I’m really sorry.  I wasn’t brought up to tell lies.  When I wrote my very first blog post, I said the whole horse thing started with Colby, me laying in the floor crying, hearing my brother’s words of wisdom, and talking to my parents.  That’s the more dramatic version.  There was a little piece to the story before all of that.  Maybe we could call it the preface.

Aunt Sadie was the first person to introduce me to horses.  Whenever I speak of Aunt Sadie, people who don’t know her imagine my mom or dad’s sister.  She is actually one of my Granny’s 8 siblings which makes her my Great Aunt Sadie.  I’m told her husband was a horseman.  Sadly the last time I remember seeing him was when I was about 6 years old.  He was old and hunched over and walked with a cane, and even though my fire burned for horses his fire was burned out and we never knew we had a kindred spirit.

Aunt Sadie’s daughter, Antoinette, grew up with a horse.  When I was in 5th grade Antoinette was living in New York tie dying slips and selling them in department stores as skirts while her horse Betty Boop lived a horse’s life less than 10 miles from my home.  Somehow I had existed 10 agonizing horseless years while the entire family neglected to tell me of this great fortune!  It could have been that my Dad had sworn the entire family to secrecy.  It’s also possible Aunt Sadie neglected to mention it until this point.  But finally Aunt Sadie got a bee in her bonnet to get me out to see Betty Boop and her friends.  She informed my parents that she would pick me up and as my parents exchanged relieved glances (I got to ride horses and they did not have to pay anything) I was already making plans to ride off into the sunset.  The day finally came when Aunt Sadie arrived to pick me up in her cream colored station wagon with brown wood-paneling, and we were off to the barn!  It was the first time I would get to see horses up close beyond pony rides at the fair, and I’m pretty sure my energy could have fueled that station wagon had we run out of gas on the way.  To be honest, if the car had broken down I would have floated to the barn.

Interestingly enough, the horses lived on the same road Colby did but about a mile further down in a pasture behind a greyish-blue wooden house.  The 3 horses crowded around us like little kids at the ice cream truck as we fed them carrot after carrot that my mom had bought for me from Kroger.  The only thing that could rival the smile on my face was the smile on Aunt Sadie’s face for being the one to introduce me to my first love.  There was Antoinette’s horse, Betty Boop (a dark bay) and her best friend Mrs. Anne (a bright chestnut); they were both around 30 years old.  Then there was a handsome “young” horse named Justin (also bay) – he was 20.

To put it bluntly, I was born infested by a parasite.  It is called “the horse bug.”  It was really hungry, and Aunt Sadie finally fed it and was thrilled to do so. I can still remember the smell.  It was the musty scent of an old barn and the sweat of field dwelling horses that could wonder in and out.  Add in years of manure scattered about and the lush grass with weeds, carpenter bees, and a small, murky pond.  It was the smell of a young girl’s first love.

Lesson of the Day:  Give credit where credit is due

Soli deo gloria,

~Sarah