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 Karma. | ||
| I think that we are "more than fine". Perhaps a good indicator of that has been that we've all been "too busy living" for me to update the website since before our move to the farm in June. I kept promising I'd get to it as soon as it was too cold to be outside - but here we are in December, with record-breaking 65 degree temperatures... It's hard to know where to begin after so long, but the horses on the hill may be a good place .. one day (if there's a blizzard) I may back-track with all the stories of moving and adjusting, and things happening at the right time that have brought us to our current place.Karma.The proximal cause was Ramon getting a burning case of horse-envy. Although I'm pretty good at squashing grand schemes related to the purchase of bigger and better tractors, rototillers and other smoke-spewing earth-renderers, Ramon out-smarted himself on this one. He said, "I really think we should get some horses, now". And I said, "OK". We had no fencing, no prepared barn, no experience newer than 30 years ago, and in my whole brain, I just could not find two common-sense neurons to rub together and put the brakes on this. I began to remember "Fire", my beloved pony in England, the happy hours I spent alone with him on on the Commons, and "Emi", my black thoroughbred. I figured we'd get horses here "someday". Ramon managed to convince me it's like waiting for "the right time" to have a baby. We started looking for a horse. There's a woman I've been hearing about since we got the farm, a wildlife biologist at the Department of Natural Resources who also breeds Arabian and Morab (Morgan-Arabian cross) horses. Her husband fixed our furnace that first week-ending winter, and I remember being struck by his pride in her accomplishments as he chatted and worked, "My wife - she does everything, she's a volunteer fireman, she hunts, she's a 4H leader, she breeds and trains hunting dogs, she does wild animal rehabilitation, taught school, she remodelled our house - everyone has to wear a lot of hats out here". And mother of a computer graphic artist and a computer whiz currently in college. I wanted to meet her then. I've been even more curious, since someone local confused me with her - and thought I was the "guardian angel" who towed her car out of a ditch in a snowstorm last year. For sure it wasn't me! This Linda had a Morab filly and a couple of Arabian foals for sale, so we decided to go look. I was expecting Linda, whose repertoire of practical and biological skills is Donna-like, to be equally statuesque. Imagine my surprise to meet the Mighty Mites, Linda and her sister Laura. Linda and Laura are two of four staggeringly competent sisters who forever remove being female, short, or raised in a city as excuses for not being able to do something! (They assure me, Donna, that even short, city-bred folk can learn to move quietly in the woods - you should have given me a chance to prove myself in the rain forest!). The diminutive siblings are just my height (I can't be that short!), born and raised in a Chicago suburb, and are Aleut-looking half-Japanese with a pinch of Cherokee. (And we thought we were ethnically isolated here!). We had immediate ease and rapport with each other which was unexpected and atypical for everyone concerned, On a later second visit, Ramon and I were further won by Linda's rambling, comfortably disarrayed house, within which every available surface is layered in books and articles, with horse tack and a variety of cats and kittens punctuating the work-in-progress horizontal library. She even had a complete collection of one of my favorite science fiction authors. But I digress. Back to horses and the first visit. The foals were really too young for us to consider, and I even had reservations about the huge chestnut yearling filly as it would still be six months before she could begin training, (and who, by the way, was going to train her?). The Morab filly, by the way, was named "Moose", because Linda, accustomed to tiny-headed all-Aarbian foals, thought big-headed Moose was the ugliest foal she'd ever seen. She is ungainly, but with promise. Maybe she's ungainly like Geena Davis or Cindy Crawford might have been ungainly adolescents. I told LInda giving her a registered name of Miranda's Moose was like naming a child "Klutz" - poor Moose, doomed to negative expectations about her beauty and grace. But to tell the truth, I was having trouble focusing on any of the younglings. Over the paddock fence this utterly beautiful black-bay Arabian head with white star, tiny muzzle and huge dark eyes was regarding me. I walked over, and found a small, friendly Arabian gelding. "What about this one?", I asked Linda. "Karma's not for sale." she replied. Puzzled by her non sequitur, I said: "Well I guess not, but what about the horse?" "His name is 'Karma'". I burst out laughing. "You named this horse 'Karma'? Too much!" "Yes, his name is "Kariq Karma". He's the grandson of my stallion Kariq, who is 22, and my friend Nancy bred him six years ago out of her mare "Harma" as a dressage horse, but he's not big enough for her. So she sent him to me as my replacement riding horse for when Kariq gets too old." I couldn't stop chuckling. Karma kept looking at me. Linda was clearly pondering the possibilities, and offered to let me try him, but I fairly bolted out of there. I knew if I rode him I'd be lost, and we really were shopping for a horse for Ramon first (or I'd never hear the end of it). Linda said she's call and invite me "just to ride" sometime. Three or four weeks passed, and I couldn't forget him. This was all confused and bound up with the unexpected rapport with Linda, the unhoped for and unexpected "find" of someone who really seems to be a like-minded spirit. We looked at some nice horses, and a few after which we wondered if we should call the Humane Society. I was hoping Linda would call and invite me to ride, but no call. Finally I needed to call DNR about our continuing fox problem, and lo, I was referred to Linda for options in control of chicken-eating foxes. This happily resulted in an invitation to ride. Linda rode "Granddad". I rode Karma. (What a great line.). And I was just as lost as I expected to be. I wouldn't want anyone to think we bought a horse just so I could write this journal entry, but I must admit the possibilities tickled me immediately. My response was pretty obvious, and Linda decided she was willing to sell him. Ramon, Noah and I came back for another look at both Karma and Moose shortly thereafter. Noah, who by the way shows signs of having his Aunt Sally's wonderfully gentle hands with horses, had Ramon and I lead him around (and around, and around) Linda's yard atop Karma. If anything further was needed to decide us, you have to imagine Noah leaning over, stroking the horse's neck, chanting, "Good Karma, good Karma.". So, in the end, we got Karma and Moose. The high-efficiency team of the Mighty Mites and Linda's husband, Paul came over and put up our electric fence for us in a couple of hours, just to show us "how it's done", and "the horses on the hill" above really are ours, Karma and Moose galloping around at dusk on the rainy afternoon of their arrival November 30th. Officially, Ramon and I are exchanging horses as "20th (convivial) anniversary gifts". Karma is mine; Ramon's on a roll and two more horses are on the way. We've not yet decided which will be Ramon's and which for each of the boys. Karma is a challenge, and Moose is a baby. We have a lively nine year old fully-trained English-or-Western bay Arabian mare named "Lacey" on the way, and a barely-trained two-and-a-half year old buckskin quarterhorse filly named "Lonesome". If you wonder what we are doing with all these un- or barely-trained horses, Linda created a Frankenstein by loaning Ramon John Lyons' horse training book, and he's sure "we too can train horses". So, are the Mighty Mites and Karma karma? Something for us to think about as we watch the horses on the hill. |