2012 October | Rocky Mountain Woman

Archive for October, 2012

XVII – Rocky Mountain Woman Builds her Dream Home

Written by Rocky Mountain Woman on October 31, 2012 – 12:03 pm -

This post is in honor of the letter “X” and part of Jenny Matlock’s Alphabet Thursday. For more eXcellent “X” posts, please click here http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/

My old diesel truck complained a little about pulling the trailer up the hill. It had been hauling horses for years, but this hill was steep, practically straight up and down, and the truck is ancient. I took my foot off the gas for a second and downshifted. The engine snarled and the horses started to shift around in the trailer, snorting and throwing their heads.

We were almost there, our new home on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. I had searched for two years for the perfect piece of land, perched on the very edge of civilization where I could live in peace with my horses and my memories. When my neighbor made an offer on my old place, I decided to buy a travel trailer, throw up a temporary fence for my mares and live on the land for the summer while my new house and barn were being built. I closed on the sale a few months later, loaded the horses in the trailer, and then walked around the barns for the last time. I had raised my children here, my husband died here; I had bred and raised dozens of colts here. My children had moved out and it was time for me to move on, but my life as I had known it for decades was drifting away and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let it go. I felt as unsettled as the horses. Summer turned into fall and it got too cold in the trailer, so I had parceled out my horses to boarding facilities and friends and moved into a hotel. As soon as I could I moved the trailer back up in the spring and moved in, but I had left the horses in the valley where they were more comfortable. Now it was fall and the house still wasn’t even remotely done, but it was liveable, barely. I decided to “camp out” in my own home. I was sick of trailers and hotels, my horses were sick of being boarded. It was time.

As we topped the hill at the new place, I stopped the truck at the beginning of the driveway. Dick had assured me he would have a temporary driveway to a temporary run in/barn built by today. It wasn’t much of a driveway, basically just a path scraped out by a backhoe. I turned off the truck and climbed out, stepped up on the side of the trailer and rubbed Stormy’s head. If she would calm down, the rest would follow her lead. It might be easier to unload the horses at the top of the driveway and lead them down to the corrals rather than try and pull the trailer over the sagebrush and rocks.

I walked to the temporary barn/corral. There was no gate and sections without any fencing at all. This was not good. I had a trailer full of antsy horses and no place to put them. I couldn’t believe I had been dumb enough to trust Dick. He answered on the fourth ring.

“Hi, Dick, it’s me. I thought the corral was supposed to be finished last night.”

“It is finished. I worked until dark on it.”

“Well, there’s no gate and there are sections without any fencing. Am I supposed to just tell my horses to be good and stay in the corral even though it’s not completely fenced in?”

“Damn, I thought I had it all done. I’m on another job; I’ll be over later this evening.”

”What am I supposed to do with the horses until then? I can’t leave them in the trailer all day without water.”

“I don’t know. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

I hung up on him (I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately) and started looking around. There were a few livestock panels that I had used for temporary fencing for the mares I had brought up last spring, but there weren’t enough to close the gaps in the fence. Trying not to panic, I took a deep breath and walked back to the truck slowly. What had I been thinking? I should have come up here before I loaded up the horses and checked myself to be sure everything was ready.

The horses nickered softly. They had seen some deer who were watching with quiet caution. My heart rate slowed and I smiled at the spotted fawn they had with them. I waited until the deer had moved on before opening the back of the trailer, unloading the horses and tying them to the part of the fence that was complete. As the stock tank filled, I found enough panels to make a small space that was fully enclosed where they could reach the water. My moment of remorse was over. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace.

I was home.