Thanks and hi

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shaz
Posts: 420
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Thanks and hi

Post by shaz »

Hi all! I have been reading the forums for a couple of years now and want to thank all of you for sharing your experiences. The ERE community aligns with so many of my interests that it feels like coming home.

I guess I am overdue to introduce myself, but it's difficult. I never know what to tell people about myself - what are the important things and what is just noise?

I'm early 50s, happily married for 25 years, no kids, full-time employed, probably FI right now but don't plan to make any big employment changes until 2025 or possibly 2023 depending on how things work out. I say probably FI because healthcare/health insurance is such a wild card.

I've been battling cancer for the past year - surgery, more surgery, chemo, radiation, more radiation, more chemo, more surgery. I don't have any more treatment scheduled at this point; now we just wait and see if it worked. My oncologist says we will know it worked if I'm alive in 5 years. So mostly I'm trying to live in today and focus on getting my strength back and doing the things that matter.

Probably my most un-ERE practice, aside from ludicrously expensive medical treatment, is owning horses.

I'm a former national champion cyclist and former member of the US Cycling Team. I have a Master's Degree in exercise physiology and have worked for USA Cycling, USA Swimming, and the USOC amongst a number of other orgs. I have pretty much always worked for non-profits because "chasing the dream."

I enjoy many outdoor activities; my favorites at the moment are horseback riding and paddleboarding. I played ice hockey pretty competitively for 8 years but don't anticipate doing that going forward.

What interests me most about ERE isn't necessarily the financial aspect, although I do like the concept of using spending as a proxy for impact. I'm drawn to simple living, self-sufficiency, minimizing my impact on the world, and resilience. One of my obsessions is growing great dryland pasture on my small acreage; I can happily discuss grass types, organic weed control, and composting manure for hours at a time.

Thanks again for all the info you share and the thoughtful discussions that go on here.

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mountainFrugal
Posts: 1125
Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:26 pm

Re: Thanks and hi

Post by mountainFrugal »

With such a diverse set of interests/skills/experiences I look forward to more detailed posts and discussion. What is an unexpected similarity between riding horses and bicycles? Can I ask what, if anything, has changed/magnified/reduced etc. with your cancer diagnosis and treatment? How has your training for endurance sports helped you deal with this? For your small plot, what was the decision or intervention with the largest impact on yields?

shaz
Posts: 420
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: Thanks and hi

Post by shaz »

Hi @mountainfrugal thanks for the interesting questions.

About the pasture, the action that has the biggest effect on yields is limiting how much the horses are allowed on it and doing rotational grazing. We have 5 acres in an area that was cultivated as hay fields until it was split up into lots 40 years ago. At that time, it was a brome grass monoculture. Brome makes great hay but isn't very durable if you let livestock walk around on it.

Many of our neighboring lots have been overgrazed. We are in a semi-arid environment and once the land is overgrazed it takes at least 10 years to restore good dryland pasture. Fending off invasive weeds is a constant struggle due to the overgrazed neighboring plots spawning SO MANY weeds.

I have also been introducing native grass varieties such as buffalo grass and grama to replace the brome in drier sections of the pasture where the brome has a harder time as it becomes hotter and drier here.

Re: the cancer stuff, I am still processing the experience so I don't have a lot of insights to share yet. All of the athletic training over the years did help because I started out with higher-than-normal levels of red blood cells and hemoglobin. Levels of those kept continuously dropping for the 6 months after I started radiation treatment (bone marrow was damaged) but didn't get low enough to be a problem until the last 6 weeks before they plateaued.

As far as similarities between riding horses and bicycles, I don't think there are a lot. I do both outdoors on mountain trails, but more often they are competing activities. I have many friends who are involved in one or the other, but I don't know anyone else aside from my husband who engages in both.

Many years ago, I had to choose which to pursue competitively because if I had tried to do both, I would have failed to excel in either. I was training with Olympic-caliber coaches in both but ultimately chose to pursue cycling competitively because 1) it is a lot less expensive and it was unclear if I would be forced out of equestrian competition at some point due to economics, and 2) I saw too many people making decisions that were not in the horses' best interests because they were too caught up in competition.

Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: Thanks and hi

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Welcome to the forum @Shaz! You have a fascinating background and I look forward to reading more of your posts. Wishing you good health happy riding.

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