December
December 1, 2009
This is the time of year when the weather reminds us why we live in Southern Arizona. Evenings are cold enough for a cozy fire while afternoons are warm enough for t-shirts. It is also the time of year when things slow down at the Agua Linda Farm and my family can take a breath and enjoy the fringe benefits of farm life. For my kids, and me this means horses.
Like so many little girls, I was crazy about horses. According to my dad, when I was a baby we had a little pony. I don’t remember Frisky at all, except for her smell. Ponies smell different than horses. If I bury my face in the neck of a pony, fur thick with a winter coat, and inhale deeply through my nose, I am transported to my earliest years – not with vivid memories, but subtle warm feelings that pass quickly and cannot be completely grasped, like trying to remember a faded dream or having someone’s name “on the tip of your tongue”. We have a couple of ponies on the farm. What were at first companions for our children, are now entertainment for their younger cousins and the hundreds of kids who visit the farm every year. Bailey, who was born here two months after adopting Dez and Jesse, has been trained to pull a small plow, too and helps Stewart in the garden. I don’t know that she makes a significant difference in the work, but I know she makes the mundane task more enjoyable because Stewart feels a sense of comradery with her as they work up and down the rows. From time to time we bring Bailey in from the pasture, brush her down and saddle her up for a pony ride or hitch her to the plow. At these times, I cannot resist nuzzling into that furry neck, closing my eyes and enjoying the brief flash of time travel, but I don’t overdo it – I believe that the whisper of a memory that her smell triggers is fragile and could change – I don’t want the pony scent to remind me of plowing.
Despite begging and pleading, I didn’t start riding horses until I was ten years old and living in the Bahamas. My elementary school shared a fence with the pasture of about a dozen horses and at recess, that’s where I headed. Daily I was reminded of what I had decided was my true calling and I passed this along to my parents who finally gave in. My sisters and I started riding classes that fall. My instructor was English and abrupt and impatient, but I was hooked. For the rest of my pre-teen and teenage years, horses were my world. When I wasn’t in school or at the stables, I was drawing pictures of horses, reading Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books over and over or studying in reference books to become an “expert” in horse care so that I would be prepared to fulfill my ultimate dream of adopting a wild mustang someday (a dream that came true five years ago).
My husband, Stewart was a horse lover, too. As a kid he would spend hours trying to catch his old horse, Foggy back when the farm was 800 acres and having a horse “out to pasture,” meant you might not see it for days. Then, at only nine years old, he would saddle up and ride all over the ranch and beyond by himself, sometimes into Tubac, ten miles away! His mother, Regina had grown up horse crazy, too and shared her passion with her kids by footing the bill for English riding lessons, trainers and fancy jumping horses during the 1980’s. When I moved back to Arizona in 1986 and met my future family, Stewart, his brother Morgan and sister Alex were riding daily and trailering their horses to shows as far away as New York! When Stewart’s siblings went off to college, the old jumpers were retired from the ring and put out to pasture, and the English saddles became covered in dust in the tack room.
With the arrival of Dez and Jesse, (our kids were adopted ten years ago at ages 2 and 4) the saddle soap and currycombs came out. Saddles were restored, torn leather replaced and the rest oiled to a safe suppleness. I bought bicycle helmets for the kids and a small pillow for Jesse to make sharing the saddle with me more comfortable and we were off! We spent hours riding the trails that first year. I had taken a leave of absence from teaching to dedicate time to my new family and we bonded through horses. Jesse was barely three years old when he started announcing “Cowboys and Ladies!” every time we were all mounted up and ready to ride. It was like his own version of “They’re off!” or “Ready-set-go!” and the phrase has stuck. He was small and rode in front of me with his stubby legs straddling my hips and his arms around my waist. This way he was positioned safely between my arms while we navigated hills, washes and thorny mesquites. He continued to ride in front on his little pillow until one day, when he was about four he looked down at my chest and said, “Hey Mommy! I can see your boobies down there!” I halted my horse and Jesse officially graduated to the back of the saddle where the view was better (at least in my opinion).
Dez was an amazing rider from the start on Breeze, the former show pony that had belonged to Stewart’s younger sister. She guided Breeze in and out of the Santa Cruz River and through cactus with confidence while either sucking her thumb or chattering incessantly. Dez had a slight drawl in her voice that she has since grown out of and would say with her thumb in her mouth “I’m a real lady now, ain’t I mama?”
***
Today’s forecast calls for highs in the mid seventies. It is winter in Southern Arizona, all is quiet on the farm and it is a perfect day for riding.
Comments
Got something to say?