Goodbye Flag is Up

My last day at Flag is up went by so fast I can barely recall the details. I'm writing this on Wednesday, having spent several days in transit.

On Sunday morning after checking in for my flight and sorting various other travel details I went down to the stables to find Monty at work in the round pen. He was working with Bold and Brave, a lovely big race horse who had been written off as vicious and impossible to lead and was banned from the race track. Monty saw him as a lovely horse who was just phobic and in need of help. He had been working with Bold and Brave only a few weeks and already was achieving things that had been deemed impossible, including leading him from another horse.

How vicious does this horse  look?

If only the rest of the world would catch up to Monty's methods of starting and training horses then he would probably have very few cases like this to deal with. A horse doesn't just become phobic for no reason, there's always something that has happened to make it so, whether or not the owner of the horse is aware of what it is. Watching Monty work with this horse reminded me that I wanted to tell anyone that's reading this that there is so much more to his methods than the Join-Up itself. To use a building metaphor, Join-Up is a strong and level foundation, but it's not the house. Lots of people talk about using Monty's techniques but in reality they are talking about doing Join-Up and nothing else.

The Equus Online University is a fantastic way to find out more about this, it's really well worth the small subscription price and makes learning feel easy and enjoyable - and no, I'm not being paid to say that, I just think that the more people learn about Monty's methods the better, for the sake of the horses and people too.

The lesson appears to be working

Monty helping the horse to learn to trust

Firmness is sometimes necessary to help the horse's

intrinsic learning, but never violence or pain

Good Follow-Up on foot as well as horseback demonstrates that  Monty is using the right language - the language of the horse

After a quick lunch and with only a few hours left Pat took me out for the whistle-stop tour of the Santa Ynez Valley including the Danish town of Solvang along with its  Santa Ynez, Los Olivos  (I've linked to sets of images on Flickr as I only had time for a few snatched photos out of the car window). Is that what they mean by 'drive-by shooting'?

Solvang Features many Windmills

Both large and small

And many storks on Roof-tops

The Mission Santa Inés dates back to 1804 - very old by American standards 

One of the Stations of the Cross - the first outdoor Stations I've come across

Original Building in the small town of Santa Ynez

Window detail that caught my eye

Young Deer

Following the tour there was just enough time to have one last ride on Celebrity who seemed very reluctant, maybe he'd had enough exercise earlier in the day or maybe he was picking up on my feelings of reluctance.

Then it was time to finish packing up and say my bad goodbyes (I'm really not good at doing this, often preferring to just quietly disappear though that wasn't an option here). I was hoping that there would be some deer when I went up to the house to pack and I wasn't disappointed. I think I might have accidentally left my camera set on macro which may explain the slightly odd look of these pictures, but I quite like it.

Mamma Deer

Pat took me to the bus stop after bit of confusion about where the bus stopped had been resolved and Debbie who was en route to Flag is Up was waiting there to say goodbye, which was a big bonus for me.

The bus was a little bit late but soon I was loaded up and on my way. I had taken precautions this time so managed to get all the way to my hotel without any emergency trips to the on-board toilet. I even managed to make use of the on board wi-fi.

King Size bed with adjustable mattress

The Raddison turned out to be quite nice, certainly in comparison to British Hotels and their idea of what is an accessible room i.e. rooms with such narrow doorways I can barely get my scooter in and then there's no place to put it without it being in the way. As I had asked for an accessible room I had a wider doorway and lots of space in the room - enough to be able to turn the scooter around. I also had a huge king size bed with a special mattress not present in regular rooms that can be adjusted, using a remote control, from very soft to super firm. It ain't all bad being a crip.


My only complaint would be that most of the staff smelled like they had just sprayed themselves with very chemical after-shave/ perfume just seconds before I encountered them. I know I have an olefactory hypersensitivity but even so the smells must have been pretty strong, then again most people actually like that kind of thing. Perhaps the fact that I'd been in a place where unnatural smells weren't present played some part in it as well. I also noticed a sign on the wall at the back of the hotel where I was waiting for the airport shuttle the next morning that warned about chemicals present in the building and how they could be dangerous to certain groups of people - I wish I'd taken a picture because I can't recall the details now, just that it seemed a very peculiar thing.

It felt odd to be in the big hotel room on my own after two weeks being around people most of time, and strange to look out of the window and see a set of huge colour changing columns rather than the deer quietly grazing on the grass. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't just left such an amazing and idyllic place and such genuine lovely and caring people.

Here's my goodbye to Flag is Up Farms and everyone I met there.

From Morning Mists

To Evening Sunsets

From Birds,

To dogs

To big flowers 

Little flowers 

and Prickly Flowers

From Lizards

to Deer

to Horses,

and Horsemen

And Horsewomen

It's been a beautiful time with lovely, lovely people

And I don't know how to say thank you enough. So I'll just say over and out for now...

and Monty, this one's for you.