Memories Viewed From A Distance…

I love scrolling through my “memories” that pop up on Facebook each day. I smiled when I read these, but I also came to some realizations…

Nov 16, 2016

Love the snow but it indeed makes chores, well, more of a chore! Lol We let the horses out this morning before we left for the dog show. After the show we headed to tractor supply, got home, clay unloaded supplies and mixed feed while I mucked stalls and skimmed water troughs and spread fresh bedding. Clay cleaned all the heat lamps. The moment the horses saw us they started kicking up a fuss, wanting in the barn! All are fed and tucked in. Starting dinner now. Chopped sirlion, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy and asparagus.

Nov 18, 2014

City girl turned horse rancher….what an adventure! Man is it cold! It’s actually warmed up to 26°. The horses, barn cats and kittens all fed. Took a little work to get the barn doors open as they were frozen shut. The well pump is frozen. God willing it’ll thaw before I’m in a water crisis. I will probably have to haul some water to the barn in 5 gallon buckets from the house but hopefully the trough will last until the pump thaws. Clays thanksgiving pot luck at work is today so I’m hitting the kitchen to cook a dish for that then deliver it. This afternoon will be spent getting the house together for visitors this weekend and mucking the barn and possible nervous breakdown as my mini schnauzer bella is in heat right now and Aengus the great dane is losing his mind. The non-stop whining alone is about to send me over the edge! Lol

Being removed from this time in my life by a few years, I look back to it all and I see so much love, warmth, happiness there. I see myself standing in the center of the barn at the end of the day, with all the horses heads poking out of the stall doors, listening intently as I said an evening prayer for them. (yes, I know I’m weird)

I see days of brushing my horses, gently lifting their mane, laying my head against their necks and softly singing lullabies. I see their eye’s go drowsy, feel their breath against my shoulder and remember the beautiful smell of them.

Oh I see my ranch…. playing with the barn cats and our mini donkey Kevin, who followed me like a puppy, the baby horses born there and all of it cast in the romantic hues of nostalgic love.

How is it that time does this, strips away reality and replaces it with a golden filter? I had to remind myself of sleepless nights spent fighting for the life of a colicking horse, the anxiety and dreadful fear of losing one. There were 12°F and negative windchill winters with fingers burning from the cold as I mucked horse stalls and busted the ice from frozen troughs.

There were 110°F days, sweat stinging my eye’s while unloading truckloads of hay bales, thousands of pounds of feed in 50 lb increments over my shoulders and chopping weeds from the fence line with a machete!

Maybe I’m just one of the lucky ones for whom time wipes away all the bitter, leaving only the sweetness behind.

You can read more about my crazy random adventure in Ranching under My Life In Mudboots.