Horsekeeping

DID I HARBOR AN UNFULFILLED DREAM and not realize it? Was a life entwined with equines a wish from way back, even to my childhood, one I submerged as impractical in suburban New Jersey? I knew no one who kept horses, nor did I know anyone who knew anyone who owned horses; I was triply removed from that world. Or, did I conveniently invent this dream of horsekeeping once presented with the actuality, the opportunity? Whichever the case, in my forty-sixth year, when the fact of a farm trotted into my grown-up life of wife and mother, a weighty stone dropped deep into my psychic well with a distant, satisfying clunk. I became aware that this unconscious, patient calling beckoned as a long-awaited adventure—hazy, parched and weak, but there nonetheless. I felt destined to manifest it.

I knew the faded blue exterior of the El-Arabia Arabian horse farm in Salisbury, Connecticut, well, being a neighbor to it for five years, though I never expected to own it. Tired and failing slowly, both its moniker and appearance brought to mind an under-used military training camp. A few lethargic, mute farmhands sporadically tended dilapidated, low-slung buildings graying into mud-slicked acres. Dirt-caked, ignored horses limped aimlessly around vaguely fenced, balding paddocks. Some stood in ankle-deep water. Originally housing some fifty horses, only a few scraggly brood mares and some out-to-pasture geriatric stallions remained as ghosts of Mrs. Johnson’s once-thriving farm.

Neville and Janet Johnson started the business in the 1970s, breeding Arabian horses for sale. In the United States, small, sturdy Arabians were renewing in popularity: they excel at the fancy stepping required for saddle seat and uniquely possess the physicality for endurance riding. Success rewarded the Johnsons’ hard work and dedication: over the years glowing articles were written and awards won. They held parties to celebrate the foals and their mares. Their horses upgraded the Arabian gene pool. The couple lived across the street in an old farmhouse, painted baby blue to match the farm’s colors. Perhaps an Arabian-inspired choice, the blue was untraditional for a New England farm, arid like a desert sky. It had been toned down by wear, interrupted more often than not by weathered grey. The house sat above the road with a view over the roof-line of the El-Arabia barn and across the fields to Canaan Mountain beyond. The land behind reached up to nearly nine hundred feet in altitude and connected to hundreds of acres of forest held by a few neighbors.

Mr. Johnson was elderly, ill and rarely seen by the time we moved to the neighborhood, though he had been a ceramics expert, musician and restorer of English motorcars. In her seventies, Janet Johnson, one of three first women scholarship graduates of MIT, did not squander her talent or her education. A double PhD in physics and metallurgy, she and her husband designed and manufactured piezoelectric ceramic elements for ultrasonic sensing and metering instruments, often used in medical equipment, at their factory further afield in Connecticut. But her life became the horses, and she increasingly valued her privacy, so few local residents knew her well, considering her aloof, even odd. One neighbor told me that Mrs. Johnson would emerge from her house once a year to deadhead her day lilies that lined the road. She’d lie down in the patch of green and chain-smoke through her garden chores, pulling down the slender stalks one by one, pinching the expired petals, and not say a word to passersby. I had traveled that road frequently the last five years, and I’d never laid eyes on her, but the increasingly weedy day lily bed still conjures an image as clear as a memory.

The factory burned down in 2003. Caught without adequate insurance, Mrs. Johnson needed to sell a sixteen-acre parcel of the El-Arabia hay field. Since it bordered our property, my husband Scott and I bought it and leased it back to her for one dollar, to deter the developer who had been sniffing it out for a spec house. This advantageous transaction preserved the field, protected our property and Mrs. Johnson still harvested the hay and kept her farm. It required money, but no work on our part. The lawyers and brokers handled the deal, so we never met either Johnson. The break up of any farm parcel tugs at our nostalgia for the simpler life of old, but by the time we moved to the road in 1998, El-Arabia had already passed its prime. If in need, maybe our cash infusion would help.

Friends who had once rented an adjoining house overlooking the farm opted not to stay because their view of bedraggled, uncared for horses broke their hearts. I had heard that lax breeding meant many unsold foals were left to mature wildly in the pastures. The breakdown was a pitiful end to a once cutting-edge, top-of-the-line operation run by a woman who adored horses. I’d like to think she was let down by her farm manager and staff, but it was hard to reconcile this with her proximity to the farm: directly across the street, she had only to look out her front door to see those horses, even if she avoided the grounds directly. Only illness and lack of funds could account for what had happened. It’s a tough business.

Despite the farm’s run-down state, my family and I grew to love the land itself: forty-five acres of gently sloping pastures with a few well-placed mature trees. “There’s no tonic like the Housatonic,” quipped Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. about the meandering river that lines the eastern edge of both our property and El-Arabia. Its waters seep a hazy mist over the valley many mornings, a cover that keeps us guessing while it slowly lifts, often to reveal a surprisingly fine day. Hawks, eagles, songbirds, deer, bobcats, coyotes, turkeys and black bears populate our river valley arcadia nestled between the Taconic hills and Canaan mountain: but in contrast, every barn, run-in shed, garage, outbuilding and bit of fence at El-Arabia sagged and tottered. Relics littering the southeastern property line included the fiberglass hull of a speedboat, a peeling, prop-less Mercury outboard motor, a hulking, broken-windowed multi-stall horse trailer turned condo for squirrels and chipmunks, a “marble/slate” truck shrugging on rusted rims, the carcass of a car resting on its right side, and an antique television poised on a stump.

The main structure stretched longer than a football field: twenty-two thousand square feet of weathered boards wedged into the land’s slope up to Weatogue Road. With fifty-eight stalls, this barn was designed to service many needs—6 x 6-foot stalls for ponies and smaller hacks, 10 x 10 for larger riders and geldings, 12 x 12 for brood mares and stallions, and 16 x 16 for draft horses that stand eighteen hands high and can weigh over two thousand pounds. I learned all about stall-to-horse specifications later. For five years I only viewed our neighbor’s operation from the outside and knew nada about the horse business, not even a gelding (a castrated stallion) from a mare. But there is something about horses, an inner voice whispered. I was seduced by the idea of them, like so many little girls, and even these sad ones intrigued me. Were they wonderful to know once cleaned up? In the way each dog that I meet is cute, but becomes quite a complex “personality” upon further acquaintance?

Just one more aspect of cruelty to animals, I thought. It reminded me of those crass Viagra ads warning men with erections lasting over four hours to head for the hospital. This poor horse spends years “erected,” rendering even gelding a more humane option. Maybe it’s a blissful state? If not, should I crusade to improve his lot in life? What do I know? This practice probably dates to the early Moroccans who first tamed horses; like so many other aspects of horsemanship, maybe it’s hallowed ground. So I continued on my not-so-merry way and resolved never to look at the pretty white horse and his unsatisfied manhood again.

As it turned out, a few years later the threat of development forced me to look closer at El-Arabia, though in retrospect I see that my destiny was already printed and bound. My family and I treasured our patch of fields and woods in Connecticut, and often talked about annexing land as needed to preserve diminishing open farmland and slow the pace of development, all while protecting our privacy. In 2003 a local realtor notified us the rest of the farm land was for sale.

“Well, the price would seem even higher to speculators. They’d have to tear down the buildings, improve the drainage and the site in general, and then resell or build without any guarantee of sale or profit. It’s a risky venture at those prices.”

“We should float a lower offer. They may just take it. If they don’t, at least we’re in there. If other buyers come forward, they’ll return to us for a counter offer and we can weigh it again. We can’t even see the property from our house so we have no reason to be desperate.”

As unsatisfying as this half-measure tactic seemed to me at the time, Scott was right. The property sat. Nearly two years later, Mr. Johnson died and his widow quickened her pace to sell. The broker gave us heads up that they were about to accept an offer for the rest of the farm, at a lower price than the ask but not as low as our original bid. Taking the bait, I stood ready to pile on as I had worried and daydreamed about the place the entire time. Scott registered my barely contained excitement with a deep breath. He well-knew my tendency to mindlessly forge ahead, but he always hesitated to be piggish in that weekender way of throwing money around. Maybe someone else would take it on and restore its former glory? Or, were we about to be staring at two or three reproduction country manors? Few people eking out a living in the horse business could afford the cost of the real estate, let alone the repairs.

We felt somewhat guilty, recognizing ourselves as part of the problem—weekenders pushing up the price of real estate with friends that follow in our tracks, some of who replaced old barns and farmland with McMansions and guest-houses. We had taken care to fit in rather than burst through, and had predated the more recent soaring popularity of the county. Salisbury is not the Hamptons, but some of our neighboring towns to the south like Kent, Litchfield and Roxbury verge nigh. Now we were victims of the robust prices of a market we helped create. But our chance with El-Arabia is here and now, we realized; no more theorizing. Developers hovered, the market sizzled and the El-Arabia land laid choice. We called the real estate agent with a higher bid.

A WEEK BEFORE OUR FORMAL TOUR of El-Arabia, Scott and I took our regular walk through our field and into the woods. The bright late October day encouraged optimism; the burnt sienna leaves showered a woodsy version of ticker tape with us the celebrated heroes. The wind whipped swirling eddies amongst the fallen. Go for it, nature persuaded. We paused at the border of our property and peered out over the Johnsons’ hay fields beyond to the tired barns and horses. A canvas of blue sky arched across it all, shrinking the enormity of the project.

He frowned. “Can you imagine two new houses, one sitting right here along the edge of our path? As you’ve so often said yourself, we hope to die in our house, and then pass it on to our kids, so could you really imagine years and years of saying ‘we should have bought that old Johnson place when we had the chance?’”

He came by his decision as emotionlessly as he did all his business transactions, but he also knew how much I wanted this farm. We each dutifully expressed our worries about the expense, about squeezing another project into our full lives, about over-straining our already time-pressured marriage. But beneath this lip service my heart pulsed with delight, knowing that we would go for it at anything close to a reasonable price. Two days later, under pressure from another shadowy buyer, and without even having seen the inside of the barns, we agreed to a purchase price. The double meaning of the term “we bought the farm” was not lost on either of us.

Some of our neighbors had counted on us to rescue our road from the tyranny of the developer. John Bottass, the cattle farmer at the far end of Weatogue Road, guards his acres and watches over what he passionately believes is the last well-preserved valley in Salisbury. A dedicated farmer who laments the loss of local agriculture, he waxes eloquent about our road and the surrounding land. Cautious about us at first, he eventually trusted that our common land interests were in sync and now we share a curmudgeonly skepticism about change. His family and mine bookend Weatogue, and we fret about the next lot in between us to fall. Like two mother hens we catch up and keep tabs; me draped over my bicycle, stroking my miniature black poodle Velvet perched in a basket at my handlebars, and John hanging his head and farm-work dirty arm out of his old green tractor while we trade our gossipy knowledge about the good guys (farmers, land preservationists and unpretentious neighbors), and the bad guys (developers and neighbors who sell to developers). We always agree despite our local/weekender dichotomy.

“Yes sir, I think we are. We’ll keep the land open at any rate,” I fired back, happy to report some solid action to fortify our heretofore verbal lines of defense. His effusive gratitude embarrassed me: much of the purchase being made in self-interest after all.

I tried to envision it. In May he had collapsed at the town Memorial Day celebration: a modest parade of fire engines, the ambulance squad cars, daycare kids in wagons throwing wrapped peppermints to the crowd, the elementary school band blaring marches and the seventy-five year old Salisbury Town Band in their gingham-ribboned cane hats keeping them on key, the giggling Brownies, the self-conscious Boy Scouts and the not so modest roster of Salisbury veterans, crisply uniformed, armed, and humbly serious with memories of time served. The scene never varies: a hush falls on the townspeople as they follow the soldiers into the old pine studded cemetery. The master at arms reads the names of all the Salisbury war dead, Episcopal and Congregational ministers and a Catholic priest invoke God’s blessing, a local child recites the Gettysburg address, Taps hangs in the air twice—to begin near the crowd, and to end, poignantly far away, an anguished cry from deeper in the cemetery. Four guns salute. The shock of the blasts sets a few babies wailing and nervous dogs howling as the older kids pounce for a prized shell casing.

It is a time to be grateful for these soldiers’ sacrifices, whatever one’s politics. A few feeble veterans ride in fancy convertibles, but most still march, including Bill as he had done for over thirty years, handsomely outfitted in his full khaki WWII regalia, under an airless, sunny sky. He regally stood at attention in the cemetery until the premature May heat got the better of him, buttoned up tight in his uniform. Down he went, stretched out lean in the dandelions and fragrant wild thyme. Conscious and loathe to go to the hospital but unable to fully rally, he was ambu-lanced by the on-hand EMTs. I sadly wondered if Bill’s time had come.

Two days later, Scott and I watched him ride along our road atop a vintage bicycle, arms vigorously working the handlebars to stay vertical. It seemed dangerous, but I deeply admired his perseverance in filling life to the brim. I hoped I’d have the guts to do the same.

Relatively young if not as vigorous, Scott and I cottoned to the idea of our kids hanging around a working stable. Some parents pay good money for their coddled offspring to experience “farm life”; here we’d have the real thing in our own front yard. I waxed romantic about the sound of horse whinnies in the distance and pictured our five-year-old pixie daughter, Jane, helmeted and smiling on a white pony with a flowing mane. I imagined our ten-year-old nature-loving son, Elliot, growing muscular and competent mucking out stalls. I sighed over visions of the sun gleaming on the river, the restored-to-their-former-glory barns, and solid, perfectly aligned fences corralling fit, contented horses kicking up their hooves in emerald green pastures. I considered all the animals I could justify having—chickens, goats, pigs or whatever else fills up a barn. They wouldn’t be in the house, so how could animal-averse Scott object? My vision beamed vivid Technicolor until my dark side, the monochromatic pessimist always alert to lurking disaster, concocted a scene of my silly ten-pound poodle kicked in the head to fly across the barn into a too-still heap. But this was minor in my schemes of calamity, and the only negative I could conjure.