a breath of fresh air...

I was busy they other night being super lame because I am now "normally" in bed by about 8:30 these days; (Why? Because I'm perilously close to turning 29 and apparently that means I get lamer by the day...)
and I was reading a little magazine on the history of Aiken and learned that originally, people started coming here for the fresh air and to get away from the muggy, buggy, air in Charleston. It was a respite for those with respiratory issues, or those that needed a break from "city life". With the vacationers came the horses, and farms were built all over for polo and foxhunting and other equestrian sport.

Here we are today and Aiken is still a cute very horse centered town. I have to agree the air is often quite crisp and it's strangely breezy most of the time- for the very flat terrain anyway. So this weekend, my very own breath of fresh air rolled into town in the form of my two doggies- brought down by one very cute course builder/boyfriend. I cannot even describe my excitement when I woke up on Friday morning and knew it was only a matter of hours until I got to hug those two precious furry faces that would surely be accompanied by Steve and that smile that gives me butterflies. As the day went on, it became apparent that my gloriously imagined reunion with my three favorites was not going to go quite as planned. Steve got called to do some work out on the course at Sporting Days, and I got busier and busier- as the day before horse shows alway seems chaotic- no matter how organized you think you are! Finally- I had to jet out to Buckleigh to get the dogs- who were with his sister and her horses that she brought down for the show and I would just have to catch up with him later. When I finally arrived after what seemed like the longest 25 minutes ever (bear in mind I have NEVER been away from my dogs for 3 weeks before), I already had tears in my eyes as I opened the tack room door on the horse trailer and Doodle literally came shooting out in all of her fat black dog excitement and tackled me to the ground. I hugged her and rolled around on the dusty ground a bit with her as she squealed and cried with excitement and poodle was jumping in my face and licking me between barks. I missed them more than I realized and I was so glad to see those sweet faces. I sat with them in the dirt for a few minutes and then had to throw them in the truck and jet back to the farm because there was still a set of horses to hack, evening feeds and two to braid!

Steve arrived later luckily catching a ride back to the farm with Lucia who went to walk her courses and we had a relaxing night in. I snuggled incessantly with Rylie Boo and was happy as ever to drift off to sleep with her little brown furry body nestled next to me and the soundtrack of Doodle breathing/snoring on the floor next to the bed. As good weekends always do, time flew and before I knew it, it was Sunday morning and I had to load them back into the truck and drop them with Steve, his sister and mom for the drive back to Virginia. I drove there basically in silence, knowing that if I talked too much about saying good bye to the girls and Steve, my throat would tighten up and my eyes would well with tears. I managed to squeak out a good bye to everyone and hug the girls before trotting back to the truck without a major breakdown.

Dont' get me wrong- life in Aiken is fab and horse filled, but I miss my dogs and I had no idea how attached I had already become to the tall blonde boy. My dogs are literally my "four-legged children" and I can only imagine how hard it is to be separated for any length of time from your human children, if being separated from my canine children is this tough. They seemed very happy though and Rylie Boo is ridiculously attached to Steve, literally whining for him every time he left the room or the car. I was a little jealous...

So my breath of fresh air blew out of Aiken as quickly as it blew in. I needed some time with my doggies and I'm so grateful they got to come down for a visit. Hopefully they can come again for the Pine Top advanced weekend. Until then, I'm breathing the crisp air outside and missing them a lot, but remaining thankful for all the good friends and family I have- long distance or close, I'm grateful for all of them.

Horse related updates coming soon. Jazzy has something to tell you.
-Ellie

The blink of an eye

I can pretty much safely navigate the stairs from our over-the-barn apartment down to the main barn aisle in complete darkness now. I've found if I don't turn the lights on the stairs on, then my eyes adjust to the darkness faster once I'm outside and I like that better than waiting and almost walking into the fence while everything still looks pitch black.

The reason I have developed this preference, is that it simply isn't cold enough when we feed around 4:30 or 5:00 for the horses to have their "pajamas" on yet and I can't stand the thought of them standing out there at dusk, sweating, then as soon as it gets dark the air gets crisp and they are standing damp under their blankets. All of them except Jazz and Stanley are fully clipped so they wear a variety of clothes on any given evening/morning and sometimes we change blanket weights up to three times a day- and on those days I wish for summer!

Anyway, although I am often tired at the end of the day and it's hard to wait to put on my pajamas until 10:00 or so because I don't want my pajamas to be covered in sand and smell like horse pee (the perpetual perfume of blankets), I really don't mind the blanketing in the darkness ritual. There's something about visiting each one of them and giving them one last pat on the neck or rub on the face at night. They sniff and snuff me up and down to see if I brought them anything and most of them stand quite nicely to be blanketed without making me halter them or catch them at all. Usually Jazz is the most difficult one of course, because she hates wearing clothes, but once she's still, she puts up with me and just makes ugly faces in the dark about it.

I love the quiet of nights here at the farm, and the "horses at night" sounds that are so familiar to me now. I can hear horses underneath me in the stalls nosing at the their sometimes empty water buckets, or the few paws at the stall floor before they lay down. Outside, where our horses are turned out at night, I can hear the swish of their tails against their blankets and the perfect grind of their teeth against their evening hay and that soft sound of their hooves in the grass. Before my eyes have adjusted completely to the darkness and I'm still scanning the paddocks for a dark shape against the lighter sky, I can usually find them by these little sounds. Each horse has it's own little profile of sounds, Fi snorts all the time, Mod's teeth grind louder when he eats hay, Jazz snuffs out big breaths before she walks my way, Oudo licks his lips while he gets blanketed, Gibbie lets out soft nickers if he thinks I have treats and sometimes clacks his teeth together when he's not in the mood to be messed with, Stan sniffs the most- just like a puppy... the list goes on. It's funny to me how comfortable I am with them in the complete darkness. I know each one of them and their body and their gait and their smell and even their individual whinnies just by the sound. After a few minutes I can see much better and I don't have to fasten the surcingles by feel- I can see them pretty well. As I say goodnight to each of them and climb out of their paddocks over the fences in my mishmash of blanketing outfits that is usually made up of Uggs- yoga pants and t-shirts with a jacket thrown on top, I wonder what they all think about the clumsy humans that come to dress them every night. Horses of course see much better than I do at night, and if I take the time to really notice the beauty of the darkness and the stars and the crisp air and the sweet perfume of warm horse, I'm glad that I'm not missing it and I wonder again what they see that I can't- how much there is that they don't miss that we do. 

In the blink of an eye, we can miss so many details of our day- the mundane things that are really beautiful and lovely and special because we are always in such a hurry to get things accomplished. Efficiency and accomplishment are noble goals, but sometimes so is simple observation. How many people will go their entire lives without knowing the pleasure of a night walking through horse paddocks in the darkness- taking in the brightness of the stars in a country sky and the smells and the breeze.I'm glad I know that pleasure, but what else am I missing? I'm adding appreciating more simple and beautiful details of my day to my resolutions for 2012- hope you'll join me!

-Ellie

P.S.- USET winter training sessions are here at the farm on Monday- I'll try to maintain my composure and not act like a 13 year old girl at the sight of Justin Bieber- I'll try... and maybe I can sneak in some auditing because either Capt. Mark Phillips or Katie Prudent will be teaching. Yay.