this week was fall shots for the horse. It cost me three times as much this year because Calvin hurt himself in August when i moved him to his new barn. A puncture wound that i thought was healed had swollen and broken open this week. so now he is back on antibiotics and i have to pick this disgusting scab off his leg to keep the wound open so it will drain. Let me put this task into perspective for you…if you are a horse person, then please understand that i can't even pull the chesnuts off a horse without freaking out like a 9 year old. For those of you who have no idea what i was just talking about, let me just say that once i cut my hand open on a piece of metal and passed out when i saw the blood. So this week has been challenging for me so far. So i just spent about 15 minutes looking at pictures of Oliver. Even in the pictures i can see his “wouldn't hurt a fly” expression. I remember being able to put anyone (and i do mean anyone, because he carried a lot of non horse people aroundn the ring)up on him, and he would walk around the ring, albeit glaring at me the entire time, but he did his job. When i moved him to his new barn a couple years ago, i started riding other horses to pay part of his board. I remember walking past his paddock to get the other horses. He would follow me down the fence line as far as he could, and then stand in the corner of his paddock, ears pricked forward, watching me. To me, he looked so hurt. the first picture you see in the gallery was taken the day i brought him home. He was severely underweight. You could see every one of his ribs, his back bone, and his tail bone. His hip bones jutted out, and you could feel his spine in his neck (usually there is a nice healthy layer of muscle there). He wasn't the most coordinated or beautiful horse on the face of the earth, but he put more heart into his job then any horse i have ridden. Shortly before he died, i was thinking about selling him to buy a “better” horse. When i think back now, he would have been hard to beat! I have been riding for 15 years now and have bonded with 3 horses in this period of time (3 of the countless horses i have owned and ridden). The first 2 both ended unhappily if not tragically. I was out at the barn yesterday, riding and brushing Calvin i couldn't have been more at peace with myself and my life. Walking him to his pasture i had to wonder if my children would one day be riding him. When he dies of old age, I will be around 45 years old! I could never sell him. And hopefully the stars are finally aligned for the both of us that we will grow old together.