Posts Tagged ‘horses’
Unparalleled Escapades
Indeed, there is an element of sadness today, with the moving of our horses back to their previous home, but we are making equal effort to frame their transfer in a positive light. Think of it as a graduation ceremony. Like children who are sent off to school for a period of years, these horses came to live with us for five and a half years. I think they taught us a lot more than we taught them in that time.
Now they have completed this phase of life with us and are going back home. We will use the memories and lessons of our unparalleled escapades together as the foundation for whatever comes next.
Thank you to all of you who are thinking of us today, and sending love and support! We are soaking it up as a healing balm for the inherent sorrow of parting from these beloved creatures, while also using it to bolster our spirits to properly honor the equine wisdom bestowed upon us over the years.
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Minutes Revisited
From March 27, 2012:
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Words on Images
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I’ve really been enjoying my little forays into the archives of this blog lately. Picking a single day of the month, and then jumping through each of the ten years of posts on that day has been very revealing.
In 2013 on March 27th, I was writing about getting fence posts up to define the border of the paddock, excited about how things would change when we got horses.
It was later that year, September, when the herd arrived. Here is a picture of the moment the four horses had just walked out of the trailer:
Tomorrow, the process is reversed.
Our time together was too short, but we had a lot of great adventures over the years and they touched a lot of people’s lives here.
I’m not sure what’s in store for us next, but whatever it is, we hope to do those horses proud. They’ve taught us a lot during the time we’ve been together.
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Last Sunday
Yesterday was our last Sunday with the horses. We spent most of the day with them. It was time well spent. We were blessed with very comfortable weather that allowed us to linger for a while with no agenda except to just be with them.
Eventually, Cyndie hooked up each horse for some individual quality grooming time, head to tail to toe.
You may notice that a couple of weeks has dramatically changed the look of our paddocks. Snow? What snow?
It’s turning to water and flowing over our silt fence.
As the day progressed, the clouds thinned and the gorgeous sunshine lulled the horses into a nap.
Cyndie asked me if I thought we had made the right decision about rehoming the horses.
I answered her with a question. “Are you having second thoughts?”
She said no, but then, why ask about the decision?
There is no right or wrong in life’s adventures when you don’t know what each new day will bring. We didn’t really know what we would accomplish when we moved here. We don’t yet know what we will do after the horses are gone.
We just listen to our hearts, pay attention to our instincts, and strive to integrate them with our minds. Then we send love to the universe and see where it leads.
Travel day is currently scheduled to occur on Thursday this week.
Yesterday, we took full advantage of being home all day with Cayenne, Hunter, and Dezirea for one last Sunday.
I gotta admit, it did feel right.
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Different Sense
I suppose this is related to the concept of “opposites attracting,” but living with someone who perceives the world differently from you has a way of complicating otherwise straightforward coexistence. Several times in the last week, Cyndie’s and my dramatically different abilities to sense smells has been made vividly obvious.
She brought a horse blanket into the house to be mended the other day. When I stepped inside after a day of work, I immediately commented, “It smells like a barn in here!”
She didn’t notice it.
Friday night, she put a pork roast in the slow cooker before going to bed, to let it simmer while we slept. The longer it cooked, the more intense was the appetite-triggering aroma that filled our home. When my slumber was interrupted by a full bladder in the wee hours of the morning, getting back to sleep amid that incredible smell, was like trying to go to sleep while someone continuously knocks on your door.
I couldn’t do it. Cyndie barely sensed the aroma.
There are other differences –or opposites– that tend to have greater significance. The way we process grief, and the intensity with which we experience it, is a particularly hefty one of late. The horses aren’t even gone yet, but the mental anguish over rehoming them started way back when the idea of doing so was first brought up.
The torment over their departure is deeper than just coming to grips with them no longer being here, it delves into the original vision that brought us to this land in the first place.
The difference in the way Cyndie and I perceive this whole development, and the varying degrees of processing our personal grief over it, can make for a difficult… life together.
It would be great for me if I could just deal with all of this my way, but then I would miss out on life lessons that are the gift of living in relationship with another person.
Cyndie and I got to where we are today, together. We intend to get to where we are going next, the very same way.
We’ll discover it together, even though she doesn’t smell half the things I do.
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Another Thought
Well, tomorrow brings another thought. And, yesterday’s tomorrow, is today’s today. I have another thought this morning about how I might respond to the milestone of completing ten years of daily blogging. What if I did it for ten more? That’s another way to look at this interesting opportunity.
It has definitely become a comfortable habit that continues to offer me multiple benefits, and occasionally, surprising rewards. Also, by writing about my life every day, I avoid accumulating a build up of some wild idea about someday writing an autobiography.
I should try an experiment where I choose a memory from my past which I have already chronicled here years ago, and write a fresh version to compare how different they might come out. Last night, Cyndie and I met our friends, Barb and Mike for a fine dinner out in Red Wing, MN. One of our conversations touched on the fact that memories get reshaped a little each time we recollect them.
One way I have been contemplating a recognition of ten years of Relative Something is to mine the archives for a variety of gems from years ago and repost them anew. I’ve also begun seeking possibilities for resurrecting a couple of my old “games.” One involved guessing images from an extreme closeup, and another required readers to conjure their own picture in their minds from a description I write. A day later, I provide the picture I was describing for comparison.
Meanwhile, there is no shortage of new stories worth telling happening every day around here. The flooding wasn’t catastrophic for us, but it still caused me more anguish than I care to experience. I think part of that came from the fact that Cyndie was dealing with it alone, while I was so far away at work during the days.
The days of rain have passed and the return of below freezing nights has eased the worst of flowing water for now, but there is still a ton of snow yet to melt, so who knows how long this will last.
The horses were absolutely heroic in allowing Cyndie to guide them out of the barn through the standing water without panicking over the scary reflections and sounds, of which they have had little exposure in their time with us. They’ve dealt with a lot of mud over the years, but rarely, if ever, been asked to traverse water over their ankles.
Oh, the horses.
Man, we are going to miss the horses.
There will be much to write about with the pending re-homing of our herd, but it’s hard for us to even think about, let alone put into words. Maybe that contributes to my pondering the idea of ceasing to write.
If you know me, that is a pretty unlikely result. Writing is how I best process my thoughts.
Here’s to the possibility of ten more years of somethings you might find relative.
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Not Surprising
I received another weather warning on my phone last night. This time, it wasn’t about another round of plowable snow, but it comes as no surprise that they’ve issued a flood watch for our county. So, it’s out of the frying pan snow machine and into the fire hip waders for us this week.
Oh, joy.
We’ve got so much snow that our 3-board fence looks short enough in some spots that the horses could high-step their way over it. I think the only thing dissuading them from trying is the deepness of the snow on the other side.
We are due to get significant rain tomorrow and Thursday, without anywhere for it to soak in. There are bound to be a number of new rivers and lakes formed in the days ahead.
We’ll probably have the horses in the barn while it is raining, and the chickens will be given the option of venturing out at their own peril, but I’m not confident either of their structures will stay dry.
At least the coop is on stilts. The wood is shrunk from the dry winter air, so there are some gaps in places, I suspect, but it swells up nicely when it gets wet, so that just leaves drips from a few leaky screws in the roof panels.
The barn, on the other hand, is already suffering from areas that were once standing water that subsequently froze and rendered the two big sliding doors inoperable. More water on top of the old ice will not only make that situation worse, it will inevitably start flowing toward the lower ground available inside.
Thank goodness our house is at the top of a hill.
It is not surprising that they chose this spot on which to build.
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Not Easy
It’s not easy to write about moving our horses… There are a lot of emotions built up regarding the next change in store. After weeks of consideration, Cyndie and I recently decided we need to find another home for Dezirea, Cayenne, and Hunter.
Last week, we learned that the previous owners of the herd are willing to accept the horses back, and we have now begun the process of detailing the specifics involved. Although an actual date of transfer is yet to be determined, just verbalizing the idea, and now having the outcome decided, has already triggered powerful emotions for both of us.
The horses are such an integral part of our lives that we struggle to imagine what it will be like after they are gone. We are each looking forward to regaining a little of our independence again, but it remains to be seen whether we will stay on this property for long without them.
I’ve been mentally revisiting the day the horses arrived here back in September of 2013. That was a pinnacle of thrills that barely compares with any other in my life, except maybe the day Cyndie and I got married. The ensuing years have included more incredible experiences than I can count, having gone from zero experience owning horses, to developing intimate knowledge of our herd.
They have definitely provided me with plenty of things to write about over the years.
Yesterday, while I was tending to the cleanup detail near their evening feeding time, Dezirea suddenly laid down and rolled around in her blanket. By the time I got around to thinking it would have been a good photo, she was already back on her feet.
Then Hunter walked over to the same spot and started pawing the ground. I knew he was going to lay down as well, so this time I scrambled to dig out my pocket camera. In my haste to capture him while he was upside down, I accidentally pushed the power button to turn the camera off again.
By the time I got it back on, he was upright.
It is going to be incredibly difficult to adjust to no longer having them live with us.
Horses have a powerful energy, and I don’t think we will ever be able to replace it.
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Long Day
When I finished fixing the winch cable on the ATV after work Monday, Cyndie helped me get the plow re-mounted so I could clean up the driveway from the morning drift adventure. It had been a long day, so I made short work of the task and headed inside to warm up.
Cyndie asked if I thought it was late enough that the chickens would be in the coop yet. That’s code for, “Will you be the one to go down and close the chickens in for the night?”
I spotted them after I’d taken just a few steps off the driveway. They weren’t inside, they were on the manure pile in the compost area.
I suppose it was warmer footing than standing in the snow. Cyndie had mucked out the stalls earlier in the afternoon and the chickens seemed to take a liking to the fresh addition on top of the snow.
After taking that picture of them, I tried to get the hens to follow me to the coop. They didn’t fall for it, I think because to get there on the shoveled pathway, required starting in the opposite direction of the coop. I got the impression their little chicken brains weren’t processing the logic.
Heck, I’ve even seen the horses, wise as we know them to be, appear to get stuck when an escape involved going away from the direction they ultimately want to achieve.
I walked to the coop without them. To waste some time while waiting for them to figure out the escape route, I started breaking trails in the deep snow around the area. Plodding down a trail that heads toward the shop garage, it occurred to me to open a path between the coop and the compost piles, for the chickens to use. One pass through the deep snow didn’t do much in the way of packing it down to make it easy for bird feet, so this didn’t offer an immediate shortcut. It did, however, bring me up behind the chickens in a way that naturally moved them off the pile in the opposite direction from the coop.
Once I had them moving, I just kept the pressure on, and created a little conga line going down the path toward their nighttime shelter, with me leading from the rear. It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself.
They marched right up the modified ramp (post-possum-crashing incident) and I was able to slide the door shut behind them. Chickens were ready to roost.
It was an entertaining end to my surprisingly long day.
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Thinking Seriously
We are currently doing some serious thinking about making significant changes, not just around here, but in our lives. It is an exercise in re-examining everything, because one thing leads to another, due to the connectedness of all things.
We may not change everything all at once, but just like the series of changes we enacted to bring ourselves to where we are today, a shift in focus, and the first step we take, will likely kick off a metamorphosis toward a new chapter of which we have yet to comprehend.
In the middle of it all, horses. Our precious horses.
It is unconscionable that we would even think of turning our attention away from them. But, in our situation, they just might be the first to go.
This is a really hard thing to contemplate.
Those who doubted our sanity when we set off on this adventure of moving from our home in the suburbs, where family, life-long friends, and gainful employment were close at hand, to a rural location with uncertain dreams of using horses to help others, will now be able to have their opinions validated.
That’s not supposed to matter to the dreamers of the world, but the thought still occurs.
I am able to use the priceless experiences I have had over the last seven years as contented justification for our adventures thus far. Would there have ever been a “completion” for what we set out to accomplish? I’m not entirely sure, although I had visions of possibilities that it appears will go unrealized.
Is there ever really a completion of our endeavors, or is it all an ongoing process?
If we no longer have horses here, it will certainly feel like a completion, but it could just as well be perceived as a new beginning.
It’s complicated.
As such, we are giving it all some serious thinking. Indoors. By the fire. While it snows and snows and snows outside.
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Normal Returns
Yesterday afternoon’s visit to the barn provided a return to normalcy. Apparently, Cayenne learned whatever it was the other two were trying to convey earlier in the morning, and she was again back in front of the line-up for pans of nutrition pellets.
With the endless mosquito-like buzzing of snowmobilers annoyingly goosing their engines in short staccato bursts (do they understand how engines work?) as they motor past our property on the marked trail, the horses have figured out how to act as if everything is fine and this is the way life should be.
Personally, I prefer the calm and quiet of the months when there was nothing but ice covering the ground, despite the scary challenge it presented for trying to walk anywhere. The snow machines remained parked in storage until about three weeks ago.
The chickens responded to the moderated afternoon temperatures with a (lately) rare excursion out of the coop. At this point, I think all of them are showing signs of some frostbite on their wattles and combs, but we have yet to witness any problems arising as a result. Time will tell.
They were happy to help clean up after Hunter beneath the hay bag where he was dining.
The 7-Day weather forecast for our region tosses in a likelihood of more snow, but at least the temperatures don’t look scary for frostbite. After days of the biting harshness from 35°F below zero temps, normal days seem like a cinch.
It’s refreshing to have the chickens voluntarily out-and-about on a reasonable winter day.
It helped provide a welcome bit of normalcy to our Sunday.
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Relative Something 