Some Life

Yesterday Kurt’s guy came to fix the siding that had blown off the house in the last storm and put up the gutters. These are things that Kurt has the expertise to do himself, but with working all the time, he couldn’t get to it and so he sent Randy over.

Randy and his helper were here for about five hours. When they arrived, I was sitting out on the front porch smoking cigarettes and talking to my girlfriend on the phone. Since I’m a loud talker, I believe he heard my entire conversation. I think he heard about how big mine and Kurt’s feet are, my opinion on the chances of Kelly having clodhoppers like us and the emotional damage inflicted upon me when my mother made me wear huge black oxfords with my red-plaid school uniform even though all the other girls were wearing loafers and how they made my feet look even bigger especially since my legs were like bean poles. I knew I looked bad, but now that I’m thinking about it, I probably looked like Betty Spaghetty. I’m sure Randy heard all this.

And I know he heard me complain about the stray hair I found on a certain part of my body that I never noticed before because my eyesight is going and I’m still buying the Wal-Mart glasses. But then I got out the magnifying mirror and discovered a whole array of horrors that no decent person should ever have any idea he has. It’s not right. (That’s the bright side of losing your eyesight as you get older—you are blissfully unaware of the wrinkles, hair, suspicious discolorations and humungous pores that you’ve acquired since the last time you had time to examine yourself in a magnifying mirror, back before you started having kids and got horses.)

And he surely heard the juicy story, and perhaps even stopped to listen, about how Helen Chitwood allows ducks to live in her house since she kicked the husband out and maybe she’s a lesbian, not that I have anything against lesbians, but maybe she is one because she and her BFF have taken to shaving the back of their heads Rosie O’Donnell-style and there’s never any men around. They are out there in Helen’s yard in suits and masks like Hazmat people doing something with the bees. There’s a sign by the mailbox that says, “Honey 4 Sale,” and the BFF always answers the door when you knock to get some.

At any rate, Randy the Handyman heard all of this as he was hammering and sawing on the side of the house. He got a good earful all right. Then I went out back and got the pony. It must have been a wonderful sight. It was a beautiful, sunny day, just perfect for messing with horses. There I was in my long blond hair and cool cowboy boots with the metal tips on the toes. There was the pony in his black-and-white patches looking like a circus pony he’s so pretty. But pretty is as pretty does so I threw him in the round pen. I sent him around and made him turn and change gaits so that he knew I was the boss and he better respect me. Then I hopped on him and rode him all around the hay field where he had acted up the day before. This time he was an angel. A little workout will do wonders.

After I got done fooling around with the pony, I went in the house and ate lunch. Then I stuck my head out the door and asked Randy if he needed anything because I was going to take a little nap. Later when I was reviewing my day, I imagined that this guy must be thinking, “That chick has some life.” He was probably thinking that I live the life of leisure, gossiping and playing with my horses, taking a snooze when I feel like it. And I have to admit that I do have some life. However, I also realized that I just make it look easy. These are all the things that Randy did not see:

I got up at 5:15 and threw a load of laundry in while I read as many e-mails as I could and had a cup of coffee. Then I got Kelly up and going. I fed her, brushed the knots out of her hair while she screamed and accused me of child abuse or at the least, of being a mean mother. I fed the dog and cat, climbed upstairs to hit the snooze button on Kurt’s alarm three times because it was giving me a headache, shook him twice and told him it was fifteen minutes later than it really was. Then I weeded the flowerbed in the front of the house while we waited for the school bus to come.

After Kelly was off, I fed the horses and picked up three wheelbarrows full of horse manure. I straightened up the barn, swept the aisle and filled water barrels. I moved some bales of hay from the back of the hayshed to the front. I emptied out the buckets under the leaky skylights. I fixed some wire on a fence. I fed the barn cat and picked up a half digested wild animal she regurgitated. I pushed the dually wheelbarrow with a flat tire down to the manure pile to dump because it was filled with rotting weeds and rainwater and I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore getting deeper and deeper. (The air compressor is in the house and too heavy for me to bring outside and the bike pump is mysteriously missing. So I pushed it with the flat.)

After I was done with the barn chores, I moved the pile of lumber that was in front of the barn that Kurt was now finished with and that had been sitting there, rotting, (more rotting) in the way, since last summer. I put on my gloves and loaded it all up into the bed of the pick-up truck. Some of it was too heavy to lift so I had to get one end up on the gate and then push it up the rest of the way. Then I backed up as close as I could get to the side of the garage where I unloaded it with all the other junk lumber he doesn’t know he has and where it will continue rotting until my nagging kicks in.

I cleaned the house from top to bottom including sweeping and washing floors and vacuuming. I folded Kurt’s gym clothes and put them on the shelf where he packs his gym bag. I wrote out some bills. I took the garbage cans to the Dumpster. I went to the post office. I made phone calls to the insurance company, the dentist’s office and the school. I wrote, including a piece for someone’s website. I made supper. I helped Kelly with her homework. I kissed one boo-boo and made two threats. I carried firewood in the house and filled the wood box. I cleaned out the ashes in the woodstove and carried the ashcan and a bucket of water out to the gully where I dumped the ashes and poured the water on top. It sizzled even though the fire had been out for two days. I got kindling while I was out there. I cleaned up all the leftover pieces of wood and plastic gutters that Randy left behind. I swept the front porch. I picked up two buckets of dog poop. Then I helped Kelly saddle up her horse and I watched her. I got inspired and decided to work with Kurt’s horse. Which now we’re getting into the fun part again. But you see what I am saying. I only make it look easy.

The Wild Goose Chase

Once we make a decision, that’s it, we want it done yesterday, we “git r done.” No one can accuse us of being all talk, no action. One time Kurt decided that his horse wasn’t working for him and maybe he’d get another one. The next day we had Bullet. We still have that bad boy five years later. That’s what Kurt calls him. “Hey Bad Boy.” He’s not really a bad boy. Kurt knows how to pick horses. He has the knack for it. I have to admit that out of all the ponies we had, the ones who were hell on wheels, were the ones that I picked.

Of course the pony hunt is not quite as easy as horse-hunting but since we don’t fart around, we’ve already seen two of them and inquired about a dozen. Which boils down to we blew the whole weekend. And that made us mad because we’re trying to finish building the hay barn. I’m painting and helping and Kurt’s doing all the building. It’s a lot to get done on Kurt’s few days off. But Friday night we went to West Virginia because this pony was supposed to be it. It’s pretty country, here to there. I don’t think there’s an ugly place in Virginia. But we weren’t going sightseeing.

Since we’re tired of going on wild goose chases and because this one was three-and-a-half hours away, I prescreened over the phone till I was blue in the face. I should have known that the seller was going to be less than truthful because he tricked me into breaking my new rule of never traveling more than two hours to go and see a horse. The guy had an ad in the local newspaper; not his newspaper, but my newspaper. The number was one I didn’t recognize but I figured it might have been his cell phone number. A lot of people have cell phones with numbers from out of the area. I didn’t find out until he got me good and interested in the pony that he was so far away; way past my two hour rule. By that time, I knew this was the perfect pony.

I have driven from New Jersey to Oklahoma to buy a pony and from Virginia to New Jersey to buy a pony and everything in between, so a little trip to West Virginia for the perfect pony wasn’t out of the question. The ad said, “Child-safe pony, brown and white Paint, 7-years-old, $1600 or best offer.” I really didn’t care what the pony looked like but it was an added bonus that he was a Paint because Kelly is on a Paints kick. He was a little on the young side but we were done with plugs and it said he was child-safe. That was the most important thing.

However, I knew from past experience that I could be wasting my time and so I did everything I could to prescreen him. I scrutinized the pictures the man e-mailed me and then we were back and forth on the phone several times. When we finally decided to go out there, I called the man and said, “Before I come, I need to ask you some more questions. I’m not trying to pick apart your pony—I just want to make sure he’s suitable for my daughter. I don’t want to waste your time or mine.”

If I asked one question, I asked fifty of them. “How would you describe him as being? Forward or more on the pluggy side? Has he ever bucked? Has he ever reared? How’s his eyes?” (I ask that one now after buying a blind pony in the dark. I couldn’t see and he couldn’t see. I’ve noticed that every bad thing I’ve gone through with a horse—buckers, kickers, head-tossers, bowed tendons—I never fall for getting one with that particular problem again. If I keep going, pretty soon I will find myself with a flawless horse.)

I asked, “How is he to bridle and saddle? How are his brakes? Can a child lift all four feet? Does he tie? Does he clip? Does he load? Does he spook?” All the answers were good so Kurt came home from work early on Friday and we headed out.

He was a beauty. He was also the perfect size. You can’t always tell the size from a picture or from what they say. Someone’s 13.2 hands may not be my 13.2 hands. The Paint was dead-on. The man saddled him up and mounted. But I could see the pony was green. His head was up in the air, his mouth was opened and he didn’t know how to neck-rein. He also looked younger than seven. He looked more like four to me. Child-safe four-year-olds are rare. There just isn’t enough time in a year or maybe two, of riding, for them to get enough experience. (Most people start horses at two or three-years-old.) But it’s not impossible. He had a kind eye and a mellow disposition. He was so pretty I thought he’d be worth finishing off for Kelly.

I asked the man to lift his feet. He lifted the front ones. I said, “Can you lift the back ones too?” The pony yanked his foot away and tried to kick. The man wrestled him to keep his foot up. I scratched my head. Didn’t I ask this question? Green horses are one thing; kickers are something else entirely. Still, we didn’t rule him out. Maybe it was just his youth and I could fix it.

We also found out he had a needle phobia. The man volunteered this information. He said that when they drew blood to do the pony’s Coggins test (a blood test to check for Equine Infectious Anemia) he resisted so violently they had to throw him up against the trailer and hold him still. I’m still not sure why he admitted that one. Maybe to gain back some of my trust. Throw me off the track. I wasn’t spooked by the needle phobia. I didn’t like it but I wasn’t spooked. We still didn’t rule him out.

I got on him. There was no safe place to ride. We went up and down the gravel driveway. He was wobbly. He was definitely green. I didn’t jog or lope. The man’s saddle was too big for me, too big for the pony, hard and slippery and I felt it slipping. I was not secure. I had visions of a pony I had tried a couple of years ago who was supposed to be a bombproof child’s pony whose saddle slipped and who promptly bucked me off. Virginia dirt is hard and I’m getting older. I didn’t need to run the pony to know he needed finishing. Kurt and I took a walk and consulted with each other. Kelly loved him.

We decided we’d offer $1200 and hope he’d counter with $1300. We thought that was a fair deal. We didn’t think he was worth any more than that even though he was a looker because he was green. He wasn’t even papered. Just a grade pony. But if we could get him for a good price, it would be worth putting the time into him. It might actually take the whole year. Kelly wouldn’t be able to ride him now, but there was mega potential. And if we had problems, if I couldn’t get him right, we’d be able to resell him to a more suitable home if we got him a little cheaper.

The problem with going far distances to see a pony is you pretty much have to take your horse trailer with you just in case you buy. If you don’t, that’s when you find one and it’s no fun having to go back and drive all those hours again the next day. Sellers think they have you hooked before you even step out of the truck when you appear towing the trailer behind and you lose all negotiating power. But it was three-and-a-half hours away.

I also suspect that my honesty made the pony seller think he had it in the bag. I admitted he was beautiful. What was I going to say? It was obvious he was beautiful. If I didn’t say it, it would be like seeing the Empire State Building for the first time and not exclaiming, “Wow, look how tall that is!”

Besides, his ad said, “Best offer.” He was negotiable. Smart move. With the end of summer approaching and the dry weather causing a hay shortage, it’s a buyer’s market. So Kurt asked him if he’d take $1200. He flat out said no, he wouldn’t take anything less than $1600, the asking price. It’s like being at an auction and suddenly you are losing the thing you were bidding on that you didn’t know where you were going to put and weren’t sure if you really wanted and then you have to have it. Kurt jumped right up to $1500. The man said no. He said what all horse sellers say, that he had someone else who was coming to look at the pony.

We took a walk and consulted again. It was one of the hardest things we ever did, not to give that man the full asking price. We were mad. The pony was not what he said he was. In fact, we caught him in a couple of lies. And the feet. I specifically asked on the phone if a child could lift all four feet. He got us to come all that way by lying and wouldn’t budge a penny even though he implied he was negotiable. In a nut shell, he thought it was a done deal. We declined. His mouth dropped open. We told him if he changed his mind to call us. But Kurt said if he does call, he’s going to have to bring the pony to us. We’re not going all the way out there again.

Kelly cried her eyes out. Kurt said, “You should have turned the waterworks on when we were negotiating, that might have helped.” She cried harder. I tried to make her feel better by telling her we had that other one to look at who was closer to home. The other one wasn’t pretty like the Paint but we should at least go and check her out. I told her she couldn’t ride that Paint pony right now anyway.


“I don’t like that other one. I like the Paint,” she sobbed. “I was going to name him Cochise.”

That’s not good, naming the horse before you get him. It’s putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s like counting all your chickens before they’re hatched. It reminds me of my friend who has been planning her wedding since she was sixteen-years-old but who has yet to meet a man to marry. Who could compare to the fantasy man?

But by the time we got home, well after midnight, Kelly moved on. She got over the Paint and wanted to see the other pony. I Mapquested it. It was an hour and a half in the other direction, under the two hour driving limit and so we hit the road, trailer in tow. But this time we didn’t have to worry about negotiating. The pony was cheap, $700, and we wouldn’t insult the seller by trying to get a good riding pony for less than that. However, she was too short, too old and too much to handle. Waterworks again.

We got lost going there and going home. You can’t trust Mapquest and you can’t count on people giving directions remembering to tell you there are two highways with the same number, the old one and the new one. The hour and a half ride and quick let’s- look-just-in-case became an all day procedure. No barn work got done. But we saw some pretty country. I’m convinced that there isn’t an ugly place in Virginia. There may be a shortage of child-safe, reasonably-priced ponies, and honest pony sellers, but there are no ugly places here.

Spot the Donkey

Someone tried to sell me a donkey today when I was in Sweet’s Country Store putting up a flyer saying I was looking for a large child-safe pony. He was one of the farmers sitting there at the Formica table in the corner having his morning coffee. “I ain’t got no ponies but I got a big jackass for sale.” When I told Kurt about it, he looked down at Motley, aka The Big Stupid, and said, “Did you tell him we already have one?”

We kind of do have one. His name is Spot and he lives right next door. We have the best of both worlds with Spot, the donkey. We get to enjoy him but we don’t have to do anything. He belongs to Eldon and Pearl and when he’s not in the pasture, they keep him in a lot right next to our driveway. He’s so close I can reach over and touch him. In fact, one time I did reach over the fence and put a little Swat on a small injury he had on his chest that the flies were getting to.

At first I was afraid of him. Well, afraid is not really the word. More like suspicious because he’s a stallion. I don’t know anything about stallions; only what I’ve heard—that they’re unruly and a handful. They can be vicious. I don’t have any illusions that I could ever tame one like the little boy who was shipwrecked on the movie The Black Stallion.

When I worked at a racetrack farm when I was a kid, they had a stallion there. But just like how the black stallion in the movie was cooped up, so was this one. They kept him in a dark stall, a box really, with bars on the top half. I peered between the bars sometimes and tried to talk to him but he’d turn his back to me. Now and then he’d kick a wall or bang his bucket and I’d jump back. It was obvious he was uncontrollable; otherwise they would have kept him in the regular stalls like all the other horses. I felt sorry for him but I was never able to get to know him, to see if it was true what they say about stallions.

So I didn’t trust Spot at first. He was cute alright; all white with a couple of big black spots, hence the name. He had slitty eyes and ears big enough to place bananas inside. But when he wasn’t hee-hawing, he was too quiet. He watched me and flicked an ear in my direction. I cooed at him and he stared with no expression on his face that I could read. I was dying to reach over and pet him but I had visions of him suddenly grabbing a hold of my arm, lifting me off my feet and swinging me in the air.

Then he got the boo-boo and Eldon and Pearl weren’t home. Not one to leave an animal in a fix, I sent Kelly to the barn for the Swat and stood there looking at Spot, trying to figure out how to get it on him. I’m also not one who is generally afraid of any animals so it wasn’t too hard for me to get up my nerve and force myself to do a test. I touched his nose. One ear went forward and one went back like he was thinking about it. I touched it again. Nothing happened. So I petted his face. He seemed to like it. I reached over the wire towards his chest to see if I could reach the injury because I sure as heck wasn’t going to go in there and put it on him. It’s one thing to reach over a fence but another to get into a pen with an animal you’re unsure of. Standing on tip-toes, I stretched and touched his chest. Kelly came back, I put a glob on my finger and I put it on him. He didn’t blink an eye.

Eldon and Pearl are probably happy that we’re the ones who bought this place because I can see that Spot might annoy other people. He makes quite a racket when he starts hee-hawing. About a half dozen times a day, he opens his mouth and just like a cartoon character, he starts hee-hawing. His mouth is wide open, his tongue is sticking out and the words pour out like how words tumble out of one of those bullhorns on Sesame Street. Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Hee-haw! We’ve heard him hundreds of times already and we still stop and laugh. “There goes Spot!”

The best part is when he’s finished. He winds down slowly and ends with an “aaahhh!” like he’s totally pooped from all that work. I enjoy it so much I want to share it with everyone. If he does it while I’m on the phone, I say, “Hold on and listen to this,” and then I hold the phone out. “Hear that? That’s Spot, the donkey.”

So, no, I don’t need a donkey. Or a rabbit. Eldon and Pearl have one of them too. That’s the beauty of living next door to nice people. You get to share in the good things in life.

The Pony Hunt

We’re on the pony hunt again. Basically, we’ve been pony hunting since Kelly grew out of her miniature horse, Minnie, when she was about six-years-old. We took a break when I finally let her get on Doc, and she rode the big guy around for a while, but now that he’s ready to retire, we have to look again.

It’s almost impossible to find a bombproof pony if you’re not rich. And even if you are rich, they’re still hard to come by. Some people get them because they’re lucky they’re in a family who has one and he gets passed around from kid to kid. Ponies live a long time and sometimes the pony goes full circle and winds up being both a mother’s and her child’s first horse. They won’t part with him. They keep him for themselves, selfish things that they are. The rest of us have to find one the hard way.

Getting a good pony is like hitting the lottery. Which is the reason most people end up putting their kids on full-size horses like Doc. There’s nothing inherently wrong with ponies, per se, that makes them hard to find. Nothing bad is bred into them that’s not the same as what we put into horses. It’s just that ponies, like children, live what they learn. And they learn most everything from the children themselves. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s the sticky-fingered, knotty-haired, tantrum-taking riders who are the cause of the ponies’ bad reputation. Ponies are being piloted by little people who haven’t even finished growing and haven’t mastered the basics like patience, responsibility and self-control. Ponies have to tolerate little people who give them a whack one minute and a carrot the next—for the very same behavior. It’s no wonder they pick up some bad habits.

Plus, ponies are too little for most adults to train. A person who has a pony that’s too small for an adult to break, has to be satisfied with some line-driving and the bare minimum of amateur under-saddle work—if they can find a teenager to get on. So whatever ponies know comes from kids who don’t know much either. On top of that, ponies think they’re bigger than they are. They have big egos and a bigger nerve. But I was determined to find one.

You might be wondering why I don’t just buy another full-size horse. And you wouldn’t be alone. Ponies are harder to handle but they’re also easier to handle. You can just grab a pony from the pasture, throw a bridle on, or even a halter, and climb on up. You don’t need a saddle. Climb up, climb over, slip off the back end, slide off the other side. You can even mount a pony from the rear end. Just position him on a nice chunk of lawn, get a good running start and haul yourself up.

Ponies are the type that you can take right up to the back door and ask what’s for supper while you’re still up there. Some people have even taken them into the house but being the clean freak that I am, I require all of our equine to stay out of doors, funny or not. Ponies can be ridden all over the place and nothing fazes them. Down the road, over the hills, to the neighbor’s house, in the creek. I’ve seen them in the back of pick-up trucks like dogs going hunting. I’ve seen pictures of them inside cars. They don’t mind getting their tails braided or bows put into their manes. They put up with costumed kids on Halloween, purple and pink War Paint on their faces and small dogs on their backs. Good ponies are fun.

But most of all, the reason I want one is I think Kelly will become more independent, and without independence, if every task requires me to get out there and help her or do it myself, she will never learn to ride really well. She can’t reach Doc’s head to put the bridle on herself. Standing on a box that tips over is dangerous. She can’t lift the saddle up high enough to get it on him herself. She can’t even reach his back to brush him.

And I always worry about that far fall. She’s a little girl and he’s a big horse. You fall when you’re first learning to ride. It’s a given like having fun is a given on the back of a horse. I fell a hundred times. But it was from a pony. It didn’t hurt that bad. I saw stars, got up, brushed myself off and got back on again. A little girl Kelly’s size falling from a big horse is like someone falling off a roof. It’s not pretty. So once again, I’m out looking for a good pony.

When we moved to our ranch in Oklahoma, I thought the pony hunt was going to be easy. The place is filled with horses. That’s all everyone does out there. They sell horse feed and cowboy hats in Wal-Mart. There were two saddle shops in town but no clothing stores for people. But it turned out all the kids in Oklahoma ride big horses. They’re practically born in the saddle and little kids ride before they can even walk. They strap them in the saddle if they can’t sit up. They use Velcro and Magic Seats. Big horses with smoke coming out of their noses and steam coming out of their ears, pawing to get going, raring to go, are nothing to the mothers out there. They just put their kids on, smack the horse on the rump on the way out and hope they come back by dinnertime. Ponies were a rare commodity out there. Who needed a short, sweet pony named Buttons when you could put your kid on a powerhouse named Buster or Nuclear Demon?

But we did manage to find our share over the years. There was the buckskin pony that looked like Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, who nearly ripped my arm out of its socket when I reached for his halter. There was the one who had one foot in the grave, half an ear and who was blind in one eye (and who we had to retire almost as fast as we got him). There was the bucker, the kicker, the biter, the striker and the one who had a horse show phobia and went berserk, out of her mind, plumb loco and had a psychotic episode when we brought her to a show but was dead quiet at home. A Jekyll Hyde, if you will.

That’s about the time that I gave up and started letting Kelly ride the big guy Doc. And he’s been great. Doesn’t do a thing wrong. A real babysitter horse. But now he’s ready to retire and again, I have visions of something more Kelly’s size, something more like my first pony, Cherokee, a brown and white Paint who lived in the backyard next to the pool and a barbecue grill shaped like a flying saucer. He was very forgiving. My father fed him a ham sandwich one time (horses are vegetarians). I took kittens for a ride on his back and backed him across a rickety bridge with big spaces between the rotten wood slats to prove to my little girlfriends on their stubborn ponies that Cherokee would do it.

I rode him in the ocean where he did the doggie paddle and I laughed my head off; I rode him to Green Light Cemetery, the Keansburg Boardwalk, and to my first job in the next town where I tied him to the chain link fence while I babysat all day. I even rode him to school where I was picking up my friend, who got out an hour after I did—I stopped and got her pony first and led him behind Cherokee along a busy road to the school. Cars honked when they passed. Teenage boys hung out car windows and hollered. I waved. When the bell rang, my girlfriend ran outside and we went riding, galloping across the football field. I rode Cherokee all over the place.

And then he died. I’m 47-years-old but I still cry when I think about him.

I’m not trying to replace Cherokee. There will never be another Cherokee. I just want Kelly to have the fun and the freedom that I had. I know it’s possible. Because we have Minnie. (And as selfish as we are, we’re not parting with her.) She was Kelly’s first pony, sadly outgrown as they say in the ads for ponies-for-sale. I want another one just like her, only a little bigger. Bigger than Minnie and smaller than Doc. Something Kelly can hop on bareback and gallop across the fields. A pony she will love so much she will cry about him 31 years later.