Author: Shannon Horsley

Wintertime

Everything in creation runs in cycles and seasons. A cycle is a period of beginning and ending, and then beginning again, or a circle. It is evident in things as diverse as the operation of our bodies, to the solar system and the financial system to the working of an engine. There are cycles within cycles in every aspect of life. Youth follows childhood, manhood follows youth, and then old age precedes death, which precedes the Resurrection!! Fall follows summer with its glorious color and crystal clear atmosphere celebrating the end to Summer, the time of growth, and readying the creation and our lives for the pruning and strengthening by the tests of winter, which prepares us for the resurrection of Spring. Each cycle is preparing for the next. Around the throne of God, Ezekiel saw “wheels within wheels.” The Bible said that as long as the earth exists there will be seedtime and harvest. Then there is the much greater circle of time in eternity.

When Summer fades into Fall and Fall into Winter, God prepares his creatures on earth for the coming cold. The summer coats have become dry and sunburned and it is time for a change. The waning light causes the outside animals to grow long wooly coats. The long hairs have beneath them shorter hair that frizzes up and forms a wind and water barrier and traps the body’s heat. When the winter wind ruffles the long hairy coats of the horses they scarcely resemble the sleek creatures of summer. Long hair hangs from their chins and sometimes icicles clatter from their fetlocks as they walk. 

In many ways, winter is testing time. A rest comes to the growing things and the weak things are pruned away. Perspective is gained as we compare the quietness of winter with the warmth of Spring’s resurrection and the peace of summer.

On the farm, we agonized over the vanishing strands of winter rye that we had over seeded our brown pastures. It grew so slowly or not at all. In fact, it retreated before the grazing animals. It seemed impossible that soon, in another season, this vanishing carpet of green would come leaping from the earth again. It could not be held in check by the grazing horses and we would have to attack it with the tractor and bush hog. Life on the farm was hard in the winter. Often water pipes froze and we would have to haul water from the river in garbage cans in the back of the truck. It seemed so futile as much of it would splash out as the truck lurched over the frozen road on its way back to the barn, but it would be so nice to sit by the fire and warm our icy fingers. Life went on and we knew Spring was coming!

Soon the dead black limbs of the trees would burst forth in flowering glory, rejoicing that the night of winter was over. The mares would drop their hairy coats for sleek and shiny ones of spring. Little colts and calves would pop up everywhere. The barren mares would take new hope that now even they could recreate themselves.

As we walked the long distance from the barn back to the house on many a cold winter’s night we could see the lights beckoning in the distant windows of our beautiful house. No matter how long and hard and cold the day, there was hope in our hearts for the house held warmth, nourishment and rest. It was a promise to me that at the end of the winter of old age here on earth that we will see the lights of our heavenly home beckoning to us. At the end of every winter season in our lives, there is Spring, or home, or the Resurrection and finally entering our eternal home and the fulfillment of all the promises of God. The cycle of life is completed again!

Creativity

One of the wonders of creation that has never grown old to me is the birth of a foal. It speaks of design by a master engineer. It is a wonder and an awe that increases as you consider all the aspects of the miracle of life. On afar where this event occurs so frequently one is privileged by increasing exposure to these wonders of the creation and the time to ponder their significance, for the creation is ever preaching the glory of God if we will just take time to listen!

The foal, like all animals, begins from a microscopic cell that contains the code of the characteristics of all the generations of horses who have gone before it. The breeder’s job is to try to combine the genetic codes as they are expressed in the appearance and abilities of both parents in a way that the desired characteristics of each will combine in the foal that they have bred. There are infinite possibilities, but by continually sifting and sorting the genes by breeding together the individuals that come forth with the most of the desired traits and discarding the others, man can partner with God to bring into being an animal closely resembling a certain set picture in the eyes of the breeder.

What a wonderful thought and worthy of much meditation! God the creator, though He made every species to bring forth after its kind, put within the kind so many possibilities of variety that we were given the privilege of joining Him in the role of the Creator. Breeding is very much like painting a picture with genes!

It was in the beginning of all things earthly, in the Garden itself, that God made man in His own image. The greatest aspect of this is the creative genius He put in our hearts and the authority to use this gift when He also gave to man dominion over the creation. What a thought to consider! Throughout all eternity we will partner with God in creating. I am so thankful for this truth because I used to think Heaven was just a place where you sat and played a harp, or walked around golden streets. To me that seemed like it would get awfully boring. But the plan laid out in the creation for us to see is that God is the author of infinite variety. To know God is to have an eternity of ideas and goals to pursue. Each creation of His is totally unique, consider that everyone’s fingerprint is different. What a miracle that within the tiny surface of the tip of a finger a few circular lines can have such infinite variety that the trillions of people who have been born since the beginning of time never come out the same!! Each one of His children is that special to Him, and created for a special unique purpose. Oh – the infinite possibilities that lay ahead of us!

It is also interesting to me that again we see how high God has put man above the rest of the animals in that none of the animals have creative ability. The animal only does that which was programmed into its genes in the beginning. The beaver who cut down the trees on Heathermoor Farm dragged them to the proper place to dam up Dry Branch, a wet weather spring, to make a lake for us arranging the logs in such a remarkable fashion so that his underwater house would hold air that the beaver was designed to breathe. Yet this beaver never made a better dam than his father or grandfather. The plan for this dam, the understanding of the spot to put it to collect the water, the ability to cut down the trees and drag them to the building site, and the ability to engineer the building of the dam, was programmed into Mr. Beaver’s genes at creation and he is still building the same dam as the Adam and Eve of all beavers built all those that preceded from them.

These are glimpses of the creation that helps me to understand why God first put man in a garden and told him to work the garden and gave him dominion over all the earth. With all this He gave Adam the privilege of eating of the tree of life which would give him all the riches of true life with all its resources. Alas, the devil deceived him into desiring knowledge apart from God, and he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which God had said would be certain death and turned his back on the tree of life. From this moment the whole creation became terribly bent and twisted from its intended purpose. Yet so great was the Father’s plan for His whole creation that the incarnation happened and the great Creator died in the person of His son Jesus and rose again to testify to the incredible redemption that was ahead, not only for man, His supreme creation made in His image, but for the earth and all its creatures.

No wonder the Bible says the whole creation is on tiptoe waiting for the restoration of all things to be set free from bondage to death and decay! Again, man will be in full charge of the garden. Can you even begin to imagine what glorious things await us, His redeemed children, together with the redeemed creation?!?

Faith

Heathemoor Farm had come about in a very supernatural way. We had started desiring a larger farm than our cozy five acres in the middle of someone else’s two hundred acres. The desire increased continually. We had no money to buy a bigger farm, but I remembered a verse my seventh grade Bible teacher had taught us:

Delight thyself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

“If God is first in your life,” she had said, “He will give you the desire itself as well as the object.” John and I asked God to take away this desire if it was not from Him. If He had truly put this longing in our hearts, He would have to bring it about.

True to His word, He did not remove the desire and He worked it out with no money from us. We had also asked for a story that would be so unique that the telling of it would prove to people that the God of the Bible was still doing the same things today as He did in the Bible days. That is how we got this beautiful farm, but that’s a different story.

In the midst of these happy times there was ever a great burden hovering over our shoulders. The Heavenly Father was testing us, instructing us, stretching us. It was not His intent to save us from problems, but to teach us to trust in the midst of them, to trust Him to bring us through them. We had much to learn, not only about the horse business and the business of trusting God, but also about ourselves. We had been led into the horse business by some remarkable sign posts, but now we owned some fine young colts we could not sell. Untrained colts were not in demand in our part of the country; in fact, finished show horses themselves were not worth much here. The center of the horse business was around Lexington, Kentucky, and we were far from there and had no name that drew people from other parts of the country. How could we sell them? How could we train them?

It seemed we had come to a vast, dry desert. The miracles had stopped. Our story had never reached a climax. It appeared that the Heavenly Father had led us to a dead end, no one would be inspired. And, that was not all; I knew nothing about our finances at that time. Then, one evening I learned that all of our earthly assets were gone. John’s monthly salary was all that stood between us and disaster. I was devastated. That night I could not sleep. I got out of bed, put on my robe, and went for a walk. I walked out into the wide plain of the front pasture, where there were no trees or buildings to detract from the vastness of the sky. I sat down in the damp sweet grass and looked at the unfathomable black dome above me which twinkled with a million stars.

I got a small glimpse of the hugeness of the universe and the relative insignificance of man. In the past, such glimpses used to give me a sense of loneliness, of a lostness in this vast sea. Yet strangely there had never been that feeling of loneliness since we had moved to the country. Rather, there was a definite sense of a friendly Presence that permeated the entire atmosphere.

As I gazed up at the starry heavens, I thought of Abraham in the Bible. God called him out also to wonder at such a sky. He, too, was facing a broad desert for he was an old man and God had told him to try to count those uncountable stars. He told him that even though he had not a single child then, he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky. It seemed to me the same God that spoke to Abraham so long ago spoke to me that night. “Look all around you,” He seemed to say. “Are you not living in a miracle? Is not all this faith made sight?” I looked at the expanse of pastures stretching all around me, the dark forms of the mares grazing, the beautiful house in the distance, silvery white and silent against the dark background of the trees and the starry brilliance of the sky. Not one of us could have dreamed only a few years before that all this could ever be ours, that I should be mistress of this farm and these fine horses. It had come about in ways so out of the ordinary. It was a miracle! I was standing in the middle of a miracle! “If I could bring this to pass, if I could turn that shadowy dream into this substance, can’t you trust me to finish the story?” the voice seemed to say. I remembered the Biblical definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith was believing when you could not see.

The next step seemed clear to me that night. I had to wrench my grip away from all earthly security and with the arms of faith grab on literally for dear life to the promises of God. Although my only other choice was despair, it took a violent effort to make the switch, to reach out into the darkness and take hold of God, but the evidence of Him being there was all around me. From that point on I was almost afraid to have anything earthly to cling to, for fear I would have to make that leap again.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It is the vehicle necessary to bring the promises of God into this natural creation. Without faith we cannot please God. By faith Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. I pray the same for me.

The Curse- Vicky

Vicky was a chestnut mare that I had eyes on since she was a colt playing in the field of a farm in Tennessee. She grew up to be very much like her dam, a famous show horse since her yearling days. Her dam, Denmark’s Vixen, was well named because she was almost vicious toward anyone except for her owner and our good friend, Bob Smith. The elder Vixen, a royally bred lady herself, had been mated with Blanchita’s Society Rex, who was later to become our miracle stallion. Their young daughter, therefore, was heiress to the best that royal blood could promise. It seemed that fate was jealous of something as especially endowed as young Vixen and determined to even the score with the chestnut filly Vicky. In her first two years she was dealt a series of devastating blows, but the trials only proved the gold of Vicky’s brave spirit, and she overcame them all. Her first bout was with a severe case of colitis. The veterinarian who attended her gave Vicky up for dead. When she struggled back to life, he declared she was the only horse he ever knew to survive the terrible disease.

Later she was left for dead by sunstroke only to miraculously recover. The doctor declared she would be so weakened by the assaults on her health that she could never stand the strain of traveling to a horse show. So, fairly early in her life, Vicky became a broodmare. We were happy indeed when circumstances caused our paths and Vicky’s to cross again when she was six years old and came to live at Heathermoor Farm to join Denmark’s harem.

We eagerly, somewhat nervously, awaited Vicky’s foaling time in the spring for we remembered the vet’s gloomy prophecy about the delicateness of her constitution. One overcast morning I noticed Vicky lying down in the paddock that surrounded the barn. At first I gave it no thought as I went about my duties, but an hour went by and Vicky got up and moved but once. I looked at her closely to see if any of the immediate signs of foaling had appeared and they hadn’t. She didn’t seem upset. And, she was not going through the usual pre-foaling routine of nervously walking and constantly getting up and down. She just lay quietly. Later that morning it became apparent that Vicky was having some sort of trouble and I called the vet.

We had seen many foals born in our experience, or at least we had been around when they were expected and then safely delivered by their dams. Yet, only once had we encountered a difficult birth among our mares or even our neighbors’ mares. Mares usually foal quite easily and efficiently by themselves. But, all the books warned that when trouble struck with a mare it was nearly always fatal to mare or foal, and the quickest of action was necessary.

Our vet, Barbara Benhart, arrived. She was quite unlike the stereotypical idea of a “horse-doctor” and this small, pretty, lady-like person limited her practice to only horses. Small and delicate as she appeared, she was an able doctor. She seemed afraid of nothing and able to handle any horse with the help of her black bag of magical tranquilizers and anesthetics. On examining Vicky, she announced that Vicky was indeed in trouble. Her foal’s head was bent backwards instead of lying on the front legs and pointed out the birth canal as it should be. It was a very difficult presentation. By now Vicky was in hard labor. The bog of water had burst and the two little feet were in view. Vicky was now down, stretched out on her side, in the typical position of a foaling mare. Barbara stretched out on her, stomach on the ground behind the mare and tried to push the foal back between the contractions so that she could find and grasp its nostrils with her fingers and pull the bent head around. A neighboring farmer came to help, but the contractions of the mare fought against all efforts to push her foal back enough to straighten its neck. In a little while it became evident that the foal’s neck was broken by the hard muscular contractions that battered it against the mare’s pelvic bones. By now Vicky had gone into shock and had lost consciousness. It seemed fate had finally overcome the promise of her illustrious heritage. Then with the help of a calf-pulling winch and another vet and Barbara, Vicky delivered a beautiful filly – its future already erased by death.

We administered glucose intravenously to the unconscious mare. As I sat there on the tender spring grass by her unconscious body and held the glucose bottle as it dripped slowly into her veins, I was overcome with depression. It seemed a sickening waste. All that was involved in producing that little dead body which lay on the ground behind me came to me; the mating of the mare and stallion at just the right time, the miracle of contraception that had produced in eleven months from two microscopic cells the fully formed young horse. Not only had it grown but it had been packaged so beautifully for safety during the incubation period in a shock absorbent waterbed with padding around the little hooves lest they poke a hole in the cellophane bag this miracle package was wrapped in. The wonderful timing system that had begun the birth process and filled the mare’s udder with colostrum that would immunize the colt against any diseases. There was warm pale milk waiting behind the colostrum and the wonderful, knowing instincts that should tell the mare to turn and lick this strange little wet body and love it and endure the first ticklish torment while it poked its head around her ticklish belly looking for the teat it knew would be there. And, there was the fierce maternal instinct that would turn the mare into a fighting machine if any other creature approached the foal’s rubber legged body which she’d never seen before. All these miracles and countless more could only speak of a designer, an engineer, a chemist, a physicist and even more because all these mechanisms that made up the horse was Life itself. A part of this life was love, the warm and almost bewildered excitement this mare would have for her baby.

But, even with all this perfect planning, something had gone terribly wrong. This mare lay unconscious scarcely breathing, and this foal so marvelously produced was dead. There could be no moral judgment on this animal. Vicky was just a helpless victim of some cosmic mistake. But, whose mistake was it? If God made the plan, had he also made the mistake? For indeed something had gone so very wrong. Then I remembered Romans 8:22 which I had learned years ago:

The whole creation is groaning in travail together with us. For we know that the things of nature like plants and animals suffer, in sickness and death as they await the great event. On that day thorn’s thistles, sin, death, and decay will disappear.

What I was seeing in Vicky’s fate was the result of the age-old curse brought on by man’s sin. For the whole universe had become violently bent, twisted from its original perfect purpose when man first wrenched himself from God and gave ear to the devil’s lies. It was to undo this curse that the Redeemer had died. The creation I loved so well was waiting on tiptoe with me for the great day when “death and decay would disappear” and we would share in the glorious freedom from sin which God’s children will enjoy. Another piece of the puzzle of life suddenly slipped into place.

The glucose bottle had dripped empty and there was still no stir from Vicky. We covered her body with a sheet to protect it from the immense heat as the sun headed for high noon. There was nothing else we could do so we headed towards the house. After a meal, we went to check on Vicky, but the sheet-draped mound was not on the ground where we left it! To our amazement Vicky was across the pasture grazing with the other mares! Since we had removed the dead foal’s body and Vicky had never seen it, her maternal instincts had not been set into motion and the tragedy for her did not even exist. Another of the Creator’s miracles. Once again Vicky had faced death and won. She broke the curse and through the years three other foals arrived with beautiful ease to mother and child.

The Purpose of Trials, Black Beauty

In the early days of our adventures in God through Heathermoor Farm, we had our first crop of colts from our beautiful stallion Richlieu Firefly. We had come to own this eleven year old stallion in an unusual way, as we did every other horse we had. But, I will tell you about that another time. We had just acquired our two “big time” mares, Denmark’s Touch of Genius whom we called Peggy because she had a peg leg, and Lady Jane Denmark, or Doll. The rest of the herd was made up of Mailee Dare, Sparking Blade and Grassland’s Dream who we called Kitty. Since Mailee Dare was Richlieu’s daughter, we could not breed her to Richlieu so the other mares were in his harem. The next spring, on Easter Sunday, little Kitty foaled a beautiful high-headed chestnut foal that we named Heathermoor’s Easter Firefly. Our beautiful bay Peggy also foaled a jet black handsome colt except for a small star on his forehead, just like the beloved Black Beauty of Anna Sewell’s novel. We called him Heathermoor’s Black Beauty. He had Peggy’s long neck and size and was truly beautiful. Poor Sparkle had a tragedy and her newborn foal drowned in the lake.

Black Beauty had a mind of his own. I tried to ride him once. Then John had a try with him and he threw John so high that he went up to the end of the reins and pulled the bridle right off his head! Richard, our second son, had a relaxed, gentle way with the horses. As a small boy he had exhibited Mailee in the local horse shows. She was a large mare and Richard’s legs hardly came to Mailee’s round sides. In order to tell what canter lead he was on, he would hang over the correct shoulder to see if the proper leg was forward and the audience would gasp as he suspended his small body in the air. But Richard never fell off.

So, Richard became our chief colt rider by the time he was twelve years old. We decided it was his time to tackle Black Beauty. I roped off a small area next to the barn because we didn’t have a round pen at that time. I put Black Beauty on the lounge with Richard on him. That same spell Richard seemed to have over animals prevailed and Black Beauty was not in the least offended by this boy’s presence on his back. After Richard had several successful rides on the colt I decided to give him a try. I got on him in the stall by standing on the tall board and stepping over onto his back and rode him outside the stall to the ring. Everything went well as we made several passes around the track and then suddenly – I can still feel it as vividly as if it were yesterday -the muddy ground was flying up at my face and Black Beauty was in another place from where I was. My ankle was in a funny position, but I finally hobbled back to the barn and shortly ended up in a cast.

Since we were so out of the horse country and were unknown we decided to sell the two coming two-year olds at Tatterstalls Spring Sale  in Lexington, Kentucky. This was the very first product of Heathermoor Farm. The Farm had started as an adventure in faith and was off to a pretty good start in the way of impossibilities happening so I was sure that our beautiful colts would bring a respectable price. However, we had a problem as Black Beauty couldn’t be ridden except by a twelve-year old boy. The sale is the place where horses are sold “as is” and no guarantees are necessary. It would have sounded good to say Black Beauty could be ridden by a twelve-year-old boy, but that would have been misleading. Easter was younger and smaller than Beauty, so we hadn’t even tried to do anything with him as yet. We decided to just lead the colts through the sale and sell them at halter. That way the new owner would know he was dealing with unbroken colts.

John and Mike took the two colts to the sale. They were truly elegant colts and I sent them off with high hopes. As it turned out Black Beauty was the highest selling colt at the sale, but instead of the thousand dollars I was expecting, he brought only six hundred and Easter only three hundred. I was so disappointed. At that time in my life the pain of adverse things was so great to me that I would lash out at anything I could. I just didn’t know how to control myself. The only one besides John that was there to unload my anger on was God, and so I complained bitterly to Him that He had let me down. But my gracious Heavenly Father, the Creator of the whole universe and me, who could have zapped me to Kingdom Come or turned His back on me forever, did neither. Soon that still quiet voice brought a verse to my mind. – Romans 8:28-29:

All things work together for good to them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

I knew that part well. Indeed to me that verse should have assured that those colts sold well. Yet somehow the next verse had been hidden from my understanding, and the Holy Spirit began to speak it to me then:

For those whom He called He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.

The truth of that verse suddenly stung me. So that was the purpose of everything! It was not that we should have great success in the horse business, although that could happen, but the main thing was that the circumstances of life were designed to mold me into the image of His Son! The very purpose of this event had been to show me this truth and whittle away at this anger I had when I didn’t get my way. The greatest success we could have would be when the “fruit of the Spirit” which is love, joy, and peace, the character of Jesus, should be manifested in our life. When these lovely fruits are blooming in our heart then nothing life throws at us could upset us.

I didn’t learn this lesson perfectly at this time by any means, but I had the understanding of it. The blue print of this truth had been laid out in my heart.

As for the fate of the colts: We later read in The National Horseman that Black Beauty had been sold to a farm in the North and was their Fine Harness prospect. I wondered if it was because they tried to ride him? Easter became a champion in the west. His owner later came all the way to Alabama to see his dam and look for a show horse prospect like him.

Focus

When I was in college, my sister was always a beauty queen and won the title of “Teen Queen of Birmingham” and with it fifty dollars. She announced to all of Birmingham in a radio interview that she was giving it to her sister to breed her mare! My mother swooned as that was a definite no-no in those days. Real ladies never mentioned breeding animals! This resulted in my first foal born while I was a freshman at the University of Alabama. Soon another foal was on its way and I left school to support my growing herd of horses before my father found out. But, that was years before John and I moved our family of four children to the country.

Blanchita was Mailee Dare’s first foal and my first since those college days. Blanchita’s short life was a beginning study for our family in producing and raising colts. She also was God’s tool for teaching us the first lesson in meeting life’s most profound moments. We gave her to Mike as a yearling to be his to train and ride, since he had outgrown Snowfire, the grey welsh pony he had trained and ridden to an unending list of championships for fifty inch ponies. When Blanchita was two years old, Mike began her training. Two days after he began riding her, she escaped from her stall during the night. She pawed at the steel gates across the hall of the barn and caught her leg in one. The gate, still caught on her leg, came off its hinges and the frightened filly bolted. John and I awoke to the dreadful noise of pounding hooves and the dragging and clanging of metal. Right outside my bedroom window the frantic bedlam came suddenly to an end, and the resulting quiet was interrupted by a pitiful bleat.

Our hearts were pounding with fright as we raced outside and found the filly standing on three legs, her right, foreleg dangling from her body. Her eyes begged us for help. I held her mangled leg as she stood trembling and sweating while John ran for a gun. We knew there was nothing else to be done but end her agony. The sound of the rifle shot waked the children and my heart died as Mike screamed from his window, “You’re killing my horse! You’re killing my horse!” The first bullet missed its mark. I’ll never forget the bewildered look of the filly as the ones she had turned to for help offered her nothing but more pain. The second bullet ended her pain.

As the young mare’s body crumpled to the ground and my young son’s cries eased, my heart was breaking. I screamed to the sky, “Why, God? Why? How could you allow such agony of body and soul? Why? Oh, why?” My heart screamed! How could this be allowed by the God I loved so much? I hurled my question to the Universe. My body convulsed with the horror of this event.

And then it was as if the still of night wrapped its arms around me. There was an embrace of love, more tender and more comforting than my own mother’s arms when she had soothed away my childhood misery. A still, small voice spoke to my heart; although to me it came from all outdoors: “This is My responsibility, not yours. All this pain, this seeming betrayal of love. This anguish of heart in man and child and beast. You have the cross to prove my love. Look at the cross! Look at the cross and that is where you will see me as I am. The rest is my responsibility. Trust Me!”

The stars looked friendly again that warm summer night, with the smell of honeysuckle heavy in the air. Soon after, Mike went peacefully off to bed. As I will never forget the pain of that night, so I will never forget the tremendous reality of that answer. There is so much I can’t understand, but all that is God’s responsibility. I have the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ as the pledge of God’s love. The cross is indeed the focus point of all history and all of history is measured by it. All other things become shadows in the light of its majesty. Sometime, somehow, all that we don’t understand will be brought into focus in the light of that Eternal Love who rules the universe. My part is only to look at this great love revealed in the cross. That is where you will find me.

Character: Olive Oil

Whenever I think of character, a small black cat trimmed in immaculate white glides across my memory. Her name is Olive Oil. She was named for the stick-like girlfriend of Popeye the Sailor Man in the comics. From the tip of her long black tail to her white nose, she was scarcely any thicker than a stick figure, but inside her sleek narrow body was as much character as an elephant could hold if size were the measure of that commodity.

Olive Oil lived at Heathermoor Farm with us. She had far too much gumption to encroach upon our living quarters at the house. Her domain was the barn. She lived there on equal footing with us. She was certainly not an indulged pet, rather she was on “staff,” one of our operation being in charge of rat control and the producing and rearing of her replacements in the ranks of her crew. She did her job so well that she was quite entitled to the dignity she claimed for herself.  As any faithful employee of an organization, she expected her wages on time. Hers were expected in the form of plenty of prepared cat food for herself and her offspring. Being a lady of great taste she had a decided preference for the most expensive brand. When at times our unimaginative grocery store ran out of her choice, she very firmly registered her dislike for the inferior grade offered as a replacement. At first she greeted the strange food in her bowl with an expression of bewilderment, then turning away from it, tail and nose high she slowly and deliberately walked over to a favorite spot and by gentle, but firm, meows registered her disappointment with us.

In the morning when I came down to the barn followed by the frolicking dogs, Olive sedately emerged from under the front door of the barn. Never ever losing her dignity she trotted up to meet me uttering a greeting and standing on her hind legs and bowing her head offering me the back of her neck for one caress. No one would ever take liberties with Olive Oil or try to reduce her to the status of pet by picking her up or cuddling her. Our relationship was strictly as equals – creatures who enjoy each other’s company, have a great deal of affection for one another, and who are engaged together in the big job of running Heathermoor Farm. However, the mettle of Olive’s character showed up best as a mother.  We gave her the title of “Mother of the Year.”

When Olive and her gray husband arrived at Heathermoor, the gift of our neighbor Mr. Poole, the place was infested with rats – big bold rats that would stop and stare at you as if to tell you to get off their property. Although Olive and her husband were only kittens they began to work on the rat population right away. Eventually Olive and her offspring completely wiped out the rat population.

Before the year was out, Olive became a mother. In my observation of several generations of cat families, it seems that all family responsibilities belong to the female. The male grows up depending on his mother to feed him until in desperation she drives him away. After that the Toms just hung around and ate for about a year until their necks and heads filled out full “Toni Cat” size. At this point they began to wander more and more often until finally we seldom saw them again. Occasionally they would drop in just to say hello and then disappear again. They seemed to live only to breed and fight, never giving a thought to the families they left behind. And so Olive was abandoned by her husband and left to raise three babies in the tack trunk. She spent long hours nursing and licking her kittens interspersed with increasingly longer and more frequent hunting trips to bring home fresh meat she needed to meet the ever increasing need of her children, and her already frail body. When the babies opened their eyes and began to take an interest in their surroundings she began to bring them birds and mice in addition to her milk.

As the babies grew they began to run out of their safe nest which by now had been moved behind the tack trunk. Their very real danger was being stepped on by the horses. Horse legs standing on the concrete floor of the barn hall must have seemed like giant trees in the forest to the tiny kittens. Although Olive darted around the huge legs with split second timing, the kittens were as yet incapable of that maneuver. The horses’ feet took their toll on the kittens. Olive seemed to realize this as the litters went by for she dearly loved her children.

One day her babies were playing on the sun warmed floor by the big barn door when someone brought in a thousand plus pound horse. Olive darted in to assist me as I was grabbing and kicking kittens out of the way. Realizing the apparent futility of our efforts, Olive decided there was nothing to do but match her two pounds against the hind legs of the horse. She arched her back and flung her fiery self at the horse’s legs. I don’t think the horse hardly felt the little cat attack him, but miraculously he stepped around the kittens!