Earlier this month, Jennifer Buxton wrote a blog post about a cherished hoof pick from her childhood and how it represented her hopes to have a horse of her own some day.
"That reminds me of my jar," I mused. "I should pull it out and look at it."
I knew exactly where it was, even after all these years.
On my bedside table, full of cash from my 1974 (!) trip to Europe that "some day" I'll distribute to the Cowpokes and the Pony Pals.
It's an old Ball canning jar, but like Jennifer's hoof pick, what it represents are my hopes and dreams to have a horse.
The cash that originally was in it was money I earned babysitting. Along with the money was a note, "Dear Thief, this is money for my horse. Please do not steal it. Thanks. Lynn"
Yeah, right, like someone robbing your home would leave a jar of cash alone! But a horse crazy eleven year old whose heart is full of dreams wasn't taking any chances on protecting her money!
No thief ever entered our home and when I got Amy, my Dad paid for her and I used the accumulated money to buy her saddle.
I remember running my hands all over it, feeling that soft leather and smelling the leather - still one of my favorite scents.
I remember thinking, "My dreams have come true!" and the happiness in knowing that I helped make them happen by working for them. Such a feeling!
So much so that the saddle is in the barn at Tim's and the jar remains on my bedside table, just as it did when I was a kid. More childhood memories are in it beside the European money.
A show bill from a long ago horse show. (I carried the flag in the pre-show parade around the grounds - a big thrill at the time.)
A joke in our family about meaningful possessions and things gets said about the glass jar. "That's going to the nursing home with me!"
And it will. (Hopefully a long time in the future! Hah!)
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There is much to be said for working to make your dreams come true, and even now I still feel that glow of happiness that I earned the money for my saddle.
Leslie and me on our annual Christmas Eve ride; me on Amy and Leslie on Pokey. 1972
Riding Amy out by Fort Ouiatenon. 1978
Competing in it while riding Cee at the 1974 Tippecanoe County 4-H Fair, 1974.
Sadly, I've neglected it for several years. Since Abby was not rideable, the saddle has sat in Tim's barn office for years. Very much out of sight, out of mind for me.
Just as I need to do with my English saddle, I need to thoroughly clean and oil it.
But... it's still hard to go to the barn. My heart hurts when I do - it's difficult not to focus on how Abby's life ended, although I realize that in doing so, I let the manner of Abby's death push aside the years of happy memories I had with her.
For the sake of my saddles, I need to push through that.
That is tough.
Yes, it is painful. You loved her; that is not something that goes away! Tack can last quite a few years, longer than a horse, if it is taken care of. Every saddle I make l hope will last longer than I, but that only happens if someone protects it.
ReplyDeleteThe hurt stays with us but you can find new happiness at the barn too. I look at all those old saddles and think how crazy it is now with saddle fitters and getting saddles custom fitted to our horses. The horses back when you were using those old saddles had no idea what they were missing! They got a saddle put on that was it no fitting needed. They were lucky if a saddle pad was added.
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