Dreamcatcher Diary

Losing Little Blue

I knew Little Blue was going to leave us a full week before he actually did.  Not that he acted sick.  He didn't.  He ate well, drank plenty of water, was up and active.  He had no wounds or sores, no breathing problems and his eyes were clear.  Still, I knew.  It was simple really, he had separated himself from the rest of the herd.  He ate away from them, grazed and slept away from them and went to water long after the rest of the horses had left the tank area.

Every day for a week I looked for Blue in the morning, packing his hay on my back and hiking up and over the ridge behind the house.  It was slow going for the snow was deep in places and I'm certainly not getting any younger.  But I slogged along until I would find him grazing in the back valley all alone. 

To see one of our mustang so alone is startling.  They just don't leave each other like this.  Unless......   And that is how I knew.  Blue was preparing his friends and himself for a journey none of us could take with him.  It was something he would do alone. 

And so each day for a week I looked for Blue.  I fed him in the places where he chose to be alone.  I watched him, sometimes from afar and sometimes close enough to feel his breath on my neck as he curiously smelled my hair before walking off to be on his own again. 

Then one morning when I came over the hill I didn't see him in the valley below.  I put down my hay pack and began to search in earnest.  I found him under a juniper tree, halfway down the ridge, legs curled under his body, nose touching the ground as if asleep.  Blue had taken his journey. 

I knelt down and touched Blues body.  He was already cold.  When I was a director of a sanctuary in an urban area, I would have taken some of his mane, then his body would have been removed by the tallow company, to be disposed of in ways none of us want to think about.  But here, in this remote place, the horses live and die and that living and dying is with me always.  I think its better this way. 

While I ordinarily bury the horses that pass on.  I felt compelled to leave Blue where he lay.  And every few days, I go looking for him.  Instead of bringing him my pack of hay, I bring a few large rocks which I lay on his body.  It will take me a long time, this process of burial.  But there are many ways to say good bye.  This is mine.

Barbara's Magnetic Personality

Over the past few days, Barbara and I have been talking (via email) about the land behind Dreamcatcher.  It's the land directly in back of the houses in this photo.  In one of her emails, she said:

...It's a beautiful piece that goes way back up the valley.  The mustang mares broke out of their winter pen about a month ago and I eventually found them grazing a few miles up that valley.  It was really secluded and pristine with a small reservoir.  They looked so natural grazing back there.  But alas, I had to make them come home.

I wasn't sure how she could have rounded up fifty or sixty wild mustangs that had escaped.  So, I asked her how she did it.  Her reply may explain why she survived being hit by a truck:

As for retrieving the herd..it's my magnetic personality.  Just kidding.  After watching them from across the valley I finally called out.  They all looked up and when they saw me they came running......at full gallop.  I think they view me as the lead mare or some such thing.  Anyway when they started coming my way I just turned and started walking back home.  Soon I could hear the thunder of all the pounding hooves behind me as the herd came at full tilt.  When they reached me they just split down the middle without breaking stride.  One half of them galloping past me on the right and the other half on my left.  They ran all the way home and waited for me to catch up.

It's something they have done to me many times before.  I am not sure what it means but it seems significant to them.  Once I had a reporter ask me to go out toward the herd so he could get a shot of me with the horses.  As soon as I stepped into the pasture the herd came toward me at a dead run.  I stood perfectly still as they passed me on both sides.  The reporter thought he had died and gone to heaven with the shot he got.

Even though I am not sure why they do it, I have always felt safe.  I just knew they would not run me over.  It's a special kind of thrill to be in the middle of all that wildness.  And when the horses pass me they each look at me in a very direct way.  It's weird and wonderful at the same time.

IMHO, not only is Barbara very, very professional in the way she runs the non-profit organization and the operation itself, but the horses obviously need her.