Here We Go Again
Return unto thy rest,
O my soul;
for the Lord hath
dealt bountifully with thee.
— Psalm 116:7
Oh, that Lord of ours. He's so good
to us. After our "whoopsie daisy" daughter was born, we realized we could no
longer care for our horses, Zippy and Billy. So we sold them, and we really
missed having horses all these years.
But the Lord works in mysterious ways. Recently, a lady who
lives about an hour away discovered that she had the same situation, a "whoopsie
daisy" pregnancy. She decided she had better lease out her paint horse, Teddy,
for lack of time to care for him and ride him.
She bought him from a family who lives near us, whose young
daughter did very well with him at horse shows. He was regarded as a gentle,
dead-broke, sweet, small horse, nearly 20 years old. The perfect "kid horse"!
Word went out around the neighborhood that Teddy was
available again, and people knew that we were thinking about getting back in to
the whole scene.
So guess who has him, as of yesterday?
Us!
Our barn, once humming with activity, visitors and fun, has
been a silent, dust-collecting junkyard for seven years. But life is back. Fun
is back! A horse is back!
And for "Whoopsie Daisy," Maddy, now 8, it's a grand and
glorious adventure. We had to peel her off the ceiling when she found out about
Teddy. They've been inseparable ever since. I'm afraid she might try to sneak
him into her room at night and read him bedtime stories.
Teddy's coloring is
sorrel with "overo,"
which relates to his
white splotches and one partially-blue eye.
He follows her around the paddock like a dog. Since he's
only 14 hands, she can reach his back on the mounting block, so she can fully
groom him. Although she's not quite ready to halter him, and is awaiting a
saddle small enough to ride him, she trotted with him on a lead rope around the
pasture like a pro. She even gave him a solid pop when he lunged down to grab a
mouthful of irresistible spring grass, because she knew it might make him sick.
She weighs 52 pounds. He probably weighs over 1,000. But in
that wonderful horse-human calculus, they've already bonded, and she's the dominant
one. For a tail-ender like Maddy, without any hope for leadership among her
siblings, who are more than two or three times her age, that's priceless.
So here we go again:
Feed bills, only with the price of fuel, a bale of hay has
doubled in price
Vet bills
Farrier bills
Tack bills
Training bills
This hobby - this so-called "leisure-time pursuit" - must
make us seem a little crazy. Indeed, city friends thought I was insane because
I missed picking stalls and hauling around big loads of hay and bedding. Truth
be told, I mostly missed the smell of a horse. As a kid, I used to not wash my
hands for days after a rare opportunity to pet one.
Meanwhile, my hubby used to muck our stalls and do the
morning feedings, enjoying manual labor and simple duties that were the polar
opposite of his job as a company president. He said there's nothing quite like
the companionship of a big, warm horse in the winter, nickering eagerly as you
come into the stall, and munching their grain and hay contentedly. Would that
most people were that easy to please!
What we missed the most, I think,
was just the sight of a horse on our property - the elegant beauty, the
perfectly-composed body, the calming presence.
Our dear friend and neighbor, "Mr. Jeannie," nailed how we
were feeling. As soon as he heard we were getting a horse, and saw Teddy arrive
on Saturday with 60 bales of hay, he grabbed his work gloves and was over
helping put that hay up in the hayloft. We were so grateful. Neighborliness is
next to Godliness!
He gazed at Teddy, enraptured just like us. We had talked
earlier about how sad it was to have an empty barn.
"Having a horse on this place completes it," he said,
philosophically.
It's the same thing in our hearts.
No doubt the Wrangler knew that all along. †
