Kingston Ponies & doing what needs to be done

I have been cleaning up after the "Kingston Ponies" for a couple months now and wanted to touch on what they've done for me.

It's not fair to call them Ponies considering Davey is a good 17hh and Chopin as not far behind him, if at all. They are huge and make my crew look like ponies! I can literally stand under Davey's head and Not reach his chin, I'm not tall I am only 5'4" however...I've had the chance to stand under Davey plenty because he is the single most curious horse I've ever met. I am pretty sure he can't understand why I am so interested in the wheelbarrow I push around the pasture and not fawning over him for the two hours it takes to clean their pasture. The pasture is also huge, and beautiful, and peaceful, and one hell of a work out!

That's Davey, the wheelbarrow, and me. If I didn't know better I'd think he was trying to eat my head. He's not, he nuzzles every chance he gets.

In any case, Davey isn't the story really. The story today is "Doing what needs to be done"; it's a lesson most of us who grew up without the wonder that is Facebook and instant success learned as children. 

When I lost my job back in December (officially speaking it was Jan 1st; the official story and the reality are worlds apart) I sat down with about five different plans to never go back to software again. 

I'd say it was about four months into it when I realized one of my "plans" was all about software and that my heart simply wasn't there anymore. It was a disappointing revelation however it did lead up to meeting the Kingston Ponies. 

I very quietly posted an ad on Craigslist to do, what in my head was "below" my abilities, cleaning stalls. I did it quietly because I was embarrassed; had I fallen that far? Was I seriously thinking this was a good idea? I tucked my embarrassment away and remembered that the ponies here didn't care what I did to earn the money that we needed to make sure they didn't suffer through my loss of job. The idea was to make enough on the side to support the ponies and beyond that I didn't really care. 

I'm no longer embarrassed at this idea of cleaning after other animals to earn my keep as the partner to the ones I have here at home. I am actually proud of the work I have done, to date, in this weird bizarre twist of my life; if one can be proud of cleaning various pastures and goat houses that is.

I am flabbergasted today (it's a good word not often used and it fits).  I go to Kingston twice a week and push around a good 200 lbs of shit for a good two hours up and down a hill that rivals the one at home. I go once a week and clean out a goat house that smells pretty rank being it is full of goat pee soaked straw (which is heavy by the way). I spend the better part of every day trying to work out how to turn this into what I want to do with my life, which is care for the ponies. I don't hate software or the industry that helped me get where I am today, I'm just done, tired, burnt out and not interested anymore. I think at this stage of my life I have the luxury of really examining what I want to do with my time, the software industry allowed that and I am thankful. I do not however understand the many walking around today as if they aren't required to bust their ass to get what they desire. It's as if everyone has forgotten that making a living is not always what you want it to be when you start out and sometimes you have to earn it by doing things that are less than ideal. I'm not special, I don't do anything extraordinary, I simply do what has to be done in order to support the life and the ones I have chosen to include in that life. What I wonder is, where did that belief go? 

I often wonder if it is the disconnect that has come with being "connected" through means that are not real. Actually that's bullshit I blame a society that has become so disconnected that we communicate more electronically then we do personally. It's not really a connection when it can all, so easily, be fabricated and is more times than not. You can't be in touch with reality when you are watching your life through a screen; I've done it, I did it for years. I lost touch with who I was for years, if that happens how can you be in touch with any other living thing? If that happens how can you possibly grasp what is going on around you?

We've created a selfish and entitled society that makes me shake my head more times than not these days. I'm  proud to clean the pasture of the Kingston Ponies today and I am proud of the work I do with the Goats on the Island. I'm no longer embarrassed cause it's honest, it's real, it allows me to be me, it reminds me every time that 80k a year was fantastic but it cost me millions in values to make it. 

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