Thanks, Dad!

Horses were a fact of life growing up. Family vacations were planned around the availability of someone who could feed & check in on them; family outings so that we'd be home in time for one old mare's evening meal. (She wasn't very interested in food, and it could take her two hours to pick her way through several quarts of grain. A bite here, stare into space & doze for a while. A mouthful there, snort at the cat. Waiting on Schelah to finish was an exercise in patience!)

If a vacation was planned in the winter, someone always stayed home because the horses needed to be fed & watered. There was no running water at the barn. For three seasons the horses watered out of a creek, but Upper Michigan winters come early and stay late, so once the creek froze too thick for chopping holes in or the path down iced up, water was hauled out from the house in 5 gallon buckets.

If there was snow we used the sled. If there wasn't, we used a little red wagon. Buckets had to be hauled a couple of times a day when the temperature bottomed out - the buckets would freeze into solid cylinders, and we'd haul them back in to thaw by the stove. (Why we didn't have a spigot at the barn is a whole 'nother story.... Remind me sometime, and I'll tell you all about growing up without electricity!)

I say we, but it was probably mostly my mother doing the hauling for many, many years. As children we were too small, then we were in school, sports, then college.... She hauled a LOT of water over the years.

We all did help put up hay - I learned to drive by steering the truck in the hay field because I was too small to pitch bales or stack. And man, it sucked to get big enough! Especially if I mis-stacked and any bales fell off.

We, and again, I use that term loosely, fenced. Mostly, that was my dad. I inherited the whole horse-affliction thing from my mom, so at least she only had herself, or maybe my grandfather, to blame for the on-going horse chores.

My dad was not a horse person. He's comfortable around them, and he certainly knows which end is which and what goes where, but horses are so not where his interests were. Nevertheless, he helped.

He did a lot of fencing. There was always lots of fencing, because although everything was and had been fenced for years, well... the fences had been up for years. Most of what ground wasn't covered in pasture or trees was sand or swamp. And with cold, snowy winters, muddy springs, and rainy falls, even cedar posts don't stand up indefinitely. So every spring fences needed to be walked, wires tightened, posts propped back up or replaced, downed trees removed... And did I mention there were deer flies to be contended with as soon as black fly and mosquito season ended?

When the fencing was done, at least temporarily, there was haying. We usually helped friends put up their hay, and they helped us with ours. And every year at some point their ancient tractor would stall out or the square baler would jam, and my dad and L would spend a while with their heads and hands stuck into whichever bits of mechanical guts that were malfunctioning. Square bales for both families' horses all had to be counted, hauled, and stacked into whichever barn we were filling with whatever hands were available.

One year in high school when the call came that the bales were ready but rain was on the way I headed out to the hay field direct from work to find the truck idling along driverless in low gear while my dad worked quickly alongside hoisting bales up onto the trailer, stacking as he went. Good thing the field was long enough that not much turning was required!

My mom was on the local horse council, and we girls did 4-H. That meant my dad got volunteered for things. Lucky for us he's quite handy. When they built the 4-H arena, guess who helped dig the post holes? And build the announcer's stand. He "volunteered" for announcing at shows, as well; at the Schoolcraft County Fair Horse Show for all the years we showed, and at the 4-H arena, too -- I think maybe he actually enjoyed announcing, at least!

When Shan the pony came to live with us and I got big enough to ride in the occasional 4th of July parade or 4-H event, we didn't have a horse trailer. Money was tight, and one small to middling pony wasn't worth the expense of a big horse trailer. (The mares never went.) So my dad built Shan a horse - no, a pony box. It took a ditch or a ramp to load from, but Shan rode in style in his box. It was just his size, bolted securely into the back of the pick-up, and my mom even made bumpers chest, sides & rear from thick foam and naugahyde so that Shan wouldn't bang himself.

Yep, we were lucky my dad is handy - although I'm not so sure he always thought so!

So for all those times he was there - and still is - with a pat on the back, an encouraging word, or a helpful suggestion; for the leadline lessons, the fencing, the haying and the 'we'll have to change the date again' vacations, (the binoculars that fit in my horn bag for trail rides!), I owe my father a huge thank you. It's belated, but heartfelt, believe me.

And isn't he ever glad I now live far enough away he no longer gets the "privilege" of spring fencing? lol!