When Nube (nu-bay) was two and first diagnosed with ulcers, it felt rare, almost exotic. People were just learning about ulcers. Phantom thoughts worried us, but we didn’t know what we didn’t know. Ulcers were unknown in the general population, or so we thought. Maybe at the race track, but never our horses. So rare … Read more
I don’t like cameras. How you can tell is my neck swells up and my double chins flare out wider than my ears. I’m trying to suck my head down between my shoulder blades and inside my chest so I’m invisible. I always needed an animal in my business photos for my confidence. Otherwise, all … Read more
Nube was a beanpole of a yearling. If he and Ernest weren’t trying to get me bucked off a horse… if he wasn’t eating his body weight in hay every hour… if he wasn’t listening to the Grandfather Horse tell stories about me… if he wasn’t sleeping with donkeys… sometimes Nube came to work with … Read more
In the first months after coming to our farm, it was a simple schedule for Nube: wrestle, eat, sleep, repeat. The horses were kind, but it was mutually agreed they could do without Nube’s adolescent fart games. It was great news because fart games are the bread and butter of donkey life. I’d given the … Read more
I was forty-nine years old with gray hair, calloused banged-up fingers, and chronic lameness in my left foot. He was two months old, brave, sensitive, and wildly athletic. He cantered at liberty throwing flying changes for the fun of it. I loved dressage, especially riding changes that skipped with energy and lightness. We were the … Read more
I was forty- nine years old, and my upcoming birthday was hanging in the air like a pair of stretched-out waist-high cotton underwear. My Grandfather Horse was on stall rest with a career-ending injury, never to be rideable again. At least my other horse, Dodger, was sound and fifteen. I didn’t know I’d lose him … Read more