Band of Horses

It was a hard decision when it came to the moment we had to make it, but we turned on a dime—maybe a quarter—and started into action making the move from Portland to Honolulu.

The biggest challenge has been moving all our farm animals off to new homes. And the hardest part of that was telling the kids what we were doing and how we were going to do it. Aoíbhinn came up to me in February and told me how happy she was to have Juno as her horse and how lucky she felt. She said, “I just realized today, dad, that not many people have a horse of their own. I’m pretty lucky.”

That moment was a good one and I love that she was so openly appreciative of this gift in her life. She was a joy to watch as she came home every day, changed into her barn clothes, pulled on her boots, and strode off to do her horsey chores.

When we picked Juno up in Wyoming, she was a wild little seven-month old filly. To get her in the trailer, it took three of us in a narrow chute and two attempts. The Oregon vet who worked with her when she arrived was truly surprised at her transformation a year later when she came out to do some work on her. That wild, skittish little filly had evolved into a sweetnuzzler. I have no doubt that transformation was all of the love and attention she got at that barn and Aoíbhinn was at the center of it; spending her time learning from the older girls as they worked their horses and showed her the ways; and then putting in hours and hours working Juno, playing with her, and grooming her.

I get it now: the love of a little girl for her horse. I’ve been lucky enough to see it up close. I know now why my wife wanted to create her own life on a farm and surround herself with those animals. What started out with a dog, then a cat, grew through a couple of pygmy goats and into a full-fledged goose, horse extravaganza outside Gaston, Oregon.

We spent over nine months living out there, me commuting to Vancouver the whole time; forty-plus miles each direction. It took us more than a half-hour to get from the kids’ school to home each night and we’d do it again in the morning to get them to school on time.

I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.