Friday March 7 2008

From My Studio Window

18x24 oil painting

by Lynn Thomas

Click for details

SEVEN HORSES

Right now we have seven horses.
Frosty is my mare. She is about l5 and is an appaloosa.
Her color is grey roan with black spots

and a sparse mane and tail.
She has a big bump on her nose and between her ears.
Joe says I should wear a paper bag on my head when I ride her
so no one will know it is me because she is so ugly.
Before her I had a wonderful bay mare, Trixie,

but she’s gone now.
Joe’s horse is Ace, a brown and white pinto gelding

who is about 15.
His mother was a pinto POA and his father was a work horse.
They thought the two year old work stud

was too young to breed.
We got Ace as a catch colt.
We have a sorrel gelding, Brandy, who is almost 30.
He has been a wonderful horse
Especially when we were running

the dude string in the mountains.
He belongs to my daughter Beverly.
Debbie’s horse in those years was Brandy's sister, Ginger.
She died some years back. She was a good horse too.
They are pretty horses. And big.
Brandy, Ginger and Rosebud were from our Morgan mares
And a sheepherder’s big sorrel draft horse stud.
We put the mares and that stud together

several times after dark in the big meadow.
Daisy is a bay mare. The smallest of all our horses.
Her mother was April, an Arabian.
She is always good, but acts bad like her mother

as if she might want to throw you off,
She is just nervous and doesn't like flies.
Even when its not fly season she is afraid there might be flies.
She wants to be going and get the job done

and come back home.
She is getting old now, turning gray around her eyes.
Then we have Peanuts. Steady and faithful,
He is a buckskin gelding and getting old too.
We also have Sox and Bobbi.
Sox is Ginger's colt, but her quarter horse stud was high spirited
and we never could break her to ride safely. Joe tried.
Instead he broke her to work and pull the feed sled.
The same thing happened with her colt Bobbi.
They are both big sorrel mares with light manes and tails
and white stockings and blazes.
They would rather run than anything
and we had many runaways on the feedground.
We also are taking care of four of the lodge horses
who are old and need extra feed for the winter.
So there are eleven in the field.
It is nice to look out the window and see them all out there,
all different colors in the changing light and seasons.
They walk around the field a time or two a day

and come past the house.
Sometimes they take their naps outside the studio window.

.

by Lynn Thomas

written about 1996

Muddy Creek