Tanglewood’s Emily, here.
Sometimes a woman has got to make a choice that she knows may turn out to be a bad one. I try to be financially responsible; I really do, but there are just some things that I have a real soft spot for.
Like ponies…
and itty bitty weanlings…
This summer I have decided that, while I still intend to bake like a madwoman, and I’ll continue to pursue the market bakery in the cold months, I am truly a horsewoman at heart. I eat, sleep and breathe horses. I don’t go a single day without muck on my shoes, dust in my nose and hay in my hair.
So when I saw these two were available and very local, I got a little excited. I have always wanted a little buckskin horse (the golden base coat with black agouti points), ever since I rode my favorite childhood school pony, Snapple, who was colored likewise. This mare is adorable, intelligent and very sweet. She will make a fantastic school pony, with the athleticism to do anything and the barrel to hold my leg so that even though I’m too tall to show her, I can ride and train her. š
I’m also a sucker for new challenges, and a weanling filly will be precisely that. It’s not even the cute factor that got me. It’s the fact that I now have a horse project that I’ve never had before. Something new and horse related that isn’t teaching lessons and training other people’s horses and mucking stalls and handling clients (etc etc etc). This something is going to be my mental health project. In theory it’ll keep a bit of “horses” left for me, where it has become nearly allĀ businessĀ over the past few years.
It’s hard when you take a passion of yours and turn it into your primary line of work. I know some of the other writers here can attest to this as well. When your passions become mandatory, they can lose their sparkle and shine a little. I’ve been teaching and training for more than ten years now and while I am ecstatic to be able to do what I love for a living, I also feel a growing seed of exhaustion in my soul. (Oh my, that was a wee bit dramatic wasn’t it.)
I’m really thinking that this little filly will be exactly what I need to rediscover the sparkle and shine (Oooo shiny) that to horse world used to hold for me. It holds the promise of some indescribable connection with an animal so starkly different from myself, which is alluring and fascinating and… I learned a new word. It’s been floating around facebook for a little while and I just had to share it because it’s close, but not exactly what I feel.
Yugen.
It’s a Japanese word.
It’s described as: “a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universeā¦”
That’s what I seek to rekindle in my experiences with horses. Hopefully I won’t just end up miserably sinking a bunch of money into it. HAH!
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Have you ever made a conscious decision to rediscover a passion with a fresh twist?Ā
Also as a quick aside, do any of our readers know much about foal colors? The foal was born brown with a black dorsal, black mane and agouti markings but she has yellow highlights throughout her foal coat. Now that she is shedding she appears to be showing mousy brown coat (under her tail and around her eyes and muzzle) with what appears to be yellow hairs mixed in. Do you think she could be a dark buckskin? Grulla? Her mother is a typical buckskin and her father is fairly unknown, but there was a black (black bay?) quarter horse stallion on the property when she was rescued and she definitely has a QH hind end.Ā
Oh what fun. I am so glad these two beauties have put a spring in your step and a song in your heart. I have no input on the coloring of your weanling, BUT I can imagine, as you get to know her and watch her (and Mom too) you will see many changes in her personality (and her coat) as she thrives on your affection and care. She is who she is, what ever coat she wears and she is ALL yours!