12/11/2020
So true!
I am sharing this extremely unflattering photo of myself in the interest of making a point. :D
I was thinking yesterday, as Annie and Irene and I were mucking stalls with hail raining down on the roof, about that intangible factor that I wish I could test for when we're evaluating prospective homes for horses. Someone can look great on paper, pass all the checks we do, and yet I don't know if they have it.
It's that little, insistent voice inside a person that won't let them rest until their responsibilities have been met. It is the difference between a person who gets out of their sickbed and weaves unsteadily to the barn to feed, water, and muck, and the person who lays there and thinks, I'm really sick, they'll be fine if they miss a meal. It is the difference between the person whose back hurts like hell but who still looks at the trough and says, yeah, that needs to be dumped and scrubbed and the person who says, oh, they'll be fine, they're horses. It is the difference between the person who loses their high end job and goes to work at the grocery store or whatever, because there are horses to feed, and the person who throws their hands in the air and says, oh well, I have to rehome my horses, and who hands them off to any Tom, Dick or Mary without so much as a Google search.
Lots of people want horses. Not a lot of people want the long term, sometimes absolutely miserable responsibility of having horses. I don't care where you live, there's some weather you won't want to go out in. There'll be days you feel like crap and there won't be anybody else to do chores. There will be days that work and family responsibilities make you want to tear your hair out and there will STILL be chores. Your boyfriend will dump you and there will STILL be chores. You will be on a deadline from work and there will STILL be chores - a block of time you can't reschedule, put off, or skip. You'll do your chores and take a nap and then stay up til 3 AM meeting that work deadline. And 3 hours later, the alarm will ring because, you guessed it, chores again.
I haven't even gotten into the times when s**t goes south during morning chores - a sick horse, dead golf cart, a loose horse, broken fence - and you have to choose between doing what needs to be done and showing up to work on time. Again, there's rarely anybody else around to step in during these crises, and if there is, count yourself very lucky indeed.
Any horse person who says there's never been a time that they've thought "those &%$@*@ horses, why do I have those @$@&@ horses" is probably lying. They are a lot of work. They are 1000 lb. children prone to hurting themselves and breaking s**t. They require constant care - they will never grow up, never need any less care. They won't suddenly graduate from college and go off on their own. They're going to need someone to scrub their buckets and mix their supplements for the next thirty years.
Oh, and they're SUPER easy to kill. People don't get this. They are not dogs. I've seen horses colic from running out of water for, like, four hours. A friend had a horse pull back when tied, jump forward, hit the tie post with his head and drop dead. Shoot, I had the genius who jumped out the hay window of the stall (she's still alive and perfectly fine, but you see the point). Beginners who buy a farm and want to get a couple of horses have NO idea.
And the really insidious thing is once you've seen horses getting A+ care, you won't be able to stand giving a horse B+ care. It'll drive you nuts. You'll insist your husband stop on the way out to dinner so you can dash into the barn in a dress and give a horse meds. You'll think nobody else can smell that you did that. You'll be wrong.
Most of us with that insistent voice about horse care are thought of as oddballs, because everybody else thinks we're freaking nuts to be out in the barn the usual number of hours on Christmas. They think it's selfish and/or childish. "Playing" with ponies. We've heard it all. A lot of us...a LOT of us...wind up permanently single.
And yet, that quality is the #1 thing that makes me want to adopt a horse to you. It's hard to find. We're lucky to have found it as many times as we have.
Oh - and if you've said all this and your kid still doesn't get it and swears they'll take care of a horse? Drop 'em off here to get the authentic experience. AM chores start at 6 AM! :D
