All about my horses!

Monthly Archives: April 2011

Big Pipe Dream Plan

The original plan was to magically write a book this past winter, magically get it published and to be paperback bound in time for the Missouri Fox Trotter World Celebration.  It would also hit the shelves and earn me a million dollars, force me to retire,  write more books, build a million dollar indoor arena and to hire Tony and Jenny Vaught to be my personal horse trainers.

I told you that the book started taking over and demanding to write its self. Then I learned that it actually takes time to write all these words, even though I have many of the story outlines in my blog.

Then I became rudderless.  I had no idea where the book was going, what central theme it would have and what would be the ending.

I have a son, Nathan Granner, who has been a professional singer for many years.  He’s had to find his way out in the world to market himself.  Last winter he was awarded a Florida three month free housing grant so that he could write an opera.  Other artists were there also. Some of them were authors.  They became close friends. In Kansas City, he started teaching a course called Artist Inc.

So we had a meeting in an upscale bar that did not serve something so simple as rum and coke. I grew up on rum and cokes (in college)! I was forced to drink floozy drinks. We chatted about my book.

Near the end, he determined that I needed to figure out what the final chapter was to be before I could finish writing the book.  “Once you know what the end chapter is, the middle parts of the book will be easier.  You’ll have a path.  It will take you a long time to figure out the end, but you will!”  I wobbled out of the floozy bar and have pondered since then. 

My son also at one point called me an artist.

I am an artist!  What a concept!

I have now figured out the end chapter and am just about to start writing it.

I figure maybe around Celebration 2012, my big rich author dream will come true.  Make friends with me now, while I’m poor!  Get your Missouri Fox Trotters ready to sell around spring of 2013! That’s when all the aging baby boomers will read the book and be ready to buy a fox trotter!

Or, I can buy the winning lottery ticket!

Powder’s Progress

Powder Beauty - April 2011

 Powder is with Tony and Jenny Vaught for her start. (Both Tony and Jenny took two Young Horse Development clinics with Pat Parelli and Ronnie Willis before they had to drop out of the program.) And you know that my horses are gaited. Gait is forever on a gaited horse owner’s mind. Tony said he had been riding Powder about a week or so.

 I gulped and thought, here’s the moment to ask…. “How’s her gait?” I said. Tony didn’t answer for a few seconds. I thought he might say the awful pace word. Finally he replied, “Slow”.

 Slow is good. Slow is the opposite of reactive and bolting. Slow is left brain. I like slow as an answer!

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