The horse situation around here

I love pink-and-blue sunrises like this.  I was going to take pictures of our current horse situation, but realized it's still too dark... and I'm in the mood to blog about the horses NOW.  (By the time I got done with this entry, it was light enough to take the pictures you see above.)

Blue was the only horse on the place for over a year.  Then my daughter acquired her Arabian, and there were two.  After that one reared and fell on me (God was watching out for me; I shudder when I realize the many things that could have happened), I bought a very old horse down the road from here, at a pretty low price, so I could ride safely alongside children when they rode my Blue.

The trouble with old Crook, who was totally deaf, and blind in one eye, was that he refused to blend in with the other horses.  It's a thing you'd have to have seen to understand... but horses have their "pecking order" and Crook just would not give an inch.  Perhaps that was a result of his having been away from other horses for twelve years prior to coming here.

One thing I have learned in my sixty-one years is that there is a time to cut your losses.  So I found a buyer for Crook (I got less than half what I paid) and the equines remaining around here get along. 

Oh, our neighbor, David, is pasturing his mare on our property now, too; he lets Cliff use his barn for storage in trade for the use of our pasture.  We are also renting pasture by the month to a young local fellow, Adam, who wanted to get his horse closer to his home two miles from here.  So there are four horses on the place, three of which we'll be feeding this winter.

Welcome to horse country.