Tails From The Manure Pile

When I was a girl, I was horse mad and always dreamed of living on a farm with lots of animals and lots of horses..of course. Although, thinking back, the fantasy was really more something like living on a large rolling estate in England with tons of ponies and gymkhanas every weekend. A constant pre-teen diet of Pullein-Thompson novels bought me by my mother from the local second-hand book shop filled my head with lush meadows, exciting adventure, all things British, and Black Beauty galloping around in there throughout.

Today I live on twenty-five acres with a small barn and pond and the menagerie count is up to two dogs rescued from the Caribbean, two horses (one geriatric, one adolescent), five chickens (the ladies), two children and one husband. Often I refer to this place as Cold Mountain and can channel someone between Renee Zellweger in a headscarf and twenty petticoats and Neil Armstrong in enough layers to make the trek to the barn seem like a slow motion slog on the moon through the snow. After twenty years of working full time, I have ventured to the full-time position of farm manager and resident artist, producing fantastically popular and prolific paintings a la Tricia Romance while training adolescent horse for next Olympics and raising perfect children who will both become neurosurgeons...of course!