If you read a horse a story...

It was February 23rd, 2009. "Mom can I go play outside?" asked my youngest daughter. "Sure buddy" I replied.I knew it had been an unseasonably warm day for February and I also knew how much she loved being outside on the farm.  #4 is my youngest child, the only one left at home. I knew there was something special about her from the day she was born. She has a wise old soul and these amazing green eyes the size of dinner plates that could look into your spirit and know the goodness or lack thereof in your heart.  She has an innate ability to find love and kindness in all things. Especially animals. She reminds me a bit of myself at her age before I allowed fear of being different to make me put away those gifts.

I heard her make several trips in and out of the house so I decided to go outside and see what she had found on the farm that was keeping her so entertained. I walked out the front door and there she was. Sitting with her favorite dolls and their stroller and her favorite book.
"What are you doing sweetie?" I asked her.
"Nothin', just reading stories to the horses. They like this one." she said.
The photographer in me ran in the house and grabbed my camera and started shooting. What a beautiful scene, the sun setting behind most of our herd standing at attention on the edge of the barbed wire fence. There stood our beautiful horses, whose usual attention span only lasted as long as it took to figure out if you were there to feed them or not, hanging on every word that our sweet angel was reading to them. "Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa" by Erica Silverman was a good read judging by the horses nodding and leaning over the fence hanging on every word.

AJ, our 3 year old Palamino who is just a 900 pound kid seemed mesmerized. Before this evening we used to laugh at him and bet that if he could talk, the only thing he would say would be "Whatcha doin'?" because all he ever did was follow you around and nip at you to get you to give him grain. But that was before he experienced storytime with this sweet girl. Tonight he would ask her to read the story again just one more time before the sun had set and it was too late to hear more adventures of Cocoa and his girl Kate.