An Awareness of Life

I had gone to bed early, tired from working all day, but mostly I was bored with television and wanted to read. Try as I might, I couldn't stay awake even to get through one chapter.

I slept soundly, but about 1:00 am the bedroom door opened allowing light to pierce the darkness. But it was mostly the concerned voice that wakened me.

"Come help, there's a horse in the pasture."  

I found my mental bearings, realizing the light was nothing to fear and it was only my husband at the door. But we had a small emergency. Well, maybe not an emergency, but something that needed attention before it would become one.

Arly Blue

We have a rule at our house that if something happens at night which takes the other outside or away from home, one will alert the other for safety's sake. We started that when I had elderly parents with frequent nightly emergency runs. So I was glad my husband woke me. He had been up watching a movie, when he saw a strange shadow that didn't belong pass in front of the big picture window, he later told me.

I grabbed my robe, leaving my slippers behind, and followed my husband down the hall.

He was already dressed with boots and jacket on and he wasn't about to wait for me. Arly followed him out the door. By the time I got my jacket, gloves and boots on he was already at the pasture gate. Arly was pacing the fence line to the barn with Juliee (my mare) prancing along side him. Only the fence came between them.

I walked down the would-be path, now covered in drifts of new snow and actually no longer a path at all. The snow was falling in rapid, small flakes. It was a dry snow...the kind that won't make even a small snowball. The sky was eerily bright. It was actually very beautiful, with enough light that I could see it was indeed our Misty in the hay pasture. She was not liking being separated from the pasture in which she belongs, her barn, and most of all her best buddy, Juliee.  She ran up and down the fence-line pausing periodically at the gate to rear and buck a little each time to show Sam her disdain for the situation.

Not being a clear headed night riser, I chose to go around to the other gate in an attempt to join them. Sam had simply stepped over the fence. As I ran toward the gate, I suddenly fell flat on my face. My back arched to a degree that I thought surely I had broken it.

"Aurggh", I yelled, or something to that effect anyway.

My foot had hit a frozen snow bank in front of the gate that would take me to not the hay pasture, but the pasture where Misty should be. Then I would work my way over to the hay pasture where Misty and Sam now were. Sam had piled snow in front of this gate - Misty's gate - long ago, making a clear space for the horses while also making a path to the barn for me.

Fortunately there was a nice cushion of new snow on top of the icy bank, softening my fall.

I slowly tried to get up, still not certain my back wasn't broke. The frozen bank I had fallen into, actually made the getting up off the ground easier. I wasn't so far down as I would have been. Nope...no broken bones. Ha! Maybe I jarred something back into place. I think I now stood straighter.

Through all of this, Sam had still not been able to open the gate to the hay pasture. "Grab the shovel," he yelled to me. "It's in the barn."

Back at the barn, I turned on the little battery light we had strategically placed inside the barn door and easily found the shovel. I was tempted to stop and grab some hay or grain for Juliee as she was following my every step with excited expectancy. But I quickly realized instead, that I should indulge her a bit later.

This time, I didn't try to go through the gate to Misty's home pasture. The snow had piled up in front of the fence line enough that I could easily step over the fence as Sam had. He was calming Misty now as he waited for me.

That girl! I thought to myself. She has the most loving, vulnerable side to her that I just always want to protect...but what the heck? Why tonight on the worst storm of the year did she decide to go gallivanting about?



A Few Drifts

Using his hands and feet, Sam had cleared a good portion of the snow away by the time I got there with the shovel. But the shovel would help him get the rest of it that sat on a layer of ice which was in fact, the thing that was preventing the gate from opening. The gate was frozen solid in the ice keeping it from being even slightly moved. As Sam chipped away with the shovel, this time Misty waited patiently. She was calmed by my voice and my presence. I could tell it. She knows Sam, but she loves me best. ;-) She trusts me.

We both knew that once that gate opened we had better stand back, because she was going to wildly bolt through it back to the security of her home. I was relieved when the gate finally broke loose. I did not want her to stay through the night in weather like this away from all facets of her security.

When the gate finally broke loose, it opened easily and we both got our of her way. I laughed as she ran straight to her little shelter.

"Let's get them some hay and grain", I said to my husband. "That will calm them both and keep them in their shelters out of the weather as they eat."

So I got Juliee's meal first, as I always do. Mainly just to get her out of my way, but she had been waiting patiently, too, in all of this excitement.

Shake It Off

I then handed some hay and grain to Sam who had stayed on Misty's side of the fence. We keep the horses separated with a fence of barb free wire. Because as much as Misty does love Juliee (and she does), she picks on her if they are not separated with a barrier.

I stopped a moment to listen to the horses munching their grain. I looked up at the sky. Truly it was a beautiful night, and the biting cold we had had the last few days was now covered with the warmth of a blanket of snowy clouds. As I walked back to the house, I walked slowly, looking about and wondering why in the world I didn't get up periodically in the middle of the night to go for a walk. Or at least just come sit outside to enjoy it. Despite the storm, it was so peaceful! So beautiful! Wow. This is why we live here, I thought. This is why we do what we do. This, right here, was the best night of the winter. What is it, about that? How does a jarring call in the night turn into a moment of  "There is nothing I would rather do," and one of my favorite moments of the new year?



The Next Day - But Storms Still Coming In

 

Caring for something you love is the biggest part of it, I guess. But slowing down to think about the creation of God, sometimes has to come out of the things one might initially think of as difficult.

 

Sounds cliché, I know. And it seems like such a little, unimportant thing to blog....really no big deal. But it's my life..."We do not remember days, we remember moments"...and it is moments like these that I treasure most.

Here's to stormy nights, frightened horses, sudden falls and the momentary awareness of life.