Birthday 81

My 81st birthday was not supposed to be exciting. We had pressed apples for cider with friends and family the week before. Last year, my 80th, was supposed to be the exciting celebration, when I entered a new decade, likely my last. But I can't remember what I did. My daily engagement calendar says only that Johnny and I measured old growth trees in the arboretum and some in the woods to see how much they had grown since the last measuring. The day before was more exciting when I identified a Mountain Quail that had appeared with the local California Quail. I put photos and info on my Birds blog.

So this birthday was anticlimatic... until it wasn't. I posted a "short" account on my facebook page... "Well, I'm not going to get to my birthday blog post very soon so I'll give a quick, short version... leaving out the swear words. In short, my spoiled brat of a horse (beautiful she may be but spoiled from birth by mother, grandmother and godfather gelding... and me), pushed the gate open before I had Annie the dog leashed and took off after Annie who took off, as usual when she gets loose, up our long driveway and down the middle of the road with horse in fast pursuit. So, once again, Johnny and I each in our EZ Gos took off in pursuit of the two runaways. Annie turned into a different neighbor's driveway this time and he was out and very nice. We have the world's most understanding and kind neighbors. He, in fact, got in his truck and kept us in sight as dog ran through woods and briars while horse screamed and ran around trying to get through brush and whatever... and I did, too. Johnny stayed with his EZ Go on the road trying to deflect the runaways whenever they burst out onto the road in his direction. Another neighbor in a truck tried to block the blessed horse and dog from ahead. I got stuck in the brambles in the woods chasing the dog and then ran into a wide, deep trench of water I couldn't get across, only to feel something against my back... turned out to be the blessed dog, sitting there having apparently decided the leash was not as bad as the briars and deep waterway. I leashed the dog and fought my way back to the road and the screaming horse, losing one glove enroute. Well, I guess this isn't a very short version. We did get back to the road and the kind neighbors were laughing and not, apparently, annoyed with us or our nutty runaways. Horse and dog are safely back inside their fenced paddock, fed and not in the least ashamed of themselves, near as I can tell. And that is the story of my 81st birthday misadventure. I do have an idea how to get them out of their day field by a different route that should be safer. Wish me luck."

I have not yet tried my new system of moving dog and horse between night and day fields, as I think we all need a day of rest and recuperation. Especially me. Lots of my facebook friends posted comments. This one, from friend Joel, started me thinking...

 

"81 is a very cool age: 3 times as old as you were on your 27th birthday, when you were 3 times as old as on your 9th birthday, when you were 3 times as old as on your 3rd.

Do you remember if you were chasing rascally horses on any of those?"

 

My reply to Joel was "I think the problem may be that I have been chasing horses ever since I was 3..."

 

And that got me thinking about a poster board my dad had made for my 60th birthday, full of photos of me and my critters in childhood and beyond. I wondered just how many included horses. I dug it out from storage and  found... that there were many. 

 

Here they are from the most recent to the oldest...

 

 

Mr. Smith, aka Rogue Hill's Skybird

Duke of Lebanon, stallion I showed when I was in high school, riding for Mr. Dzengolewski

Impetuous, my half-Morgan from Lady, a grade mare, my first horse, bred to the Duke

 

 Dad was a horseman himself and had the patience of a saint, which I do not. He gave me this little cart. I trained my beloved Mr. Smith to it and gave Dad a ride in it on his 80th birthday. Mr. Smith was officially Rogue Hill's Skybird, but he had a forelock that reminded me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

 

 

 

 Friends sold us an older mare, Polly (Renwood Pollianne), who needed company and she became Mr. Smith's devoted companion. I bred her and got a palomino, Jessie Anne, named after our daughter-in-law Jessica, who had talked Johnny through the birth of Jessie Anne while I was in the hospital after breaking various bones from falling off Mr. Smith rather dramatically. (In June of 1999, so not on my birthday.) Dad  had driven from his distant ranch to our farm on the day Jessie Anne was born to take a photo of her (back in the days when you had to take the negative somewhere to get the photo printed), then took it to town to get it printed and then to the hospital so I could see my baby horse the day she was born. Jessie Anne later produced Nightingale, a smoky black Morgan, and the protagonist with her "daughter" Annie (our livestock guardian dog turned surrogate foal) in my 81st birthday saga. 

 

 

  The wonderful horse photographer Mary Cornelius came to our farm and took this photo of me and my four Morgans years ago. My poor camera does not do her photo justice. But you can see black Nightingale behind her chestnut grandma Polly (Renwood Pollianne) and in front of her palomino mom, Jessie Anne...

 

 One by one, horses, like people, get old and die. I am left with "baby" Nightingale, now 22 years old. When Mr. Smith died, Nightingale fell completely apart, crying non-stop for her last companion. We moved her from horse field to the field near house and shop... and goats. She was not interested in the goats but she fell in love with Annie, their livestock guardian dog. Annie was never into guarding goats and found that playing with Nightingale was much more fun. They've been a pair ever since. Now if we could just convince Annie to stay home... 

 

 

Waiting to make their escape