Our Old Gray Mares

Mares...they are special creatures.  I did not truly understand this until our old gray mares joined us on our ranch in the west.  We had moved west 6 months earlier and had had to say good-bye to our horse, pony, donkey, cows etc in the east.  Our sweet gelding Tiante was too old to make the journey west and he needed his best buds (the pony and donkey) to keep him company in the east so we had made the sad decision to leave them behind....well cared for on my childhood farm but not with us in the west regardless.   I made a promise to myself and our children that we would find a horse or two once we were settled in the west to romp in our pastures out here.  I spent our first summer here scouring buy and sell pages looking for an older horse...preferably a gelding.  I was used to geldings.  Steady old men who were predicable.  I had heard rumours about mares and therefore had avoided them up until I saw an ad for a pair of old gray mares located within a couple of kilometres from our abode.  I winced. I thought about it for a bit.  I winced some more and then I went to visit them.  And shortly after that they made the short journey around the country block to come and live with us...and thus began our education in the ways of mares.

A month later I will confess to greatly questioning this decision.  Some days there was love in the air and everything in the world was right as rain...and then other days not so much.  Chinook was a little more predictable and steady in her approach to life.  More gelding-like I shall say.  Misty though was ALL mare.  Oh the moods of that horse!  As we got to know each other I began to appreciate her moods and some days to even empathize with those moods. Misty and I eventually found a middle ground.  As long as I promised not to touch her tummy then she promised to let me saddle and bridle her for rides about the ranch.

She never bucked or tried to put me off unlike my memories of watching Morgan and Chinook do a semi-buck/bunny hop through the snow on one of our trail rides.  Misty and I watched this show with some bemusement and then ambled along behind without too much ado following the rather generous path they had made through the snow with their shenanigans.  Misty would choose our paths through the forest and I never bothered to argue too much about that.  If she did not want to go down a certain path I figured she knew best as evidenced by rather fresh moose poo that I found on one path she had shunned earlier in the day while I was walking that path on foot later in the day.

Our old gray mares learned to live with us but more importantly we learned to live with them and to learn from them.  The language of mares through the twitch of an ear, the flare of a nostril, the slight poise of a hind leg would indicate the mood of the day.  We found a peace with our mares which included a greater understanding of horses and a love of mares.  And with that understanding came joyous moments with our mares.  Some of my favourite memories include watching the kids bounce off school buses and onto the backs of the mares.

 In all kinds of weather and in all kinds of moods, we learned to read each other signs and to understand each other and to appreciate the spirit of a mare.

A couple of years ago we lost Chinook.  Misty began to show signs of illness this summer.  Finally this past weekend we said our good-byes.  She was very ill but her spirit remained and shone. Our old gray mare, as the folk song goes, kicked on the whiffletree until the very end and we loved her for it❤️