"Almost always makes me high"

Sunshine for a few days. I knew our groundhog did not see his shadow. But come the end of the season and the road gets iffy, like pudding in places, and we tend to go up and down it as little as possible. It has been a week since I have been off the place, nearly two since husband has. He always said he’d come home and stay for three months, at least, and he very well might. For Solstice I got him a gate, a gate so he could come home, put it up, and not be bothered by the world. We are not the most sociable creatures.

Yesterday, I hooked the horse and we got wood from near the back creek. Hooking the horse is reason enough for the existence of everything. I took the time to groom him really well, put bag balm on little abrasions, notice that he is itching more than usual because the shed is beginning. When I first got around drafts, an old barn geezer said to me, “They are about twice as big as a normal horse, and they poop twice as much too.” True, and all so much the better for a farm aiming for sustainability. But they also have twice as much hair. The first shedding season I was amazed.

Playing with him is so much fun. Just the smell of horse is enough to bring joy to my heart. The feel of the lines which I still, from years riding, want to call reins. His grunts as he hefts himself uphill. Horse dust under my fingernails and in the cracks winter has left in my hands. And after we’ve hauled the wood up the hill, we leave off the trailer cart and the forecart and the kids ride over his harness back up the hill to where I unharness him, and after that, since he didn’t have too hard of a workout, I double them up and lead him trotting for a few hundred feet in the field. They are thrilled. He blows. I turn him loose and the kids head to husband in the hothouse and I sit on a stone in the evening sun just to watch the equines. It would seem such a small joy and yet, it is everything.

Today’s ice cream flavor of the day is blackberry. Husband in hothouse. Laundry hanging in sunshine. Chickens hiding where they are laying eggs. I step outside and hear small planes and wonder if my brother is flying on this pretty day. I put on a coat to milk and think of my friend Yvonne who gave me the coat and who I haven’t seen in forever. And isn’t it wonderful how these little things keep us connected, even us non-sociable creatures.