There are some days, here in Western New York, when it’s really
wonderful to be alive. One such day was back in June ....
It had been a long time since I went riding up in in the
hills, with my friend who owns a few horses. She’d put her back out and was
gradually getting back into things, so the horses hadn’t had saddles on for a
while. They were a little perplexed as to what we had in store for them.
Ellie May, the big
paint mare (in Britain we would call her a skewbald) rolled her eyes, wondering if she was about to be taken to the knackers. Star, the aged quarter horse, built to race
at speed over a quarter mile, though those days are long behind her, was
more of an old pro but even she looked
worried.
“C’mon gals” we
said, “It’s a beautiful day - you’ll love a little workout!”
As the sun moved in
and out of plump little clouds dancing across an early summer sky, straight from
Winnie-the-Pooh, we ambled out and up the lane. It was so like an English
country lane, though, in the American way, straight as a Roman road. We made a detour to
avoid a well-drilling lorry in case Ellie May threw a fit on seeing it. My
friend’s son is building himself a
house. In these parts, digging your own
well goes with that; you can forget
about mains water and anyway, well water, like ours, is pure and delicious. We
sometimes think we ought to market it.
We turned into a
meadow, riding waist deep, just like the early settlers, in the days when they
said you couldn’t see the horses’ ears above the waving grasses. My friend’s two dogs, a chestnut-coloured, curly-coated Chesapeake
Bay Retriever and a feisty pug- Jack Russell cross, dashed through grassy tunnels, with only the waving
surface betraying their passage.
Around us were
views that can’t have changed much in a few hundred years. Forested hills receded
into the distance, dotted here and there with the occasional red barn. Tiny sprouts
of green corn were coming up in the fields. By late summer, they’d be a forest. Tall metal silos were the only
evidence of modernity.
We rode through
narrow trails, overgrown since we were there last, having fun dodging the prickers,
the rampant multiflora roses that run wild over the countryside – and my garden
. Only at this time of year, when they’re
full of delicately-scented white blooms, you can forgive them. We rode between vast banks of a wildflower
called Dame’s Rocket, pink, purple and white, more prolific this year than I’d
ever seen them.
We hacked our way
through undergrowth, plunging down a
bank into a mountain stream that trickled over stones and rocks and wading through
the deeper pools. Fallen trees barred our way but the horses stepped and scrambled over them, gradually accepting that they were back to their
old, familiar working lives.
We rode through a cool
forest, dressed in its early summer vivid green. Baby maple tree shoots
carpeted the ground and a rough cabin stood empty, patiently waiting for
deer-hunting season.
Then on past a grand
wooden house owned by some rich Canadians who come over the border from the
flatlands around Toronto, to ski in the
winter. It has a large bronze statue of a howling wolf in front, which always makes me jump. The horses always
seem to ignore it though. They’re not
stupid.
In the past, we’ve often startled white tail deer in the
undergrowth, even, once, a nesting wild
turkey that famously flew straight up under the horses’ noses and sent them
hell for leather into the next county. But on this idyllic day all was quiet,
except the sound of a couple of wild geese honking overhead as we burst out
into the meadow again.
Then it was back to the barn and the horses, kitted out with high tech nylon fly hoods (lucky them - in the old days they had to make
do with manes and tails), turned out to pasture, kicking up their heels and cantering off, tails flying. They seemed
glad to be alive too.
No comments:
Post a Comment