Fall on the Farm

No, not the verb but the noun, as in "The leaves are lovely during the Fall in New England".
The other day I received a hand-written letter from a friend. She started her letter with "Maple trees turning red,no more hummers at the feeders, kids wearing long pants to school, horses beginning to look fuzzy-could a snowflake be far behind?" What a lovely image of Fall in New England. Yesterday, while out driving I started thinking about all of the wonderful sights, sounds and smells of the season. Of course there is the lovely horse smell, but also the aroma of leaves, pine tree scent, and the moist earth under foot. One of my favorite scents, which always remind me of late Fall, is the aroma of wild grapes. Sometimes I'll stop and grab a bunch, from a vine, to eat while trip-tropping along down the trail. I have  decided that full size horse clip-clop, and miniature horses trip-trop. Trip-tropping is a sound, as is the breathing of my horse. There is sometimes the sound of splashing water if the dogs are lucky enough to find a stream or pond. Yesterday, I heard a strange sound and soon realized that my dog, Windsor, had run into deer fencing. The path I was on was once a railroad bed so fencing had been installed to prevent deer from running onto the track. There is obviously still some around and Windsor happened to find it. Just when I thought I would have to save him, he located a spot where the fence was down and hustled to safety. When there is a breeze I could hear the sound of the leaves and twigs falling to earth. Occasionally the dogs would bark at some unknown monster lurking in the woods. There is the sound of my voice speaking to the dogs and horse. Sometimes I sing, which I only like to do in private, or in a large group of people. Of course, another New England favorite sound is the sound of crunching leaves under foot, or in my  case, under hoof. Visually there is a cornucopia of sights. The beautiful colors of the plants-Brown and yellow oak leaves. Red, yellow and orange maple leaves, Orange sassafras, yellow aspen and birch, the shades of green pine trees. Then there are the red Winterberries, purple asters, yellow goldenrods. The colors of the earth, moss and grass. If the dogs are off exploring I may see a squirrel or a rabbit run across the path. But my favorite sight of all is one that I can see during all of the seasons. That is, needless to say, the sight of my horse.

The New Barn

Well, its not really an entirely new barn. We gutted the interior, replaced the rotted wooden floors with cement (of course there will be rubber mats), and reconfigured/rebuilt the stalls. When we bought this property 20 years ago we converted what was a workshop/garage, into a horse barn. The stalls were built using old, and occasionally new lumber of varying sizes, grades and condition. Needless to say, the barn was a hodge-podge of "compartments" which over the years have housed horses, ponies, chickens, ducks, turkeys, goats and rabbits. Our littlest mini, Delilah, lives under the stairs, similar to Harry Potter's bedroom. I think the measurements are about 4x5. She does have a little "hobbit" door so that she can go outside whenever she likes, but this has to be nailed shut during in-climate weather.  Of the 4 stall doors, only 2 match, and like the stalls, are of varying sizes and types of wood. I do have 2 matching stall latches, and matching halter/leadrope hangers which were purchased at Ocean State Job Lot for 4/$1.00. The "new and improved" barn will have 5 stalls, removable dividing walls in case I someday lose my mind and decide to get something big like a draft horse. There will be drains in all of the stalls so that the mats can occasionally be removed and the floors hosed down and cleaned. Stall doors will match as will all the hinges and latches. I've even splurged and  bought latches in the shape of horse shoes. There is a workbench with cabinets for storage and the windows are better than what are in my home, even though they were cast-offs from a construction job. It will probably be another couple of weeks before the barn is "horse ready". In the meantime all of the horses are living in temporary quarters which happen to be located in my garage.
When we bought this house I had remarked to my husband that the 30 x 40 ft garage would be perfect for horses. Of course he said "no way", and of course 20 years later there are horses living in the garage, and his car is parked in the driveway.(Please note that this post was actually dated 2014)