Not falling of a horse

… and other memories …

One of my recurring mistakes is that I tend not to talk about a life changing decision with friends or family before deciding. When I had already moved to this particular new house, and told my previous next door neighbour friend, she said, “You didn’t tell me you were going to move, because you knew I would have told you not to.”

She was not the only person who would have warned me, if I had given them the chance. In fact one friend from yoga, who knew the people involved, had warned me, but maybe not forcefully enough. She had said, “WHAT? You are going to live with THEM? Are you SURE? Do you actually KNOW them?” I should have known, should have listened, should have heard.

Before I continue, I will give you some unrequested advice.

Before moving you should ask if you can spend a couple of nights in the new location before committing. In this way I may not have moved into the apartment in Bracciano, because I would have heard the 24/7 bonging of the clock on the hour, quarter, half, and quarter to. If I had followed this advice I would not have moved to the place I should never have moved to from the house I should never have moved from.

First thing I noticed on arriving at the new place with all my belongings is that the place I was to live had shrunk during the construction. I put this down to seeing it with walls, and not open space. Later I learned my friends had carved out another bedroom, and added a bathroom to a bedroom on the ground floor. I had lost living and bedroom space, but what could I say? My bed just fit inside the bedroom, there was no kitchen, because a kitchen corner was being constructed. I wasn’t worried, because I had my two electric burners, which were sufficient for coffee in the morning and cooking pasta or rice. I was pleased to find there was a bathtub in the bathroom, but when I turned on the taps brackish water flowed out. Too late, I had moved. I did not think I could turn around and return from whence I had come. Another nugget of advice: You can always turn around in your tracks, change your mind. Your own survival is more important than what other people may be thinking of you. It took me years to learn this.

So, here I was, in a very uncomfortable place, but at least my dog Porgy was there, to be joined by the puppy Nelly. There was space for my three cats: Matisse, Shanty, and poor Rosso, who had probably lived in the same place for years, and this was his first big move since kitten hood. He lived under the bed for a few days, and then suddenly forgave me, and found other cat friends in the bramble patch where the road turned towards the riding stables at the end.

I had been offered this living space in exchange for being a type of guardian, to help in the garden, and for future, to be decided, horticultural-related business ventures. I didn’t need to help with the children because there was the babysitter.

There was space for my three horses: Sully and her two daughters, half-sisters, Nutmeg and Mary Rose aka Selva. What I had not realised was the field they were to live in had no water point, except if you called the almost swamp in the field a water source. The field had been ploughed for many years, and the horses sunk into the muddy earth. I had my deep black plastic water container, which I attempted to fill as I carried water to the horses. The same filthy water that was coming out the taps in the bathroom and kitchen, and in the main part of the house.

It turned out that the people who had the rights to the well on my friend’s land lived next door, and were not disposed to sharing the water rights with this young couple with four children and two other adults. I suspect my friends, at that time, had not started off on the right foot, in that they both turned out to be arrogant and combative rather than carefully polite and diplomatic, much like me.

For a while it was interesting living in this house that was still under construction. It was fun to go on trips to select olive trees, and plants for the garden in the process of being created. There was no shelter for the dogs, but then a hut was built, where I was supposed to paint, store my art supplies and other belongings, along with the gardening implements and the cage for the dogs. My friends had a dog. A mischievous black and white dog. I suspect she was related to a high energy zippy border collie. I was asked to train her, she didn’t need training, she needed to be looked at, patted, taken for walks, given lots of affection.

There was also another white, large dog that had come with the house. A neighbour with a restaurant had been feeding him. He was fairly plump. This neighbour would bring goodies for my dogs too. Bread, left overs, stale cake and cookies. They loved it, I was not so sure they should be eating all that sugar. Porgy, who would eat just about anything, quickly put on weight.

Sully, my Leopard mare was in foal. One day I noticed a Land Rover slow down as it was being driven along the dirt road passing the house. I went out the gateway, to see if I could find out who seemed to be so interested in my horses. It turned out to be the owner of the riding stable down the road. He introduced himself to me as tone of the “Last Buttero,” an Italian cowboy.

He gently told me he’d noticed my mare was in foal. He said she would foal in two weeks, and if I did not move her from that swampy field it was possible the foal could drown. He said I could bring my horses to his stables, and he would see where he could place them until the weather was dryer.

I was able to put Sully in a stable. She was not used to this, she refused to drink from the automatic water dispenser on the wall. I think if I had known to show her she would have, but I was still fairly ignorant of the ways of horses. Nutmeg and Selva were allocated a pen, which they shared. Down below them there was a huge pen with swirling mares and a stallion. It was breeding season and they had been brought in to ensure every mare was bred.

I began to train Nutmeg. Orlando told me I could use the round pen, which had a tall pole at the centre. He made me saddle Nutmeg and said he was just going in for a coffee, and that I should try to get on her back when he returned. I waited for him a very long time, he never arrived. I became impatient, so I just climbed up the fence and got on Nutmeg’s back, and she didn’t do anything, no bucking, nothing. I walked her around the pen, feeling our way. Orlando suddenly appeared to tell me how clever I was.

Orlando also told me other interesting tidbits about horses, how the foal should stay with the mare for at least two years, so it learns how to be a horse. For this reason mares should be bred at two year intervals. I remember being invited to coffee, lunch. This stables were set up to stable horses, to take people out trail riding, and a lot more than this. Orlando and family had cattle and horses somewhere, I never really understood where. They engaged in the transumanza when livestock is herded up to higher ground in the spring and brought back down in the autumn. People were invited to participate, it was a big event. I would have like to have gone, but who would have taken care of my critters?

One day, back at the house, I was moving the electric fence, a frequent activity, and a very good friend called me on my mobile. I chattered away to her, so happy to talk to a friend, about all the minuscule events of the day. I felt her silence. She then told me her daughter had killed herself, her father had found her. What could I say? The untimely and tragic death of anyone can strip colour and sound from the world. I had met her daughter briefly, she had struck me as one of those who are made of light and air, as though she had not incorporated that part of the world called earth. I have often wondered if this is why people decide to take their own lives, they are more spirit than earthbound being, and our world becomes unbearable to them.

A few days later, the Last Buttero and his spouse told me there was going to be a get together with all the butteri at Canale Monterano Vecchio. Tables were to be set up where we would all eat aquacotta and pecorino cheese, bread, and wine. I would ride my Appaloosa Selva. I arrived that day and found that Antoinetta had pulled out all sorts of clothing so I could go dressed as a buttero. A white, long sleeved shirt, a black velvet waistcoat, a black flat topped hat with a narrow brim. They had also arranged for a man with a van and his own horse to take me to and from Canale Monterano where we would all meet before riding to the old town.

When we arrived, and had all mounted our horses, I followed the other riders, Selva was very excited to be going out with a large group of horses.

We came to a steep slope, trees, rocks, a winding pathway up the side of cliff. We were to ride in single file. Selva had other ideas, she decided that walking up a hill would be far too strenuous and the only way to face this slope would be to gallop all the way. I attempted to hold her back. She reared and fought me. I leaned forward and the vest I was wearing caught on the horn of my American saddle. Please note that bardella saddles, used by the butteri, do not have saddle horns sticking up in the front. Everyone shouted at me to just let her go. There was not much else I could do. Selva galloped past everyone up that steep and rocky slope, like a horse on a mission.

At the top, she stopped abruptly, I slid to the ground, legs shaking, tied my Appaloosa to a tree, rope just long enough so she could snatch at grass if she needed, took off her saddle, and went to join everyone else at the long tables to eat. I met my neighbours from when I lived at the house I should never have left.

Life at the house I was living deteriorated. I felt that I did not know how I should act, or what I should do. Perhaps I was not acting as I should have. The handymen and babysitter had made a tidy group. At one point, I was told I could not walk my friend’s dog anymore, because they had been told I was hitting their dog. I don’t know what other lies were being told about me. At some point there is nothing much you can do about how other people see you, but I did not know this then. I was shaken, began to doubt my own perception of life, of myself.

One chill day I went to turn on the heater to warm the apartment, and there was an empty sounding click. I went outside to the gas burner, and attempted to restart it, no luck. I decided I wouldn’t be going to knock on anyone’s door to ask if someone would help fix it, and knew the time had come to move on.

The next day, when I was tossing out the junk I had accumulated in the bins on the corner of the main road, I came across two large, round, rosy cheeked men; one blond and one dark haired. I asked if they knew of anywhere for rent. They stopped unloading the items from the back of their truck into the rubbish bins and looked at each other. “Maybe,” they said. “Could I come to visit their farm that evening.”

So, I went, slightly afraid, yes, but desperate to move from where I was. I was introduced to the men’s father and mother, and shown a ground floor apartment. It was one of those farm houses that had an upstairs for the famers, and downstairs for livestock, which had been converted into an apartment. Much larger than where I was living, but filled with furniture.

I noticed there was a large hole in a wall, where someone had obviously punched it. I asked if they would mind if I turned on the tap in the bathroom. No problem! Clean, clear, water came out. Could I flush the toilet? Yes. As the place was furnished I asked if there was a washing machine. Yes. Could I bring my dogs, cats and horses? I was told yes, but that I could only bring one horse. Fair enough, but I had three, if not four with the foal. I decided I couldn’t just bring one horse, I found another situation so they could all stay together.

This time I moved by myself, filling my car and moving things little by little. The day I finally left, my ex-friend’s four children, with whom I had a really good relationship, asked if I was leaving. I said yes. I felt so sorry for them, I could not explain why I suddenly had to move. I did not feel to stop and say goodbye, as I have always found this difficult.

As it turned out, a while later, I met up with the nicer handyman. He told me he had been asked to move into my tiny apartment, which he had. He told me he had the agreement, rent free with the idea that he would work a few hours a week to cover the rent. He would have been more useful than I could ever have been. He knew how to do everything.

He told me there was less and less work to do, and our ex friends had become less friendly towards him. One day in the winter the heater had not worked. He knew why. He knew it was the same thing they had done to me. He told me they had removed a critical part. He decided it was time to leave.

I moved into the ground floor apartment at the farmhouse, without my horses, but with dogs and cats. I was fairly happy there, I was often invited upstairs for a meal, given fresh ricotta from their sheep, vegetables from the garden, but there was no Internet and my mobile only worked if I was standing outside.

Will write more about this farm, but will pause for now.

Thank you for reading, until next time…