By chance, I got a text from Tim after going out to the barn yesterday. He'd sent me a picture of Eazy.
I started laughing when I saw it, laughter that was good for me, and told him that he now had a Zorse.
We texted for a while and I learned some sad news - Alice, the woman who had lived in the old farmhouse, had just passed away the day before. It was not unexpected (earlier this year her sister had found her comatose in the farmhouse and she was taken by ambulance to the hospital) but still I feel sad. I've known her so long, she came to my bridal shower!
Tim also shared that he did not think Sultanna was in foal. I asked if he would try again, and he told me that the stallion who had sired both her foals, Little Feller and Two Socks, had colicked and died shortly after he'd bred Sultanna. She was his last cover. So sad!
I did make it out to the barn for a second time that day. The horses were up in the nursery paddock staying cool in the loafing shed there.
I parked my car and decided to try something, something I had not planned to do. I called the horses up, just as I always had, by calling Abby's name and whistling.
What would happen? Would Sultanna remember that call? Would Hokey?
During the morning, Pepper and I had been reading with kids at Lisa's school. That school is just down the road from the barn, so when we finished, I took a deep breath and decided I would go visit the horses.
That's hard for me and has been ever since Abby died. I cry as I drive there, I cry while I am there, and I cry as I drive home. I love that place so much, but now there is so much grief associated with it that I avoid going out.
Still, I love Sultana and Hokey, and would like to get to know Eazy better, so Pepper and I headed over.
Tim has made a lot of progress on the burn site.
He's preserved the old farmhouse trees for shade for the horses.
I looked at those trees and felt a big wash of grief. These trees by the farmhouse, the trees surrounding the pasture, the woods to the west - all were mature and tall. And they were plentiful - hundreds and hundreds of big trees.
Why couldn't one of those trees have been struck by lightning? Why instead did it hit the small tree Abby and Two Socks were sheltering under? One of, if not the smallest of the trees on the property?
It was hot and it was humid, so I got back in the car and decided I'd drive around to the new barn and see if the horses were there.
But they weren't. In fact, I couldn't see them anywhere. I suspected they were staying cool in the old barn, but I wasn't up to walking out to it, especially with Pepper in tow.
Sighing and wiping away a few tears, I decided to head home. I had another errand to run later in the afternoon; maybe I'd go out again then and see if I could have some much needed horsey time.
My western saddle. It's not rare, although it is at least 55 years old so it's vintage, I guess. (So am I. LOL)
But the story behind it is part of why it is so meaningful to me. I shared that story in a blog post several years ago.
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The Jar - April 21, 2023
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.
A young woman who attends our church recently asked to be friends on Facebook. AP had been home to visit her family for the holidays and was leaving to return to her life out west. For whatever reason, she friended me.
I do not know her well, but I didn't mind being friends with her so I accepted the request. But first, I checked out her Facebook profile to be sure this was not a scam.
I literally gasped aloud when I saw AP's Facebook cover photo.
Abby? Is that my girl?! In a second I knew.
It WAS Abby! That heart over her eye confirmed it.
That's AP and her dad DP standing over by Sultanna and a baby Two Socks. DP is a friend of Tim's. He has some acreage and boards a few horses for other people. It made perfect sense that when Sultanna foaled, he and AP came out to see Two Socks.
I needed a moment to gather myself and that deep, visceral emotional response quickly began to fade. After all, how many times have I taken pictures of horses, horses that were not mine? I'd done the same thing, too, and I'd done it for the love of all things horse. I'd meant no harm. And in this case, I was sure AP had used Abby's picture for the very same reason.
I felt calmer and a peaceful feeling rolled over me.
A note about DP...
When DP saw me at church right after Abby died, he walked over to me, threw his arms open wide, and gave me the biggest cowboy hug I think I've ever had. He said how sad he was to hear the news, and we ended up sitting in a pew and talking for almost thirty minutes about my loss. (Good thing services were over, haha!)
That hug and chat are among my most cherished memories from the darkest days when I grieved my girl. A bright spot then, and a bright spot now.
In retrospect, I am glad that Abby is part of a young woman's Facebook page, in a photo that AP likes so much, she uses it for her cover photo.
I find it fitting that Abby is remembered in this way.
I don't like AI and the assumptions it makes. No, I do NOT want push notifications for a gajillion sites. Yes, I know how to set those. No, I do NOT want reminders that I haven't answered an email. No, I don't want to nudge the person who hasn't responded to my email yet.
And so on.
But AI took the cake the other day. And I was absolutely shocked.
I am the one who found Abby and Two Socks dead in the pasture last June. For a variety of reasons, possible insurance reasons being one of them, I took a photo of Abby as she lay in the grass.
It's MY photo and I have never shared it with anyone or even told anyone I took it. It's highly, highly personal and no one else's business. When it was clear that I would not need proof of her death, I could not bear to delete it. That was my sweet girl lying in the grass. My last moment with her.
I never look at it although it is in my photos on my phone. If I happen to scroll past it, I don't stop. That was a terrible day, and while I cling to her last picture, I don't want to look at it. Its presence is all I need.
Well, several pics popped up on my phone yesterday - suggestions from AI for a new phone wallpaper photo.
The first suggested picture was the one I'd taken of Abby.
I was shocked, I was livid, I felt sick, I cried. My privacy and my grief had been violated.
I am completely happy with my current wallpaper. Yes, I know it has been there for years. No, I don't care about varying it. No, it is NOT out of date. It's a beautiful picture of my girl and a favorite of mine.
I make that choice, AI, and I don't need your suggestions. But here's a suggestion for YOU:
Add some sensitivity to that ridiculous artificial intelligence you supposedly have.
Jennifer Buxton and I have been friends for a long time. We share a love of horses, we are writers with blogs that span several decades, we have children and husbands who make frequent appearances in our blogs, and our dogs are considered family.
A sadder commonality is that we both lost our heart horses last year, six months apart to the very day. We've now both trudged through that experience and understand the terrible sadness and grief that accompanies it.
In a private conversation after Abby died, Jennifer shared something with me that helped lift my grief and I will always be grateful to her for that. She gets what I am going through and vice versa - who better to make an understanding comment than someone who is walking the same walk?
Last Sunday Jennifer got a new horse, Winslow. He's temporary, but he seems to be a real sweetie and is helping lift her heart as she moves forward. Sunday afternoon she sent me a picture of the two of them together and I said something about a win-win situation. Jennifer then quipped, "Win Win Winslow."
Win Win Winslow indeed! Isn't he a pretty boy! And Jennifer looks so happy.
I'm not yet at the point of getting another horse. A large part of that is due to health issues, but another part is that I have not been able to even think about Abby without crying. I can't even go to the barn without the tears starting to slide down my cheeks.
But yesterday I had a glimmer of hope that that might be changing.
On a whim, I decided to drop by the barn while I was running an errand.
I didn't have a brush or a peppermint with me - my buckets of grooming tools and treats are no longer in my trunk but are sitting in my garage gathering dust. But I decided to go anyway.
As I pulled up, I saw Tim's car was there and I found him in the barn. He was getting ready to work with Easy and invited me to stay and watch.
Tacking up.
Working on flexibility. I was impressed with how far Easy had come in his training.
Isn't he a pretty boy? He's four and had been running free on a Texas ranch most of his life. It is clear that he trusts Tim.
Warming Easy up after some flexibility exercises.
And we ride!
It is fun to see Easy coming into himself. His personality is beginning to emerge and while he is inexperienced and a bit hesitant, he is willing to learn. (He's walking over a buried tarp in this photo.)
Tim has other things in the indoor arena such as a pole to step over and some barrels. (No clue about the basketball except that this is Indiana where every barn has a basketball hoop on its side.)
I was so happy to be there that it was only when Tim finished Easy's training session that I realized I was chilled to the bone. And as that realization sank in, another one popped into my mind.
I had not cried once the entire time I was at the barn.
I had not looked around, wishing Abby was standing at the fence and doing her soft whicker that she saved just for me.
My thoughts had been happy - I was with horses, talking horses with Tim, smelling that wonderful scent of horses and barns in the winter...
I had not cried or mourned my girl once!
And then, when I drove home, I had that long lost but oh so familiar feeling of happiness and contentment that I have always felt after time with horses. There was no crying on the way home, either!
This is my all time favorite blog entry that I have ever written. Originally written in October, 2018, it soon became a tradition to repost it on Halloween.
This year, the post is bittersweet. But how could I not post it? The happiness and memories it brings back to me are too good to miss. I may even eat some candy corn in Abby's honor. (Maybe. LOL)
Jennifer Buxton of Braymere Custom Saddlery wrote on her blog that she had discovered that some people do not like candy corn. One of her blog readers posted in response that her real horses loved the Halloween treat, and Jennifer decided to see if her horses liked it, too.
They did. And so Jennifer challengedinvited those of us with access to both horses and candy corn to try a little experiment and see if our horses liked candy corn, too.
Well, I was up to the challenge, and I figured Abby would be as well. Her favorite treat is a freshly unwrapped candy cane; since both sweets have a high content of sugar, I figured that Abby would quickly snarf up those little kernels of candy corn goodness.
As usual, she came up to the paddock at a fast clip, eager to say "hello" and to see what I had brought her. I held my hand out with two candy corns in it and she lipped them up without even smelling them. (Such trust in me!)
Then she gave me a dirty look when she realized that they were something new and not what she had been expecting. That face!! I could not help but think of my favorite Dr. Seuss story, Green Eggs and Ham. So, with apologies to him:
"I'm not sure I like them, Mom-I-Am."
She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, considering if she liked the taste or not, just as the main character in the book did.
Picture retrieved from Google Images.
Then Abby's face brightened, and she eagerly put her head over the wooden bars of the paddock fence.
"Say!! I like them, Mom-I Am! I do! I do like candy corn!"
"And I will eat them from your hand,"
"And I will lick you where you stand!"
I would eat them off the ground,"
"And I sure would like another pound!"
"They are so good, so good, you see! Thank you, thank you, Best Mom-You-Be!"
The title of this post can be taken sincerely, or it can be taken sarcastically - both express my feelings when Facebook popped up this memory from my past posts without my requesting it.
It still hurts a lot to think about Abby, so a part of me was not happy when this memory came through my feed. And yes, I cried.
On the other hand I don't remember this photo of her at all, and it's actually quite a nice one.
Such a pretty face and those "Egyptian eyes" that she had were so distinctive!
October is my favorite month of the year - I love Fall. It's coupled with the anticipation of cooler weather, pumpkin-everything, the coming holidays and family gatherings... What's not to like about changing from September into October?
Well, this year it's the unexpected grief that accompanied that rollover of months. Let me explain.
Organization is one of the keys of raising a big family; I learned that long ago as our family was growing. And so I developed a digital file system to help me do just that - I have a file for each one of our kids, the dogs, Jolis Chevaux and Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile, and I have one for Abby.
These files sit on my desktop with another file next to them.
The file for the month of the year we are in.
As photos are taken or received that month, I put them into that monthly file. And when the month is over, I slide the monthly file into the general one and set up a new file for the current month.
This morning I slid Pepper's 9/24 file into the Pepper file, and moved on to the next folder.
It was Abby's.
Just the sight of that folder, still on my desktop despite the fact that she's been gone three months, was enough to make the tears start. I grabbed some tissues and then sat there looking at her file and thinking.
Maybe it was time to slide the entire Abby file into the file where I keep "finished" files (our 45th wedding anniversary celebration, Christmases, etc.)
But I just couldn't do it. Sliding her file away like that REALLY was closure, and I discovered this morning that I am not ready yet to do that. Besides, I am still going out to see Sultanna, Hokey, and Easy. I want to be able to keep a record of their lives and our interactions out at the barn.
So, I created this file.
And I moved it next to the Abby file like past Abby monthly files were kept, ready to be filled with photos of my girl.
That way her presence is still there on my computer, and her file will continue to fill with horses who lived with her and were her friends.
That felt better; that felt right.
No doubt the day will come when I am ready to slip Abby's folder into the "finished" file with others that are over and done. But I just can't right now.
I just can't.
Another (happier) post is in progress and will be posted in just a bit.
