Laughs and Rants from My Inner Child

Things have been really rough, so working with the animal shelter on the farm we’re buying was a great break.  Especially since I got to work with the horses.  I love horses, ever since I was tiny, as you can tell by the title.  I was one of those kids who asked Santa for a pony every Christmas.  I had every Marguerite Henry book she ever wrote and devoured them over and over.  When I found out Chincoteague and Assateague were real places, that Misty and all the others were real, and that I was actually going there, I was in heaven!!  I read tons of horse books – the Black Stallion series, Flicka, National Velvet, Black Beauty and so many more about horses named Fury and Thowra — and dreamed of the day I own my horse ranch.  I even kept a small notebook about it, naming the horses I’d have.

So when I got to the farm and asked where would they like me to work, I was pleading inside let me come into the horse pens.  And when that’s what they said, I leapt inside with a huge grin.  I helped clean out a few stalls and pens, and was paid with nuzzles and kisses from the horses.  I learned to softly blow towards their noses, which they love, especially after I ate a chocolate chip granola bar!  I fed them carrots and felt their velvet muzzles on my hand.  I had Pinto yell at me for giving the others carrots when, obviously, I was only supposed to give them to him.  And he and Creamy dazzled us all with enjoying their freshly cleaned paddock by running, bucking and leaping up!  Then Pinto, teenager that he is, tried to act cool around Pious, the big male draft horse we rescued, trying to show the growunp he was cool and one of the guys.  Shiza napped on the fence while watching us, nuzzling us as we went by.

I also worked in one of the sheds, earning me the cats’ attention, including Flash who popped up like a Jack-in-the-Box, and Midnight and Squiggy, constantly around our ankles.  I gave treats to the pot belly pig, Lucy, and gave Tommy the beagle snausage some attention that he craves.

This is why I joined the shelter, to do this kind of work.  I’m just a small part of it — Denise, Pam, they do the biggest work — but I’m part of rescuing this poor innocents from the abuse heaped on them by people.  I give them the love and care they should have had, and hopefully, a new home in the future.  As we all told Denise, who runs the farm, it’s the best day’s work we’ve had in a very long time: we were out on a nice day, laughing with friends, doing some physical work to get the juices flowing, and pushed back some of the darkness in the world.   It was meaningful work, it had a good purpose, and we got a great paycheck.