My Very First Paint

About 6,000 years ago, back when I was in junior college, I got my very first paint horse. I had shown paint horses for a client when I was still in high school, but Twister was the first paint horse I actually owned.

He was a sad little buckskin (or maybe dun) minimal overo colt that I purchased for only $50. His momma was only two when he was born, and he was weaned at a month old. When I got him, his legs were a wreck.

I could only afford to board him by training and cleaning stalls for a local trainer. She helped me rehabilitate Twister by stalling him in deep bedding so he could finish developing, and I took him on daily walks down the road.

Soon he began growing into a normal-looking colt--healthy, strong, and playful. When I first got him I knew he may not make it, but once he got to this point, I thought we were in the clear. I began planning a bright future for him.

Sadly it wasn't meant to be. He died very suddenly, along with his playmate, a big, healthy normal quarter horse colt. They passed within hours of each other of kidney failure. Unfortunately that summer a very strange fungus had gotten into the soil and the trainer lost several horses all very suddenly. It took sending 4 dead horses to K-State to get it figured out. It was a fluke happening and nothing that could have been prevented. Sadly Twister survived his rough start only to be taken down by a very rare and extreme situation.

When Twister passed I thought my horse-owning days were over. It was extremely disheartening to have him taken away when I thought we were finally out of the woods. It was six years until I got my next paint horses.

That's when Eddie came into my life.

And he gave me some gorgeous babies...

The point is bad things happen, and sometimes we don't find out why they happen, or even know if things will turn around for quite sometime. It's just like looking at a garden during the winter. The plants are dead, the ground is hard and frozen, and there is no visible sign of life at all. Many times in our lives all we can see is our winter garden, but if we wait long enough, there is always the chance that hope will warm the sky and our garden will begin to grow again, bearing fruits we could never have imagined during those cold winter months.