And then along came Maizie -- part 1

Before she put Algiers down, my very kind vet made a point of reassuring me that she was sure Dahli would be fine by herself. Just 2 months later, during our normal spring shot visit, she said she hoped that when she returned the next year that there would be another horse here.

I was hoping so too, but as things would have it, I didn’t have a penny to spare. The new job at the hospital wasn’t going well, between my being stalked by a janitor there and unable to work night shift. Then they cut my hours, so I had to go back to my old, lower paying job at the customer service center. I hoped by the 2^nd year I would be able to get a second horse. In the meantime, I kept my eyes open, scanning the various horse classifieds and dreaming.

After some thought, I began re-thinking getting a second Arabian. I’m not getting any younger, my bones break more easily, and I wasn’t sure which bloodlines would assure me of a quieter, easier temperament than Dahli’s.

It’s important to be very clear about needs and limitations. My property is very “back-yard” in many respects. I don’t have a real riding arena or a fenced paddock for training. I don’t have power in the barn or running water. I trim their feet myself: before moving to Maine I trained with KC LaPierre.  I’m a small person, only 5’3 or so, so don’t need a large horse. I have 2 acres of good pasture.  So I started researching haflingers and old-style morgans, while saving and saving.

Since 2008, I’ve been living pretty much large bill to large bill. I save and save, and just as I think I’m getting ahead, I get hit with a planned or unplanned large expense. Losing Algiers in February left me with 6 months or so of extra hay. I kept that head-start, buying a full year’s worth for Dahli each September after. One prospect after another went on sale, and then was snapped up just as I thought I had enough to move forward.

Finally, in the fall of 2013, it stumbled on a lippitt morgan mare in a distress sale and within driving distance! I contacted her breeder and made arrangements to go meet her on my 60^th birthday. Everything seemed to be falling into place, until the night before when I called to confirm my appointment. The breeder started to hedge a bit…and sure enough, on the morning of my birthday, when I made my last confirmation call before driving 6 hours, the breeder had sold the mare out from under me. Two months later, I bottomed out my car on a large boulder that looked like a giant chunk of ice left in my driveway by the DOT. And then a large maple came down in an ice storm. There went my horse money again.

Another year passed, while I continued scanning the ads.

I’d pretty much given up, and was looking out of habit and boredom at work when I stumbled across a new rescue site with an 8 year old mare mentioned at a rock bottom price. Her elderly breeders could no longer afford her, so another breeder had picked her up to keep her from ending up at the sales, and then offered her at a slighter higher than rock bottom price to try to move her by Christmas. One photo, and I snapped her up. The breeder found a young Canadian who was bringing a horse from Ohio past her NY farm, past my Maine farm, to Nova Scotia. It looked like she would be here for Christmas! And then his paperwork got messed up, and the trip was delayed until after Christmas. And then he said there was a snowstorm in NS, and the trip was delayed again.

The breeder offered to truck her up for the same price, and so finally, in mid-January, she finally arrived. At long last, Dahli has a companion!