today

Ben with Tess the day she arrived.

Today I am:

{blue} The morning feeding out in the pasture felt huge and empty without my girl Tess. It's impossible to not be reminded of her in every little thing. In time I know this will pass. But for now I am aching.

{quiet} Boys still sleeping, heavy fog outside. Weed is no longer calling for his girl. Even the birds are quiet this morning.

{planning} A long list of sewing and knitting projects ahead. Organizing my craft areas (again). A workshop I'll be teaching for new homeschoolers at the HSC conference one week from this morning.

{exhausted} From days of crying and saying good bye to my horse.

{expectant} Picking up my little one (not so little, I'll admit) from a week at camp. I'm expecting big smiles and lots of dirt!

She earned her wings

Today I said good bye to my girl, Tess. We had two and half sweet years together, but they were two and a half years of pain and discomfort for her and anguish for me. Last week I made the difficult decision to end her life before she got to the point of complete agony. Some have told me it was the brave thing to do, I just know that hard as it was for me, it was right.

Tess came to me at age 16 with a long history of hard labor behind her. In her 19 years she was a rodeo horse, a pack horse, a dude horse, and my horse. For me, she was my very first horse after over 40 years of wishing and dreaming of having one. For me, she was my girl...the only other girl on Three Boys Farm. She was sweet and calm and expressive. She'd say hi to me every morning when I came down to feed her her breakfast. She'd rub my arm with her lip when I massaged her back. She'd blow warm air onto my face when she sniffed at me to say hello.

I could tell you the whole long story about what was wrong with her and how these past two and a half years were mostly spent in search of the treatment that would heal her poor feet. But it's technical and honestly, I don't have the energy to do it. What I want to tell you is that having her in my life was a blessing and I am only regretful that she had to live so long with so much pain.

Tess tolerated the donkeys, but she loved our old guy Weed, our gentleman border horse who came to live with us two winters ago specifically to keep each other company. They fell in love over a fence and spent the last two years like an old married couple. Every evening I'd let him out of his side pasture (where he was fed his high calorie diet) and he'd romp into the main pasture (where she'd eat her low carb diet), go straight to his girl and usher her into the barn shed for the evening. "Go home, Woman," you could practically hear him say. They were both chestnut quarter horses (though she was a papered Appaloosa...however without any spots!) and they looked like bookends. He would move her around the pasture whenever he wanted...go here, go there...he was her boss.

Tonight he walks the pasture calling and calling for her.

It breaks my heart to hear him.

We'll all adjust, Weed will adjust, but it will take time. Weed will remember the donkeys are there (he seems entertained by them) and will bond more, maybe even usher them into the shed, if they'll listen. I'll miss my girl every morning when I go out to feed and clean. I'll miss her whinny and her soft sweet hay smelling breath, her dark copper coat and her beautiful long tail that swept the ground. I'll miss seeing my horse, the one I always wanted, when I look out my window. But I'll be comforted in knowing it never got to the point where her feet hurt so much she couldn't get up. That is a good thing.

Tess earned her Pegasus wings. She worked so hard in her life and she endured a lot. Our two and half years together were a peaceful end to that life. 

(A big thank you to Mark and Joanna for being right there with me at the end...and to all my friends and my sister, Mara, for checking in with me and making sure I was ok. I love you all!)

Welcome to my world

It occurs to me that you might look out the window on a morning like today's...rain pelting down, skies gray, temperatures low...and hug your mug of coffee a little closer to you thinking, "Sheesh, I really am not in the mood to brave this weather today!" or "Man, my commute is going to be a doosey..." or "Yuck. Too cold and wet. Gonna stay inside, make a fire, and read a good book."

Well, all's I can say is: Welcome to my world:

The girl....................................................and the boys.

Weed, Donkey Boy (aka Burrito) and Cassidy.

Tess. "OMG. That picture makes me look like a MOOSE!"

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I may prefer taking care of business during the spring and fall, but I do love my equines and my country life!

Meet Weed, our Gentleman Boarder

I don’t know what they call equine social studies, but that’s what I’ve been a’studyin’ lately. Watching it all unfold in the pasture. The fireworks. The intrigue. The social ladder climbing. The pecking order emerges. The games they play. The love story.


A couple months ago I was riding my horse, Tess, on our neighbor’s ranch. (She’s been living at our place since July, since I discovered that her feet were so bad she couldn’t be ridden. Anyhow, after months of R&R she was ridable again and so there we were. Riding. Across the road!!!) She'd been living at our place with our mini-donkeys, Cassidy and Burrito, and she was L-O-N-E-L-Y. Bereft. She’d been living in a herd for years at our friend’s pack station. And then she lived at a barn down the road from us with her horse buddies all around for six months. And then I moved her home and it was just…lonely. No horses, just two sorry excuses (in her mind) for equines. They're short, they have long ears and man, can they be buttheads at times! (But oh so cute, at least, in my human opinion.)

So Tess and I are riding at Ken’s place and what do we discover but a gentleman by the name of Weed. Another chestnut quarter horse, these two look so much alike they could be bookends. There he was, living out his days in a pasture on the other side of the far edge of Ken’s property, with only a goat for company. A sorry excuse (in his mind), as you can imagine.

They immediately took to each other over the fences that separated them. Tess got all mare-y, tossing her head, flinging her mane, arching her neck, stomping a foot, and letting out a girlish "HEEEEeeeeeeee!" every time Weed sniffed at her. Weed was very interested, I tell you. And so was Tess. After our visit Weed stood at the edge of his pasture fence watching us go, whinnying for his new-found love. Hours later he was still standing there, waiting for his girl to return. It was love at first sight.

I spoke to Weed's owner the next day (after speaking to my wonderful, sweet and generous husband first, something along the lines of: “Can I? Huh? Huh? Can I?”) and asked if Mr. Weed could come live with Tess at our house, so they'd not be lonely anymore. We'd been wanting another horse for that very reason, but didn’t want to swing the vet and food bills. Here was our chance! Weed’s mom said YES. A match made in heaven. Weed is an old guy. He’s 30 now and she had been concerned he wouldn't even survive this winter alone. So we gave it a try.

Weed came over around Halloween and the minute he entered our pasture the dynamics changed. Tess, who heretofore didn't give the donkeys the time of day, spent four days herding them and keeping them in a corner away from Weed who skulked around with a sorrowful look on his face. At any indication that he was going to get near the donkeys or they, god forbid, were going to go check him out, she'd let out a neigh, run up and herd them apart.

Eventually things calmed down, though, and the new pecking order emerged. Weed is now the top man. He holds his head high. He stands at the gate and bangs on it with his hoof. “Where’s my breakfast?!” At every feeding time he makes sure that Tess is nowhere near the wheelbarrow and he gets to taste the hay first. He runs at her with ears laid back and she turns and bucks at him. And everyone else hangs back a bit, too.

Weed seems to find the donkeys intriguing in a way that Tess, with her feminine disdain, cannot. The donkeys run, fight and play with each other constantly like little boys. Tess always acts like she just can’t figure out their game, nor has she any interest in it. Weed, on the other hand, watches them until he can’t bear it any longer and then gets into it with them, tossing his head, prancing and running off after them for a game of equine tag. “Hey, Wait for me!!!” But he also is attached to Tess. She is his girl, after all. And if I should ever take her out of the pasture to work with her or take her for a ride, Lord Have Mercy. Does he put up a fuss and start to holler! "Where's my girlfriend!? What are you doing with my girlfriend?!"

They clearly are happy together, donkeys, horses and all. Tess seems to have her Three Boys Farm, just as I do. Seems fitting.