Horses, Corn Shocks and Marmalade Skies

Sunset light is magical. All the better when you have magical subject matter, bathed in surreal light.  A chestnut horse, blissfully unaware that the forest behind her is going up in flames. That the flame is licking along her legs and belly, lighting her mane.

Farther along, a little group of horses catches the spirit of the moment. A black filly canters up to them, setting them all off in a flurry of pounding hooves.

As my blogger/artist friend Erin says, pretty horses bring out the seven-year-old girl in me. I cannot get enough of them, especially in motion. I live in a rather depressed area, and riding horses are a luxury that is becoming rare. Nobody can afford to feed them, shoe them, vet them. Especially since they wind up being animated pasture furniture 99% of the time. They don't really have a job or a purpose where I come from. Everybody's so busy that only a lucky few seem to get ridden at all. 

These, on the other hand, are Amish country working horses. They may pull a buggy, a wagon or a plough for much of every day. And when they get turned out in the pasture to hang with their friends, they're genuinely happy. Released. 

I have a hard time picking my favorite shot of the day, but it may be this enormous draft horse putting on a little speed. She's on fire in the late sun, her proud blue shadow high-stepping right alongside her. But for the halter and the fencepost, she could have come off a cave wall. My heart fills up and overflows with her solid beauty. This world is such a wonderful place.

We can drive two hours and come to a place where nobody uses electricity because nobody needs it. Where, if the power went off, nobody would notice. Where nobody stares into screens, but into sunsets and fires. Where bedtime is when it gets dark and work starts when it gets light. 

You blow out the flame, close the hardcover book, and sleep.

Where your transportation is alive and breathing, gets thirsty and hungry, is subject to moods, and whickers to you when you come out of the grocery store. 

Where top speed is around 10 mph.

I can romanticize it all I want, because I really have no idea what life is like in Amish country. I can guess, but I can't know. I'm of another time and place. I might as well have stepped out of The Jetsons' cartoon, with all my timesaving gadgets and my car, which might as well be a spaceship that can transport me hundreds of miles with no effort at all. Living like this, I'd miss the ability to take photos, to share them and reach out to so many. I'd miss the people I'm in contact with. I'd certainly have a lot fewer people in my life, but I'd know what their voices sound like, the color of their eyes, their particular scent.

I'm grateful for the standing stubble, for the spilled grain that draws bunting and lark, for the sun's last fire on antique cornshocks. I'm grateful for the mice rustling within, that draw the harrier, the hawk, the great white ice owl, which in turn draws me here.

Whether I see it or not. 

 I still have these horses, these cornshocks, this snow and these skies. I still have this light.