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horses and dreams

I have two horse lovers.  I don’t know where it came from.  Yes, they have lived on a farm since very young but we have never had a horse.  We have had cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, guinea hens, rabbits and many dogs but horse, no.  In the past year the horse obsession has gotten quite bad.  Every book, every drawing, every item they create is about horses.  They love horses, those girls of mine.

They have asked for horse riding lessons for years but the cost has always been prohibitive.  With schooling, food and house payments, it is quite hard to squeeze out monies for expensive horse riding lessons.  Those are the things I plan for some day.  A someday that is never very close.   And then one day the opportunity came looking for us right at home.

I was sitting on the couch with a friend who was visiting while her daughter took lessons just down the street from us.  Horse riding lessons.  I dared to ask how much the classes were and then filed that info away in my momma brain for just in case.  It just so happens that fate is a friend because during Grandma Yoli’s visit, she mentioned that she would want to help with some of the fees if we ever found a good place to take lessons and just one week later these horse loving girls of mine had a dream come true.  A dream also made possible by a little business I have been working at and still have not shared with any of you.  Soon, I promise.

Not much has been said at the dinner table, that does not have something to do with horses as of late.  They live for Tuesday so they can go to the farm and brush, feed and ride their new found companions.  It is a bit scary for this momma who can be a bit over protective, to see her girls up on a horse so very high that they could easily put their boots on my head or shoulders.  I try to breath and trust.  Trust that their guardian angels are watching over them.  Letting them revel in their new dream come true.

At bedtime on those nights, I check on them after they have fallen asleep and I see a new look on their sweet faces.  The look of happiness.  Happiness brought to them by horses and dreams.

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maple syrup and mud

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That would sum up our day at the Maple Syrup Festival this weekend.  I should add in fun, lots of fun.  Oh and friends 🙂  We ran into about a dozen friends while there.  We were very excited to learn everything we could about maple syrup.  Our family has a commitment to eating local but living in Florida, we were never local to maple syrup 🙂  In Florida we could get cane syrup and sorghum but not maple, oh it’s so very good, yes?

It was a fun filled day of hay mazes, maple syrup sampling, festivites, tomahawk throwing, old fashioned log sawing (oh my aching arms) and momma with Matthew in the sling for about 6 hours.  He of course wanted to get down after his long nap against my body but with some areas being ankle deep in mud, I didn’t want him running around.  He was also in our famous “red shoes“, do you remember these?  I would like them to last as long as possible and with them being so old, I figured a day in mud and clay was not a good idea.  We learned how to tap our trees and got a kit (we have to first identify the maples on our property which is hard since there are no leaves to help me see which ones they are) and saw a demonstration of how the native Americans boiled down maple syrup in hollowed out logs with rocks that they heated up in their camp fires.  It really makes me think of how we take such things for granted.

I did finally find a dry spot to put Matthew down and he was very happy to climb and sit on the log there while we watched the older kids sawing away at logs.  The weather could not have been better and it was so good to my soul to be out in the sunshine all day long.  The kids seemed to be reveling in it.  Thankfully, for the past few days, the sun has been out quite a bit.  Except for the snow two days ago, I think spring is really coming soon.

We came home with some deliciously smoky tasting cotton candy, a gallon of grade b dark amber maple syrup and some secret treats I bought for Easter baskets.  The kids were so tired, most of them passed out right after dinner.

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