Summer's Promise

Good Friday Morning,

        That means it is just about the half-way point of vacation, but still many more days to enjoy at home.  

        Yesterday I received an interesting phone call from my neighbor who is visiting her camp, (we affectionately call Ohio), across the way from us on West Pond.  She and her family live in Ohio where they care for 4 horses of their own.  Her request might only make sense to horsy readers of this blog.  De wanted to come and clean stalls for me with one clear motive; to show her husband that they needed to purchase a new bed...at home...in Ohio.  Allow me to connect the dots.  De has been suffering from back pain lately, yet she found instant relief once having spent a couple of nights on her 'camp' bed.  She simply needed to rule out, (which she did), that barn chores were the source of her pain, pointing an all conclusive finger at the bed she sleeps in at home.  Thanks to the MRF barn chores, Bryan and De will hopefully, be getting a new bed!

        Today's excerpt from Finding My Way to Moose River Farm is about my first horse, Promise.  Many of you will remember her significance in my life and how finding her brought great comfort to my heart after ten years of aching for a horse.

Summer's Promise

Late in the afternoon when the horse trailer finally wobbled and squeaked down the gravel driveway it occurred to me that all the turmoil of the past summer was finally coming to a peaceful end.  As the horse of my dreams stepped off the trailer and into my life, I spoke her name under my breath for the first time.  My horse.  My Summer’s Promise.

The next day my father returned home, exhausted from his two week, (business), trip to Houston.  Although a whole roll of film had recorded the arrival of my new horse, the digital age was still decades away, preventing me from sharing pictures with my father upon his return.  Instead, he planned to stop at the barn the following day after his golf outing.  I tried to describe what Promise looked like in case I had not arrived at the barn yet to introduce them. 

When he arrived home from golf the next day, he wasn’t sure that the horse turned out in the paddock was ours. There didn’t seem to be anybody around the barn who could set him straight so he had to wait until he could describe the horse he had seen to me. 

“There was a brown horse, all alone and eating grass in front of the barn,” he described.

“That was Promise,” I said casually.  “The others are turned out together in a field behind the barn and she is either in a stall all day or in the front paddock by herself.”

“That’s our horse?” he questioned in disbelief.  “That is a beautiful horse.  I can’t get over how beautiful that horse is.”

His words made me beam with pride for my horse,... my beautiful horse.

My horse...My Summer's Promise