An open letter to Ellen Degeneres

Dear Ellen,

Last year my family suffered a irreplaceable loss. Our Grandfather, Laurie Newman, lost his courageous battle with lung cancer. And when I say courageous, I mean right down to the bone stubborn, faced down the biggest challenge of his life with that sense of humor that all that new him new and, like all who ever met Pa, loved. This man was everybody's father, everybody's grandfather and he would treat all equal despite our mixed ideas and shortcomings. Once you made that transition from 'friend' to 'family' you were destined to stay there, even if he could never quite remember your name.

Standing right next to pa during his battle were his three children Colin, Carol and Barbara (who is my Mum). Each of his kids and his grand kids had to all come to terms with the fact that this illness was, inevitably going to be the thing that brought him undone. We are talking about a man who, the day after having a massive heart attack, was released from hospital and pushing a trailer around the front yard - in his 70's!! Tough. My mother, who lives on the isolated Island - Kangaroo Island  - where Pa has called home for the past up teem years took on the roll of - translator, Councillor, nurse, driver, confider, spokes person, bad news bearer, good news bearer - well you get the idea. Over the two and a half years that Pa was sick Mum was right there, in the scary moments, the panicked moments, the private moments, the proud moments, the funny moments and the darkest moments. For that our family is so completely thankful to her. She pushed her life aside, pushed being a daughter aside and grabbed the bull by the horns, so to say to help guide Pa through his journey. Now my mother has survived cancer. Twice. And the last time she was sick, she was sick. As sick as Pa was. Me and my brother were terrified to lose our mother. So she knew a thing or two about what Pa was living through.  And,  10 years later the stubborn woman is thankfully still here! (love ya guts Mum x)

Now us Newman's are a family of  survivors. I won't go to far into it but believe me, we pull through, every time. And we do not need money (well we all need money but we all make do and get by) we have enough of what we need. But if possible we could all use a hand in a little project that was inspired by our Pa.

Cancer leaves you feeling helpless and hopeless. It is such a dark, negative force and honestly it scares the shit out of me. If I hear the word, I instinctively hold my breath. It has played such a big part in my life for so many years. Now I don't like feeling like this.

So I decided to do something positive, before Pa passed away, something to keep me busy and feel like I was contributing something positive in a hopeless time. I proudly told Pa, I'm gonna ride my horse from one town to another and raise money. He laughed, shook his head and for the one millionth time told me "why waste your time with those horses?"  My standard answer "They make me happy". Then, much too soon Pa passed away. I am dealing with my grief with action. My action is called "The Cowell To Cummins Trek" and will see me ride three horses (one at a time of course, I mean I'm clever but not THAT clever) through a town called Cowell through to Port Lincoln and up to Cummins (all which can be found on google maps) on the lovely Eyre Peninsula, where I have lived for the past six years all in memory of Pa. We drove the 'trek' the other day and it's amounts too 255kms, which is less than we thought it was! We made a decision to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service which is, well as it says it's a medical plane equipt with a doctor. For us in isolated areas (or the country or bush as we Aussies call it) they are a service that we just could not do without. The thing about the RFDS is that they are not Government funded, they run solely on money raised for them by the community's. Everywhere.

Like I said, we don't need money but these guys do. If you could in anyway help us in our mission to raise $10,000 for the RFDS, I would be so thankful. Because apparently getting myself and three horses super fit, organizing events and trying to drum up sponsors is a HUGE amount of work. Lucky I have such a great team standing with me. But I won't go into that right now because I think I have taken long enough to get to the point but believe me - these people rock! And you can read back on my blog to learn all about them.
We can be found on Facebook (Cowell to cummins trek) or Twitter (Cowell2Cummins).

Thank you for your time Ellen and thank you for helping to keep the smile on my face

On behalf of the Newman Family

Ebony Newman

And then the train came....

So it's the beginning of a huge week for the Trek team, Joe is back from the Rodeo and all enthused to test my fitness. And here I was thinking I was half fit - untill i jumped on the Deadly Treadley to "smash" out 10kms...more like grunt and groan and muscle burn my way through 7kms...and not a meter more!Half fit my arse. So now I am begrugingly adding the bike to my regime and having to bump the mile for me and the critters to 30kms a day. Oh joy!
My day started at 5am and by 5.15 I was thinking I would take woggie out for a lap on his own. by 5.30 I had decided to take Buck and Woggie out - it was still pitch black and Woggie was decidedly on his toes, waiting to see which monster would jump out of that bush over there !! LOL. Neverless we all settled into our work and were cruising along quiet nicely...that is untill I heard THAT sound. A train. Coming quick. Shit shit shit. Now I have met many a train on this track but never have I met one in the dark...well dawn by now really...everything was hazy and shadows were mistaken for bushes and bushes were mistaken for shadows - u get the picture. A quick look around confirmed that there was nowhere to go but forward so- we just kept trotting (u know I could hear Dory in my head "just keep swimming"....haha) Suddenly the train was there and I had to fight the urge to collect up Buck and hang on him (haha bit nervous by now). Shit this train was hoofing along! Carraiges were squealing (well thats not what they sound like but unless u've heard it before its hard to explain...) horses ears were pricked and.....nothing....we just kept trotting. Pays to have a little faith in your critters because yes, in the dark every bush holds a monster but a train is still just a train...something we see everyday. Buck tossed his head while I promised him extra tucker and rubbed Woggies neck, ya know 'cuz they did a good thing lol. He seemed to be sayin' "geeze woman - what do u think I am? A friggin idiot? Now lets get home so we can eat!!" Amen to that.
So we carried on, got to our last little stretch of road on the way home, stepped around the big pepper tree and OMG...A MONSTER!! No wait, it's just a man and his dog....Buck kept his head heading for home while we wrangled Woggie back into the fold as he was heading back after that train...which was less scary than the man and his dog. Oh my...the things that test us ;)

Untill next time

"When in doubt - ride on" - Joe Cooper

Ebs x

Doesn't time fly...!

G'day Ya'all. Hell, doesn't time fly! And haven't I been a slack little duck!!! Anywho....we have been crazy mad busy here at the "Trek" team. January has been a month of hard work, mis-organisation (on my behalf of course :) ) and a decision to throw making plans out the window. (three times now we have made plans to travel to Cowell to map out this damned ride and three times our plans have been foiled! So Joe put his foot down and said "No more") So now we 'wing' it! 

Firstly, I'd like to welcome Miss Erin Keough to the team. Having a strong background in event organising (yay) it is needless to say she has been a exceptionally helpfull (and organised !) member of our team. She is also an absolute fire cracker who is loving being involved with these critters (well at least, we hope she does...you do doncha ya??! ;0) )

 

Erin @ The Tunarama Parade yesterday (28/1/2012)

Joes teaching adventures and my learning curve has continued throughout Jan with more shoes needed tacking onto horses. Hell, this is a service I will forever happily pay for forever and a day!! Needless to say all three boys, Woggie, Buck & Tripper are now proudly sporting four shoes each ( and only 1 fell off!!!) Joe introduced me to "Cut those damn clinches off AS SOON AS you get the nail in girl..." that advice came a second too late as my hand now wears the scar as said horse snatched his hoof away! And I have introduced Joe to a all new, most unimproved way of swearing. Yes, I can run an endless string of swearwords with a mouthfull of nails, be audiable and not loose a nail...a skill i'm humbly, quietly proud off. 

Joe and Myself, not after a shoeing lesson LOL

The horses are working well, Woggie has stepped up to the odd 20km trott out with ease. I swear the horse is a machine! He is a very loud, demanding machine at that...hell he WILL let you know when he's hungry. And you'd better get him that tucker before he finds that second octave! He has settled into the yards and become, as we say, part of the furniture. he has 'claimed' the two small yards (which open into one big one) out the back. And when I say claimed, I mean these yards are his! Buck wandered in one afternoon and was told, with hooves and teeth - "GET OUT!". And theres no worry of the horse running away, we have many times let him out into the big yard to have a wander around for a few hours and the horse has a stroll around, checks for any food, swiftly turns on his heels and marches back into HIS yard. So we thought we'd get tricky. We shut the gate- haha Woggie, now u have to stay out. Well, Woggie was p!ssed. Proper P!ssed. He stood at that gate (judging by the pile of shit) for hours and dug until we let him in. So Joe made the executive decision to let him be. Bloody bush horses, what would we do without them!

Buck and Tripper just had their big public "debut" at the Port Lincoln Tunarama Parade yesterday. After Joe and myself prepped our team of helpers (thank you so much everyone ya'all know who you are!!!!! x) as to how silly, naughty and on their toes these horses we're going to be (we even had an escape plan - if Buck plays up, drop the tailboard and put him in the float. Joe was standing for no crap today!) We got to the oval to line up and Buck (normally 14.2 hh) grew to  16hh in seconds! and he stayed that for a good half hour, eyes boggling at all the floats. Tripper, normally 16.2hh grew to a massive 17hh, towering over the lovely ladies tending to him. Neverless, he decided it was all to hard, came back down to his 16.2hh and put his head down, ate happily and ignored the whole show. Not bad for a four year old! In the end I rode Tripper in the parade and needless to say these horses, hands down, made absolute total and utter liars of us. And you couldn't wipe the smiles of our faces!! 

My lovely Mum has been visiting this week and being a paparazzi in the making, has taken some cracker pics for us! She has also been flat out running around for me which I think has not so quietly been driving her mad but shes a trooper. Thank you Mum, it';s been lovely having you :0) xoxoxox

I would like to thank our fab sponsors, Pringles Ag Plus, Dempseys saddlery, Cummins Hotel, Cummins IGA, Mystic On Eyre, EP Dogz, Hair razors, Hair reflections, Port Lincoln Hotel & Allure Beach retreat. And to anyone who has donated THANK YOU. I heard a whisper we have just passed $3000 and with 8 weeks to go, I'm hopefull we can raise $10,000 for the RFDS. 

For me, It's back to battle 40+ heat, a 50km ride that Joe is (quietly a little worried for me I think) planning for next weekend, Bum blisters (wrong undies in the wrong jeans - hope to never make THAT mistake again) and of course Trains, wild life and silly silly car drivers. On a serious note, please pass on to everyone to SLOW DOWN around horses on the roads, we have been passed on a dirt road at 100kms an hour more than once and it scares the shit outta me to think that these people may be passing inexperienced kids at this speed. People and horses get hurt, or much worse just because people won't slow down. Thank you to all of those wonderfull people who do, you make the roads safer. To those who don't SLOW THE F!CK DOWN, life is TOO Precious. 

have a lovely few weeks and untill next time - when in doubt ride on!

xx

Ebs

All kinds of kinds

Merry Xmas and happy holidays and all! Hope ya'all have had a great weekend.

The last four weeks have marked the beginning of a event that I have been planning for a long time now, the "Cowell to Cummins Trek". They have been a highly amusing four weeks, filled with laughter, sweat and tears. We finaly have all three horses in and all are working well. Tripper (and myself) have now had our first shoeing experience ( sweat (mine) and laughter (Joes!) ) which saw the big red horse fidget and fiddle to the point that we knee hobbled him to STAND STILL. He decided to scale the tie up rail instead, then scale it backwards ( A pretty big feet for a hobbled horse!) and procedded to stand like an angel for the rest of the shoeing. Joe has implimented a new rule at the yards - no visitors while Ebony's wearing the farriers apron (which he made for me for xmas - bless) as apparently my language leaves a little to be desired...
  Joe had his own "swearing" moment when Woggie (otherwise known as Deargo and The big red and white horse) was having a lunging lesson - around a pole planted in the ground about six foot in the middle of our big yard. Woggie decided that lunging wasn't his caper and procedeed to run to the end of his rope plant his feet and toss his head back - HARD. So hard infact that all 700kms of pure agro horse flesh pitted against solid steel wirh some plaited bailing tine inbetween and a few stainless steel clips - well neverless the clips and rope bit the dust the first two times he did this. The third time he bent the pole almost level to the ground. patience and persistance (and lots of sweat!! Woggies of course) and the big red and white horse now lunges freely, happily  minus the pole.
Buck has proven to be worth his weight in gold time and time again, like the day we were trotting up the creek - leading Woggie  and I had let the reins go to concentrate on the big horse we were leading. He chose that moment to spring out past us, full gallop and attempt to outrun us in the creek. Before "Shit" had even made it from my mind to my lips Buck had sprung off after him, wheeled in next too him and we had him under control in seconds. It was one of those classic "Look Mum no hands" moments. Or the other day we were cantering down the railway track and he was feeling his steak sandwich, having the odd buck and fart (still leading Woggie) and the girth gaveway. By the time "Whoa buddy" had left my lips he had sat down on his haunches, ducked his head at Woggie as if to say "Whoa Buddy" himself and stopped stock still. We proceedd to do a quick repair and within a few minutes back on our merry way. Minus the bucking, still farting tho. Or then there was that gale force day, where the trian (the tracks are four metres from the track we ride) came round the corner too silently and just a little bit too fast. The driver and me locked shocked eyes before he spend past us leaving us to 30 odd screaming carrages as the wind picked up the sound as they roared past us. Neither horse even batted an eyelid. Not even a ear moved in the direction of the train. The couldn't care less. They both got a double sized bucket of goodies that morning!
Ok well i'd better sign off now, it's a horse free few days and my nephews are scheming some sand boarding adventures for us.
Till next time

Ride fearless

Ebs