Today is the tenth anniversary of my first post to the Horsiemama blog. To celebrate, here is the first blog post that I wrote for it.
As I read it, I cringe a little at ALL THE DETAILS, but then I remember that, at the time, it was only to be my journal and I wanted to remember all those things.
Never did I dream that Horsiemama would become a blog read by more than just my family.
A Girl's Dream Comes True
Or, how it all began. (Er, the live horse aspect. For the model horse, it goes back to Christmas, 1963.) But for real horses, February 28, 1970.
Sweet Amy and me.
Pretty little mare, isn't she?! She was my very first horse, and she was my dream come true on the day I turned twelve and a half.
My mother was in the hospital, and my dad asked me if I wanted to go look at horses. Are you kidding? No question about that! I had been pestering my parents for a horse since I was six years old, even claiming that our back yard was big enough for a horse. Then, when I was in seventh grade, my parents bought their home at 3030 North River Road, West Lafayette, Indiana because our family had outgrown our home at 169 Prophet Drive and because this new home on the river had room for horses. We moved in over Christmas break, in January, 1970. I just hadn't realized that we would go horse hunting so soon after moving in!
We went out to a place on 25 near Shadeland, and I still remember trying Amy, a five year old strawberry roan snowflake Appaloosa mare with a blonde and silver mane and tail. Though she was young, she had already had had a foal (who was three, so Amy was a very young mama.) I knew something about horses and had taken riding lessons, but I still had a lot to learn. After I dismounted and put Amy back in her stall, my Dad asked, "So, do you want her?"
I was incredulous - my dream come true! I looked back and looked at Amy - she had her head up and was watching me. We looked at each other solemnly for a few moments, and then I turned to my father and cried, "Yes!"
Of course, we had to call my mother and tell her. I remember we stopped at Mary Lou Donuts (still in business now, forty two years later) and called her from a pay phone in their parking lot. I don't think she was too happy; understandable since she had just had surgery and was in the hospital. But the deal was done, and after a week of building fence, Amy arrived and was mine.
I still remember that feeling of walking on air. I had waited six years for my own horse (which seemed like an eternity at the time) and now I had her.
Amy proved to be my "horse of a lifetime," the one I loved the most and could never sell. She was mine until she died in 1993.
And that is how my lifelong involvement with horses began.
