Navarre is doing better as of last night... He and SweetPea were RUNNING around the pasture!   Not a big deal but in the dark I can only see Navarre and not her.  She is your typical red horse, as they ran, kicked, and played it made me very happy to hear all the silence in between foot steeps, as this means Navarre is starting to loosen up a bit.  BUT not being able to see them was a little un-nerving in the dark; hoping Sweet Pea didn't decide to kick the crap out of me by accident. 

They didn't ...

But I now have a flashlight with me as well.  I had just laid down my lantern as it is too big to carry along with a bail of hay to the pasture.  A flashlight can dangle from my wrist allowing me a little more site in these situations.

One can never be too safe!



An off post...
But as I was walking from the car through the woods to the barn in the pitch black of night late feedings are a norm now;  away from any source of light, no houses seen through the trees as of yet.  A perfect view of the stars!  I was thinking to myself... How did I ever get secure enough to do this?  As a child I RANNNNNN to the back pasture to throw out the days scraps next to the garden, which was JUST on the EDGE of the old security light in the back yard. This darkness was enough to put me into panic!   And our only neighbors were family!  Aunt on one side Uncle on other... It wasn't like I was any type of a neighborhood, any type of danger... AT ALL.... But what lurked in the dark was enough to make my heart race faster than my feet back up the hill through the bright light and up the stairs to the back door into the kitchen.  Never failed I was out of breath taking out the scraps.

While each night, I park my car, get out my lantern, walk a longer distance through the woods where fox, field rats, ferrel cats, mountain cats, and bear all lurk in the dark by nature.  I feel more a part of this closed in leaf crunching trail than I ever did that open back yard lit by a security light down to the back pasture of garden area!   As if some strange animal lurked around our house?

Funny how our brains change
Accept our environments and our needs.

I could walk through the high grass pasture to the barn, unlocking one gate but the grass is more alarming to me than the crunch of leaves, the new grass emerging from seed, and the moss on the rocks climbing up to the barn... it is more like the back yard of my child hood.... in my mind the grassy pasture is full of snakes, rats, field mice, and other things that would bite at my ankles; as if they are more dangerous than the larger animals I see driving up the mountain to the estate?  Mind, Brain or Heart... it's funny when you think about it.  


Life... It is how you see it, how you choose to function in it...
It is and has been what you make it!

AegF