I’ve been writing a lot about sheep lately, and that is not an accident. A big part of getting older, and hopefully wiser, is figuring out what is yours to do and what is not. Over the last year, as I did some deep introspection about my priorities and my passions, sheep kept coming up at the top of the list. But this week, an even older siren call came singing again…
Horse girl
Back before I’d met my first sheep, or milked my first cow, back when the green postage stamp of my suburban lawn was as close to nature as it regularly came, back when my family had never even owned a dog, let alone livestock, my first animal loves were horses. I’ve since learned, thanks to internet memes, that horse girls are a thing. According to Google, horse girls are typically shy, awkward girls who only think and talk about horses … that sounds familiar.
From ages 9-12, I spent hours writing stories about horses, reading books about horses, sketching horses from pictures I’d cut out of magazines and dreaming of the day I would have my very own horse best friend. Never in those wildest dreams did I imagine I would end up living and working on a ranch where the care and keeping of horses was an everyday occurrence. My kid self would never have believed it was possible.
Looking for a BFF. That being said, I still haven’t found my horse BFF, and it’s not because I haven’t tried. Early in my tenure on the ranch I bought a sweet bay colt named Jane. My husband worked with me to halter break her, and when she was ready to start under the saddle, she was as gentle and friendly as they come. Until someone tried to ride her that is. The trainer we hired to work with her said, “She’s a nice horse, but, wow, she really likes to buck.”
My next BFF prospect was an elderly trail horse that a neighbor gave us. Penny and I got along great as long as we were riding with someone else, but if I tried to take her out alone, she would panic and start shouting for her friends back at the barn. The more I rode her, the more stressful we both found the situation, our nervous energy feeding off one another.
Next came Moondog, a stunning black horse who arrived on the ranch exactly three years ago this week. Moondog was and is perfect in every way. Everyone who rides him loves him. But like every ranch horse I’ve ever met, he is more oriented to other horses than humans. He does what we ask him to do, but he’s not interested in hanging out with me in his free time. I’ve begun to realize the dream of finding a magical connection with an equine soulmate might be just that, a dream.
Meanwhile, the kids are getting older, and will soon need their own gentle, steady horses if we want to go on family rides. So, last summer we bought a yearling pony named Sally, and everyone who has been around her agrees she has the makings of the ideal kid horse.
Sally is a good horse, but here’s the thing, she’s not my soulmate either. Training Sally is going so well that we are about to buy another filly colt with similar breeding. She will come to us when she is weaned at the end of September, and gosh darn it, I’m already quietly hoping that maybe, just maybe, this horse will be the ONE — my long yearned for BFF — the horse I’ve been waiting for all this time.
“Aren’t you a little old to still be daydreaming about this?” I keep asking myself. The answer, of course, is yes. But, dear reader, I don’t care because here’s the other thing I’ve learned from growing older, and hopefully wiser: Having beautiful dreams makes a beautiful life, even if they don’t come true. Beauty is a path you choose to walk on, not a destination, so I’ll keep dreaming.
