November Hill farm journal, 199

 I reached out two weeks ago to Keil Bay’s previous woman and the younger woman who rode him and introduced me to him, and got back very sweet notes from both of them expressing their gratitude that his passing was peaceful and their condolences. Last weekend K, the young woman, sent me this photo that is Keil Bay a few months before I met him and he joined our family. It was a gift to her from Keil’s previous woman the Christmas I found him, and she and her family were putting up their Christmas tree and hung it. 

This says so much about Keil Bay and how special he was not just to me but to those who knew him before I did, and it makes me so happy to know he is hanging on K’s tree all these years later. 

I have begun the planting of his and Salina’s grave sites. It’s not a sad activity but a hopeful one, and a healing one. More plants are coming this week from the nursery owner who reached out to me with several of the rare and hard to find plants I’ll be putting in. 

This week Cody did a big and beautiful gallop up the entire front pasture hill, one of of those “spook just to have an excuse to run fast” moments horses sometimes do, and the first I’ve seen him in this mode since Keil passed away. He and Little Man are regularly playing their gave of over the fence tag in the mornings, and both Rafer and Redford are seeming a little happier lately. I think the herd is regrouping and moving on. 

We have had some cold weather and then some warmer weather and now today colder again, the typical roller coaster of temperatures that make it hard to have any sort of routine. Cody is now wearing Keil’s single weight blanket and it seems fitting that he has taken over that big and regal purple robe. 

On Saturday we went with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids to have brunch and then to the Christmas tree farm that is very near our farm. The tree I picked for our house ended up being too tall and after we cut the top off my husband put the star on. It looks to me like the star fell right out of the sky and into this tree, which in a sort of perfect way is fitting for this year. 

It’s maybe no coincidence that this notion fits with a “poem” I wrote in a writing group a number of months ago. We were playing with words and internal rhyme and also where to end lines, and this now seems like some kind of foreshadowing to this first Christmas after Keil Bay’s passing:

The Night The Star Falls From The Sky

I stand back and watch it shine, 

no longer a girl wishing on star’s light.

It’s as big as our house and bright,

but not blinding.

The horses are not frightened

but chew hay beneath the barn shelter,

blinking slowly as the star’s

twinkling spotlights the bent pine

who lies flat but not broken.

Perhaps she too dreams of touching skies.

I have hurried a life’s time wishing on stars;

never has one replied.

Take note, it pulses now,

we listened. 

Keil Bay and Cody on either side,

their warm breath matching mine. 

This isn’t really a fully finished piece, but take note that the star’s pulsing “we listened” refers to me standing between Keil Bay and Cody, two souls I absolutely wished for as a young girl. It feels like right now that Keil Bay himself was that big star that landed in my life. 

Right now I’m very much focused on living in the days as they come, following my impulses to write, putter, plant, and just be. It’s a good way to mark this passage of time, the things that have come this fall, and make my way forward. 

A little writing news

A couple of my published pieces got some additional mileage:

Pacemaker Of The Heart has been nominated for a 2023 Pushcart Prize.

Journey has been included in Streetlight Magazine’s 2022 print anthology. 

Really happy these two pieces flew a bit higher this month! Thanks to the editors for these selections!

November Hill farm journal, 198

 I was out yesterday afternoon giving hay and filling water troughs. We’re in a streak of cold right now and all the equine fur was puffed and they were happy to get the hay. Cody and Little Man have been in their single weight blankets each night. Cody’s single weight strap broke so he’s now wearing Keil Bay’s purple one, and it occurs to me he is filling Keil’s blanket, in the sense that someone might “fill someone’s shoes.” 

Of course no one expects Cody to fill Keil’s spot, but he seems to be contemplating the enormity of being the biggest horse in the herd, and still feeling the absence of his best friend. The expression on his face and in his eyes has changed. I keep waiting for it to go back, but so far it has remained serious and at times almost distant. I see he and Little Man playing tag over the paddock fence most mornings now, so I know he’s returned to at least that one habit and pleasure. 

The air yesterday afternoon was cold and still, and it was quiet. A prelude to real winter season, which usually does happen in NC but not always when expected. Before this cold streak we were having warm days with flies coming out. 

My focus lately has been on garden plantings, and I have plans for two new beds: one atop Salina and Keil’s gravesites, the other in the big barnyard. A helpful native plant person recommended, upon my request for something special and maybe rare for Keil’s grave, the Sweetleaf, aka Horse Sugar, Symplocos tinctoria, which is a host plant for the King Hairstreak butterfly, which is becoming rare these days and echoes my long-time nickname for Keil Bay - the King. I couldn’t find this plant locally and then a nursery about an hour away actually reached out to me to say they have it, and can bring it to me, and once again, Keil’s magic ripples out. 

There are a lot of things to do around here, but I am thus far sticking to my intention to move slowly into and through this winter season. I’m doing things but in a slower way, and often choosing not to do a thing because I know it will start the wheel turning for me toward a faster pace of life. 

Last week, before the cold and after the good rain we finally got, I mulched the leaves in the back pasture and seeded it, and overseeded the grass paddock and both barnyards. That was a joyful thing for me, as the repetition of patterns puts me into a sort of trance state which seems to reboot something for me. I was for awhile that day close to Salina and Keil Bay, and not long after I finished the task, I felt and saw Keil doing a fancy trot up the long stretch of front pasture, neck curved, head high, collected and powerful. He stays close when I need him, and he surprises me with gifts like this image, which is really his spirit moving around us. 

Today is writing day but I also broke my own rule and have one client scheduled, and then will head over to my mom’s - she was in the hospital for several days but home now and doing well. Over Thanksgiving a number of family members, including myself, had more minor illnesses, one Covid, one not Covid, another not Covid not strep, for me a mild UTI and possibly a kidney stone (!), so it’s good to be on the other side of that string of things. 

It’s almost December! Which feels impossible but also okay. 

November Hill farm journal, 197

 

The light on this big oak near Keil Bay and Salina isn’t able to be captured with my phone camera, but each day as the sun goes low in the sky, it glows for a few minutes, and the quality of that light reminds me of all the times I’ve seen the two Hanoverian beauties in that same light, but also the feeling of the light they each cast throughout their lives. 

This past week I had a very tearful day where I was being nearly constantly reminded of Keil’s presence with me still - it was both comforting and hard - and many serendipities including a very very close encounter with a barred owl who flew inches from my windshield and made eye contact with me as I was having a very hard cry while driving. 

Yesterday at my chiro appointment, the first thing I said when she asked how I was doing was that my horse died, and she said “Keil?” and I told her the story of his passing. I cried, she cried, she gave me a big, long hug, and it strikes me anew how far-reaching Keil Bay’s life has been because of how very present he was and powerful he was in my daily life and in my heart. It’s hard to make sense of him being gone, on that deep emotional level where it truly does feel like he has always been with me. And of course he is with me, but the urge to hug him is strong. 

Here are a few glimpses of the native plantings this week. I believe these are the first catkins I’ve ever seen on the hazelnut trees in the potager.

The climbing aster is buzzing with activity even in November, which is such a good reason to plant this if you don’t have it and if it’s native to your area. 

A nest made entirely of twigs has become visible in the now bare huge elderberry that volunteered in the front pasture the past two years. I did some reading and it’s probably that of a house wren, and could be an actual utilized nest or it could be one of a number of dummy nests the males build each year. I suspect it was an actual nest, as I recall seeing many house wrens flying in and out of the fully-leafed out elderberry in the late spring and summer.

This is my growing and thriving oakleaf hydrangea. I planted three two autumns ago, the deer got one, one is doing poorly, but this one is thriving. Its fall color is one of the reasons I planted it. I’m going to move the smaller one and see if a new location might give it a little nudge toward better growth and health. 

And of course I’m not the only one mourning Keil Bay. The herd go to this end of the arena at least once in a day’s time to stand by Keil’s grave. Cody was there alone this week, clearly missing his good friend. 

I just noticed the F marker and perhaps it stands for Friend.

Amazing Keil’s Enduring Heart Continues Magnificently Beating (for his) Friends. 

The Old Saint-King, Keil Bay

 I saw this someplace this past week online and saved it as it made me think both of Keil Bay and an idea to note how much he remains with us. A wood-cut plaque of his profile on the tack room door where he will continue his reign as herd and human guardian, which he very much already is in spirit. 

My week has been very busy but today, the day I marked as the beginning of a slow slide into winter, I find myself thinking of him and shedding more tears. The quiet times are when I feel him most, and he is leading me to that calm place he always offered in his presence. 

Yesterday in the final day of my EMDR training and in the final processing I did as a client, I was working on a very early memory in which I was 3-4 years old and in the hospital for a procedure. My mom was handing me over to a nurse and I was terrified at being left there. As that single image from memory that carried the most fear was in my mind and I was doing the eye-movement desensitization protocol with my group partner as therapist - note that this was virtual training online - a rainbow of virtual balloons began to flow upward on the big screen of my desktop computer. In that moment I felt the joy of synchronicity and then the very potent pain and fear of the memory. I completed the eye movement set and in the check in with the therapist, noted the joy and the pain, and there were very powerful tears related to the memory, then more eye movements. As I came back to the check in moments, and reported that the pain had lifted, the balloons sprang up again and floated up on my screen. No one involved could figure out how this happened, as neither of us were touching our computers and we were in a secure break-out room on the platform. 

I say all this because in that moment I had the thought that it was Keil Bay who had done it, and I share that because it illustrates just how much I love him and how much he gave over the many years he has been with us. He was a powerful and giving soul and it’s easy to attribute amazing synchronicities to him now. 

I’m happy to say that I completed the 50-hour EMDR basic training last night and we had a wonderful graduation ceremony. It completely makes sense to me that Keil Bay has woven himself into this new journey with a new to me and powerful way of treating trauma. I will think of him every time I do this work with clients, and as I move forward with a year of work toward certification.