Memoir Monday: There Were Good Days

 At times as I decry some of the harder times I went through in my early years it may seem life was constantly grim and ugly. It was generally not easy, I admit, and I did a lot of work but there were dozens of good days and highlights and times I was so very happy to be alive and to be me. Most of them centered around horses. I fell in love with the equine species early and expanded that to include the half-assed part of the herd and even some of those mules' other heritage. 

Getting those two old cowponies when I was about ten started me off on that path. I loved Lady, a big old bay mare with a kind and loving way and even Chindy--who was actually Tchindi, a Navajo (Dine) word for the restless spirits of the dead, mostly the worst ones! She was not a bad horse but had an arsenal of tricks. I learned a lot from them both but the highlight of my life for ten years was the mare I got as an eight month old filly in February 1956. My Valentine or Tina  was always truly mine and the only animal ever to come into our ownership or management that was never at risk of being sold or swapped off. She was a red-bay with black mane and tail, a full blaze down her pretty face and one white foot, the near rear. She grew to be a big mare, about 16 hands high ( a hand is a common horse measurement taken at the withers and 1 hand  = 4") and 1000 pounds or so at her full growth. 

Leggy and tall with a Thoroughbred's build she had a Thoroughbred's spirit and energy but was never stubborn, nasty or crazy. Equally at home scrambling up a steep rocky mountain trail or running for the joy of it down some dirt road, she became a mainstay of our whole operation. That was an evolving business of buying/raising, training/breaking and selling a bit over 100 different animals in that decade. We could count on her to be steady and calm leading a young or wild animal to get it trained, snubbing a similar one for the first few times it had a rider aboard and being the bell mare the herd would always follow. 

She never actually retired but we eventually gave more work to a number of other horses and especially some good mules and let her run in pasture more. At eight years old, we bred her to our new Appaloosa stallion, Yavapai Chief. She produced two colts with him born just over a year  apart. Bravo hit the ground on March 19, 1964. He was the image of his mama except lacked the blaze and white foot, just a tiny star, but almost identical in disposition. He learned quickly and was just about ready to begin serious training when the business fell apart and most of the herd was sold away. Rico was a bright copper penny sorrel with dazzling white markings --but not Appaloosa--and he was born on my birthday, April 27, 1965. A big colt, he took a  lot out of Tina and she was sick off and on that summer and fall. I nearly lost her several times.  The reality she would some day be gone was hard to accept.

In retrospect I know now we should not have bred her back so quickly after the first late foal. She did not have enough time to totally get her strengh back. Then carrying and birthing Rico was very stressful for her. I lost her the following spring, on March 16. Still, in that decade she had given me so much. I know she loved me as she showed it in any small ways, always listening for my whistle to call her in when she was out at pasture, resting her big head over my shoulder until it almost drove me into the ground though she did not realize the weight she applied. It was just her way to be close and "hug" me as a big four footed creature could not otherwise do. 

There were several other favorites over the years who gave me bright happy moments. Horses: Lady II, Tonalea, Colonel, Ritzi--though she had a tragic end at age two, Patrick, Buzzie, Old Chief himself, Leo Mix, a young Quarter Horse stud who didn't realize he was a stallion for some time, and Little Dusty, another sad loss. Among the mules there was old Louie, the first one, and then Stella, Ruby, Beano, Trixie, Cinder, Stonewall Jackson and especially Annie and Prez. They all served me so well and we shared many miles, them at a trot or running walk and me sitting easy on their backs as they carried me wherever I needed or chose to go.  The special symbiotic realtionship you build with an animal where there is mutual trust and reliance is unique, upifting, almost sacred. From those experiences I can fully empathize with the mushers (sled dog drivers) I now admire and respect. We all understand this bond and truly feel it in our hearts. 

For having learned and known that if there were nothing else, I know I am deeply and eternally blessed and I will carry those memories to the end of my days and likely beyond. In fact I fully hope and expect to see them all--the horses, mules and dogs I have loved --when I come out of that passage tunnel into the golden light of a much better place. Some call it the Rainbow Bridge--I just call it my kind of heaven. 

Notes on the photos--the first is Tina with me and brother Charlie within days after she came home. The next is that summer, though not yet trained she was gentle. The third is Bravo, the fourth Rico and then two of me and Tina--one as she was being trained probably in the summer of 1958 and the other a couple of years later--I loved the way her spirit came through here--ears up and taking that hill like it was a race to be won. What a splendid horse she was!