Memories & Nostalgia

I have always been and animal lover, and have kept so many things as pets it’s hard to list them all. Every living thing delighted me, from smallest bug to the largest of animals. That may seem unusual for a girl, but I guess I was an unusual girl, and that’s just fine with me, because I wouldn’t have missed the down to earth fun of enjoying all of God’s creature creations for the world. I still do.

Like many, I dreamed of owning a horse from the time I was a very young girl, and made that dream come true with a lot of help from God after I graduated from high school. I got my first job, and became friendly with a neighbor who was a horse lover. She took me to a stable she went to frequently, and there I fell in love with a handsome brown Appaloosa with a white spotted blanket on his hind quarters. He was a solid animal, 15 hands, and very healthy, except for one thing. He had been a hack horse, and needed some taming because he developed a terrible saddle sore and became rebellious because of it…who could blame him? For me it was love at first site and I wanted that horse to be mine, I asked God to please work that out for me.

God doesn’t always give you exactly what you want right away, He likes to teach life lessons. This was one of those times. I called the owner of the stable, and told him how much I really wanted the horse, that I only had a few hundred dollars, which of course wasn’t enough…and even worse, someone else had just purchased the horse for more than $300.

As I look back, I can’t believe what I did next, I called the new owner, who had purchased the horse for his daughter, and said, if she decided she didn’t like the horse, I’d love to buy it. He told me she was having a little trouble handling the horse, no surprise to me with the saddle sore he had. But he wasn’t ready to sell. I said even though I hoped things worked out for his daughter, I loved the horse, and if he ever changed is mind, please call..giving him my number.

It was a few weeks later that I received a phone call from the owner, telling me that they decided to sell after all, my heart jumped for joy, but I had to tell him I only had a few hundred dollars, not as much as he had paid. He said that would be fine, if I could arrange to have the horse moved. The arrangements were made, with the help of my horse-loving neighbor.

So God gave me the pleasure for a few years of my life of loving a horse back to health, and enjoying many a ride on a bareback pad with the most comfortable bridle/bit I could find (never liked a saddle even though I had one, or putting an uncomfortable bit in a horses mouth) through the woods, into abandoned apple and pear orchards. Only once did he get spooked and throw me off his back onto the ground, not intentionally, and he turned right around and nudged at me with his nose, so concerned that he had hurt me.

When it came time to say goodbye, I gave another girl who always dreamed of having a horse the same gift that was given me, she purchased the horse for what I had paid for it, loved it, and kept in touch with me, even letting me know when and where Major was put out to pasture to live out his last years.

One of my happier memories…and who knows, maybe there’s another horse in my future, we do live in what they call “horse country” in our part of the State of New Jersey.