Yesterday was such a strange day. I went to the Lazy J feeling so ill and tired all I wanted to do was get there, and get back to the shed without undue delay. But once in the breezeway barn with the horses I didn't want to leave.
To horse people the barns and shed rows are a "home from home" city folks just can't understand. It's a place of belonging, a place of comfort.
As I looked upon the mostly empty stalls, but for a stakes mare and the stallions, and dusty tack I looked back 4 years to what could have been, what should have been. Life seemed to flash before my eyes. I have no idea where my tack is. I can't even find the stirrup leathers and irons for my saddles. Everything has been packed, re-packed, and packed again so many times that I can find nothing anymore.
It's somewhere. Somewhere in that pile of water soaked boxes is dressage tack nice enough to make you weep. Somewhere in the bent and broken boxes is training equipment it took a lifetime to attain - the tools of my trade. I have no idea where anything is, but it's there.. somewhere.
Jan and I sat discussing horses, equestrian events, the sales thus far, my home, our lives before I returned to Alto and the shed. I couldn't wait to crawl into bed and fall asleep. I'm too old to be awake all night physically ill and remain functional.
I never even noticed my bosses vegetable garden when I came back, but I certainly noticed it when I woke up in the early evening. I stood looking at the tomatoes trying to adjust my eyes ~ wondering if I was having an hallucination. 50 tomato plants heavy with unripe tomato's were gone, replaced by leafless stalks. The fence around the tomatoes had been broken down.
As I wondered over to the garden with my mouth open in disbelief I spotted him resting behind a tree. The culprit of this dastardly deed. A buck, a young mule deer, who clearly had "that was yummy" written all over his face. I love deer, but I don't love them in a vegetable garden.
I guess planting more tomato plants is now on the agenda .. I have gophers running ramped in the bottom garden and now a buck in the upper one. Indoor gardening is starting to look awfully advantageous.
I want to go home. It's one of the most awful feelings in the world when you want to go home and you don't have a home to go to. I can't stop the tears running down my face no matter how hard I try to keep them in check.. because I just want to go home.
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.~ Pearl S. Buck
