Gateway

April 2, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Carving, CCC, Flash Fiction, Gateway, Historical fiction, Horses, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Namesake, Photo prompt, Timeless 25 Comments

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She pulled the reins gently, but Mathilde was already slowing. Perhaps the mare knew where to stop. Perhaps she understood Elana’s shift in the saddle.

The horse tensed under her thighs.

“I know you want to gallop,” Elana patted Mathilde’s sable neck. “We’ll just stop here a minute.”

Mathilde snorted, then lowered her head to nibble on a cluster of dandelions by the gatepost.

“It’s been too long,” Elana whispered. To herself. To the plaque the ancestor she was named after had placed at the property’s threshold. A crest. A warning. A gateway.

Elana reached and Mathilde pranced sideways, bringing them flush with the square of gray granite. “Thank you, Em,” Elana breathed.

Her fingers traced the carvings and rested on the wheel of time.

The air around them shimmered. Bent. Restored.

The pasture rippled in the sun and she heard a clash of swords. Laughter.

“Let’s go visit Great-Grandam!”

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Horsing Around

June 11, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Borrow, CCC, Flash Fiction, friends, friendship, Horses, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Ride, Writing Challenge 19 Comments

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“Did she see you take Butter?”

Hailey chuckled, “Nah.”

The stable dame was notorious for imbibing at lunch and for the sprawled-in-chair-nap that followed. If you timed it correctly, you could saddle a horse, enjoy a ride, and return before the woman stirred awake.

“What if she found out?” Dora squirmed on Rocky’s back, and the gelding raised his head in admonition. “Sorry, Rocky,” she placed a palm on the equine’s neck.

Hailey shrugged. “Not like Butter will tattle. Right, Butter?”

The horse neighed in return, and the girls giggled.

Rocky snorted.

“Nor you, Rocky. You ain’t a snitch,” Hailey agreed.

The mare trotted languidly. She had to be just as happy for the outing, let alone with Rocky. If it weren’t for Hailey’s family’s recent trouble, and the sale of Butter to Mrs. Jolly’s stable, the horses would still be grazing together, as they had from colt and filly.

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

He’ll Do

June 12, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Acceptance, CCC, Creative writing, Farming, Flash Fiction, Horses, Introduction, Leadership, Micro-fiction, Personification, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 22 Comments

The new hay-bringer was a handsome one. Calm posture. Wild mane. Warm eyes.

The others hung back as Bella stepped forward to inspect. Molly, heavy with foal, nickered a soft warning, and Bella swished her tail in understanding. Yes, she, too, was expecting, but she was not afraid.

She advanced to within a hoof-kick-space. He stayed put, unperturbed.

He carried no fear smell. No twitchy legs. No mouth yells.

Bella lowered her head some, and he held out his hand for a sniff. Sweat. Musk. Iron. Grass. Faint carrot smell.

She shook her mane, and he laughed and reached into an opening in his leg coverings to reveal an orange section of the vegetable. Offered it on an open palm.

Bella nosed it, lipped, chewed. Good.

She approved.

She tapped her hoof and felt the air shift behind her from tension to curiosity.

He’ll do.

Perhaps he even has apples.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Horse Lord

October 7, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Horse country, Horses, Life and death, Mongolia, Mother Nature, Natural Disaster, Personification, Steppes, What Pegman Saw, Wild herd, Writing prompt 23 Comments

: Photo: Mongolia; Anudariya Munkhbayar on Unsplash

The floods had culled the herd. The fires cleansed the land of dead, returned the grasses to the dirt, where bones lay, staring at the sky, unbleached. They will not be interred.

A falcon soared above their heads. It dove and disappeared, its freedom deferred, its sight hidden under the dark small caps it let have drawn over its vision in a servitude preferred.

The stallion whinnied. The yearlings, cocky and too young to know better, had cantered up ahead. They stopped at the sound of his impatience and turned about as their obedience stirred. But the mares and foals kept close on dancing legs. The smell of smoke still in the air rendered them simultaneously docile and quick to bolt, their reason blurred.

He knew why that was. The two-legged that had fled, have returned. And the smoke curling from the nostrils of their leather dwellings rose, awakening dread.

For What Pegman Saw: Mongolia

Morning Manners

October 23, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: fpj-photo-challenge, Horses, Just for fun, Mirror, Photo Challenge, Photography, Reflection, Silly, Surprise, travel, Unexpected 8 Comments

Photo: Inbar Asif

One cannot head to pasture

On a fine, chilly morn

Without checking to see if

One’s mane’s properly adorned.

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Surprise

An Unusual Visit

July 19, 2017July 19, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Horses, mirror-mirror, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-recognition, Unexpected, Visiting 10 Comments

My niece took this photo during a European hiking trip she’d taken with her brother. It always makes me smile. It also makes me wonder: Who had placed the mirror there, and why had they done so to begin with? Was this for the horse? Something tells me it wasn’t the first time for the equine to visit this reflection. What did the horse feel during the encounter? Was it like a visit with a friend? A hello to an apparition stablemate? A recognition of something or someone in him- or herself? Something altogether different and beyond?