Remembering Charisma (Cari)

Charisma (Cari) - Vicki’s first horse - at three years old.

She was half Canadian and her mom was Hackney and American Saddle Horse. Her mom was part palomino hence the blonde mane and tail.

Vicki first saw her when she was ½ hour old. Cari came to Greenbelt in June 1975 and lived there for 20 years.

Horses again…

Abra - someone was admiring her in the crossties. She is very pretty - they said. She thinks so too.

I sometimes put on her nice leather halter. It has Bishop’s name on it. I will not change it - a nice memento.

I was looking at Charisma’s (Cari’s) picture on my wall. I see it all the time.

It has been a long time that I have been involved with horses - 1965? I think.

On my Google home page I now have the aerial picture of Wal Ken Farms (check out that blog - http://walkenfarms.blogspot.com/ )

I recently changed my profile picture on Facebook from Bishop to Abra. Abra is also on my WW profile page. A horse friend admired her!

So Abra does get admired online and in real life!

Keeping memories alive

I sometimes read the EMG boards at

http://www.equiman.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm

There is interesting horse information there.

So one of the members had to have her horse put down and she is still very upset about it. She cannot let herself put together memories of him. Someone wisely said - you will do this when you are ready. That makes a lot of sense to me.

My good leather halter has a name plate for Bishop on it. I will not change it for Abracadabra or get a new one.

Bishop was still young when I got him - 3 to be exact. He was still losing his baby teeth. I found one in his feed dish. Now it is in my little purse that has my church key which I often use. I think of him when I open it.

The lovely portrait of Charisma is in my living room and I see it every day. I am so glad that I had it done.

Strange encounters of the animal kind

Charisma met a deer. I wondered why she was getting all excited when riding out one evening. The deer was in the next field. I do not know who moved faster - Charisma or the deer!


Bishop met a bunny - it just sat there in the path close to where I was riding him. They looked at each other very cautiously.


Bishop met a goat - you can read about his encounter here.
http://vickimilcahistorical.blogspot.com/2009/06/lucky-goat.html


Abracadabra met some lively squirrels who were running around in the rafters in the arena. She did not get too excited by them.


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Encounters with young foals is always interesting at a barn where moms and babies are not often seen. The young ones who are running around and being their usual lively selves gets anyone else interested.


This will be happening again early next spring. There is a mare in foal. When leading her out to the ring this morning the barn staff thought better of leading her through the narrow passageway - she might not have fit!

Charisma May 1972

Actually this set of pictures was taken in May 1972 so Cari was 3 years old.

In this one, you can see the nicely braided mane and tail that my friend did.

My mom took these pictures and she was not impressed that I was wearing my old jeans and shirt.

Charisma

Charisma at a younger age - she must have been 4 or 5 years old. She was 6 when she moved to Ottawa. This was taken at Wal Ken Farms in Lachute. I have a blown up copy done as a poster in my basement.

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When I was out visiting a horsy friend someone’s name came up in the conversation. I told my friend that I knew Mary.

I met Mary at cursillo.

Much later I found an advertisement for her as doing horse pictures. She came to Greenbelt to meet Charisma - my first horse.

She took a number of pictures both in colour and in black and white. I show these off quite often.

On my wall is a lovely black and white etching of Charisma’s head. When I took it to get it framed, they told me they would take good care of her. It does look very nice on my wall and it was nicely framed.

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The portrait is dated 1990. Charisma was 21 years old then. She lived until she was 26 - quite an old lady.

Horses in my house

A long time ago I had a formal portrait done of Charisma - Cari as she was often known. She looks a bit more formal than in this photo.

It is a black and white drawing of her head and she looks quite impressive. When I took it to get it framed, the sales person said - we will take good care of her. I liked that.

Besides the Lipizaneer pictures that my mom made, I have other horsey items in my house.

In my basement there are horse brasses and a very large picture of me and Cari.

I have one small grey horse and one small grey donkey ornament which I got when I was at Traf.

I have various dish towels with horses on them. I think that Kathi gave me all of them.

I have a stuffed horse that looks more like a giraffe. Some summer students at my work wanted to give me a stuffed horse but this was the closest that they could find. I appreciated the gesture.

Then I have some horse books and of course some horse stories on my Web site.