Bringing Her Home

I arranged for my old horse Floss to come home. For the past year and a half, she has been living in a big paddock at a friend’s farm with a couple of other horses. Bush and trees provide shelter from the sun, wind and storms. There is a big dam to drink from and to wade into if the horses are so inclined. An open stable area gives them further weather protection if needed and is one of Floss’s favorite spots to doze. There are cows, goats, and sheep also grazing in the paddock, along with two alpacas that seem to spend more time pretending to be dead than they do grazing. My friend frequently has people stop by and tell her she has a dead alpaca in the paddock. They’re never dead, just lying flat out sleeping.

My friend, also a Gill (but with a G not a J, which probably amuses us both more than it should), feeds all the horses every morning. A hard feed of chaff, pellets, minerals and salt. Floss gets some extra special “senior’s feed” in her bucket, and gets an extra feed each evening, because she doesn’t hold her weight as well as she once did. She also gets an anti-inflammatory tablet to help alleviate the arthritis in her old joints.

In short then, it’s about as close to pony paradise as I could have found for Floss.

The farm is about fifteen minutes drive from my house, more or less depending on whether I go the long way round and stick mostly to bitumen, or take the shorter way over the gravel roads, which the dusty back window of my station wagon shows I generally choose. Although, in mid-summer when tourist traffic was at its heaviest the gravel was more corrugations than road and I tended tended to opt for the bitumen.

When Gill is away, I go over and feed the horses, and check on the rest of her menagerie. At other times, I drop in with bags of Floss’s special senior feed, or chaff or whatever. Sometimes just to say hello. But I don’t drop in very often. Certainly not daily, unless I’m on feeding roster. Sometimes whole weeks slip by without me getting there. Floss doesn’t mind. She doesn’t hang out to see me. I’m confident that she doesn’t miss me at all on the days I don’t show up. Yes, she recognises me. Of course she recognises me. She recognises my car when it pulls up at the farm. She generally lifts her head in what I assume is acknowledgment, but could simply be passing interest at the world. If it’s feed time - and she knows the difference between my random visits and the more purposeful feeding visits when Gill is away - she will walk or trot to the gate to greet me. I accept this as ‘cupboard love’, as my friend Lisa calls it; it’s the bucket of feed that she’s coming for rather than any delight in seeing me. I’m okay with that.

I no longer ride Floss. She is too old for that now. Our riding partnership ended in 2024, after almost fifteen years of shared adventures. We went places together. Met people and horses. Did things. She was my ticket to living out childhood dreams, and more besides. I’m not joking when I tell people my relationship with Floss is one of the most important relationships of my life. It truly has been.

Floss doesn’t love being petted. She loves food, but beyond that her interest in people is limited. She’s easy to do things with - she’s well trained and is calm and respectful. But she doesn’t crave being scratched and brushed in the way some horses do. These days, I rarely brush her. She seems to prefer it that way. Beyond basic care and maintenance - getting the worst knots out of her mane and tail, ensuring her feet are regularly trimmed, brushing the bulk of her shedding coat out as the seasons change, tending to insect bites - other than these things, I leave her be. She lives her days in the paddock, simply being a horse.

The weather now has turned. The autumn nights are cool. The wind whips across the paddock. Gill dutifully puts Floss’s rug on her if the night is going to be cold, wet or windy; takes it off again in the morning before the day warms up. She assures me that she doesn’t mind doing that nor feeding Floss. Yet I feel strongly that it is my responsibility. I should be feeding her. Deciding when she does and doesn’t need a rug, putting it on, taking it off. I can argue the case that I am actually ensuring these things are done, by providing the feed and rugs, and knowing that Gill is both willing and able to do the care.

But something about all that gets me.

For me, one of the joys of having horses is the daily care and feeding. I love the smell of the mixed up feed. The joy of a tossed mane as the horses rush to the sound of the activity in the feed shed. The sound of horses munching as they work through the bucket of feed. The easy contentment of it all. The smell of them just under their manes when I lean in.

So I decided I would bring Floss home.

I don’t have a lot of paddock space here, but I do have some. Room for a pony, as they say. As long as I buy in hay.

The autumn grass was long and I could just imagine Floss contentedly grazing it, a picture of bucolic bliss, and saving us hours on mower and whipper snipper. I could feel my heart lifting at the idea of it; the thought of mixing the daily feeds, taking care of her daily needs. Of looking out my bedroom window of a morning and seeing her there, waiting for me to get up and feed her. These were the things in my mind when I made the arrangements for her to come home.

Two days before the appointed day, I walked down Gill’s driveway to my car. I turned and looked back at the three horses in the paddock. They weren’t doing anything in particular, just standing there, close to each other, swishing flies away with their tails, dozing in the afternoon sun. Floss’s head turned slightly to watch me as I watched her. She looked so contented.

I drove away with a niggling thought. Moving Floss was nothing to do with what was best for her. It was all about me and my desires. Floss would obediently walk onto the float. She would balance on her arthritic legs during the journey, not knowing how long she would have to do so. She would back calmly out of the float when asked. She would then realise where she was - she’s been here before; the place is familiar to her. She would inevitably call, to see if any other horses answered her. None would. There are no friends here for her. Other than me. No equine friends. She would be okay with the goats for company, but goats aren’t horses. Horses need other horses. It’s a fundamental need.

The next day, I decided I wouldn’t bring Floss home. Not now. I can’t bring myself to disrupt her contentment for the sake of me wanting to be the one doing the daily care and feeding. It just doesn’t feel right. She is happy where she is. Her needs are being met. If I could easily provide her with everything she needs here, I would bring her home. But no equine friends is a deal breaker. So for now she can stay where she is. I’ll just have to make more effort to go see her more often, for my sake not hers.

Of course I could get another horse so she could come here and have company. Two horses here in my paddock instead of one. Now there’s an idea!

Thanks for reading,

Jill