Let me tell you a story about not giving up. Patience. Endurance. Hope.
As a child, I loved horses. Not surprising, as it's a phase almost all girls go through. In fifth through seventh grade I sold hundreds of boxes of Girl Scout cookies in order to earn (pay) my way to Girl Scout summer camp, and for three years running I spent a blissful week at Camp Deer Trails doing the horse program that was a (somewhat pricey) camp option.
I came home from that third summer camp just wickedly smitten with the desire to own a horse so that I could ride all the time, not just one week in July. I begged my parents to buy me a horse. Practical people, they told me they didn't have the money for it, but if I could find a horse that didn't cost more than the amount in my savings account (my entire life savings for nearly 13 years, minus the time in Kindergarten I talked them into letting me buy a parakeet and birdcage) they would consider letting me get a horse.
Being someone who doesn't give up easily when there's something she really really wants, it took me a month of daily scouring the for sale ads in every newspaper I could get my hands on before I found an ad for a horse that didn't cost more than my bank balance. This was the days way, way before internet and horse for sale websites. And we (my parents and I) were pretty clueless that a horse is not a horse is a horse. That maybe some horses are better or worse than others.
To shorten the story a bit, several weeks later, my bank account was empty and we were taking delivery of a nearly tailless (hence the low price) 8 year old Arabian gelding, delivered by it's former owner to the boarding facility that was just 2.5 miles from my house! 2.5 miles which I rode my bike, both ways, every day (except maybe Sunday if my parents objected) rain or shine, to go see and ride my horse. When the weather turned snowy, my parents did drive me, rather than having me bike on slippery roads in the days where a 10-speed was standard and mountain bikes with fat tires were unknown, but a lot of times that meant I couldn't ride my horse everyday. There were stipulations to this deal: my parents would pay board, veterinary and farrier expenses as long as I was not only dedicated to this animal (ie. didn't lose interest in a few months) but also kept my grades up and stayed on at minimum the B honor roll (I'd always been on honor roll, often the A honor roll) every quarter of school and took riding lessons so I would learn to be safe in the saddle. Because a cheaply priced horse of your own is not the same as an experienced camp or riding stable horse.
I really believe they thought this was a phase that might last a year. It's lasted much, much longer than that. All through my teens I got more and more involved in horses. I joined 4-H and was super active in that, being a club officer all but the first year of my membership and the club president for three years before I aged out of the program. I showed my horse extensively in the summers. My own horse needed retraining, which I learned to do via riding lessons. Then I sold my original horse and bought a half-ownership in another one, who was barely three years old and that I trained myself (again with help from my instructor during lessons). That horse I paid for by doing barn chores for it's other owner for a year straight.
In fact, I graduated high school (almost five years after that initial horse purchase) with a 15-year goal: I wanted, by the time the 15th anniversary of my graduation and entrance into the adult world rolled around, to be married, have four kids, and have a horse farm of my own.
So, fast forward 15 years from graduation, and lots of hours in the saddle and even more hours mucking stalls at other people's farms. I'm married, we have four children (the oldest of whom will be starting high school that Fall), and we're living in a house we built on the 40 acres we bought with the intention of making it a horse boarding and training farm. Built the house first, and were making plans to build the barn, which I designed and DH was going to sketch up blueprints for then construct ourselves.
Then, fast forward 20 years plus a few months, kids going through high school and then college and then marriage (3 of 4), a recession, several head count reductions at DH's employer where we weren't sure he'd have a job to pay the mortgage let alone fund a horse barn, seven different horse farms I've been employed at (three of which I also boarded my horses at), and well, here we are this week. Same 40 acres, same husband, same four kids now age 26-34, five grandkids, having owned and sold 1 horse and owned and put to sleep 4 other horses (including the kids' pony)--all of which I worked off board on during the time I owned them-- and this past summer bought yet another horse.
Which brings us to now. I finally have my horse boarding and training farm. The Poetess moved in on Wednesday, along with a large pony/small horse that will be boarding here over the winter and be in half-training while I tune her up (after not being handled hardly at all in 2023) and make her pretty much that anyone can ride type of horse people think of after having ridden at a camp or a riding stable.
It turned out to be 35 years (and a few months), not 15 years, but I didn't give up. I kept hoping, kept trying, kept being patient, and now I have my horse farm. I'm not mucking stalls for someone else. I'm mucking my stalls. I'm not working horses owned by my employer or that someone else is collecting the training fee for (while I get an hourly wage that is way less than the hour's training fee). I'm the barn owner, I'm the trainer. Goal attained.
Now we just need to get the other four stalls built and rest of the pastures cross fenced so that I can have more than one client at a time!
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