New Journeys

 This fall has been my season of change.  Today I started the first new job I’ve had in over twenty years.  I sat in my car before I was scheduled to go in for a full five minutes, trembling and heart hammering until I told myself that this was a good thing and to get a move on. 

I sent Fox off to his new adventures. I was sad for a little while but not once did I think I had made a mistake.  I always want my animals to be happy and if they aren’t I try to figure out why. For Fox that meant letting him go find his own joy with someone who would love him for himself and only himself. 

So then there was this horse shaped hole in my heart. And as every equestrian knows that hole will suck down your soul until it is filled.  So I went about trying to find what I wanted within the budget I could muster.  I really wanted a sweet, old schoolmaster but those are seriously hard to find in my budget. 

The next option was a very young horse.  I sifted, I hunted, I searched. I really wanted a Section D Welsh Cob, one with dressage movement.  Those are seriously hard to find, even rarer are cobs that nice within my budget.  Yet I managed, somehow to find a very special girl. I now realize that I absolutely have a type. As I looked back on it I saw that all the horses I’ve truly loved were chestnut mares.  My first heart horse, hopefully not my last, was a small, deep red, AQHA mare. I’d give almost anything to have that mare back. But she is long in the grave. So in her well loved footsteps comes the new redhead in my life. 

Castleberry Reverie (Roo) is a Welsh Cob x Belgian Warmblood.  I flew out to Indiana a couple of weeks ago and got to meet not just Roo but both of her parents and a lot of her siblings.  Roo’s dam, Reminisce is a huge, Belgian Warmblood mare.  Seriously she was every bit of 17+ hands and her withers were at least a foot over my head.  I stepped in to a pasture with three breeding stallions and had not one reservation about my safety as they were some of the sweetest boys I’d ever met.  Roo is quiet, snuggly and so very very smart. 

She had never stepped on a trailer before she got on to the shippers and she walked right in.  After staying at a farm in Maryland for three days, she then stepped right in to my trailer and behaved liked a seasoned traveler.  Roo then stepped off my trailer and settled in to her stall without a single issue. 

Roo is quickly curling her red nose in against my heart and I’m happy to let her. I fully admit it I LOVE CHESTNUT MARES!