Warmth; looking forward

To enjoy a cold day, warmth is essential and if not artficially supplied, it can only be obtained if shared. A new year full of brilliant expectations is approaching and we have finally received some winter in Sotardalen, to our horses delight.

Walking the pasture, scratching the snow to find frozen delicacies, resting with closed eyes shoulder to shoulder with warming friends while listening, smelling and feeling the refreshing wind; it is the absolute quintessence of life for a Nokota horse at this time of year.

But with cold and snow comes the yearning for spring, which I think is brilliantly expressed in these words by Ralph Waldo Emmerson in his book Nature;

”As when the summer comes from the south; the snow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way, until evil is no more seen.”

A new year also means new challenges for the Nokota horses in their homeland as the struggle for their life is reinforced by a lack of funding for pasture leases and hay. If you have both the means and warmth to make a difference for these wonderful horses with their colorful and pioneering history, please visit The Nokota Horse Conservancy to make a most humbly appreciated donation.

To round up and wrap up this old year of 2014; this chapter in all our lives; I would like to share this paradox of a tragically amusing short story, on behalf of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, to represent the battles that keep haunting us all in everyday life, as told by him, exactly as I rediscovered it in his Autobiography;

“The need for improvement in the Governmental methods of transacting business may be illustrated by an actual case. An officer in charge of an Indian agency made a requisition in the autumn for a stove costing seven dollars, certifying at the same time that it was needed to keep the infirmary warm during the winter, because the old stove was worn out. Thereupon the customary papers went through the customary routine, without unusual delay at any point. The transaction moved like a glacier with dignity to its appointed end, and the stove reached the infirmary in good order in time for the Indian agent to acknowledge its arrival in these words: “The stove is here. So is spring.”

So with that and the usual thanks to all our good neighbors who skip the fireworks for animals sake; we wish you all a Happy New Year – may it well excel our wildest expectations!