What a fabulous weekend! It felt like a modern day version of a Victorian era gentleman’s house party (like the ones in all the Jane Austen films I’ve been watching with Jody for the past few weeks). Large beautiful home on a gorgeous estate of rolling hills, complete with stables and horses and fireplaces and dogs and friends and neighbors and employees dropping by. Jaralyn is one of my sister’s oldest friends. Kevin is her husband. Juli is a working student who helps Jaralyn train horses and teach dressage. Juli lives in Bethesda, MD which is where I’m staying. (Don’t forget you can click on the pictures for larger views.)
Juli and I leave Bethesda at 7am and head out to the farm in the cold and nearly freezing rain. We arrive at the farm about 30 minutes later and start feeding the seven horses and one pony that are in the barn (Darius, Finnikin, Brio, Fhinland, Rothko, Magnum, Tango, and Gemma). Everybody is hungry and some of the horses at the far end bang on their stalls telling us to “hurry it up!” As I pass out flakes of hay and buckets of granola I’m thrilled to be with these wonderful animals. The smells and the sounds of snorting and tails swishing and heads shaking are familiar and nostalgic. When I was in junior high school I had a horse for a while and spent a great deal of time at the Dana Hall stables in Wellesley. I competed, mostly jumping, and have the ribbons to show for it somewhere. I haven’t ridden much as an adult, but have always longed for the time when I can do so again. I’m still not quite awake, and it is really cold. But I’m already certain it is going to be a great day.
It is a gorgeous new barn with beautiful honey coloured wood and gorgeous black iron fittings on everything. Lots of natural light and high ceilings with small birds flying about. We then tromp down to the far pasture where “the girls” are (Dhalia and Delilah) – two fillies that Jaralyn and Juli bought on a lark at a horse show a few months back. They are very young – just over a year – and surprising full of energy on this cold rainy morning.
The farmhouse where Jaralyn and Kevin live is big and new and beautiful from the outside, across the grass. But it is not time for visiting yet. We have work to do. Back up to the barn to start warming up the horses. One by one we take them out of their stalls and over to the indoor ring for a little jog. Juli puts them on the lunge rein (very long lead) and has them trot and canter for a few minutes in a circle around her. She let me lunge Gemma, the pony. We quickly develop a pattern. As we bring a horse back, I put their blanket back on while Juli readies the next horse.
In the middle of all this Darwin shows up. It’s his first day on the job and he’s here to muck out the stalls (clean out all the poo). He’s early and friendly, but quiet, and gets right to work. He doesn’t speak much English, only Spanish, but does a very good job and is quick about it. Once the horses are all lunged, we head over the to farmhouse for some coffee and to say hello to Jaralyn and Kevin. The house is brand new and gorgeous – right out of a magazine. There is one main room with heaps of windows containing kitchen, fireplace, sofas and dining table. Their offices are off of this room and the hallway connects to the old house that they lived in before the barn or the ring or this new house were built. Upstairs are more bright rooms (even on this grey day) with beds and bathtubs and more. Juli reports to Jaralyn that she’s pleased with Darwin, the new guy, and discuss the schedule for the day. It’s starting to snow and Jaralyn’s not feeling too well so they talk about canceling the trainings for the afternoon. But still most of the horses need to be ridden.
Shortly we make our way back over to the barn where we start a little routine there too. On this day Juli saddles up the horses and brings them over to the ring. She walks them around a bit to get them warmed up. Then Jaralyn rides them and trains them. It’s not just exercise, but she corrects their gait and trains them on responding to specific commands. Karen comes to take Fhinland back home and Cindy and Gary come to bring Fabrice to stay. I had terrific chats with all of them, as well as some of the other owners and assistants. I learn through the course of the day, mostly from the owners, that some of the horses have been injured or had bad training or both and that Jaralyn has worked wonders with them to bring them back to being ridable for their owners. Through these stories emerged a real “horse whisperer” legend around Jaralyn. I was impressed and amused at the fairy tale nature of it all – the beautiful house, the land, the magical skills that heal and rehabilitate horses and owners alike and the softly falling snow turning the pastures and surrounding woods into a winter wonderland.
I got to groom and prepare the horses for Juli to saddle up and brush them down and blanket them and put them back in their stalls when Jaralyn was done. She even let me ride Darius around for a while to cool him down. That’s when I really realised how long it had been since I’d ridden. I couldn’t remember how to do anything. Thank goodness Darius was a patient horse. But it was obvious he quickly figured out that I didn’t know anything and although he didn’t take advantage of me, it was clear who was boss. I couldn’t control our direction very much and was a bit embarrassed by that. But I quickly got over it and quit pretending that I remembered more than I did and just settled into being a newbie and letting Darius run the show. Below is me with Brio.
By early afternoon I was too cold to stay outside (even in the ring with a blanket on my lap). It has started snowing heavily and as I wasn’t doing much active work, I begged off and went over to the house to sit by the fire and read a book. I promptly fell asleep, waking only periodically when my toes got too hot after being too close to the fire.
Eventually Cindy and Gary came over to the house with soup and bread and Kevin came back from teaching Taekwando and Jaralyn and Juli came over from the barn. We sat down to soup and salad and garlic toast and had a lovely and leisurely late afternoon lunch by the fire in the warm house with huge windows and the snow falling outside and Juli’s dog Rembrandt (an adorable little terrier) and Jaralyn and Kevin’s dog Cayman (a Australian sheepherding dog of some sort) lounging about at our feet.
The rest of the day moved slowly and imperceptibly from one thing into another with a leisure that was not lazy and an amiability that wasn’t tiring. I let myself fall into the relaxing rhythm with pleasure, giving myself permission to not speak or read a magazine article or sit silently by the fire. At one point Juli and Jaralyn and I spent about an hour playing with fonts and designs for a logo for Jaralyn’s business: Finesse Dressage. At another point Kevin and I got into a long discussion about how to tune the turbo in a BMW to get the equivalent of another 70+ horsepower out of it. Eventually it got dark.
We headed off into the snowy night for dinner at a delightful Asian fusion restaurant called Batik, where we had sampling of dumplings and a variety of delicious laksas and curries. It was the first snow in ages in Maryland and Juli was keen to go sledding. So back at the house, we bundled up and headed out to the hill behind the house. With my hooded sweatshirt cinched up tightly, the rest of the gang instantly took to calling me Kenny (after the kid in South Park). But I managed to get through all the sledding adventures in the dark without dying. Then true to good winter form, we cooked up some real hot chocolate, baked some cookies, and settled down into Kevin’s home theatre to watch a movie on a very large screen in very comfortable sofas.
Whether it was the long week I had, or the exercise and excitement of the horses, or the sledding, or the hot chocolate, or the phenomenal bed, I don’t know, but I slept til 10 am!! When I awoke the house was stunningly brilliant, with bright sun streaming in all the huge windows, but suspiciously quiet. It was a huge rambling house, but I could tell I was all alone in it. I showered and dressed and quietly descended the stairs into that gloriously huge and open and sunny room to look out over the white pastures and fences and woods and horses. Shortly my hosts clattered in the front door, chattering and laughing as they pulled off hats and gloves and scarves and wellingtons and coats and extra sweaters and made for the coffee.
Jaralyn jumped right into preparing a breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs, toast and more, which we ate with an air of decided unhurriedness while we debated whether to make the trek across the river to the better sledding hill about a quarter of a mile away. Kevin had the best arguments. First of all, it rarely snowed here and we shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. Secondly, it’s hunting season but they aren’t allowed to hunt on Sundays. So even if the opportunity arose to sled again, the chances of it being on a Sunday were rare and sledding on a Saturday would always run higher risks of danger. But none of us really needed much peer pressure. On went the wellies again and off we went, wading across the river (with dogs under arms) and through the woods and up, up, up the hill where we took turns with the one and only sled and with holding down Cayman, who ran madly after the sled, barking and jumping, and knocked you over before you reached the bottom of the hill.
Juli tried to use a plastic tub to sled on, but try as she might it never quite worked. So instead she made a little snowman while Jaralyn figured out that by taking Cayman IN the sled with her he was less of a complication. Kevin took photographs with his enormous professional camera, while I wiped out so many times that both my wellies filled with snow and my socks were completely soaked by the time we got back to the house.
All in all it was a glorious weekend, topped off by my placing Juli’s little snowman (which I had lovingly carried all the way down the hill, through the woods, across the river and up the hill to the house) at the front door to the house to greet visitors. Of course about 15 minutes later, when Juli and I left the house to head home, Rembrandt ran right out and bit the head off the snowman thinking it was a ball and shook it and chewed and completely demolished it in a explosion of joyful ferocity such as only a dog can exhibit. Ah well, many of the best things in life are fleeting. At least we have memory.
Tomorrow my mind turns from snow and horses and sledding and snowmen to desert and war and Islam and Arabic.
