Get a Horse

No one has made a comment on it yet but I can hear all those questions anyway. Why would I want to get a horse? Why not. Because I have always had a very deep, burning desire to have my own horse. I don't know why I have always had the yen to have such an obnoxious, expensive creature, but I have. I believe I was born with it. I can remember my parents telling me that they would take me to parades when I was little and some how I connected the horses with the marching bands and called the music 'horsey music'. To this day if I hear a marching band I can see horses marching along with it (of course in my mind, not in actuallaty). My parents grew up on farms and to them horses were a tool. As a child my dad was in the Air Force and of the opinion that having a pet of any kind was not good while doing so much moving. It seemed we moved every year to two years. Anotherwords very frequently. A few dogs and cats were aquired but didn't last long either do to the fact that vacanations for distemper weren't very good in those days or because we had to give them away when we moved. Mostly we had parakeets, fish in tanks, and the occisional turtle (the kind you can't buy any more in pet shops do to desises, although we never got sick from any of our pets, but the turtles never lived very long). In all that time I longed despertly for a horse. I don't think my parents realized at that time how much I wanted to be able to be around horses, to ride, even if I couldn't own one. I was a shy kid, not given to really letting my wants be known. My mom had somehow taught me and my sisters that we should be thankful for what we had (which we were) and learn to not want or even talk about what we couldn't have. Her life was so much better with my dad rather than what she had when she was growing up that I don't think she thought to much about wanting more. Both my parents had been very poor as children and their live in the Air Force made them feel rich. But my desires for a horse couldn't go away. I did keep them bottled up in my mind, only allowing them to be seen in the books I read and the TV shows I watched. I became quite a fan of all the TV westerns that were so common when I was growing up mainly because they had horses on them. But because that love of horses caused me to watch Westerns and read western books both fiction and nonfiction I developed a love of history. Especially Western history and the Cowboy. I always told myself that when I was grown I would be able to have the horse I wanted. But it wasn't to be. After I left home I married a man in the Navy and we did some more traveling. That was followed by years of not much money or at least not enough to afford a horse. Thankfully Lee has been very good at giving in to me when I would bring home lost kittens and puppies. We have had a long list of dogs, cats, birds, fish, and even lizards, and gerbils, as well as one human baby. During all that time I tried NOT to push my feelings about horses onto my son. Being an only child he got his way with about anything he wanted, within reason. He had pets, computers, games, and even a 1968 Mustang car before he graduated from high school. That is when I found out that he, too, had been hiding a love for equines. He had two jobs by the time he was 18. He worked at a Wendys and another helping take care of some horses. When he told me about the job with the horses I was certainly surprised. Next he was telling me that he was buying a horse and was going to keep it at a stable. He had a horse before I did. He got a skinny little palamino colt, that turned into his stallion Goldie or Golddust. (remember you can see Goldie at www.goldstud.net ) But that was fine with me, although his dad was a bit upset at the sudden turn of events. Of course this only fueled the fire that had been smoldering in me for 48 years. I begain the hunt for my horse. If my son could keep a horse at a stable, I could. At that time I also had the best paying job I have ever had in my life so I had the money for one. One day I saw an add for a horse in the paper and decided to go look. The horse advertized wasn't what I was looking for but I took the time to look at others that the man had. Off in a pen all by herself was a very small sorrel yearling. She looked at me with her great big brown eyes, with a white star between them. I was lost. I had to have her, even though the man explained that she was wild. He had got her and some others at an aution in Grants, NM. They had never been handled, and he hadn't got around to working with this one yet. He said she might not even be a yearling. She was just a baby. I did the stupid thing that so many first time horse owners do, (as my son did). I bought Star.