Hay in My Bra

CHAPTER ONE: WILLY THE ROVING LAWN ORNAMENT

Before her fourth birthday, my daughter Nell caught the dreaded “Horse Bug” and began pestering me about riding. I put her off for a year with all sorts of excuses. We had no tack, no riding clothes, no barn, no time, no money, and big news, no horse. I bought her Breyer horses by the herd, hoping that miniature plastic ponies would suffice. They did stall her for a few months. She propped books on the floor creating miniature stables all over her room, cut out tiny felt saddle pads, braided tiny horse manes and tales, and galloped her horses over popsicle stick jumps. Smart parenting, I thought, as the fire in her belly now seemed a controlled burn.

Then I made the biggest mistake of my life: I let her sit on a real horse named Willy, an old grey, handsome Arabian owned by friends. Willy had endured hordes of novice riders in Dutchess County, New York and he must have sensed, from her very first sitting, that Nell was a natural, and since she only weighed fifty pounds, not a bad gig. Horses were in Nell’s blood, a virulent virus that could not be suppressed, an inevitable fact I blame on my older sisters, all accomplished equestrians. They infected my daughter with the Horse Bug. I rode as a kid but decided, early on, that a tennis racquet was a better companion than a horse: it didn’t require food, straw, water, or a barn. It didn’t need to be groomed, and cleaning up after it didn’t require a wheelbarrow.

But you’ve never had to say no to Nell’s enormous blue eyes. And you just knew, when you saw her astride the handsome, grey speckled Willy, it was meant to be.

Within three months, Willy was leased. We rented stall space at Hahn’s Farm a half-mile away and Nell’s equine education began. The accommodations at Hahn’s were crude—there was a boulder in the floor of Willy’s stall the size of a humpback whale— but there were several other horses there and lots of riders coming and going. Nell took her first official riding lesson on Tibby, a tiny Shetland pony no bigger than a German Shepherd with a thick, scruffy mane. I noted this date because it was the first of hundreds of precipitous dips in my checking account. Tibby was a permanent resident at Hahn’s Farm. The grouchy but knowledgeable stable manager, Penny, was her first instructor. Nell started out doing lead-line on Tibby, but soon progressed not only to riding Willy, but to handling her own reins.

Within a year and $100,000 later, we moved Willy out of his ramshackle accommodations to a brand new, sturdily constructed two-stall barn with eight acres of prime pasture, a heated tack room, and an expansive second story hayloft. Willy hated it. Because he could see, but not graze next to, his former horse friends down the valley. For days after we brought him up, he paced up and down the fence line, whinnying piteously. I frantically made some calls, trying to locate a companion, learned of two abandoned horses. With the manager of a local stable, I went to meet them. One of the horses was named Oreo, a huge black draft horse mix with a lopsided white blaze down his nose. Oreo was as sweet as he was wide. His companion was an old pony, blind, sick, and a rack of bones, who needed to be euthanized. Oreo came home with us. He and Willy were instant friends.

Willy, the grey Arabian was the proverbial bomb-proof horse except for one issue: he didn’t like camera flashes. I learned that the hard way. I learned everything about horses the hard way, or I called my sisters and asked for their advice, which was controversial at best, since those experts had wildly divergent opinions on every aspect of horse care. I tacked up Willy and walked him down into the yard so that Joe, then eight years old, could go on his first horse ride. Joe reluctantly climbed on board and had just taken the reins when I stepped back to shoot a photograph. The day was overcast. The flash was blinding; I saw sunspots for days. All four of Willy’s feet levitated off the ground and Joe started sliding sideways, his legs clamping in panic around Willy’s belly. If I hadn’t yanked him off, he would have hung on like a baby baboon to its mother. Willy bolted across the gravel driveway straight up the hill to Oreo at the barn. That was the first and last time Joe ever sat on a horse.

Nell and I took Willy and Oreo on many trail rides. We always sang to them, our favorites from The Sound of Music. Willy was always steadfast and dependable, Oreo not so much. I even had trouble getting the bit into his mouth, and when I pulled back on the reins, he’d crow hop like a cat on water. He was a perfect gentleman until I got on his back. I couldn’t figure him out. I even asked one of my sisters, Mandy, to ride him for me. She watched us tack up. Looking at me as though I had grain for brains,  she said, “You know, Em, that bit is upside down.” How was I supposed to know? In all the riding I’d done in my youth, the bits were flat bars. “The little bump is supposed to fit snugly in the roof of Oreo’s mouth,” her look telling me she wondered how I managed to get this far in life, “not dig into his tongue.” I apologized to Oreo while Mandy re-set the bit. We led the horse to our small riding ring and my sister got on his back. The big black horse actually looked graceful. And grateful, as he shot me several surly glances.

Oreo and Willy lived happily together for two years. My favorite vision is of them grazing down in the lower pasture, the big black horse next to the small white horse, with several birds resting on Oreo’s rump. In all the years we’ve had horses, I’ve never seen it again. There was something about Oreo’s backside that attracted small grey birds, usually two or three at a time, sunning themselves, enjoying the view from their equine cruise ship. I was continually scraping bird poop off his back.

The most colossal mistake any horse owner can make is neglecting to close a gate or a stall door. Of course, over many years, we were all to do that many times. Horses are observant, and opportunistic. And very, very fast, even fat, old ones. It was February, a thick blanket of snow covered the fields, when two horses zipped by the house at fifty miles an hour, white and black tails whipping in the wind, thundering hooves spraying snow. Neither horse was wearing a halter. Another big mistake. After calling myself the biggest idiot on earth, I loaded a bucket with grain and slung two halters over my shoulder, trudged through snowdrifts, working up a good sweat, finally reaching the two horses who had stopped on the plowed driveway, nibbling on the little bits of grass along the edge. I cajoled and pleaded with Willy. He was the senior citizen, supposed to have more common sense than his younger, dumber companion. Willy eyed the grain bucket, his ears pricking back and forth. Oreo trotted further down the driveway. I cursed him under my breath. For a moment, Willy stood his ground, let me get within ten feet. I held out the bucket, jiggled the contents. “Yummy grain!” I said, as if Willy hadn’t already figured that out. I tried to keep the strain out of my voice. I eased his halter off my shoulder. He took one giant step toward me. Gotcha! I thought and threw the grain bucket aside as I lunged with the halter. I didn’t even try to get the nose band on him, just hoped to lasso him around the neck.

He bolted down the driveway, taking Oreo, and most of my right arm with him. Nell has scolded me many times thereafter, “Mom, you’ve got to learn to let go.” That message still hasn’t sunk in. Meanwhile, my Brittany Spaniel, Scamper wolfed down most of the grain. I collected the few dribbles she left. Beulah, her sister, tied to the barn door, cried out in lonely misery, wondering why she’d been so cruelly abandoned and was missing all the fun as Scamper and I scampered down the driveway after the horses. We have a long driveway, almost a half-mile. It wasn’t nearly long enough as the escapees, snorting happily, sailed across the small country road at the bottom. Again, I edged closer to Willy, pleading with him, reminding him of all the good times he’d had at our farm, the brand-new barn, the lack of boulders in his sleeping compartment. Again, I approached. Slowly. Got you, sucker, I thought, then Oreo bolted again. Willy, with a wistful smile and a flick of his tail that caught me in the face, followed.

I was SOL. Ended up calling the road superintendent in our town. He was a member of the local fire department with me. Turned out he had some crews nearby that helped me corral the horses on the dam behind our pond. With four annoyed humans approaching, wielding rakes and shovels like an outraged mob from both ends of the dam, the horses knew the first (of many) Great Escapes was over.

Nell quickly switched from grooming Barbies to grooming Willy, buffing him to a high sheen, only to have him go right out to the gravel ring and roll, prodigiously. I remember one brisk spring morning, Nell and I were brushing Willy out in the paddock, using shedding blades in a stiff wind, the white hair whipped around us like snowflakes, sticking to our mouths. “Ptooey!” we both said, laughing. Mounds of hair blew through the fence into the barn. It looked like an animal had fought a terrific, and losing battle in there. In the fall, after the leaves had fallen, we would find birds’ nests woven with Willy’s white hair, around and around, a true safety net.

In the mornings, especially when Willy and Oreo were locked in their stalls because of the frigid temperatures, Willy always nickered when we walked in, anxious for his grain topped with carrots and a scoop of thyroid powder. Oreo was usually lying down. It always startled me to see such a large animal down on the ground, shavings stuck to the side of his face and tangled in his mane. With a lot of heavy moaning, he’d heave himself up, his legs pushing his bedding against the stall wall, shake off clouds of dust and shavings, and let loose a few satisfying, melodious farts.

Old Squitoes, the grey-and-white tabby cat, often joined us in the barn. He liked to lie down with Beulah and Scamper, our Brittany Spaniels, or roll in the stones, exposing his fat belly to the sun. He loved to be brushed, with big horse brushes, the harder the better. The skin rumpling made him drool.

Nell soon outgrew Willy and it was clear, due to his increasing grouchiness under saddle, that he was getting too old to be ridden. However, Willy was a lifer. When I bought him, I promised our friends he would live out his life at our farm. But in a vain attempt to keep ahead of the fast-growing and fast-learning Nell, I had two new horses moving in. As much as I hated to, I had to give Oreo up. But by then we’d also discovered why he was so balky under English saddle: he was trained for western pleasure. He hadn’t been trained to a bit, but to a hackamore and neck reining. We found him a nice family who promised to make him the next Trigger. 

As the years passed, I allowed Willy to roam free because he’d worn his teeth to nubs and was no longer able to chop and grind hay. He would end up twisting the hay into long, stringy cigars which he had to spit out. Supplemental grain, chopped alfalfa and beet pulp helped, but he was losing weight. We were lucky his last winter that we had very little snow. Acres of open fields were available to graze. When it did snow, Michael would plow swaths for him. He never wandered far from his two new friends, Riker and Blue. At night, I would stand on the hillside and call out to my roving lawn ornament, “Willy! Come on boy!” I’d stop and listen. Within a few seconds I would hear the der-rump, der-rump, der-rump of Willy’s thundering hooves as he galloped to me. It was a breathtaking sight when that beautiful white creature with his long, undulating mane, tail streaming behind him, emerged from the dark in front of me like a glorious, round-bellied ghost. Even in his advanced age he was a graceful, powerful animal.

Willy’s free-grazing wasn’t without incident, however. On a foggy night, Michael loaded several kids, including Nell, into the back of our Durango so that they could buy ice cream cones at the local Stewarts Shoppe. I had just gone up to the barn. Willy must have heard me rattle the grain cans because he trotted across the driveway just as Michael backed the Durango out of the garage. I heard a terrific thump then Nell wailing from inside the car, “Daddy, you hit Willy! You hit Willy!” Willy bolted up to the barn followed by a hysterical Nell. We checked Willy over. He was upset by the encounter, but had no scrapes or cuts. The silver Durango did not fare so well. There was a perfect orb-shaped imprint of Willy’s round belly in the rear tailgate. We never got it fixed. We liked it. We had the car for years, and always thought of Willy every time we fought to open the tailgate.

 *This is a work in progress, with hopes of being published soon.