Horse Farm

Time for another ramble of what I've been thinking about. Plus some pictures from a few months ago. I calmed down after writing this on Tuesday once I got a free milkshake in me ~

I've never been a fan of abortion (who would be?! Killing an innocent baby that did nothing wrong) but now, after my miscarriage with Shrimp, it is such a slap in the face. I think all of the "pregnant and alone" billboards need to say something at the bottom like "think of all the women crying themselves to sleep because their baby died (or they are infertile)".

I just read a magazine article talking about how this girl (in her late 20's) had a one night stand and soon found out she was pregnant. And when she decided to keep the baby, all of her friends were saying how brave and inspiring she was. I stopped reading it at that point. Why aren't there tons of articles about the young women who are brave and inspiring for the opposite reasons? For waiting until they found the right person to marry and resisting any temptation for however many years. Why are those girls not looked up to and written about? 

Although Michael and I would have loved to meet Shrimp before we get to Heaven, our marriage/ relationship has definitely gotten stronger since then. Michael was there for me the whole time and still is. He took off from work to come to my doctor appointments in March and April. He was there to listen and calm me down when I'd yell "It's not fair!" twenty times a day after we lost Shrimp. I have never seen Michael as wonderful, talented, and kind as he has been this year. I just bought a card on Etsy that has 2 shrimp in the shape of a heart that says "You are shrimply the best." So cute! Also a silver shrimp keychain and a shirt for Michael. 

The second weekend in April, Michael and Sasha went to Gainesville with me on Saturday & Sunday. I was supposed to be working but my Teletype trainer at the time was closing on her house and had the weekend off so they said I could have it off too. (As of Tuesday I've been solo on Teletype for a month now!) That Saturday we went with my family to the retired horse farm, each with a bag of carrots for them. Eventually, after Michael got off the phone with the home inspector for our house, we wandered off into "The Field of Dreams" and enjoyed being together-  just us. It was so nice because sometimes Michael is the only one in the world who matters. It was such a big area. We want to go back. And maybe also live there. I didn't know before this day (April 9th) how much he likes horses.

 ~ ✩ ✬ ✭ ✬ ✩ ☆ ✩ ✬ ✭ ✬ ✩ ☆ ✩ ✬ ✭ ✬ ✩ ☆ ~

The place was hard to find because the GPS takes everyone down a different road that was a few miles East of the road that needs to be taken. The proper way to get there from US 441 is to go down 235A North past Santa Fe High School, keep going until after driving on the bridge that goes over I-75, then the entrance (which only has a green sign on a pole) was on the right . The following pictures from the Mills Creek Horse Farm were taken on the Canon using the 50mm lens:

I mostly took pictures and petted some of their noses since I was worried about accidentally getting my fingers bitten off! Next time we come (preferably during January or February) we will have to bring three or four big bags. Michael felt bad only giving each horse one or two carrots- and there were still a bunch we just walked past without feeding.

This miniature horse, which we called Lil Sebastian, was his favorite, as well as the speckled horse. We seemed to spend the most time together here, which quickly got very toasty in the sun, but it was still a nice time. I sure was eyeballing the huge buckets of water the horses shared in each fenced area. I asked Michael if I could jump in, but he said no. ;)

One of these white horses got really aggressive when the other one was standing behind it while being fed a carrot, and kicked the other horse in the chest with his back legs! Yipes!

There were a bunch of people who seemed to stay around specific horses and I wondered if those horses belonged to them, or they were the sponsors, if that is something Mill Creek does? Of course they took donations and sold shirts and hats, but the entry fee is just a bag of carrots. There was a sign at the front that said some of the horses could only eat sliced apples or bananas because they didn't have strong teeth. One family rode around on a golf cart (the area is pretty big- we probably walked at least a mile and a half!) and then ducked through the fence pieces to pet that white horse in the back. ^^ There were no signs saying not to walk through the pastures, but I would assume most people are not supposed to do that.. So again, I wonder if that was their horse, even though all these horses are retired. Maybe it used to be an equestrian horse?

Michael and I really liked this place and have it on our list of places to visit at least once a year. He doesn't come to Gainesville with me too often, but it always makes me happy when he does. The way he really enjoyed being around all the horses, I told him that it seemed like he grew up on a farm. I know we would love to bring our future kid here one day.