Category: Horses

The Happiest Girl Alive

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I wanted a horse. This was long after
we sold the work horses, and I was feeling

restless on the farm. I got up early
to help my father milk the cows, talking

a blue streak about TV cowboys
he never had time to see and trying to

convince him that a horse wouldn’t cost
so much and that I’d do all the work.

He listened while he leaned his head
against the flank of a Holstein, pulling

the last line of warm milk into
the stainless bucket. He kept listening

while the milk-machine pumped like an engine,
and the black and silver cups fell off and

dangled down, clanging like bells when he
stepped away, balancing the heavy milker

against the vacuum hose and the leather belt.
I knew he didn’t want the trouble

of a horse, but I also knew there was nothing
else I wanted the way I wanted a horse—

another way of saying I wanted
to ride into the sunset and (maybe)

never come back—I think he knew that too.
We’ll see, he said, we’ll see what we can do.
Joyce Sutphen – “What Every Girl Wants”

I once was a skinny freckled eleven year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have her own horse. Every inch of my bedroom wall had posters of horses, all my shelves were filled with horse books and horse figurines and my bed was piled with stuffed horses.

I suffered an extremely serious case of horse fever. I wished for a horse more than anything.

I had learned to ride my big sister’s horse while my sister was off to college, but the little mare had pushed down a hot wire to get into a field of spring oats which resulted in a terrible case of colic and had to be put down. I was inconsolable until I set my mind to buy another horse. We had only a small shed, not a real barn, and no actual fences other than the electric hot wire. Though I was earning money as best I could picking berries at 3 cents a pound and babysitting at 30 cents an hour, I was a long way away from the $150 it would take to buy a trained horse back in 1965.

I pestered my father about my dreams of another horse, and since he was the one to dig the hole for my sister’s horse to be buried, he was not enthusiastic.  “We’ll see,”  he said. “We will see what we can do.”

So I dreamed my horsey dreams, mostly about golden horses with long white manes, hoping one day those dreams might come true.

In fall 1965, the  local radio station KGY’s Saturday morning horse news program announced their “Win a Horse” contest. I knew I had to try. The prize was a weanling bay colt, part Appaloosa, part Thoroughbred, and the contest was only open to youth ages 9 to 16 years old. All I had to do was write a 250 word or less essay on “Why I Should Have a Horse”.

I worked and worked on my essay, crafting the right words and putting all my heart into it, hoping the judges would see me as a worthy potential owner. My parents took me to visit the five month old colt named “Prankster”, a fuzzy engaging little fellow who was getting plenty of attention from all the children coming to visit him, and that visit made me even more determined.

When I read these words now, I realize there is nothing quite like the passion of an eleven year old girl:

“Why I Should Have a Horse”

When God created the horse, He made one of the best creatures in the world. Horses are a part of me. I love them and want to win Prankster for the reasons which follow:

To begin with, I’m young enough to have the time to spend with the colt.  My older sister had a horse when she was in high school and her school activities kept her too busy to really enjoy the horse.  I’ll have time to give Prankster the love and training needed.

Another reason is that I’m shy.  When I was younger I found it hard to talk to anybody except my family.  When my sister got the horse I soon became a more friendly person.  When her horse recently died (about when Prankster was born), I became very sad.  If I could win that colt, I couldn’t begin to describe my happiness. 

Also I believe I should have a horse because it would be a good experience to learn how to be patient and responsible while teaching Prankster the same thing. 

When we went to see Prankster, I was invited into the stall to brush him. I was never so thrilled in my life! The way he stood there so majestically, it told me he would be a wonderful horse. 

If I should win him, I would be the happiest girl alive.  I would work hard to train him with love and understanding. If I could only get the wonderful smell and joy of horses back in our barn!

I mailed in my essay and waited.

Sixty years ago on November 27, 1965, my mother and I listened to the local horse program that was always featured on the radio at 8 AM on Saturday mornings. They said they had over 300 essays to choose from, and it was very difficult for them to decide who the colt should go to. I knew then I didn’t have a chance. They had several consolation prizes for 2nd through 4th place, so they read several clever poems and heartfelt essays, all written by teenagers.  My heart was sinking by the minute.

The winning essay was next. The first sentence sounded very familiar to me, but it wasn’t until several sentences later that we realized they were reading my essay, not someone else’s. My mom was speechless, trying to absorb the hazards of her little girl owning a young untrained horse.

I woke up my dad, who was sick in bed with an early season flu bug. He opened one eye, looked at me, and said, “I guess I better get a fence up today, right?” Somehow, fueled by the excitement of a daughter whose one wish had just come true, he pulled himself together and put up a wood corral that afternoon, despite feeling so miserable.

That little bay colt came home to live with me the next day. Over the next few months he and I did learn together, as I checked out horse training books from the library, and joined a 4H group with helpful leaders to guide me. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, learning from each one, including those that left behind scars I still bear.

Prankster was a typical adolescent gelding who lived up to his name — full of mischief with a sense of humor and a penchant for finding trouble, but he was mine and that was all that mattered.

Dreams do come true.

…that and a dad who saw what he needed to do for his passionate kid.  I’ll never forget how he showed his love for me by doing what was needed in that moment.

AI image created for this post

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A Day to Be Still

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There is a basic lesson that all young horses must learn (and a fewer older horses must relearn) on our farm. It is to stand still when asked and move only when asked. This does not come naturally to a young horse–they tend to be impatient and fidgety and fretful and full of energy. If they are hungry, they want food now and if they are bored, they want something different to do and if they are fearful, they want to be outta there.

Teaching a horse to be still is actually a greater lesson in persistence and consistency for the human handler, which means I don’t always do well in teaching this to my horses and they (and I) lapse frequently–wiggly pushy horses and a weary frustrated handler. It means correcting each little transgression the horse makes, asking them to move back to their original spot, even if there is hay waiting just beyond their nose, asking them to focus not on their hunger, their boredom, their fear, but asking them to focus only on me and where they are in relationship to me. It means they must forget about themselves and recognize something outside of themselves that is in control–even if I move away from them to do other things.

The greatest trust is when I can stand a horse in one spot, ask them to be still, walk away from them, briefly go out of sight, and return to find them as I left them, still focused on me even when I was not visible.

I was reminded of this during our pastor’s sermon on the book of Exodus when he preached on the moments before Moses parted the Red Sea, allowing the Hebrews an escape route away from Pharoah and the Egyptian chariots and soldiers. In those moments beforehand, the Hebrews were pressed up against the Sea with the Egyptians bearing down on them and they lamented they should never have left Egypt in the first place, and that generations of bondage in slavery would have been preferable to dying in the desert at the hands of the soldiers or drowning in the Sea.

Moses told them to “be still”. Or as our pastor said, he told them to “shut up”. Stay focused, be obedient, trust in the Lord’s plan. And the next thing that happened was the Sea opened up. Then the Hebrews rejoiced in thanksgiving for their freedom.

Thanksgiving, as it has developed over the years from the first historical observance of a meal shared jointly between the Pilgrims and their patient and generous Native American hosts, is just such a moment to “be still and know” about the gifts from our God. Yet in our hurried and harried culture, Thanksgiving is about buying the best bargain turkey, creating the most memorable recipes, decorating in perfect Martha Stewart style, eating together in Norman Rockwell style extended family gatherings, watching football and parades on the biggest flat screen TV, while preparing for the mad dash out the door the next day to start the Christmas shopping season.

Instead of all that fol de rol –  be still.

Like my horses, I need correction when I start to agitate out of “hunger”–wanting to literally stuff myself full, or out of my boredom– seeking the latest in entertainment or satisfaction, or out of my fear–  feeling the threats that surround us all in the world today. I need to be reminded continually that my focus must be outside myself and my perceived needs, and to be still long enough to know God is with us even though we cannot see Him every moment.

I do not do well at this.

My horses learn much faster than I do. I am restless, rarely taking the time to be still and acknowledge God who continually watches, waiting for me to settle down and focus on Him.

May this Thanksgiving remind me of my need for God, and my gratitude for His patient persistence in moving me back into place when I wiggle and fret and stuff myself even when I’m really not hungry.

May I remember that to be still and know God is the greatest gift I can give and that I can receive.

And may His Stillness be with you today as well.

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To Be Remembered…

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My grandfather stands on the front porch
watching the dogs come back, reassembled

from hair and grit and eyeteeth. Now
the twin mares browse by the fence

in their coats of dust. Nobody asks
what they mean, appearing so suddenly

when nobody needed them, or called.
In the back yard, the buried people —

great-grandmothers in spectator pumps,
the great-grandfather who died of sneezing,

the first baby, never named —
stay buried. It’s not their overshoes

lost in the grass behind the smokehouse,
not their faces alive in anyone’s

memory. But my mother waits
in the pecan tree’s fingered shadow,

holding a broken milk jug full
of daylilies, waiting as if

she wanted someone to tell her again
it’s all right to be born now,

now is as good a time as any.
In a month we’ll find my grandfather’s glasses

in their case under the front seat
of his car. “Oh goodness,” my aunt will say,

as if it were a matter of his
forgetting them. As if we could

give them back. We’re all convinced
we’ve missed the moment. We forget

that pause while a soul undoes
its buttons, the world falls away,

and one by one we step out
into this death, to be remembered.
~Sally Thomas “Reunion”

The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still.
I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars…
I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there,
but I did…
I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences,
presences of absences,
the living and the dead.
The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.
Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver from “When Death Comes”

God is at home.
It is we who have gone out for a walk.
~Meister Eckhart

And He awaits for our return.
He keeps the light on,
so we can find our way back,
when we are weary, or fearful or hungry
or simply longing for reunion,
to be remembered.

I think of those who wait for me on the other side,
including our baby lost before birth over 42 years ago.

I know God watches over all these reunions;
He knows the moment when our fractured hearts
heal whole once again.

I will see you soon enough, sweet ones. Soon enough.

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The Dialect of Pure Being

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The world does not need words.
It articulates itself in sunlight, leaves, and shadows.
The stones on the path are no less real
for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only 
the dialect of pure being…

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds, 
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always–
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
~Dana Giola from “Words”

The words the world needs
is only the Word itself;
we exist
because He breathed breath into us,
saying it was good.

Whatever we have to say about His Creation
pales compared to His
it is good

But we try
over and over again
to use words of wonder and praise
to express our awe and gratitude and amazement
while painted golden by His breath of Light.

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Ears Up

barnstormingblog1 Comment

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
~Ada Limón “How to Triumph Like a Girl”

Primarily from my college training in animal behavior, I have an appreciation for social cues, both human and non-human: those often nonverbal signals that are communicated through subtle means–in people, perhaps it is a raised eyebrow, a rapid blink, a tensing of the lips, a fidgeting foot. 

When I studied captive and wild chimpanzees, they showed very familiar facial expressions and nonverbal communication that could be understood readily by a human primate.

In horses, it can be harder to interpret but their nonverbal language is there for all to see. The herdmates and the human handler, with careful observation and interpretation, should not be surprised about “what is going to happen next.” 

It is no mystery.

I don’t consider Haflinger horses particularly subtle in their communication with each other or with humans. They can tend to have a “bull in a china shop” approach to life; this is not a breed that evolved particularly plagued with the existence of many predators in the Austrian Alps, so the need to blend into the background was minimal. Haflingers tend to be “out there”: unafraid, bold, meeting one’s gaze, and curious what the human is thinking.

I’ve found over the years that the best way to interpret a Haflinger’s emotions is by watching their ears, and to a lesser extent, their lips and tails. They usually have “poker face” eyes, deceptive at times in their depth, calmness and serenity. I tend to get lost in the beauty of their eyes and not pay attention to what the rest of the horse is saying.

Watching them interact with each other, almost everything is said with their ears. A horse with a friendly approach has ears forward, receptive, eager. If the horse being approached is welcoming, the ears are relaxed. Two good friends grooming or grazing together have swiveling, loose ears, often pointing toward each other, almost like a unique conversation between the four ears themselves. So when a Haflinger is happy to approach, or be approached by humans, the ears always say so.

Ears that are swiveling back, tensing and tight, or pinning are another story altogether. It is the clear signal of “get outta my way!”, or “you are not sharing this pile of hay with me” or “you may think you are a cute colt, but if you climb on me one more time…”

Ears can signal impatience “you are not getting my grain fast enough”, or “I’ve been standing here tied for too long!” A simple change in ear position can cause a group of horses to part like the Red Sea.

I owned a mare who was orphaned at 3 days of age, and spent her early weeks with intensive handling by people, and then allowed to socialize with a patient older gelding until she was old enough to be among other weanlings. When she came to our farm at 6 months of age, she had not learned all the usual equine social cues of a mare herd, and though very astute at reading human gestures and behavior, took awhile to learn appropriate responses. When turned out with the herd, she was completely clueless–she’d approach the dominant alpha mare incorrectly, without proper submission, get herself bitten and kicked and was the bottom of the social heap for years, a lonesome little filly with few friends and very few social skills.

She had never learned submission with people either, and had to have many remedial lessons on her training path. Once she was a mature working mare, her relationship with people markedly improved as there was structure to her work and predictability for her, and after having her own foals, she picked up cues and signals that helped her keep her foal safe, though she has always been one of our most relaxed “do whatever you need to do” mothers when we handle her foals as she simply never learned that she needed to be concerned.

Over the years, as the herd changed, this mare became the alpha mare, largely by default and seniority, so I don’t believe she really trusted her position as “real”. She tended to bully, and react too quickly out of her own insecurity about her inherited position. She was very skilled with her ears but she is also a master at the tail “whip” and the tensed upper lip–no teeth, just a slight wrinkling of the lip. The herd scattered when they see her face change.

The irony of being on top of the herd hierarchy: she was more lonely than when she was at the bottom. She was a whole lot less happy as she had few grooming partners any more. She craved power more than friends.

I certainly see people like this at times in the world. Some are not at all attuned to social cues, blundering their way into situations without understanding the consequences and “blurting without thinking”. It takes lots of kicks and bites for them to learn how to read other people and behave appropriately. Sometimes they turn to bullying because it is communication that everyone understands and responds to, primarily by “getting out of their way”. Perhaps they are very lonely, insecure, and need friends but their need for power overcomes their need for support.

We see this too frequently in people in our news headlines.

I continue to “watch the ears”–both Haflinger and human. And I continue to refine my own way of communicating so that I’m not a mystery to those around me. Hopefully no one scatters when they see me coming…

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Horses Without Headlights

barnstormingblog2 Comments

… The Amish have maintained what I like to think is a proper scale, largely by staying with the horse. The horse has restricted unlimited expansion.
Not only does working with horses limit farm size, but horses are ideally suited to family life.
With horses you unhitch at noon to water and feed the teams and then the family eats what we still call dinner. While the teams rest there is usually time for a short nap.
And because God didn’t create the horse with headlights,
we don’t work nights.
~Amish farmer David Kline in Great Possessions

photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard

You can’t have the family farm without the family.
~G.K. Chesterton from “The Unprecedented Architecture of Commander Blair,” Tales of the Long Bow

Photo of Aaron Janicki haying with his Oberlander team in Skagit County courtesy of Tayler Rae
Benjamin Janicki of Sedro Woolley raking hay with his team of Oberlanders

I’m 71 years old ~ old enough to have parents who grew up on farms worked by horses, one raising wheat and lentils in the Palouse country of eastern Washington and the other logging in the woodlands of Fidalgo Island of western Washington. The horses were crucial to my grandfathers’ success in caring for and tilling the land, seeding and harvesting the crops and bringing supplies from town miles away.  Theirs was a hardscrabble life in the early 20th century with few conveniences. Work was year round from dawn to dusk; caring for the animals came before any human comforts. Once night fell, work ceased and sleep was welcome respite for man and beast.

In the rural NW Washington countryside where we live, we’ve been fortunate enough to live near farmers who still dabble in horse farming, whose draft teams are hitched to plows and mowers and manure spreaders as they head out to the fields to recapture the past. They still gather together in the spring to have a well-attended and friendly competition plowing match.

Watching a good team work with no diesel motor running means hearing bird calls from the field, the steady footfall of the horses, the harness chains jingling, the leather straps creaking, the machinery shushing quietly as gears turn and grass lays over in submission. No ear protection is needed. There is no clock needed to pace the day.  

There is a rhythm of nurture when animals instead of engines are part of the work day. The gauge for taking a break is the amount of foamy sweat on the horses and how fast they are breathing. 
It is time to stop and take a breather,
it is time to start back up to do a few more rows,
it is time to water,
it is time for a meal,
it is time for a nap,
it is time for a rest in a shady spot. 
This is gentle use of the land with four footed stewards who deposit right back to the soil the digested forage they have eaten only hours before.

Our modern fossil-fuel-powered approach to food production has bypassed the small family farm which was so dependent on the muscle power of humans and animals. In our move away from horses worked by skilled teamsters, what has been gained in high production values has meant loss of self-sufficiency and dedicated stewardship of a smaller acreage. Draft breeds, including the Haflinger horses we raised for forty years, now are bred for higher energy with lighter refined bone structure meant more for eye appeal and floating movement, rather than the sturdy conformation and unflappable low maintenance mindset needed for pulling work.

Modern children grow up with a different set of values as well, no longer raised to work together with other family members, as well as the animals on the farm for a common purpose of daily survival.

Still fascinated by the The Small Farmer’s Journal, I am encouraged when the next generation reaches for horse collars and bridles, hitches up their horses to do the work as it used to be done.  Although the modern world will never go back to the days of horse-drawn farming and transportation, we can acknowledge there were some benefits to the old ways of doing things, when progress meant being harnessed together as a team with our horses, tilling for truth and harvesting hope.

photo by Tayler Rae



I like farming. I like the work.
I like the livestock and the pastures and the woods. 
It’s not necessarily a good living, but it’s a good life. 
I now suspect that if we work with machines
the world will seem to us to be a machine,
but if we work with living creatures
the world will appear to us as a living creature. 
That’s what I’ve spent my life doing,
trying to create an authentic grounds for hope.
~Wendell Berry, horse farmer, essayist, poet, professor

photo by Tayler Rae
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End of Summer’s Waiting Room

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For today, I will memorize
the two trees now in end-of-summer light

and the drifts of wood asters as the yard slopes away toward
the black pond, blue

dragonflies
in the clouds that shine and float there, as if risen

from the bottom, unbidden. Now, just over the fern—
quick—a glimpse of it,

the plume, a fox-tail’s copper, as the dog runs in ovals and eights,
chasing scent.

The yard is a waiting room. I have my chair. You, yours.

The hawk has its branch in the pine.

White petals ripple in the quiet light. 
~Margaret Gibson from “Solitudes”

photo by Josh Scholten
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I want to memorize it all before it changes:
the shift of sun from north to south barely
balances on our east- west road at equinox.

The flow of geese overhead, honking while waving farewell,
the hawks’ screams in the firs,
dragonflies trapped in the barn light fixtures
several generations of coyotes hollering at dusk.

The pond quiets with cooler nights,
hair thickens on horses, cats and dogs,
dying back of the garden vines reveals
what lies unharvested beneath.

And so we part again, Summer –
your gifts were endless
until you now have parted ways.

I sit silenced, brooding, waiting for what comes next.

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The Old Lost Road

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They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.
~Rudyard Kipling “The Way Through the Woods”

Nature has a way of covering our offending tracks,
given time and left alone.

We think we’ve built a lasting impression,
clearing the path for easy passage,
forging ahead into the future.

Yet no invitation is needed
for the overgrowth to reclaim
the road some folks traveled,
once upon a time.

Now the old lost road is overwhelmed
by the mists and mosses of time;
may it stay buried in the past
as we pass through,
unnoticed and oblivious.

photo by Emily VanderHaak

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No Stomach For It…

barnstormingblog2 Comments

The thing is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
~Ellen Bass, “The Thing Is” from Mules of Love

...everything here
seems to need us
—Rainer Maria Rilke

It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple.
~Ellen Bass from “The World Has Need of You” from Like a Beggar

Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark’s lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider’s belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart.
~Ellen Bass “When You Return” from Like a Beggar

There is so much grief these days
so much anger,
so much loss of life,
so much weeping.

How can we withstand this?
How can we know, now,
when we are barely able to breathe
that we might know – at some point –
we might have the stomach to love life again?

This time of year, no matter which way I turn,  autumn’s kaleidoscope displays new patterns, new colors, new empty spaces as I watch the world die into itself once again. 

Some dying is flashy, brilliant, blazing – a calling out for attention. Then there is the hidden dying that happens without anyone taking notice: just a plain, tired, rusting away letting go.

I spent this morning adjusting to the change in season by occupying myself with the familiar task of moving manure. Cleaning barn is a comforting chore, allowing me to transform tangible benefit from something objectionable and just plain stinky to the nurturing fertilizer of the future.

It feels like I’ve actually accomplished something.

As I scoop and push the wheelbarrow, I recalled another barn cleaning 24 years ago, just days before the world changed on 9/11/01.

I was one of three or four friends left cleaning over ninety stalls after a Haflinger horse event that I had organized at our local fairgrounds. Some people had brought their horses from over 1000 miles away to participate for several days, including a Haflinger parade through our town on a quiet Sunday morning.

There had been personality clashes and harsh words among some participants along with criticism directed at me as the organizer that I had taken very personally. As I struggled with the umpteenth wheelbarrow load of manure, tears stung my eyes and my heart. 

I was miserable with regret, feeling my work had been futile and unappreciated.

One friend had stayed behind with her young family to help clean up the large facility and she could see I was struggling to keep my composure. Jenny put herself right in front of my wheelbarrow and looked me in the eye, insisting I stop for a moment and listen:

“You know,  none of these troubles and conflicts will amount to a hill of beans years from now. People will remember a fun event in a beautiful part of the country, a wonderful time with their Haflingers, their friends and family, and they’ll be all nostalgic about it, not giving a thought to the infighting or the sour attitudes or who said what to whom. So don’t make this about you and whether you did or didn’t make everyone happy. You loved us all enough to make it possible to meet here and the rest was up to us. So quit being upset about what you can’t change. There’s too much you can still do for us.”

Jenny had no idea how wise her words were, even two days later, on 9/11.

During tough times since (and there have been plenty), Jenny’s advice replays, reminding me to cease seeking appreciation from others or feeling hurt when harsh words come my way. 

She was right about the balm found in the tincture of time. She was right about giving up the upset in order to die to self and self absorption, and instead to focus outward.

I have remembered.

Jenny herself did not know that day she would subsequently spend six years dying while still loving life every day, fighting a relentless cancer that was only slowed in the face of her faith and intense drive to live.

She became a rusting leaf gone holy, fading imperceptibly over time, crumbling at the edges until she finally had to let go. Her dying did not flash brilliance, nor draw attention at the end. Her intense focus during the years of her illness had always been outward to others, to her family and friends, to the healers she spent so much time with in medical offices, to her firm belief in the plan God had written for her and those who loved her.

So Jenny let go her hold on life here. And we reluctantly let her go.   Brilliance cloaks her as her focus is now on things eternal.

You were so right, Jenny. The hard feelings from a quarter century ago don’t amount to a hill of beans now. The words you spoke to me that day taught me to love life even when I have no stomach for it.

All of us did have a great time together a few days before the world changed. And manure transforms over time to rich, nurturing compost.

I promise I am no longer upset that I can’t change what is past nor the fact that you and so many others have now left us.

But we’ll catch up later.

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Every Cubic Inch of Space

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Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk city streets,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
Every spear of grass — the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them…

What stranger miracles are there?
~Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass

Everywhere I turn, there is a miracle in the making. I know this deep in my bones, even when our days on this earth are short. I focus my camera to try to preserve it; I search for words to do it justice.

God touches every square inch of earth as if He owns the place, but these square inches are particularly marked by His artistry. It is a place to feel awed by His magnificence.

The strange miracle is that we are here at all: in an instant we are formed in all our unique potential, never having happened before and never to happen again—to become brain and heart and skin and arms and legs. We were allowed to be born, a miracle in itself in this modern age of conditional conception.

The strangest miracle of all is that we are still loved, corrupted as we are. We are still offered salvage, undeserving as we are. We are still gifted with the miracle of grace until our last breath.

How strange indeed. How utterly wondrous.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.
~Gustav Flaubert


There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!
~Abraham Kuyper

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