Cowgirl at heart...

Horse and Cowboy Sculpture on the road to "Sisters" Eastern Oregon

I spent the last morning of my trip to Bend on the road with my friend Gioia..., she wanted to take me down the road a ways to get up close and personal with the Three Sisters mountains and see more of the beautiful high desert countryside around Bend... Wow it is just gorgeous - beautiful meadows, clear bluest of blue sky, majestic mountains in ever direction, horses real (and otherwise) grazing in pastures at every turn...  What can I say?  It was so stunning, so spacious, the air clean and pure..., it got me thinking about what it would be like to live in this place, have a horse (I LOVED horses as a young girl and wanted my own so very much...,) as I near my 49th birthday I ask, am I too old to learn to ride and or have my own horse at this stage in my life, too old to have some land to call our own???

I am so very drawn to the desert, and western way of living, maybe I'm just a cowgirl at heart...?

I love the wildness of the desert, the way it smells, the way I feel in the vast open- ness of it all...

Whilst looking for a poem about wild horses, I came upon this one,, hope you like it.. I love it:)))

When I am Old...

I shall wear

turquoise And a 

straw cowboy hat

that doesn't match

and doesn't suit

me.  And I shall 

spend my social 

security on white 

wine and carrots

And sit in the 

alley way of my

barn  And listen to

my horses breathe.

I will sneak out in

the middle of a 

summer night  And

ride the dappled

mare  Across the

moonstruck

meadow,  If my 

old bones will

allow.  And when

people come to

call, I will smile

and nod, As I

walk them past the

gardens to the

barn  And show,

instead, the

flowers growing

there.  In stalls

fresh-lined with

straw I will learn

to shovel and

sweat and wear

hay in my hair as

if it were a jewel.

And I will be an 

embarrassment to

my only

child Who will 

have not yet found

the peace in being

free  To love a 

horse as a friend,

A friend who

waits at midnight

hour With muzzle

and nicker and

patient eyes For

the kind of person

I will be When I

am old.

Patty Barnhart