Farm Fresh Blog

Did you ever see a stranger across a room and swear you'd met before? Did you ever meet someone for the first time and get an immediate sense of familiarity? A connection. You can't explain it, you just trust in it.

And so it was last Sunday afternoon when I was dropping off a soap delivery to an old friend.  I glanced in her back yard and saw this:

Like a cartoon character, my heart leaped out of my body. Who was this horse?

I stopped in my tracks and asked her about the horse next door.  She told me he belonged to her brother who'd purchased the horse for his 5 year old daughter and rarely ever rode him. 

"He's a push-button horse, but he's just wasting away there. I've hopped on him bareback and he's PUSH-BUTTON."

I was intrigued. "Take me to meet this horse."

And so we walked to the pasture. He immediately came up to greet me.  She remarked that he is normally polite but distant and was surprised he was so friendly.  I was more intrigured.  There was "something" about this horse.

I've learned to trust those "somethings" and so I asked if the horse was for sale.  She allowed as how he wasn't on the market, but her brother had recently tossed around the idea since the horse wasn't really being ridden. So I made a date to test drive him the following Sunday.

I went home, but couldn't get the horse out of my head. He was perfect for me.  Short enough to easily mount,  (unlike OTHER members of the family)

and calm as a cucumber. (Unlike OTHER members of the family)

 "Who?"

I've spent a good bit of my life riding hot horses, but I'm 49 years old now. Now, I want short and calm. (But OTHER members of the family will ALWAYS remain members of the family!)

In the middle of the week I took Other Half to see this paint horse. He was unimpressed. He likes his horses big. Big ranch gelding are more his speed. This guy looked more like a mustang off the plains. But I was undaunted. There was "something" about this horse.

At first I thought he was a 'medicine hat' paint since he appeared to have the distinct "hat" and a front "shield" that made these horses so prized by the plains Indians. They believed the horses possessed special powers that would protect the rider from harm.

Closer inspection revealed that he wasn't a true medicine hat because the "hat" was just a bit off over his left ear.  He has parti-colored blue eyes.

Nevertheless, there was still something about this horse that I just couldn't get out of my head.  He just seemed to be the Painted Pony I had spent my entire life searching for. So two days later I dropped in to visit him. Once again, he happily walked up to greet me. This time I gave him a cookie. We were now BFFs.  

  "Best Friends Forever"

So Sunday rolled around and I waited for reality to smack me in the face. My friend reported that he'd been hard to catch in the pasture. Yet once again he happily greeted me like we knew each other. Once again, she thought this was odd. By then, I'd decided that perhaps the horse felt the same thing about me - something familiar, something comfortable.

He was easy to handle on the ground. Loaded into the horse trailer like a champ. Unloaded like a gentleman. Although he hadn't been ridden in months, he acted like he'd been ridden yesterday. 

 There was nothing not to like about this horse. I hopped on him bareback and felt like I'd ridden him for years.

And so it was that I listened to that little voice and bought him. His current name is Little Joe, but as my friend said, "It's not like he answers to it."

She said that since he looks like an Indian pony, he needs an Indian name. If something comes up we'll see, otherwise, I guess we'll just call him, "Joe."