A great horse will change your life. The truly special ones define it.
As I sit here on the swing, in the shade of a rather large cedar tree, protecting me from the sun/cloud/rain (take your pick, give it an hour and we’ll get all three!), I’m looking out at the corral where my 2 unicorns remain sequestered. I watch them nibble away patiently, nay more like rambunctiously, at their hay net bags – nuzzling, prodding, lifting, teasing the stands of dried grass through the macramé woven sacs.
It’s been a tough love situation here with my steeds and for many horse folks with ‘easy keepers’ this spring and summer. The rains made pastures lush, lush, lush and like myself when presented with delicious food, zero resistance to eat, eat, eat.
It wasn’t until Shane my trusty farrier came to give them their pedicures that their new life started – entitled Sage & Sisco on the Fat Farm. And it’s a new life for me too, healthier physically and emotionally.
Like many young girls I have dreamt of having a horse almost all my life. How many times did I watched National Velvet with Liz Taylor, and was smitten…with the horse. Then there was Dale Evans with Buttermilk. Although I loved Roy Rogers & his magnificent palomino Trigger, I was totally captivated by the females with their beautiful beasts. I’m pretty sure I was 4 – my mother had to write out my Santa list for me & chuckled away as I said ‘a horse’ as my first entry.
Laurie made me continue that traditional list (along with setting out milk, cookies & carrots for the reindeer!) & and each year, for 41 of our 43 years together ‘a horse’ remained #1.
When we bought the farm my dream became almost tangible, but reality crept in. It takes time and money to have a horse so I would have to settle for dogs, cats, and a couple of rescue sheep. I did get to board a couple of horse but that didn’t last long enough. And I did get a stick horse, Pal, in 2005.
I thought that would be the closest I’d ever get to the dream.
But true to form, Laurie was hatching a plan, a year-long one with Welsh pony farmer Jessie James. And come anniversary time (he later said that Christmastime would be too cold & wet for complete enjoyment), after 60 years of wishing I finally hit the jackpot.
We were at Jessie’s farm, under the guise of him helping her fine-tune a creek recovery action plan. I loved going with him because while they talked I got to walk around and be with all her ponies. That day she said, “hey I just got 2 Section B Welshes and they’re in the arena”.
I skedaddled in quickly, both of them following close behind. And there they were, galloping around the arena. Almost pure white with some sweet freckles. I’ve been corrected a few times about their colour, not being equine-educated and all, that they are not white but actually ‘Perino’. Alrighty then.
Mom & son – Sage with long white tail and mane and big brown eyes, her son Sisco with dark tail and mane and ice blue aqua marine eyes. Section B’s are not small, originally developed by breeding the smaller Section A Welsh Mountain Pony with Arabians. And you can tell. Man, can you tell. That face!
I was in love…again.
Then Jessie handed me their pedigrees and ownership papers & said, “happy anniversary”. I cried and cried. Not a pretty sight for the photo op! My life was complete.
But within a year and a half things at the farm had changed, life had become so very very different and hectic with Laurie’s passing and riding the horses was hard to maintain and also so bittersweet. They enjoyed the pastures so they became my lovely lawn ornaments…until 6 weeks ago, when Shane educated me. Sisco had ‘cresty neck’ a precursor to Laminitis. Sage looked like she was ready to have another foal.
They never went back on the field.
Special low-fat/low-sugar ration mix grain from Ladysmith’s excellent Sharkare, net bags for their limited flakes of hay, and exercise – lunging, lunging, and now with blankets & saddle on. They now spend at least 3 hours a day with me. The change in them is amazing. They’ve become so lovey-dovey. And my heart just melts when I’m with them.
There is a reason why horses are used so much for therapy. THIS is what his gift was all about.
Unicorns? What hippie nonsense is this, calling my horses unicorns?
But they are quite magical to me.
Jackie Moad is getting back on the saddle again and like the sign on her front door reads, ‘Live like someone left the gate Open’, all the while continuing to farm that 20-acre organic slice of Paradise in Cedar. And to her readers she says, ” May the Horse be with You”!
Jackie Moad.
World Traveler.
Environmentalist.
Organic Farmer.
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