I started the story here this morning. I took Tango and Valentine for a ride this morning in my 140 field. I went pretty early as I wanted to go before the frozen ground turned to muck at the sun melted the hard freeze from the cold night. I really should say that Tango and Valentine took me for a ride. I ride Tango and pony Valentine. Valentine has thousands of miles on her feet and I have thousands of miles of my seat on her back. Tango needs the ride...she only has hundreds of miles on her feet. We walk down the hill on to the frozen hay field. This ride makes me think of jewels. The hay field is an emerald green in summer, a golden color in fall and now in winter sparkles like diamonds covered in frost. The horse hooves crunch as we cross the field . I open the gate into the Cow Palace. The cattle like to loaf here in the shade under the huge old cotton wood trees. The resent wind storm has knocked down some very old dead tree crowns and the Palace is littered with future fire wood. Firewood is a spring and early summer job..not a winter mud job. We splash thru the unfrozen Antelope Creek. The creek edges are lacey with ice,,,but the main five to six inches of the fifteen foot wide creek are winter ice clear in color and fast. I can see every stone in the creek..Nothing green is in the water. Too cold for slick slime to grow in the winter. Tango climbs out of the creek and climbs over the huge downed pieces of several cotton woods that have crashed in the wind storm of last week I loose track of time. We now have our private trail class, but being wise - I dont see the need to run for the clock when I am riding for the pure joy of being out of doors. I have a reason to ride today. I want to check all of the perimeter fences to make sure that no trees have fallen on them. The ground is hard enough to hold the horses so we go checking fences. I do a clean sweep up the southern fence. No trees on the fences. The horses feet sound different on hollow frozen ground. Tango has to work harder to keep her feet under her. Valentine has those thousands of mile in thousands of places. She knows where every foot fall should fall and how it should sound. I ride up to the red gate. I see the cattle in the Eagle Field and two bald eagles in the Eagle Tree. The eagle tree is a huge some kind of pine with a dead crown. It must be 30 to 40 feet in the air..and there high above me sit two bald eagles..white heads against the winter blue sky. My heart stops...I own the land, but I dont own the land..It owns me. I dont own the tree..the tree own me and the eagles...well..the eagles are free...in every meaning of the word. When I bought this last piece of my puzzle ranch, there was a home sight , septic site and well site here...right here where we are standing. All three sites were within 100 feet of the Eagle Tree in the Eagle field. I messed around and messed around and let the homesite permits lasp...My finance man just about had a heart attack when he found out I had not at least put up a shack . . I though long and hard about the tree and the eagles. They have been there before I was born and will keep coming back after I am gone. Finally I am living the life I originally wanted when I came to Oregon. I am ranching. Not my cows, but there are healthy happy cows here. I have a healthy strong hay field that I lease out..I do all of the flood irragtion (which I love- water runs down hill) I have a little house on the ranch that I heat with wood that comes from all the naturally felled trees....AND I AM FINALLY warm in the winter. I have enough to eat. I have my horses which keep me going. I have my dog who comes with me when I go riding. I have enough. I no longer need to make a living . I am making and enjoying my life...and I have eagles living in the Eagle Field in the Eagle Tree. It has taken me a lifetime to feel this satisfaction. I know that I am content in my older age only because I pushed myself so hard when I was younger. I am not coasting. I still have hills to climb wilst I sit on the back of a beautiful horse...I have made my living now I continue to make my life..every day ...every moment.(..unless of course I am having a meltdown because a tree fell down in the wrong place and wrecked the deck. The deck is fixed.) I cannot replace the Eagle Tree nor the Eagle Field. I cannot own the eagles I love my once in a lifetime ride on this only frozen morning of January 2 2015 in my lifetime.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 04:14:21 +0000
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