Black Lamb

The lessons of Cleo

All I want for my birthday is a horse

May 1st, 2016

BY SUSAN BENNETT

Is it true that every girl wants a horse? The ongoing popularity of National Velvet, My Friend Flicka, and a myriad of other books, movies, and television programs would certainly indicate so. Psychologists and parents like to speculate on the deeper meanings of this attraction. “Horses give young girls a feeling of freedom; the ability to control a large animal gives girls feelings of power.” “Give a girl a horse, and she will stay away from boys.”

Whatever the profound significance, like many of my gender, as a child I always wanted a horse, but I knew better than to actually ask my parents for one. Our family pets consisted of an occasional goldfish if we were lucky at the school carnival; my father didn’t like cats, and my mother considered a dog too much trouble. With the exception of the three-year-old me posed on a pony for a photo, I never rode a horse. I had to satisfy my childhood fascination by checking out every horse book in my public library.

The closest I ever got to owning a loyal steed was when I purchased with my birthday money, at age ten, a turquoise and chrome Huffy bicycle. I named him Fury after the horse in the library book I was currently reading. Fury and I kept the secret of his identity from even my best friends. But I spent the next two years careening around my neighborhood on Fury until I reached junior high school and Fury went the way of Puff the Magic Dragon and other childhood fantasies.

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Posted by: The Editors
Category: All Animal Issue, Bennett | Link to this Entry

Moonbeam

Rearranging your life

May 1st, 2016

BY SUSAN BENNETT

On the internet, rivaling heart-warming pictures of puppies, kittens, and ponies, are videos of young goats leaping in the air, tumbling down hillsides, and gamboling across fields of wild flowers. These kids’s antics can bring smiles to the most cynical of Facebook trollers. However, viewers usually overlook that these enthusiastic acrobats are most likely destined for someone’s grill.

Such was the case of Moonbeam, nicknamed Beamer, who was born on a ranch in the Napa Valley that was also home to a herd of Black Angus, a few wool sheep, a handful of milk goats, several ranch horses, and an array of barn cats, chickens, and dogs. Every creature on the ranch had a purpose — and young male goats were sold as food. Rarely were baby animals named; it’s much harder to send “Buddy” to the slaughterhouse.

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Posted by: The Editors
Category: All Animal Issue, Bennett | Link to this Entry