People and places.....

It is strange to look at one place from another, and then reverse positions. The place where one stood does not seem like the same place when viewed from afar. Thus it was, looking back from the Dorna valley at the long Suhard ridge where we ride. From the train that wound its way westward to my village, I could see the broad swaths of grassland where we canter, the trees where we stop for lunch. Distant and remote those places seemed from the lush valley golden in the slanting evening sun. Yet, days before I had looked down on this valley, a wide misty basin lying far below, sun glinting from roofs and roads. It seemed motionless, just a view of a place where nothing appeared to move or work. Rarely does one meet people from the valley up there on the ridge, and never does one spot activity on the ridge from down below. The two places seem to exist in separate worlds.

Life on the trail usually is simple. We are concerned with traveling from place to place on our horses, caring for them, and providing riders with accommodation and food. With hospitable guesthouses en-route, our task is not difficult. It is back here at the farm that the irritating problems appear. How exactly does one diplomatically answer an agent when a client has complained that we “slighted her” because she rode the smallest horse in the group? (There are plenty of undiplomatic ways to answer!) She was the smallest person riding, and was given a horse quite big enough to carry her slight frame if not her ego? Perhaps my booking questionnaire needs to include ego size? Or maybe we should only keep horses that are all exactly the same size and colour? What about a visitor who objects to a horse being disciplined, when it was quite reasonably slapped on the neck for biting? That will be the visitor who sues when she gets bitten! Nowadays too many people, knowing too little about animals, subscribe to the fluffy bunny approach to animal welfare. Same with raising their children, that's why law enforcement officers keep so busy. Sometimes these experiences remind me of my old job in the railway industry which, as some cynically point out, “would be far easier without the passengers.” It’s a pity to become that jaded, even temporarily, when I have such an interesting job out in such beautiful scenery. Hopefully soon the mountains will overcome the bad karma projected by a few selfish people.

Then there is my accountant – mercifully due to be replaced within weeks – who makes arithmetical mistakes in my tax returns because of the “confusing” zeros in the old Romanian currency. I despair of him. Pity my poor lawyer who has to sort out these numerical glitches.

Still, we did have some “interest” on the trail when a rider blacked out and fell off her horse whilst walking along a farm track. It seems that some medication that she had just started taking (without telling us) had an adverse effect. She suffered only minor abrasions and broken spectacles. However, we did get the opportunity to put our driver and truck to the test on a cross-country orienteering course. Both performed well, easily negotiating narrow farm tracks to reach us quickly. It's reassuring to have the security of good backup.

The next job back here at the farm is to overhaul the electric fence, which is losing power as summer vegetation encroaches on the 2km or so of wire that spreads around the perimeter and internal fences. Normally it’s a powerful system that the horses respect. That work will keep us busy tomorrow with scythes, saws, hammers and nails . The dry ground won’t be helping the fence to operate either. I might need to dampen the ground where the earth stake is fixed, behind the workshop where current enters the premises.

Comments

[Ariella]

You could tell the Ego Lady that her horse was the one that most closely resembled a medieval warhorse. In the last dozen years, historians and archaeologists have come to realize that medieval warhorses were not, in fact, 17hh monsters, but measured somewhere between 14.2 and 15.2hh. Contemporary illustrations depict a type that looks not entirely unlike the Hutsul: http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/liberi/wildRose/section7.html

So the lady's mount was no placid pony, but rather a bold throwback to Stefan cel Mare's war steed and in fact far nobler than other people's mere saddle horses. ;)

[Callie]

That comment was far too diplomatic. Sometimes people are just plain jackasses. Never satisfied. I know a few of those myself.