a mare's nest

So farewell Harry and Trude my two faithful and fearless friends.

I don't want this to be a misery memoir and as I've written before I don't normally write about personal things but a few weeks back I had a riding accident and came off Trude at great speed hitting the hard ground and breaking a few bones. This I feel sure was a message. Stop doing dangerous things now. 

I feel lucky - it could have been terminal and I realise it's not fair on other people having to look after so many animals when I either get knocked over by a dog (previous blog many months back) or fall off a horse.

So I've had to make the decision to let my beautiful horses go to another home. This has broken my heart more than my bones of course but as luck would have it they have gone to a wonderful trekking centre in the forest run by the most lovely young woman where they both seem extremely happy. I've heard reports that dear Harry has fallen in love with a little mare called Dora. It doesn't seem as if Trude minds. 

Twenty years ago I bought Harry off the internet!I was told I was mad - that he could have been drugged and when I got him home he'd turn into some wild creature - but when I set eyes on him standing in his stable I just knew he was a kind soul and what a lovely horse he has been over all these years. For a long time until arthritis eventually caught up with him in his joints he'd pull a cart and we'd go off across the fields, sometimes stopping for a picnic other times trotting merrily through the prairie. He was always willing.

Horses have been my life since I first sat on one when I was so small my feet didn't clear the saddle but sometimes in life you just have to let go. I am listening to Rumi's wise words Try not to resist the changes that come your way.Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the life to come?

Of course being unable to walk for a while meant that the glorious Scout went back to the kind people who had given her to me in the first place. But she'll be back! It's strange having no dogs in the house.

Here is Rocket sleeping off the diazepam the doctors gave me which he stole out of my bag. Naturally he ate it and is so chilled he doesn't have a care in the world. He also has gone to a friend and having enormous fun with their pug dog and Jack Russell. I gather the Jack Russell is particularly good fun. I think a rabbit may have been involved. He might get a bit bored when he comes home.

As you can see Pocket is in charge now and informs me that he and Nancy have become apex predators. The dogs'll be back I inform him but he does a sort of shrugging movement with his ears and says "every storm runs out of rain."

Maya Angelou said that I told him but he merely asked if she were a weather person.

Later he tells me he'd written  an ode as he'd had an awful dream about falling into a goldfish bowl. Thomas Gray has written a very similar ode called Ode to the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in  Tub of Goldfishes I tell him but he merely asked if I were planning on getting any goldfish.

The tulip bulbs have arrived for planting up in the pots over the next few weeks.

I don't want to wish away the seasons but I do love it when the tulips wave their magic.

I have written my own ode.
 

An Ode to the parting with a fearless and faithful friend

 

 Inside the stable his back is turned

he pulls on a wisp of hay

and twitches his ears.

The trailer rumbles towards us

down the track.

Eventually he turns to face me,

blowing down his nostrils 

and pushing me softly with his nose.

They slip on the head collar

his brown eyes shut for a moment

his long lashes flickering.

Come on boy someone says.

He stands firmly, his four huge hooves

looking as if they will not take another step.

Come on boy.

He walks forward giving himself a shake

his companion already in the box

We can hear her whinnying for him

I pat him on the neck and he turns for a moment

to look back at me

Then he is led up the ramp

and they disappear along the track.

Linda Coggin

tales from the riverbank

Scout enjoying a dip in the Nadder. She hoped she'd find some sardines in there as she'd very much enjoyed some she found in an open tin on the kitchen work top. She reminded me that she hadn't actually been fed.

A beautiful juvenile kingfisher at the wild life hospital. It had flown into a windscreen but happily was able to return to the river after a week of rest. A real jewel on the river banks.

Dear Harry recovering in the stable from his steroid jab for arthritis. Sadly he's unable to pull the cart any more.

Scout enjoying some leftovers she's found in the horses' field. She reminded me that she hadn't actually been fed for some time

Rocket had such a success as an influencer that he is starting a keep fit channel on the lines of Joe Wicks. He suggests you do this pose continuously until you fall over. He was very much encouraged by Pocket the cat below (even though he thinks that exercise is over rated.)

"A cat in mittens catches no mice," he tells me. Do you catch many mice from that position? I ask. He told me it was a personal technique which he was very passionate about. Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion he says without bothering to open his eyes. 

Hegel said that I said. 

Did he catch mice? Pocket mumbles. Then he informed me he thought he might go to sea and did I have any pea green paint or know any owls he could go with.

Scout out shopping. She has reminded me that I hadn't actually fed her (for at least two weeks)

The dahlia season is upon us - all change in the cutting garden.

Change and Transition

I watch the owl

staring at me from the tythe barn roof

and wonder how I can change from

my earthbound self and appear

at night with silent wings and piercing eyes

gliding over the moonlit fields

plucking the odd vole from the corn

that sways in the silver light.

I watch the vulpine fox rolling in

the dewy grass and wonder how

I can change and scatter the seed heads

as I run through the fields like him.

I stand at the edge and see

the furrows change to green shoots

and yellow corn and brown stubble

and think that one day I will no longer

be me who is earthbound but will go back 

into the earth and become the corn

and I'll be fed to the vole who will feed the owl

and that way I'll reach the skies.

Linda Coggin