Tuesday, December 27, 2011

tears will fall sometimes

I realize nobody really pays as much attention to this blog as I do, and lately I obviously haven’t paid all that much attention to it either.  But one thing I’ve done for awhile now is to change the banner photo with the seasons – the same scenes but in the current season.  I’m having trouble changing the one up there right now though.

First, I just like that one, with the mare’s ears sticking up in the foreground.  She was so funny that day.  I went down to where I always take the photo and I took one photo before she literally ran up to see what I was doing and the result of that was this photo.  After I took this one, she ran out to the big horse and, I swear, posed.  I took two more photos with her standing beside of him, the last one with her mimicking his position grazing.

He died.  He was old.  It wasn’t a surprise.  We didn’t put him down and he didn’t linger.  It was mystically foggy the night.  We sat with him for long periods of time while he was on that final journey but left him be for the final part of it.  When I went out in the morning, he was gone.

And leaving the farm and coming back home it is like something is missing.  He’s been so much part of building this place, and so much part of me.  And I will never again take a seasons photo for the banner of this blog that he’s in – and I daresay he’s been in most of them.  We’ll never plow the garden or pull a log again.  He taught me so much, he gave me so much of me back.  He was gentle and slow and different enough that it wasn’t even scary.

I don’t know what the next chapter will hold.  There are advantages and disadvantages to giant horses and if I got another gentle giant, that would be fine, but there is nothing we do around here that warrants one.  The first thing that attracted my attention was smallish mules.  I think I could borrow a horse for this spring even.  I should probably try to take care of the cows first, and they need breeding and selling.  Perhaps I should try to train one of them to plow.  There is just nothing in stone about any of this except, of course, that I like equines.

I will miss him.  I do miss him.  And they’ll come a day I’ll change that banner photo, but that day is not today.

Also I will just note that the year was bracketed with the deaths of Jim and my big boy.  And Jim particularly loved this photo.  So maybe now's the time for Duke to show Jim a thing or two.

5 comments:

Madcap said...

The thought of that meet-up makes me smile!

Heather Jefferies said...

Thanks for leaving him up there.

clairesgarden said...

I'm sorry to hear you've lost your big horse.

Anonymous said...

So very sorry to read about Duke's passing.

Unknown said...

Your place, nor the banner photos, will not be the same without Duke.