Day: June 7, 2015

I want to cry when I think of the pain Pamela Rickenbach has suffered in the past days, but Pamela is not a person I would every pity. Maria and I both love her, she says we are her brother and sister, and there is something to that. Pamela is the spiritual and literal force behind Blue Star Equiculture, one of the special places in my world, and I think, of so many others. She is not a simple person.

This morning, she suggested I photograph the young people instead of her, and I said forget it. First of all, I said, she is essential to Blue Star, her voice is powerful and important. She is starting a blog soon, and I imagine it will be intensely popular, Pamela is seething with ideas. She is part mystic, prophet, animal lover, she comes from the other world, she hears and sees things I don’t hear and see, but which are very powerful.

She is the spirit behind the Blue Star idea, the place of compassion for people and animals, the place that works to restore the connection between humans and domesticated animals, while so much of the well-meaning but disconnected world is pulling them apart from one another.

And besides, I said, it doesn’t work when people tell me what to write or photograph. She smiled and said yes, of course, she would not tell me what to do. I love Pamela, she is  my sister, we are so very different and so very much alike. She loves the idea that the young people at Blue Star will imagine and re-imagine the place in the wake of her husband Paul’s death. It is a spiritual experience to see her with the horses, it has changed me.

If anyone tells you that it is cruel for working animals like draft horses to work, you will know for sure that they know absolutely nothing about horses, work, or history. Today Pamela’s nephew Jay took Ben and Tommy out to plow the gardens at Blue Star. From border collies to draft  horses, working animals love to work. Dogs and horses (and some elephants as well) have been working with human beings for thousands of years, we could not have built our world without them.

Working animals love to work, they need to work in order to be healthy and content. You can see this at Blue Star every day, or anywhere border collies herd sheep, seeing eye dogs help the blind, carriage horses riding through Central Park,  police horses patrol the streets. And yes, many circus elephants were happy and well cared for.  Work is bred into them, it is in their genes and in ours as well.

Some people think the work of animals are stupid tricks, I think they are elitist know nothings. We need to keep animals in our everyday lives, not sent them away for the most ignorant of reasons.

Anyone who tells you that electric cars are better for the environment than horses like Ben or Tommy knows even less about the environment than they do about horses and work. Just so you know.

Mithra was born in India, he moved to the United States. He was a student who studies draft horses at Blue Star, he re-appeared at the farm this week after he learned that Paul Moshimer had died. He said he wanted to tend the garden, he is a gardener.  I saw him working in the garden today and I heard Pamela talking about how wonderful he was and how hard he worked. He showed me some of the plants he is cultivating, and I asked him where he spent the night, he said he spent it in the garden, sleeping with the plants and vegetables and flowers there.

Josie is 16-years-old, she is a high school student, she comes to Blue Star as often as she can, she is quiet and loving. She has her left hand around the leg of Remix, the horse she spends the most time with, but Luna pressed her head against her this afternoon. Maria is writing about Josie on  her blog tonight.

Sonny is a young pony, he and his mother were rescued from starvation and brought to Blue Star. Brandon is caring for him. Sonny is spirited and challenging and determined. I sense they are both alike.