re interested I’ll send some when I have them.
Thanks for your encouragement. I’m living my dreams and following my passion and everything flows easily to me now. What a blast. What blessings!
Trish Wild Larson (73)
The Equine Nomad
Arla Hall Photo’s
Posted by Neola Kofoid Garbe
Peviously poste with message 1134 on 3/29/2011
Gary
I’ve been doing some more thinking on Vickie’s comment about Roy and Dale, and it was just a few weeks ago that Neola had a picture of her and Arla Hall, a former teacher. Arla Hall is what I would consider North Dakota’s version of Dale Evans. Arla Hall was no doubt the Queen of horse shows across the state. When Arla entered the arena in Parade class it was known that she would come out with a ribbon and more times than not she was going home with the first place trophy. I wish I had a picture of Arla in her younger horse showing days, as you could see the resemblance of her and Dale Evans, probably the biggest difference was that Arla rode palominos while Dale Evans rode Buttermilk, a buckskin.
Arla, again like Dale, always had a smile on her face. I never had the opportunity of having her for a teacher, but she was a good one, in fact she was one of a very few teachers that liked my brother Rick at that stage of his schooling(mainly because both of them being horse crazy).
The only time I can remember Arla being somewhat mad, was when the Bottineau Trail Riders came over to Dunseith and we took them on a cross country trail ride to Mineral Springs. . The trail that we had made was somewhat rugged, with crossing creeks, mud and hills that were almost straight up and down. I think it was my brothers Laurel and Earl, Garrett Myer and Dwight Lang that actually found the most difficult trail they could, I was quite young and innocent at the time. I can still remember Wilbur, Arla’s husband, backing her beautiful palomino out of the trailer. The tail was combed and almost touching the ground and the horse shined like a chunk of gold. There was a fairly large number of trail riders that showed up for the day, but the two that I remember clearly were Gary McNea and Larry Lawrence, who kind of fit in with the style of riding we liked. We crossed the creeks on the run, splattering anyone that was going through slow, rode down the steep banks that most led their horses down, and came shooting out of the trees on a dead run, hootin and hollerin like a bunch of wild renegades(I believe that was the term Arla had used on Gary and Larry at their next meeting) but most of us had a great time. They never did ask us to plan another trail ride, I wonder why.
Still today if I see a beautiful palomino or a picture of a pretty gal on a palomino horse I think of Arla Hall, because in my eyes, Arla is still the Queen of the Cowgirls in North Dakota.
Joke of the day:
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