five years

Do you realize that five years is half a decade? It’s exactly 29.41% of how long I’ve been alive. Yikes.

But today is a special anniversary. It’s been five years exactly since I became the owner of a horse.

You have no idea how bad I wanted a horse. I was drawing horses as soon as I could hold a pencil, and never quit. My sister and I would crawl on all fours pretending to be horses; we still have a massive collection of horse models, especially Breyers of various sizes. I drooled over the horses I saw in rodeos, shows, and even pastures next to the highway.

Finally, in the summer of 2006, I made up my mind. Whatever it took, I was going to get a horse. So Hannah and I worked all summer long (mostly for Mom and Dad) to accumulate hours and dollars toward our horse. I’d get through my quota of time weeding the garden by imagining what my horse might look like.

This is Drem the day we brought her home. (Her original name was Lady, but we thought she looked like the horse on Dreamer so we changed her name to Dreamer. “Drem” started out as a nickname for that, but we consider it her given name now.)

She was seven years old, high strung, and greenbroke. I was barely experienced enough to control her at the lope. She’s twelve now and mellowed out; I’ve done quite a bit of training on her, though she’s by no means finished! Here we are in 2011:


I made a point to ride her as many days as I could this summer, and it’s paid off—her attention span is (usually) better, she’s more willing, and she’s in better shape. She’s no show horse, but she’s my horse. I love her to death.