Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

The smell of rich soil, crushed vegetation and crisp, fresh air. The feel of raw, untamed, powerful muscle coiled between your legs. A feeling of shared joy and shared exhuberance, shared freedom. The warm snuffle of a velvety muzzle pressed against your palm in affection. The well-earned sweat of physical exhaustion and the feel of fresh Timothy hay against your cheek. I love horses, I always have.

As a child my bedroom walls were papered with horses. I worked my ass off every year selling Girl Scout Cookies so I could spend two weeks every summer at horse camp. I convinced my parents to pay for riding lessons so I could spend more time with the beasts and when that didn't seem to sate my hunger they arranged for me to muck the stalls at a stable in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, hoping the dirty work would quell my passion. It didn't. My highschool friend Ginger introduced me to the beauty of show horses through her horse Taj Parada, son of the great stallion Gai Parada and I learned to love work horses through contact with my friend Judy from Southwest Equine Hospital in Phoenix, AZ.

I come from a long line of agricultural people. My mother was raised on a cattle ranch in Kansas and later in Wyoming, my grandfather was a farmer to the very core of his being. My Great Grandmother was raised on a horse farm in Kentucky and her father brought horses across the sea from Wales. The love of horses is in my blood and I have been feeling it's burn since I was a child.

Let's face it...little girls love horses, however most of them outgrow the obsession before they are teenagers. I've never outgrown it, in fact the hunger has grown progressively stronger as the years go by. I'm now 38 years old and I have yet to own a horse but I continue to feed my dream.

I live in the fourth largest city in the country and I married a city boy. I am surrounded by Old Navy and Olive Garden, Home Depot and Walmart. I drive my daughter to school on the HOV lane and my husband's office is on the 31st floor of a very tall building. I'm in the process of looking for land. I would love to find 10-15 acres just outside of town where I can have my horses and my husband can still have his professional sports and opera company. It may be wishful thinking but a girl can always hope.