Born with a passion!

It's funny how some things date back as far as you can remember. When posting the pictures of the last post, I suddenly wondered: Has there ever been a time when I wasn't hooked on animals?


Cyprus 1982 - A toddler on a mission:
"Mommy - now THAT's where we're heading."


Cyprus 1983 - Too young to known that pigs are "low status" animals in most parts of the world. In my eyes, they were gorgeous!

Tunisia 1985 - when my love for Barb horses was awakened

Zinder 1987 - A rare picture of me in the background (where animals are concerned). Monkeys were definitively a little more frightening; especially those that jumped and bit. As the youngest in the family, I was also the easiest target for Sandy's hierarchical ambitions.


Zinder (Niger) 1988 - When one of the Eden volunteers got herself a dog, everybody knew where to find me...


Tjömme (Norway) 1988 - For some reason, my younger second cousin was slightly less enthusiastic about these marvelous creatures! However, today, she is a cat person, which explains it all.


Stavanger (Norway) 1990 - Always loved visiting relatives with dogs. This collie was actually a model, so I wasn't the only one who found it beautiful.


Stavanger 1990 - "Now this is tricky... Will it fly off me if I move?"


Falkenberg 1991 - Posing with Chaski, the father of Bamse. A great working dog who always asked for something to do. If there was no tennis ball in sight, he would bring whatever was available; from golf balls to rotten apples.


Zinder 2000 - Bamse, daughter of Chaski and just as intelligent. Unfortunately, with her mother being a Bernese Mountain Dog, she was little preoccupied with doing what she was supposed to and I am quite sure that in her eyes, I belonged to her and not the way around...


Zinder 2001 - Rediscovering my love for Barbs (well, that actually started in 1998)


Zinder 2002 - Moving on to new challenges, although I have made up my mind not to have my own baboon as long as I keep traveling the way I do


Niamey (Niger) 2005 - It must be universally known by now that animals make a great complement to any picture!


Zinder 2005 - It's unfortunate when you have to say goodbye though. This was the last picture of Bamse and me; she died three weeks after I left for Sweden (nearly fourteen years old). She had a good life and we had lots of fun together, but I still miss her though!

Greetings,
Ishtar

The Nigerien outback

This past week, I picked up an old passion of mine again, namely galloping in the bush! There is nothing as calming in the entire world as being about to let go of all thoughts and just race along a sandy line that keeps going for eternity. I love speed and so does my mares; the work in the outback is purely built on inspiration, which suits me just fine!

For some reason however, this season has mostly been centered around the race track and for the past few weeks, I have started to feel an urgency to get away from it all. Though the race track is full of development opportunities, it is a time-consuming business and there are too many conflicts involved. I guess when you start brining more problems home than you left behind, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't fall in love with horseback riding at the races, nor did I fall in love with racing. I fell in love with gudu (speed) and galloping in the bush and that's what makes me happy.

In the bush, I can gallop for an hour, intensive time. I do not look at my watch a single time. I do not worry about anything in the world, nor do I bring any problems along. It's just me, nature, teamwork with my horse and God. It's a simple world - a time-out from everything else - some times a treat, some times a need. I come home satisfied and smiling. Now, after all this waiting for Arwen's foal to pop out, I finally found back to my old passion this week. For three times now, Yaronbaba and I have been out on long sessions galloping in the bush. I took the vets' advice and started riding Arwen again; and for the first time since before my accident, I let her have free reins. Needless to say, after a lot of hard work Arwen was in the end satisfied; Yaronbaba was in shock because the horses worked so hard out of pure enjoyment and Sahara was happy but exhausted, having given a 110% - willingly - doing her best to keep pace with Arwen. And as for myself, I was just like Arwen; thoroughly satisfied and with a smile lasting all evening and longer...

Surprisingly, even though it's my time-out, I'm a social person and prefer going out with company rather than alone... As tomorrow is training day at the races and YB has other horses to tend to (and I prefer to stay away from the social spotlight for a while), I came up with a solution that fits us all; both YB, me and the horses. He'll come by and pick up Arwen at normal training time, and two hours later I will meet him at the track when all the work there is done and the owners are on their way back again. We will then dash into the bush for about half an hour of intensive riding. He gets to please everyone, I get to leave all my thoughts behind and the horses get to enjoy their work! Now what could be better?

Ishtar