Harper’s Lessons

Although we knew for months that sweet Moondo would not be with us much longer, I couldn’t face the prospect of looking for a new horse while he was alive.

I had no regrets about spending focused time with Moody in his final weeks, but if we were to continue to have horses in our lives, Jake would need a companion, so late July and early August were an unsettling mix. The raw emotions of loss were shadowed by brain-numbing online searches broken up with phone calls and emails punctuated by an occasional venture into the pandemic summer to look at prospects. I didn’t feel good about any of it. There could be no “replacing” Moondo, of course, but I’ve also never been a fan of getting on horses I don’t know. Then there’s the fact that looking for a horse is like the worst kind of blind dating, in which the one who turns out to be an asshole can dump you in the dirt.

Sweet Moondo

In the background of all the unnerving events of 2020, a more private anguish has been unfolding for us. Back in early March, on one of the days I was rushing off to one appointment or another, I was driving past the feed boxes where the horses were eating their breakfast—except only one was munching.…

Pets

For a whole bunch of different reasons, we do not have housepets. Actually, in the case of cats, there’s one very good reason, which is that Doug is highly allergic, even though he likes cats and they universally adore him. We’re regularly asked why we don’t have a dog, and the answer there is complicated…

Winter Pasture

There’s a distinct pleasure in being able to make someone else happy. Sometimes their pleasure persists even as your own memories of the effort involved in said happy-making fade, tipping the scales of your satisfaction even further toward the positive. In the spring of 2018, almost a year ago now, I was getting started on…

Jake

My little red horse Moondo has delicate skin, which makes him an attractive target for flies and parasites. This winter, he fell victim to a double-barren infestation: lice and ticks (technical term: Yuck and Double Yuck). The lice have proven vulnerable to the nasty insecticide engineered to do them in. I don’t take the decision…