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Photo-heavy entry.
My great-grandmother was a pretty awesome woman. With her husband, she ran a working farm for more than sixty years. When my mom was young, there were horses, two milk cows, a barn full of chickens, and a donkey named Jack. When I was young, they were in their seventies, and the farm had dwindled somewhat, but it was still the largest farm I knew. We didn't visit often, since it was down in Oregon City, but going was always an adventure.
Her house was filled with knick-knacks. Every single wall was covered in narrow shelves, filled with dust catchers. Dozens of cats, elephants, horses, and chickens made of every possible material. My impressions of it are still a child's impressions. Her carpet was impressively blue, and her fridge was covered in fun, food-shaped magnets. There was a dish full of minty blue sweets. I couldn't play with the knick-knacks, but I was allowed to wind up every single one of her dozens of music boxes.
In her garage, there were birds. A huge cage of finches, and an incubator for eggs from the coups outside. She taught me that eggs don't need to be refrigerated until they have been, if you just wipe them with a bit of oil. There was also a pool, deep enough to dive but smaller than the footprint of a car. Only now, looking back, do I realize it was an endless lap pool.
Right off her back porch was the duck pond. Ducks are evil, and their eggs taste like fish. I learned this very young. The turtle was even more evil.
Off to the right were the coops. These were her hobby birds, raised to be sold and to provide exotic eggs. Quail, bantams, a sleepy tiny owl. Fancy chickens. I was allowed to collect eggs with a measuring cup mounted on a long stick, so braving the testy birds was unnecessary. Letting the farm cats in here meant an abrupt end to your welcome at Granna's house.
There were dozens of cats, all of them rangy little farm beasts. Four or five followed you every time you left the house, and she fed them all tuna.
When I was very young, there was the chicken barn. A huge building, entirely open inside, the walls nothing but fine chicken wire. In the spring, you could look inside and see the floor replaced by a living carpet of yellow fuzz. They had to all be yellow, because in that population, if a variant was tossed in, the vast peeping majority would tear it apart.
And there were still horses, sixty or so of them. They were an impressive sight, running as a herd on her acreage, and they'd all come to Granna's piercing whistle, to swarm around her affectionately like dogs, butting their heads against her knees, her waist, as high as they could reach.
Because these were miniature horses.
Her daughter, my mom's mom, found a little photobook of hers from 1971, a pictorial breeding record of that year's crop. In 1971, there was no official recognition of miniature horses, though they've been around since the early 1800s. They were bred to work in mines, being sturdier and smaller still than the Shetland ponies from which they came. They're not officially a breed, though there's an American Miniature Horse Registry. Granny and her breeding program were instrumental in the formation of that registry. The horses in this little photobook are so much bigger than the horses I'm used to seeing at her farm. She'd begun breeding for small stature, but they're nothing like the tiny creatures we auctioned off when she died in 2003.
It's been so neat to find these pictures, with my Granna's handwriting on them, all dated May '71. My mom would have been thirteen, my dad fourteen, still a few years shy of meeting each other.
When I was five, in 1989, she had a horse born orphaned, her mother dead in labor. We happened to be visiting the next week, and I had asked for a pony for my upcoming birthday, so she 'gave' the filly to me. I named her Rose, which was, to be honest, the extent of my ownership of her, but she was my horse, and Granna gave me regular updates. This is her and her only ever foal, though Granna tried for years to breed her. She stood less than 36" tall, fully grown, and little Sam there is the size of one of the farm cats.
They're both gone now, auctioned off when Granna died at 86, and Rose will be too old to breed now, but I like to think they're doing fine.
Her house was filled with knick-knacks. Every single wall was covered in narrow shelves, filled with dust catchers. Dozens of cats, elephants, horses, and chickens made of every possible material. My impressions of it are still a child's impressions. Her carpet was impressively blue, and her fridge was covered in fun, food-shaped magnets. There was a dish full of minty blue sweets. I couldn't play with the knick-knacks, but I was allowed to wind up every single one of her dozens of music boxes.
In her garage, there were birds. A huge cage of finches, and an incubator for eggs from the coups outside. She taught me that eggs don't need to be refrigerated until they have been, if you just wipe them with a bit of oil. There was also a pool, deep enough to dive but smaller than the footprint of a car. Only now, looking back, do I realize it was an endless lap pool.
Right off her back porch was the duck pond. Ducks are evil, and their eggs taste like fish. I learned this very young. The turtle was even more evil.
Off to the right were the coops. These were her hobby birds, raised to be sold and to provide exotic eggs. Quail, bantams, a sleepy tiny owl. Fancy chickens. I was allowed to collect eggs with a measuring cup mounted on a long stick, so braving the testy birds was unnecessary. Letting the farm cats in here meant an abrupt end to your welcome at Granna's house.
There were dozens of cats, all of them rangy little farm beasts. Four or five followed you every time you left the house, and she fed them all tuna.
When I was very young, there was the chicken barn. A huge building, entirely open inside, the walls nothing but fine chicken wire. In the spring, you could look inside and see the floor replaced by a living carpet of yellow fuzz. They had to all be yellow, because in that population, if a variant was tossed in, the vast peeping majority would tear it apart.
And there were still horses, sixty or so of them. They were an impressive sight, running as a herd on her acreage, and they'd all come to Granna's piercing whistle, to swarm around her affectionately like dogs, butting their heads against her knees, her waist, as high as they could reach.
Because these were miniature horses.
Her daughter, my mom's mom, found a little photobook of hers from 1971, a pictorial breeding record of that year's crop. In 1971, there was no official recognition of miniature horses, though they've been around since the early 1800s. They were bred to work in mines, being sturdier and smaller still than the Shetland ponies from which they came. They're not officially a breed, though there's an American Miniature Horse Registry. Granny and her breeding program were instrumental in the formation of that registry. The horses in this little photobook are so much bigger than the horses I'm used to seeing at her farm. She'd begun breeding for small stature, but they're nothing like the tiny creatures we auctioned off when she died in 2003.
It's been so neat to find these pictures, with my Granna's handwriting on them, all dated May '71. My mom would have been thirteen, my dad fourteen, still a few years shy of meeting each other.
When I was five, in 1989, she had a horse born orphaned, her mother dead in labor. We happened to be visiting the next week, and I had asked for a pony for my upcoming birthday, so she 'gave' the filly to me. I named her Rose, which was, to be honest, the extent of my ownership of her, but she was my horse, and Granna gave me regular updates. This is her and her only ever foal, though Granna tried for years to breed her. She stood less than 36" tall, fully grown, and little Sam there is the size of one of the farm cats.
They're both gone now, auctioned off when Granna died at 86, and Rose will be too old to breed now, but I like to think they're doing fine.