The Wood and the Horse

   Today was a fantastic Sunday!

   The weather has taken a turn for the cooler. All the humidity that brought all the lovely rain this week has nearly vanished, and in it's place is a cool breeze, with cool days and nights. It's great weather to do anything outside....it was as if nature herself was giving out the invitation. And so it was perfect for horseback riding!

    It's been....years, years since I last rode a horse. I'd forgotten a great deal, and the horse, Fancy, who I rode totally recognized it and took advantage of it when she could. So she didn't trust me very much. But I managed to get my bearings about me and get back in the game more or less, so by the end we were getting along better and she was listening to me more. Though she still gave me a hard time when I was getting the dirt out of her hooves...she knew it was the first time I've done it in too long and that I didn't really know what I was doing. But I still prevailed!

    If anyone ever says that horses do not have personalities, they don't know the first thing about horses! They're all so vastly different. This horse Fancy....well, firstly she was an Arabian. So she wasn't quite as laid-back as I'd like; she was warm-blooded, you know. That basically means they have more spirit in them. She was interesting....see, these horses had not been ridden all summer. In a sense, they're being reintroduced to being ridden on the trails in the woods and around the walking trails to the old milkbarn and pastures. Ahhh, the scenery is really fantastic! There's a small lake, then pastures with burros and sheep and I think other horses....and it's all so peaceful around the horse barn itself. Just horses everywhere, and ponies and even a really young colt that I got to pet some. Gosh his fur was SO soft!

    But back to this horse....she was a very interesting character. She was NOT happy to be leaving her pasture, but she was not really stubborn (and I think she was more difficult with me since I wasn't handling her properly at first), yet at the same time she walks SOOOO slowly, but hates falling behind the rest of the herd (my sister and mother's horses) so there was a lot of trotting to catch up. A LOT of it. And then she didn't like anyone behind her...and she kind of nervous (since, again, she did not trust me) so she kept looking around too much which made her more clumsy than she actually is...oh, horses are really smart, but they can be incredibly stupid sometimes! She's already clumsy, and yet she wants to trot and hurry up a super rocky and dangerous uphill ravine. Silly thing! Let's see....well, she's something alright. She's also the first horse I've ever seen that has a blue eye! Yep, only one is blue; the other is brown. Poor thing had some sunburn around the blue eye, since it was surrounded by white fur and all...and the flies were attacking her horribly when we got back and she even bled some (though I think some of it might have been my fault, using the hard brushes on that area to try to get the flies off) but overall, she was one of the most high-maintenance horses I've ever ridden!

     But at the same time, I think I like her. It'll definitely be interesting getting to know her over the month! And even though we trotted a lot...really, she has a very smooth gait. I think that's sort of the norm for Arabians, perhaps? Well, either way, we had a pretty grand time that way. Lovely canter she's got! Heehee, nothing makes you grin all silly like a good canter (even when you're like me and worrying that your clumsy horse will stumble!)

    Really though, horses are amazing. And really, such characters! When I was trying and trying to get her to lift her left hoof so I could use the pick on it....well, I wasn't positioned right, so I couldn't grab it properly, but I didn't know how else to do it. So I kept on trying...and I looked up at her to try to get her to shift her foot over...and she was giving me a look that clearly showed that she knew I had NO idea what I was doing. Really, she just turned her head over and nailed me, her mouth full with grass, just staring at me incredulously. It...was very humbling....

    Still, this is going to be a good month with her, I think! She's not the type to bolt, and although she blows out and does NOT like getting her girth tightened (she might try to nip me a little, might also be an Arabian thing), she's not incredibly difficult with that either. It was a little funny, I definitely understood that she was IMPATIENT as I was getting the tack on and off her. It was kind of funny, really!

    Now I'm pretty tired from it all. Somehow it's a very comfortable type of tiredness, being exhausted from playing and doing something you really enjoy doing. It's more refreshing and puts you more at ease than not being tired at all. It's sort of like a strange reward, and your body and mind are telling you that you've spent your day well. It's affirming. And it makes me hope that I can always appreciate this sensation. Just like the good, hay smell of horses. So unique and warm. Being around animals....it really makes you feel so close to nature in a good and not silly sort of way. Especially animals that weigh a thousand times what you weigh! Ahh, when I came home, my dog looked SO small all of a sudden...and oh, the wind felt amazing on the way home. Not quite speaking yet of autumn and the cold....but whispering a warning, perhaps.

     "Wherever you live, the last warm sunlit hours must be savored like old wine, this sensuous gilded light treasured for the precious gift that it is, garnered into our hearts to illumine the darkness that lies ahead,' one of my favorite English authors, Phyllis Nicolson reminds me in Country Bouquet "Stillness, symbol of completed growth, creeps into the shortening days."" -Simple Abundance, Main Page, September

     Yes! Simple Abundance updated to September! This day could hardly get any better. 

     Something it doesn't mention is just all the play that is to be had in autumn. Certainly, autumn is a time for the hearth...for things of the home. For turning over a new leaf in the home and in ourselves...but it's also a time for the outdoors, just as much as summer. Autumn has a cool, crisp bliss that cries out to be savored, as it should be...it's all the unique coldness of a perfectly juicy apple mixed with going out to the pumpkin patch to find pumpkins for pumpkin bread and hay rides and hay and horses pulling the hay rides and....well, that's all later on. September is the month, perhaps, for really deciding how autumn will be used. Will we just see it as a drudgery of chilly weather, less sunlight, leaves to rake and holidays to slave away for? Or will we see it as a golden opportunity to partake in those brisk outdoor recreations that summer's heat took away from us, to really enjoy all the harvest has to offer (including all those harvest festivals!) and any holidays to use as a time to make new memories and find new recipes and traditions, and relive the old ones gratefully? Autumn is an extraordinary, fleeting time of year, just like the bright leaves that come and go...what will be made of it this year? 

   Well, I don't know how much I'll manage, but I'm sure I want to do more than just studying! 

    And then there's my big fan fiction. Eek! That starts in less than two months! Must keep focus! 

     To end, here's another picture:

    The scent this is based off of is called "Dreamy Vanilla Woods." That sounds really lovely....what a great and uniquely smelling woods that would be! You wonder if our good dreams will all come true in heaven?

 

September is the time to begin again.
In the country, when I could smell the wood smoke
in the forest, and the curtains could be drawn
when the tea came in, on the first autumn
evening, I always felt that
my season of good luck had come.
--Eleanor Perenyi
More Was Lost (1946)