03/28/2024
Spread the love

By Jefferson Weaver

We met through a true friend on a late spring day, and fell in love on a farm where pears and persimmon blossoms were in riot after a long cold winter.

We said goodbye a few days before Hurricane Florence as my best friend, my wife, dried my tears.

June was malnourished, sick, and abused when she came into the rescue league back in 2012. Hers was one of the worst cases; she was nursing a nine-month-old filly, and eating fast food wrappers out of desperation to produce milk. I saw the pictures, but I didn’t meet her until she was healthy again, and I didn’t recognize her.

Miss Crystal said June was the perfect horse for me; older, steady, smart and big. Her stance is better than my seat in the pictures of our first ride, where she dodged those flowering trees even when I gave her conflicting commands.

We bonded immediately. Maybe it was just because she was a gorgeous horse, and although we had only been rescue volunteers for a little while, I was already tired of seeing sick, hungry or hurting horses. Maybe it was because I was profligate with oatmeal cookies, honeybuns and Nekots.

While our Fella and Polly were no longer sad and skinny, June was pretty like the spring day when we had our first ride. What was more, she knew it, and I think it made her more confident.

I have been accused, and rightfully so at times, of applying too many human traits to animals. Perhaps I do, but I firmly believe there are some animals that respond beyond the norm when they connect with the right person. Miss Rhonda calls it a “Perfect Puppy” moment, such as when a toddling eight-week-old hound chooses the child who will be his companion. I reckon June and I had what one could call a “Perfect Pony” moment from the beginning, although at 16.2 hands and 1,600 pounds, she was no pony.

She didn’t care that I was a firmly middle aged man in a world where teenaged girls are have more riding experience. She didn’t mind when I did really stupid things; if my command was too far outside the pale, June would just stop, lock her legs, and turn to look at me over her shoulder. It mattered not to her that I wasn’t interested in anything faster than a brisk canter, as she had spent most of her 25-plus years riding hard and fast around the barrels, blasting past most of her competitors. She had nothing to prove.

That is not to say she couldn’t or wouldn’t run. Once in a while, her ears would lay back, and all I could do was hold on, since something at the other end of the farm needed examining. Sometimes she and the others would be in the bottom pasture as I pulled in, and that golden mane and tail would fly as her muscles bunched and she became as artist’s dream of a horse running in the sunshine. She would dance and caracole and whicker, in part because it was feeding time, but also because she was welcoming me home.

I could stand in her path as she ran pell-mell toward me, and at the perfect moment, she’d slam on brakes and lay her head over my shoulder.

I cannot think of June without thinking of dear friends. Crystal, Teana and Shelly, who helped me through the first couple months of learning what to do and what not to do. Deb Whittington, who helped me improve my seat and who gave June an Australian saddle, which was better for both horse and rider. Deb’s husband Ron, who helped treat minor medical problems. Friends who helped us rebuild a neglected farm into a place where horses and sometimes people could heal.

She had friends, too – Old Red, a sad gelding on his eighth home with no hope when he came to us. King Leon, a paso fino who personified arrogance. Crazy Fatima Grace, with whom June had the type of relationship that can only be described as the two prettiest girls in high school who simultaneously love and hate each other.

Whether it was instinct or intelligence, June seemed to know what to do when we brought in a rescue horse. Some she nurtured; some she put in their place. Some she ran with as we pulled up the lane to feed, showing them it was okay to be happy again, that not all people were bad.

Without June, Polly’s Field wouldn’t have been the same. The farm was a place she made her very own. Every one of the 20 or so horses that moved through those gates learned quickly that Polly’s Field was June’s Country.

June began dealing with some serious health issues after Hurricane Matthew, but usually some medicine and special feed picked her back up. There were times we thought she would never make it, but she always decided she was going to get better.

She may not have been the same tank of a horse who bossed the herd at Polly’s Field, but she was strong and bright-eyed again, although age and illness were taking their toll. She became content to allow Melanie the Donkey to take over as lead mare, and Old Red spent more time helping June, where she had once groomed and reassured him.

We had a last long talk one night, with me sitting beside her holding her head, in her favorite patch of grass where she had laid down to rest. I went back to the house and told Rhonda that it was time to tell her goodbye – but as we went back to her, June stood and walked slowly home. She even resisted a bit when I tried to lead her, showing some of the regal attitude from when we met on that spring day years before.

I hardly slept that night, worrying about the coming hurricane and how hard it would be on her. I checked on her several times, and she turned her head as if to tell me to stop being silly.

Sometime the next night, she laid down and never woke up.

Melanie and Mabel simply stared sadly at her in the dawn, with Mabel occasionally patting the ground beside June with one tentative hoof. Red whinneyed and neighed, desperately trying to awaken her.

Once again, I had to call on a friend, one whose chewing tobacco June always tried to steal, and we buried her on the last normal night before Florence.

I have often said that Heaven for me isn’t necessarily going to mean gilded streets leading to pearly gates and mansions. I think Heaven is reached after you turn off a paved country road onto a rutted dirt path. At the end of the path, shaded by friendly trees, is a farmhouse with a wide, welcoming porch, with your loved ones waiting.

Aloof cats sit atop fence posts, looking snootily down on overjoyed hounds that scatter chickens as they bay a greeting.

And if you’ve been really good, a golden queen of a horse will lift her head, whicker, and race you up the driveway to welcome you home.

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