equine – Barnstorming

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives
more temporary than our own,
live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we still would live no other way.

The life of a horse, often half our own,
seems endless until one day.

That day has come and gone for me,
and I am once again within a somewhat smaller circle.
~ Irving Townsend from Separate Lifetimes

1996 photo of Noblesse with Chesna Klimek, taken by Norma Jenner

That day comes, yet not without warning.

Noblesse, our oldest Haflinger mare, nearing 29 years old, kept convincing me this past summer she was living her best life and was not too old to keep enjoying more time on this earth. She came running when I whistled and would be the first to greet me when I came to the barn for chores.

It wasn’t all rainbows and roses for her. I would see her dozing more frequently, walking slowly due to joint pain, and showing the hallmark signs of metabolic dysfunction. I debated about calling the vet clinic to schedule her euthanasia. But then she would look at me defiantly: not yet, not yet…

This morning when I went out to the barn, she was standing with her head down, atypical for such an extroverted bossy mare who usually demands that I attend to her first. Then, she startled me by dropping down to roll and then rolled again. Not eating, reaching around to bite at her flanks. She was clearly miserable.

I knew then this was the day.

Within the hour, thanks to a responsive vet and his assistant, she was pain-free and no longer facing a cold wet winter ahead.

It is a wistful goodbye to Noblesse, given that she was born on this farm and raised her foals here. She was the first American-born gold-rated mare in AHR inspection and classification. Except for brief times away for training and always part of our Haflinger display at our regional fair, it was right and fitting that she should breathe her last on this farm.

Our circle of aging Haflingers has just become smaller.
Two are her sons.

The life of a horse seems endless, until one day.
For Noblesse, that day was today.

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A physician’s chronicle of faith, family and farm life in rural northwest Washington state.

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

Listening to Others…

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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Tag: equine

Until One Day

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