New Neighbors

This morning I remembered a dream that I had met two horses, one brown, one black.

Then I remembered that this happened yesterday.

Our friends had headed home, and Artemis and I were alone in a private home for the first time since leaving Santa Cruz on May 27. I hadn't been outside all day.

Artemis had already gone for three or four walks with Pippin, so I walked down the road toward the sea. I had been to our beach before, in March, when we visited here with J whose house we are now renting. I never got there.

I was thinking about Herself who I met in a Roscommon cave a few years ago, and wondered what she thought of me moving here. I had just passed a stone barn when I saw the gate and the road that probably led to the barn. I hopped over it. I walked up the old road toward the barn and in a few minutes I heard horses. They were so curious. I put my back to the stone wall and they each in their own way got to know me and proved to themselves that I had no apples.

Never before have I met horses without iron shoes.

I stayed with them until they both gave up on me and started browsing. I walked back to the gate, and they followed me. Just inside the gate I found a pile of freshly cut green apples that someone had left there. First the black one, then the brown ate them from my hand.

Back to the road, and I turned away from the sea and headed home. The rain began slashing just as I entered the mud room, and the wind howled all night. The end of our first day in Ireland.