Abby Texts Again

Remember when Abby had Pam text me about getting more carrots during my visit?

Well, that sassy girl (er, Abby, not Pam) is at it again. She texted my friend, Tricia, a teacher I work with at Hershey this afternoon.

"Dear Tricia, Thank you for the yummy apple core!! You are my new best friend. Love, Abby"

(Tricia was eating an apple at lunch and let me take the core home to my pony.)

Frosted Sugarplum

Abby is growing her winter coat in preparation for the cold days that are coming. Like Amy's did, Abby's coat pattern changes as she sheds and grows new hair.

 Look at that white patch behind her left eye and on her jowl!

 Her neck is more white than red.

 Her body is so frosted, it's hard to see her Appaloosa spots.

 Even her nose looks softer and velvety with the white hairs that are growing in - no cold nose for this girl! (This was an accidental picture - I was snapping her picture and she began nosing for carrots!)

 More white is above her eye and splashed down her face.

Abby's frosted winter coat makes me think of sugarplums.

I guess it's that time of year!

The Herd Comes Up

With Diablo in the lead, Trouble, next, and Mason bringing up the rear, the herd comes up for a visit.

They're in the northwest pasture right now, so I have to walk out to them if I want to say hello. But they saved me some walking by heading up when they saw me arrive.

 Trouble basks in the fading October sun in small paddock by the old barn.

After a visit with me, the herd then heads back out to graze. Except for Hokey.

He has to investigate a broken board in the paddock fence and see if there is any choice grass left on the other side.

Such a lovely fall day, and lucky me to get to spend part of it with the horses!

Paddock Boots!

I may have bought them way back in May, but it wasn't until today that I put my paddock boots on and actually used them when I did my daily carrot run.

I haven't worn a pair of riding boots in probably 25 years - not since I got pregnant with Cole and decided that I just could not give Indy the time he needed while being the mom I wanted to be to my six children. So, I sold Indy and put my boots away. 

 For good, I thought.

But I was wrong; horses did come back into my life nearly a quarter of a century later when Abby stole my heart, and now, I have riding boots!

Next on the docket? Actually swinging back up into the saddle and going for a ride. 

More "It's Not Just Me!"

Karen O'Connor is probably the horseperson I would most like to meet. She's my age and has ridden on every US Olympic team since 1986. She values honesty, humility, and integrity, and she takes good care of her horses. Knows her stuff.

The Chronicle of the Horse did an interview with her in the October 8, 2012 issue. This part made me smile:

When I was eleven years old, I bugged my parents for a horse.... (For my birthday) my mom and dad bought a horse for me. I watched a couple of horse things on TV, and decided I wanted to learn to jump. When my mom was out getting groceries or getting her hair done, I'd bring out the tables and chairs and prop mops across them, and I taught myself to jump. When my mom came back early one day, (Sound familiar? Does to me!) she never got mad at me, but she said, "Let's put the furniture back and figure out where we can get you some lessons to learn to jump."

I never took furniture out of the house, but I did set up some ground poles on empty coffee cans and tried jumping in the front pasture. And Leslie and I put our own red and green ribbons in the horses' manes for Christmas rides. We raided the fridge for carrots and apples. And so on.

I wonder how many other horsey girls from my generation, like Karen, like me, all were doing the same crazy things in their pursuit of love for horses?

Autumn Evidence

Windy fall day today! It may be unseasonably warm (77 degrees) but it's evident that it is autumn.

Hokey found these sycamore leaves delicious. Seeing them piled against the gate was a real harbinger of the cold weather that is coming our way.

The trees at our home are beautiful. And, they're getting big!

 Mindful of the romantic old tale of an elderly couple deeply in love all their lives, who walked to the end of their lane together every evening, and then died together there and turned into trees with their branches interlaced (::sniff::sniff::) the one on the left I have always called Craig and the one on the right, Lynn. The tree to the west of the driveway, which has always been smaller than the other two, is Zeus. After all, Zeus moved in here with us so he was part of the family, too!

This is Lynn. Isn't she pretty this fall?? (Hah!!) She has had two robins' nests the past two years, too.

Ooo! Look Inside!

When I arrived at the barn tonight, Tim had the sales trailer open and I got a peek inside. He's heading up to Canada where he will meet his brother in Alberta and leave the trailer with him. Everything is going to a sale up there next spring, and Tim is planning on taking another trailer load up then.

The trailer was chock full of neat stuff like this:

 An old Cigar Store Indian!

 Sulkies and a big black buggy!

A brand new carriage that was a beautiful cranberry color.  Sure wish I could buy it and have Abby take me for a spin!

The burning question for me was if Tim was going to sell the sleigh. To my surprise, he told me he actually had two sleighs - the one in the barn and another at his home.  What a relief to hear he was going to keep one - I am really hoping for snow over the holidays so I can take my family sleighing in a REAL one horse open sleigh!

A Horse in the House

See?? I am not the only one who does this!

In this case, the kids had ridden the horse in the heat until it was all sweaty, so they brought it into the air conditioned house to cool off.

Great minds and all that! HAH!!!

Spaghetti for Dinner

Well, it's more like a treat than dinner, and it's not really pasta, it's....

 APPLE SPAGHETTI!!

 Nom, nom, nom, nom.

The herd loves it when I make apple pie or apple crisp. I dump out the peelings and cores onto the ground, and they get to chomping!

September Afternoon

Today is a cold and rainy fall day. The kind of day you hanker for hot chocolate. I spent much of the day cleaning, doing laundry, sorting clothes for the seasonal change, and organizing things around our home.

I came across these two pictures taken on a beautiful September afternoon, and they took the chill off this October day!

Abby cocks an ear, keeping an eye on Mason as he shares the trough with her.

A very unusual picture - Mason and Hokey buddied up! Mason is the low man on the totem pole now that Yukon has gone to a new home. Normally Mason keeps his distance from everyone but Abby, so when I saw the two of them hanging out by the gate, I grabbed my camera and started snapping.

Warm, sunny weather seems so far away!

Double Trouble

Tim texted me just before the Sunday morning session of General Conference yesterday saying, "I have a new Appaloosa horse. Tell me if you like him."

Of course, I was immediately distracted from conference and wondering what the new horse would look like. And when the morning session was over, I hopped into my car and did my daily carrot run, eager to meet the newest herd member.

The horses were in the small paddock, but the new horse was not with them. I surmised that Tim must have the new animal in a separate pasture to adjust, so I walked over to the southwest pasture and looked around.

No horse.

Where was he? I was surprised that Tim would not have one of the other horses in with him, too, to help him acclimate to his new home. I turned back to the paddock to count noses, thinking that maybe I had missed him.

And there he was. Right in front of my nose.

Very funny, Tim! I think you should name him "Double" since he is so like Trouble. Perhaps you can double register him with the AQHA and the Appaloosa Horse Club, too!

Camp Tecumseh

I spent yesterday and today at Camp Tecumseh with my students and the other fourth grade classes for an immersion into Indiana's past. Our camp sessions were held near the horse barns, and thus the bathrooms we used were the stable bathrooms. Naturally, I had to take a photo.

The indoor arena is beautiful! I loved the flags hanging from the rafters. Perhaps they represent the nationalities of camp visitors?

The teachers all had their photos taken in the mock stagecoach - fitting as we're all horse lovers (Mr. Toll is a former saddlebred owner and rider.)

Kris Sharp, Allyson Anthrop, Jeff Toll, Cindy Yeater, and me.

The Necklace

Back in the the mid to late 1930s, my grandparents gave my mother a gold locket. She wore it until she was an adult, and then gave it to me. It was my favorite, most cherished piece of jewelry, and I kept the tradition of passing it on to the oldest daughter and gave it to Sarah a few years ago.

Yesterday, I was in Iowa visiting her, and to my delight, I noticed she was wearing it.

For me, it was like seeing and old, dear friend again. I smiled and wanted to hold it in my hands and feel its weight and heft. I wanted to rub my thumb across the soft metal and feel the swirl pattern on one side, and the flower pattern on the other. Or open the locket and look inside again. It pleased me no end to see my daughter enjoying her grandmother's beloved heirloom.

Since it is old, that piece of jewelry has a history that I wanted to record before it becomes forgotten. And this history is connected to my horse, Amy.

I wore that necklace all the time when I was growing up, including when I was out horseback riding. One day I was out riding Amy on the gravel path that we used to walk to school on. (It's now built over by homes in University Place, but if you look in the right place, you can still see a small remnant of the gravel path off Cumberland Avenue.) My parents and other neighbors lay the path in the farmer's field with his permission so that we had a safe place to walk to school. At the time, Cumberland Avenue stopped at Cumberland school, the rest being farmland.

The gravel path was a great place for a canter, so I clucked at Amy and we were off. The wind was in my hair, I was on my favorite horse, and it was the perfect day for a ride.

And then we came to an area where the path was bordered by a line of trees. Some of the branches overhung the path, so I bent low over Amy's neck, my face in her mane, ducking to miss them as we breezed by.

To my horror, one of the branches brushed my neck, caught the necklace's chain, and broke it, flinging the necklace into the air. I quickly pulled on the reins to stop Amy and slid off her back, dismayed that I had lost my treasured keepsake.

I looked everywhere. Holding the reins in one hand, I stooped and searched the gravel path. I looked in the weeds alongside it. I retraced Amy's steps a few strides backward and forward. I brushed my hands across the gravel so see if I could feel the necklace. And then I looked in all those places again. I must've searched for a good 15 minutes, but no luck.

The necklace was gone.

Tears were streaming down my face. I did not know what to do. And so I prayed for help and then searched again. (I wasn't a member of the Church then, so praying was not a regular activity for me - it was one of desperation.)

Still no necklace.

Finally, I gave the locket up for lost, and with great sadness and a heavy heart, put my foot in the stirrup and mounted Amy. Before signaling her to move forward, I cast my eyes on the ground one last desperate time.

And there it was.

A gleam of gold in the gravel.

Almost under Amy's hooves - she was practically standing on it.

My necklace! I'd found my necklace!

Quickly I dismounted and grabbed it with joy and gratitude, feeling as though a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Since the chain had been broken by the branch, I tucked the necklace into my pocket, remounted, and clucked to Amy to go home. I felt so very, very lucky, and so blessed, offering a prayer of thanksgiving as I rode.

I think about that incident nearly every time I think of the necklace. It was one of my very first experiences with prayer, and I will be forever grateful for the Lord's help in finding that cherished family heirloom so that it could be passed on to future family members.

And that is the story of the necklace.

Postscript 
In am email to me after this was written, my mother wrote:

Yes, I'm smiling -- but there's a trace of a tear, too.  I treasured that locket

and still miss it.  I was under 10 when my parents gave it to me, and I 

think it was a rather valuable piece of jewelry to give to such a young

person, but it was beloved.