Snow Covered Horses

December 28, 2010

Snow Covered Horses

Over the last year, I've made the goal and conscious daily choice to avoid auditing life. If an interesting opportunity presents itself, even if it may take some work to obtain, go for it.

Sometimes just 'going with the flow' leads to doing nothing. Or doing nothing you're interested in. I felt like I was wasting so much of my time doing things I didn't truly love or enjoy. Why?

I heard somewhere that one should get rid of everything that isn't beautiful, joyful or useful. I am striving to do that now.

The best part of getting rid of the junk, is there is room for things I actually love. People, places, activities, fun, travel, love.

A small, but rewarding example of this happened over Christmas. My sister and I headed to a small town outside Burlington, Vermont to visit our grandparents.

On the way home to New York, our GPS took us to a "bridge" crossing Lake Champlain from Vermont over into NY. However..... the bridge had been blown out, and a ferry was now in it's place. Fine. Except the ferry had just left, and wouldn't be back for an hour. Feeling pressed for time, we kept driving south, bordering Lake Champlain, looking at the map (thanks mom for forcing us to take it!), trying to find another point to cross state lines.

We didn't really have a reason to be in a hurry, we just wanted to get on the road, as the snow and temperatures were falling, we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us, and we had already dilly-dallied in Burlington until lunch (4 hours behind schedule).

My sister suddenly realized we were 10 miles or so away from the UVM Morgan Horse Farm. (Childhood dream music chime in here). twinkle twinkle.

She looks over at me and says...."Amy. What do you think about stopping at the Morgan Horse Farm? It's only 15 minutes away?"

I hesitated briefly. Then realized how ridiculous that was. There was an opportunity right in front of my face to see something new, something that held childhood memories, and only a self-imposed time schedule. I almost immediately said YES! Let's go!

So we did.

There was nobody there. We walked through these beautiful old doors and realized the farm was closed for the winter season. Katie suddenly ran out, saying there was someone coming inside. She didn't want to get in trouble with them. Trespassing isn't exactly the coolest thing ever.

However, I convinced her to go back and tell them we were visiting from Arizona and just wanted to take a quick look around (eye lash blink, blink).

It worked. The trainer said to absolutely come in, look around, see whatever you want!

Who could have imagined such unrestricted access?

It was silent inside. All I could hear were the horses breathing heavily. An exhaled snort through their sensitive noses, sniffing out the new person in their home.

The occasional stomp of a hoof, lazily eating their feed.

The smell was nostolgic. Leather. Hay. Grain. Sawdust. Old wood. Crisp winter air. Memories of our days showing horses came flooding back. Jumping, medals, ribbons, shows, tack, saddles, bridles, a deep love for these gentle giants.