Well! I am having quite the run of unfortunate luck. First, I lost my computer. Thankfully I found it, but now it’s freezing up and needing to be restarted over and over again. Apparently, there are forces at work that do not want me to finish my column this week. I’m sending along one from many Novembers ago … so sorry!
This year, we’ve had a few cold, gray days, but for the most part, it has been warm and sunny. I keep telling the kids we need to get outside and enjoy the last of the fine weather, but as balmy day begets balmy day, I think they’ve lost all confidence that I know what I am talking about.
Meanwhile, the ranch horses had their seasonal manicure this weekend. “Boy, I think you are going to really like riding Moon Dog next spring during calving,” my husband said afterward, referring to the gentle black gelding that came to live with us in September.
Unlike last year, when I made riding a daily priority, this year I’ve barely been on a horse at all. I’d taken Moon Dog out to ride in the first days after his arrival, but not again since then. I turned to my husband and said, “Why wait until spring? Why not today?”
Not half an hour later, I was sitting (or trying to sit) in my saddle, cantering across our south pasture, wondering if I had been a bit hasty after all.
As any seasoned rider will tell you, a horse on a hot day is a very different animal than that same horse on a cool, windy one. And a warm day in late November is still not very hot. Plus, at this time of year, unlike in the spring when they are called into work often, our horses have gotten used to doing things their own way and on their own time.
Lucky for me, Moon Dog only had about 30 seconds of full-on feistiness and then settled right down. I think he could tell I was out of shape and took pity on me. The man of the ranch was right — he was a great horse to ride.
Across the pasture we flew, the grass beneath Moon Dog’s pounding hooves gray and gold, the sky above us blue and cloudless. I walk often through the big pasture north of our house and down into the narrow canyons that bisect it, but I very rarely head south. So rarely, in fact, that the view seemed exciting and unexpected, almost like an adventure, as did riding an unfamiliar horse.
We reached the fenceline, and I decided we better go back. As we turned to head north, I again had the overwhelming sense of being surprised. There in the distance, up on the hill, was the peak of our little white house, fully revealed between the bare branches of the windbreak’s trees. At that moment, I realized I’d never experienced that exact view with leafless trees before — probably because the flat, open vista of the south pasture isn’t much fun to walk or ride across in the cold winds of winter. Seeing our house was like meeting a dear, old friend by chance — the waves of joy all the sweeter because they are unanticipated.
It is interesting how infrequently we have a chance to be happily startled by the familiar, but what a gift it can be to see our same old, same old revealed as new. From up close, I often don’t even notice our house as a whole, instead focusing on all that we’ve left undone: the trim that needs painting, the stack of buckets by the door that should have been carried to the barn weeks ago, the box of sour apples that will make a great chicken snack when I finally haul them to the coop.
Trotting towards our house on that sunny November afternoon all those details were obscured. Instead, I saw the roof’s narrow eaves pointing up like the sturdy cap of a precocious gnome, the upstairs windows reflecting the sparkling blue sky like his twinkling eyes, the gray treetops scrawled across his cheeks like a scraggly beard — a face so kind and jovial it was impossible not to smile at the sight.
“Come on, Moon Dog,” I said with a laugh, and we jogged all the way home.
