A Sunday Afternoon

With the snow on the ground and the sun shining,  our friends invited us over to go on a sleigh ride on Sunday. If it sounds like fun, it was! When we got there we visited for awhile in the kitchen while the last of the cookies were just being taken out of the oven and then it was time to go outside and get the horses ready.  As we walked past the farm cats and headed down to this 100 plus year old barn, you really got the feeling of kind of stepping back into time and being able to enjoy just the beauty what an old barn can bring. Now if you are a barn lover like me, you would really appreciate all the hand cut wood and the smell of hay that was being stored in the barn. And when we were walking down to the horses on the bottom floor, this was the first time that I had been in a barn that had a staircase that was enclosed and went from the top floor to the bottom. It was so cool. Now that we were by the horses, the first thing to do was to brush them down and get them ready for the harnesses. I’m not the most comfortable around horses, and even though I did have one when I was young – it was literally only about 1/2 the size of these guys. But with a brush in my hand, and taking a deep breath, I patted the back of the horse and went inside the pen to help brush them down. You can tell that these horses are used to having people around them, because I’m sure that she could tell that I was nervous but she didn’t once do anything to make me scared. Or maybe I should say – more scared.  Next when on the yolk and the harnesses. This sounds like an easy job, but just watching our friend lift this handful of leather straps and buckles, made me realize that maybe this was just something that I’d have to watch instead of actually helping with. But it wasn’t too long and soon they were walking the horses out of the barn and making their way to the yard. Our next thing to do was to get the sleigh. The only way to describe the sleigh was ‘beautiful’. The outside was made of black wood and the interior had a red velvet button tufted upholstery. We even found out later that you can change the positions of the seat depending on how you wanted to sit in it. We pushed the sleigh up to the horses and soon it was time to get in and go for a ride. We laughed because I wanted to take a picture of our friends before we started and the horses wouldn’t look at me. So I made a noise to get their attention, but I found out that this noise I was making  was the one to make the horses take off. So the horses started to go with the sleigh and Daryl and I were left standing in the yard taking the picture. Too funny! They didn’t get too far and after a good laugh and the picture taken, we got into the sleigh and off we started our adventure. And what an adventure it was! It was just cold enough so that it wasn’t muddy, but still sunny enough so that the snow just crunched under the horses hooves and the sleigh. I don’t think I have ever been on such a peaceful ride in my life.  After we made a couple of trips through their tree grove and then across the road to the fields we headed. I think there was a couple of times that the horses wanted to take off running, but with the sleigh behind them, I’m thinking it wasn’t the best idea, and our friend kept them in line. After we spent some time riding out in the fields and just enjoying the afternoon, we started to head back to the barn. The horses knew just where we were going because they started to make kind of funny noises and I don’t know if they were talking to each other or what, but they knew that we were heading back. Once we got back home, you remembered that it was chilly outside because the horses backs were steaming from the work we just asked them to do. Off came some of the harnesses and the sleigh, and into the barn they went. A quick brush down and then off they went to get some hay. We went back to the house and was lucky enough to take home some of the fresh baked cookies to eat on the way back to our farm. I thought a lot about this ride yesterday and how it’s so easy to get wrapped up in all the superficial things that we come across every day. And I was thinking that how most of the time the simple things that you do are truly the best and the most memorable.

Spending time with friends for an afternoon on a sleigh ride, it just doesn’t get any better than that!

Below are a couple of pictures that I took during the day.

Taking the sleigh out to make sure everything was OK before the ride.