This story may be a little woo woo for some, but I don’t care.  I am a strong believer in the power of our minds and how our thoughts create our reality.  I live in my little woo woo world, and I like it there.

In all seriousness, our thoughts, our dreams, our beliefs shape our lives every day.  Like it or not, believe it or not, your life is a direct reflection of what you’re thinking and of what you’re feeling.  Consciousness creates.  The whole world we live in was created by consciousness.

But all that consciousness stuff is for another day.  Today it’s about two horses and how those two horses came to live with me.

A few years ago my good friend had two of her mares for sale.  I wanted them, but the price tag for each was pretty hefty.  My budget had no room for these two horses, so I never really considered that they would ever be here with me.

EVANNA

Horse number one is Evanna, a dark bay beauty with big soft eyes.  She has this feminine head, so dainty that the halter has to be put on the very last hole.   Her sweet personality, though, is reserved for those she deems acceptable.

Evanna does like attention and will suck it up for a few scratches, but she also has a bit of an attitude.  She is one of those horses who isn’t going to give you respect until you earn it. You have to show her you are worthy.  Then she is all angel kisses, love, and manners.  She had excellent training and handling with my friend.  She knows proper behavior.

Evanna, or Miss Beautiful as I call her, tried me at first.

She tried me a lot, until one day when she started shaking her head at me.  I knew then I was going to have to take charge and now.   I went after her with twirling rope.  The rope never touched her.  It didn’t have to.  She understood what was going on.  We were establishing order.  It’s a big pasture so we had a lot of ground to cover, but I never let up.  We went round and round and all over that field until we were both exhausted.

She kept gravitating towards one particular corner.  I blocked that corner each time and swung the rope and hollered and ran at her.  She’d run off, and I’d run behind her swinging and yelling.  She could have went through the gate out into the BIG field, but Miss Attitude kept circling back to the preferred corner.  I kept angling across and blocking her path.  If she got past me and into the corner, I charged in and chased her out.

This chasing, angling, circling, swinging, blocking, and charging went on for at least forty five minutes.  Evanna was sweaty.  I was tired.  About the time I didn’t think I could continue another minute, Evanna stopped and stood still.

I stopped.

She faced me and looked at me square.  This might sound concerning, but it’s actually a good sign.  Her ears flicked forward and back, and those big eyes were wide.  Her nostrils flared while she caught her breath.  I approached her, rubbed her with the rope, talked to her, and she’s been amazing ever since.

Evanna is a daughter of the stunning Arabian mare Elegancia.  Evanna’s sire is the Saddlebred stallion, Carnival’s Loaded Dice.  My friend owned both Dice and Elegancia.  Sadly both Dice and Elegancia no longer grace the earth.

Evanna is well bred, and since the day of our “discussion” as my husband would call it, well mannered and respectful.  She is a steady presence in the herd.  I am lucky to have her.

STELLA

Horse number two is Stella, the daughter of my grand old mare, Khiaffa.  Stella is the only offspring of Khiaffa that I’m ever going to get my hands on.  I had to have her.  I remember watching Stella as a baby, back when my friend still owned Khiaffa.

Stella enchanted me.

I would watch her, this spunky little gray and white filly, running her never ending filly patterns all around her mother, and as she grew bolder, all around the paddock.  Her little legs, tough as steel, propelled her forward as her baby hooves dug into the ground and threw up tufts of dirt and grass.   She was such a little athlete!  And so full of herself.

Stella is a people horse.  She LOVES attention  She knows how to push all my buttons to get what she wants, which is brushing and scritching.   When I’m done brushing her and try to walk away, she nickers so softly and her nostrils flare gently in and out.   I melt and come back for more brushes and hugs and kisses.  She has me trained very well.

Stella is one of those horses who could have benefited from her very own human to dote on her and only her.

As wonderful as Stella is with humans, horses are another story.  Oh she gets along in the herd just fine as long as her underlings stay out of her way.

What a witch!

A charging whirlwind of flashing teeth and flying hooves teaches them real quick just how close they can get to her.  But the distance isn’t always the same on any given day, so you better just choose the further distance and play it safe, if you’re smart.  They’re not always smart.

A number of years ago, I had surgery so the husband had to do the morning feedings.  This was in winter, and we were still feeding grain back then.   The feeding system worked out pretty good most of the time.   The horses lined up along the fence and you put the buckets through.  You had to space the buckets just right or chaos ensued.   If you put them too close together you got a thundering game of musical horses.

The whole feeding process went pretty smooth except for Stella.  You had to keep her in line or she would chase kick and bite everyone else out of their buckets.

The husband is not a horseman so I was a little concerned.  He did fantastic.  After about the second day he had Stella trained.  As soon as she started her shenanigans he boomed out

“Stella! All four feet!”

Man she stopped cold and tried to get those hooves as close to the ground as possible.  She could hardly contain herself and twitched and quivered and flicked her ears at the other horses, but she kept all four feet on the ground.  If she lifted a hoof, he’d say “All four feet!” and the hoof planted itself back in the snow.

He never laid a hand on her.  In fact, he didn’t even have to go into the pen.  But he knows how to project his voice, and apparently Stella was impressed.

Dreams and Imagination

Let’s step back a little further in time, back before Stella and Evanna came here.  Back in those days maybe I wasn’t as tired as I am now, but once in bed and lights out, I never fell asleep right away.  I spent a lot of time enjoying the thoughts inside my head.  I still do this, but only for a little while since I drift off before I get very far.

I love to imagine and dream and fantasize about, oh say, everything. So every night before going to sleep I ran through some scenarios in my mind.  One of those scenarios was that Stella and Evanna were mine.  I never put any conditions on how they got here, just that they were here; they were mine.

Every night, eyes closed, I saw them in the pasture, grazing, happy, healthy.  I even said to myself sometimes, as I drifted off to sleep, “Stella and Evanna are mine.” or “I own Stella and Evanna.”

I wasn’t intentionally trying to manifest these horses, or anything else.  I have an imagination.  It never shuts off.  I was simply fantasizing about things I wanted.  That’s all.

Funny thing is, I had no idea how I could ever obtain these two expensive horses, none at all, but now I have them.  They are here.  They have been living here for years now.  And I never even bought them.

How could this be you wonder?  You have them, but you didn’t buy them?  It’s a strange scenario that brought them here.  I’m glad I never gave the Universe any instructions on how to pull this off, because I never could have made this up.  I never would have come up with this scenario in my own crazy mind.

I kept my fantasies alive every night dreaming of horses and other things, but mostly horses.  If you’re a woman who never grew out of the horse crazy phase, you’ll understand.

One day out of nowhere I receive a call from my friend.   She asks me if I want a free horse.  I’m skeptical but intrigued.  In all honesty, I don’t need another horse.  I already have enough.  Still.  A free horse.  You listen.  I said “No, not really.  The last thing I need right now is another horse.  But what’s up?”

It’s always that curiosity that gets ya.  Because the last thing I needed was another horse.

She proceeds to tell me this story of how she and her husband are in North Dakota, and they stop in this furniture store.  Yeah.  What does furniture have to do with horses?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Except it does.

Let’s back story a little.  My friend has a lot of horses.  At that time she may have had thirty or more.  Her husband thinks she has too many. She is a breeder and always has a stallion or two on hand as well as a broodmare band and several up and coming colts and some fillies either for sale or to add to the mare band.

I got my first broodmare from her.  That’s how we met and became friends.  I was looking for a horse to ride.  Instead I got a broodmare,  The Pixie, a sweet, unbroke ten year old Arabian mare. I bred her to Dice, and the following year, Pixie had my gorgeous girl, Paradys.

I never did ride Pixie.

She lived with me for seventeen more years and had a few more foals for me.  She died here at age 27, a sassy old mare, and I miss her.  Paradys lives here still and has never had a foal.

All this about Pixie and Paradys really has nothing to do with this story except to tell how I met my friend and how I became hooked on Arabians and the Arabian/Saddlebred cross.

I love the Carnival’s Loaded Dice offspring.  They’re smart, beautiful, great movers, and sensible.  But some of them, like Paradys, can also be full of themselves and a challenge if you don’t have a clue.  I didn’t have a clue at first.  Still don’t.  Maybe I should have started with something easier, but I don’t regret it, and everything has worked out fine.

Before I had my own little piece of heaven, I boarded my horses at my friend’s place so I was out there often.

I remember Evanna as a baby, all big eyes and legs, such a beauty.  I wanted her, but could only imagine a horse like that belonging to me.  She wasn’t for sale at the time, and when she finally did become available for sale the price was well out of my range.

Another horse I purchased from my friend was the Egyptian Arabian mare Khiaffa.   I could have a pasture full of Khiaffas and never need anything else.  Khiaffa lived here for many years and finally passed at the age of 30.

Stella is the daughter of Dice and Khiaffa.  The athletic little filly that enchanted me so much grew into a big gray and white pinto mare, smooth and gorgeous.  Not for sale, until she was, but also out of my price range.

I wanted Stella on her own merits, but being Khiaffa’s daughter made her all the more special and coveted.

Back to the furniture.

My friend and her husband are in North Dakota.  On the way home they spot a furniture store and decide to pop in and have a look around.  My friend sees this crazy amazing canopy bed that she decides she must have.  She tells her husband as much.

He says he will gladly buy her the canopy bed if she gives away four horses.

He’s always looking for an angle, because, remember, she has too many horses.  If he sees an opportunity to unload some of them, he’s going to snag it.  So the suggestion of giving away four horses is flawless logic as far as he is concerned.

My friend actually wants this bed bad enough that she decides to go with it and see if she can give away four horses. After she tells me this crazy story, I’m a bit more interested.  I ask her which horses she is giving away.  She names off a handful, and I’m intrigued.  I would love to have any one of her horses, but I only heard two names.  Yes, as she rattled off the horses’s names, she rattled off Stella, and she rattled off Evanna.

I’m getting excited.  I tell her I need to think about this.  I really don’t need any more horses.  I really do need to think about it.

I think about it.

After some thought, I call her back and ask her if she would give me TWO horses.  She says no.  She’s only giving me one.  But she wants to know which two I’m interested in.  I tell her.  She thinks, then counters with giving me Evanna outright and giving me a half interest in Stella. She says Stella can live here with me, but if she decides she wants another foal from Stella she’ll take her and keep her until the foal is born and weaned.  I can also have Stella bred if that is my desire.

I did want a foal from Stella, but have yet to have her bred.  It probably won’t ever happen at this point.  She is getting older, and I really don’t need any more horses, because I won’t want to sell the foal.  I never want to sell a foal.  These are my babies.  How can I sell one of my babies?  I don’t know what will happen to them after I sell them.  I can’t risk it.  That’s why I’m not breeding anymore.

I agree to my friend’s terms.

Not long after – since her husband didn’t waste any time – a trailer pulled up, and the two beauties emerged.  And that’s them in 2018, out in the pasture enjoying life, eating the grass down to the dirt, because that’s what horses do.  They were moved to the smaller pasture with fresh grass not long after.

There you have it.  That’s how I manifested two horses.

I don’t know if my friend ever got the canopy bed.