Kentucky Memoir #2

foalingbarnkentucky
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

During the last year that I attended college in Kentucky, I also worked on a horse farm: Cold Springs Farm, near Keene, Kentucky. I obtained this job via my relationship with other students at Asbury College who also worked there -- my first lesson in the reality that it's not nearly as much WHAT you know as WHO you know that provides opportunities in this life.

The job was a 6 hour a day commitment over 7 days, and paid some piddily amount ($2.50 -- $3.00 an hour? I forget now). I worked one week from 6 PM to Midnight, and the next week it was Midnight to 6 AM; and my co-worker was a really sweat guy, Mr. D. -- also a student at Asbury College. The farm boarded a total of 61 horses housed in 4 barns during the night. The barn pictured here is the "Foaling Barn" where mares who were most close to foaling were housed. There was also a barn for general horses, one for mares who had already delivered or were not pregnant, and one for yearlings. You can imagine that I learned a hell of a lot working here.

And working is really not that fair of a word for it. I mostly just hung around. When things were happening, I was very busy, but 95% of the time, I sat in a tack room doing my homework, reading, listening to the radio...

And most of the time was spent there in the dark of the night. As this photo attests, the night was a magical time to be there. Usually, I would drive my pick-up into the barn, and it would be sitting in the middle of this crosshatch of light.

On one particular night, I did so. Then retreated to the tack room to read "Treasure Island" for my Children's Literature class. Suddenly I heard a commotion, and emerged from the little office to discover a mare and her foal loose in the barn. She was very agitated (whinying and rearing to bat at the air, and her foal was frightened and very confused, and I thought, "Oh My God, what if she kicks my truck? I'll kill her!"

But I suppressed that emotion and quickly realized that above all else, both animals were afraid of the dark. I went to the nearest end of the barn and closed the doors. Then I walked slowly along the side of the barn opposite their stall and shut off all of the lights, one by one, until I reached the other end of the barn and was able to secure those doors.

The time it took me to do this left both horses a little more calm, and as I walk toward their stall, I reached into each stall before it and gently switched off the lights. Soon only their stall and the office gave off any glow. With the office door closed, the foal then chose to returm to his stall and his mother soon followed. I then quickly secured the stall's door.

My truck (and myself) safe and sound, I gave a little prayer of thanks and then restored the lights in the other stalls in the barn.

Another lesson in the powers of light and darkness. Why not?