Hearts and Guts

As I sift through the trainers who have thrown their hats in the ring for the job of taking on Dee and Stormkite, I become more comfortable with my decision to have a professional train them and help find them new homes.

Who will miss whom the most?

For me, the past year has been one in which we have simplified.  We moved from a big house with a huge barn and oodles of storage that could be crammed with things upon things to a small house with very little room to stash stuff.  That meant getting rid of so much.  

And that felt so good.

Then, we sold the old house, and that felt good, too.   In between, we sold an extra car and a bunch of saddles.  All good, good, good.

And so, it seems natural for me to look to simplify my horsekeeping life, as well.  But this action is not like selling a house or sending all the old furniture away on a truck to an auction. 

Without going all sappy on you, I’ll say that I love these horses and I believe in doing my best for them, creatures that depend on humans to care for them and that have no choice when humans don’t.

So, I’m doing what I can to give Dee and Stormkite the best chance at getting a great home, a better home than I give them, even.   It’s hard to admit that a better home is out there, but it is.  There are probably many better homes -- one with fewer horses, for instance, or one with more humans to take care of the horses.   Or with more peppermints.

And the beauty of it is, it gives Hudson, Starlight and DeCato a better home, too, because I will be able to stop my always working with a horse that needs to get going under saddle.  I can focus on these three horses I have already started, and move them up the scale in skill and training. 

Lucky them!  They each get more of me.

Hmmm...Get ridden or graze?

I try to avoid describing what I think my horses think, because I always find when people do it, they just sound wrong.  But it could well be, at this point, they might think, “Uh, we don’t really want more attention from you, we don’t want to work harder with you and we don’t want you to break up our herd.  We just want grass all the time.”

Well, I guess there will always be differences of opinions on these matters, but in the end, my gut is telling me this is the right thing to do.