Hop, Skip and a few rides, through Australia

Something’s getting old…like this place, the chores and work, its nothing new and I quite like it, but there is no reward. I scoop poop so I can ride, I wash horses because then I can ride, or with them. I don’t enjoy all the chores for nothing. Im not really getting any experience in what I need either. My host is so wrapped up in financial and dog stuff she hasn’t shown me any training or riding. So im not even working towards my class. I tried to ask for a day off to work on school work and she ignored me! Maybe it was the three glasses of wine consumed earlier, and the fourth on its way down…but still, im a little sick of all this. Experience in horse maintenance is not what I am here for. That is something I can always find a place to learn. But it’s too late to move now, and I will be content to stay here for a week or so before returning to the US. Suffice to say I am not entirely satisfied with this trip to Australia, I will have to return to make it more worth it. A lot of other people come here to work for a year, since the exchange rate is so good, so that might be a possibility, but I want to go on a greater adventure! Something like my teacher who worked on a cattle ranch for 6 months! Hard work with rewards and dirty living. Here I still feel sheltered. I am happyist out on a horse, working long hours and working ranch life. Early mornings and cold adventures, knowing I am doing something meaningful. My months at the ranch are my fondest memories of Prescott so far. Maybe I was meant to be a ranchers wife? Maybe that’s where I will go. Out beyond worries of modern life, and out beyond worries of how well I know a skill or how am I using my degree. I doubt my mom will be very fond of my goal, and at the same time I am a bit startled by my wish to go out and live a heavy country life. What am I doing in school then if I would travel in a diffent direction?
These are the thoughts wondering through my head as i scoop piles and piles of horse poo, from one corner to another. Morning after morning, evening and afternoon. Too many thoughts to stay in my head, they need an outlet, to form into reality. I have found myself turning to written word and expressing myself though that on this trip. I have nearly finished a journal, which I write in without fail every day 5-10 pages. Hoping to carry this habit back home with me, but we’ll see!
Its’ taken several days to write this blog entry, simply because I have not has much to say! Why fill this page with empty words? Mostly for you my family whoa re reading this in the past and wishing I was already home. It must be torture to hear me moan and complain about my time here. But i planned this trip and I must experience it. Looking forward as always to the plane ride home where I will have all the freedom to reflect on my adventure. I find solace in the clouds as they drift behind the mental wings. Untouchable, unreachable. Whatever goes on beneath me is none of my concern, nothing to trouble me. Only my thoughts hold meaning and only my mind for company. I can imagine the wind down on earth, and the rain brushing past my face when dark clouds thunder quietly beneath me. I can be anyone, stretched so high and thin up here, I can be a student. Or a bird. Or a rock at the top of a mountain, watching the world shift beneath and wonder at the complexity of all of it.
My hands have grown dry and sharp. Covered in scabs and scratches form wood and ropes. Five pale blisters slowly heal from handeling the rake everyday. My feet ace from adjusting to new rain boots. The mud here would rot my cowboy boots to mold within a day. So I wear wellies, and think of my cold feet, or my cold hands scratching a nearby horse to find warmth under a fluffy coat. Cold flower petals drift through the breezeway of the barn, sometimes I think it is snow, but other times I think I should get my rake back out. During quiet moments, I can slip away to the river sunken beside the mountain. Moving with deep throbbing movements it meanders beyond existence at the farm and into new places. From the mountains and the to the ocean. Where I too will journey in soon to be a few days. Do platypus lurk just underneath? Or strange snakes and insects? The kookaburra laughs daily, I can hear him morning and night. But I am thankful for his call, because without his laughing I would still be at my last place. Without someone to point out the situation I would not have thought to look beyond. Its good to be the point of humor in someone else’s eyes. Especially your own.
I wonder what my memories of Australia will be? What will stand out the strongest for me in the months and years to come? Will I remember fondly, or think what a waste? Will I return here as I so fondly wish? I haven’t found what I was looking for on this trip, and another one must be in order until I am satisfied. How can I really see a country then, if this methods leaves me so unsatisfied? I wonder, and I will wonder still as my place drifts off back in time…
My days here are drawing to a close, and my entry’s are thus getting sorter and more abstract, less on my experiences. When I do more, I will write about it, and when I do nothing, I will leave this place silent. Don’t worry, My time in Sydney will be sure to ignite a new story. And I have a week and a half left here to inspire new activities. As always, I miss my family and friends so much, even if it’s another few months until I see you I person, I know you are thinking of me, and I am always dreaming of you.

A day, a new family,

Last night I gorged myself on curry and pear cake, while watching Australia’s next top model. Sound fabulous? Because it very well damn it! This new place is almost beyond words, I watched peacocks flair their tails at cats and horses graze along a river bank. I chatted with three other helpers (2 from the UK, 1 from Germany) and felt at peace for the first time since I have been here. That moment at the train station where I held my future in the balance of whether the railroad clerk would switch the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open’, while earlier in the day as I stood on the side of the road after being thrown out of the house, brought to the wrong bus stop and left in the rain I debated on whether to go onward or not. If it was worth it to see if this new place was free from the poison of those wretched people. This is my blog, so I can be nasty…but I am not letting them cling to me, so I will be quick. After calling and bitching about me to my future host, and then refusing to bring me to the bus stop (it was only 20 ft. down the road for god’s sake!) I felt quite justified in leaving early, though the conversation surrounding my announcement was quite appalling…you really find out about people when you make them mad, and this couple held a lot of spite in them. Which all came out on me! But while I let my resentment burn away, I am creating a truthful review for the website, so that no one else has to go through the verbal abuse I went through. I came there to work, if you don’t give me a job and then call me lazy, whose fault is it?
I’m tired of bitching about memories I would sooner forget. The point is, I am free, in a new place with new people. And despite rosemarys best efforts, no bias towards my character. My new host has taken me in, given me a clean slate and asked me to work. She might have some rough spots, but she is never hard, and never so pointy that you bleed upon contact. Why, we make cake everyday! (I made butter cake tonight) and can go into town in her car whenever we want. Best of all, I have been working with her horses without any scrutiny, any yelling, and stress! Its true she has another unique system of working with them, but it’s less crazy and I think I can work with it, as well as learn from it. But today my morning job was to groom three horses (who haven’t been near a brush in a looooooooooong long time, I looked like cousin it when I was done!) and then feed the peacocks! The work doing here is so..easy, make food, care for horses, do some training, learn her style. Pet all the dogs and kittens and bunny. Feed some more animals and people. Sleep! Watch some tv and read a good book. I don’t feel like im working so much as going through everyday living.
As different as this place is form the last, it is still not home. I am still working and living by someone else’s rules and systems. More than ever it clearly defines my desire to be able to learn on my own and live on my own. Not to be done learning but to at least learn my own way of working with horses without someone to tell me I am wrong. Or overlook me. The way I have presented myself in this has left me lacking in respect form any fellow horseperson. And made me seem like a youngin who doesn’t know anything; this is true to some extent, but I still get tired of hearing it. I take what learning I can every day, and discard what doesn’t sit well with me, after giving it fair consideration. I am busty using my free time for class, and reanalyzing why I am here, what I am doing here, and what will I do with my experience from here. Loads of fun I tell you. Though as the days pass into night I always grow just a little homesick, proof mostly that I am still not feeling 100% myself, not able to throw myself into this world and experiences. In the past it has been quite easy to abandon thoughts of home and live in the moment. But here I am unable, for the most part to do that. Which is no great sorrow, I am still enjoying myself and having fun, im am just eager to return home and resume life. Definitely not going to be moving across the world for permanent anytime soon.

so not much this week, I will work on something more while i am working away, more about the parrots and trees and beautiful things around me, its spring here and the weather is warm and cold, occasional rain and lots of flowers. Sometimes I sit in the garden and watch the flowers drift past in the breeze, and think on my future, and what it will bring me. more distance form family? more trials and hard times im certain, but here I can build an attitude to deal with whatever may come and what might not come. but those are thoughts for later! tonight I am tired, full of cake and ready for an early sleep.
My love to you all, back in the US, and know that I am thinking of you with longing and can’t wait to see you. your comments make me feel loved, and I love hearing form everyone. Grandma, Grandpa hank I miss you,

ALL MY LOVE!