give me silver blue and gold

I have a Page-a-Day horse calendar that I read each morning when I am making my coffee. Yesterday's page had a photo of two horses grazing on a hillside. The horses were far apart in the photo and the caption said: While grazing, horses prefer to keep a few feet apart from one another in case they are startled and need to move quickly. Pie and Sovey never got the memo about this necessary horse safety trick. They graze on top of each other all day long. Their feet are often entwined like they are playing Twister. If startled, they jump on each other. It is really quite comical. I have had people tell me that when driving by our farm they refer to our horses as "the twins" because they are always tight together in the pastures. Here they are, above, performing their synchronized grazing last evening. It was one of those beautiful evenings with lovely ochre light in the west, and pink, cotton candy clouds in the east.

I think it is funny that I never know what type of horse will greet me when I go to bring them in each evening. Sometimes I pull in the driveway and I see two gorgeous, dark bay Thoroughbreds, obviously off the racetrack, all muscled and sinewy. Other times, they look like two old plugs, out to pasture in a farmer's field, rounded and sway-backed and muddy like no one has cleaned them for years. I love them either way, but it is amazing how different they can look at different times of the day and in different stages of clean. Last evening they were the ratty, unkempt, muddy boys. I like the wildness of Pie's mane in the photo below.

Below is a Nosey Parker named Sovey who just couldn't keep away from the camera lens.

Evening is my favorite time of the day in any season. Unfortunately, I am a nighthawk in a family of early birds so I rarely get to enjoy the evening. With the time change, though, evening comes early, so I get more of what I love. My whole family ended up at the barn one day this week around 4pm. Brian had to make stall changes inside the barn and his dad needed manure for his garden. Mom and her dog, Eby, wandered over to chat. Maizie was raking and jumping into piles of leaves and I was grazing and grooming the boys outside of the pastures. The sunset was incredible and I hoped it wouldn't end. Right then, just like someone was answering my wish, Brian said that he couldn't finish for 1/2 hour and we couldn't bring the horses in yet. I grabbed my bridle and hopped on Pie bareback. Maizie was on foot and she wanted to walk along so we headed out through the fields. The sky was a magnificent pink and orange and Pie didn't seem to mind that it was difficult to see. He knew he would be able to smell his barstool apples when he got to them! On our way back I could still see the sun setting, and Pie was snuggly warm under me, and Maizie was walking beside us, and Brian was in silhouette at the barn. Just as we got back, two fluffy foxes bounded out into the field. Growing up, I loved the Small Faces song, Itchycoo Park because of the lyrics, "But why the tears there...because it's all too beautiful." That is how I felt that evening - this is all too beautiful.