GaryOsberg.com

My daughter Kerry has always loved horses.  When we decided to move from Coon Rapids to a small farm on Cedar Lake west of Upsala, Kerry begged for a horse.  We told her that she would have to go to “Horse Camp” to prove that she was able to take care of a horse.  She was almost 10 years old when she spent a week at Circle R Ranch near Long Prairie.  On graduation day she admitted that she was so lonely the first night that she almost had the camp leader call us, but she really wanted a horse, so she stuck it out.

Kerry’s mother remembered that the Zehrers, who had a farm north of Upsala, had horses.  It turned out that the very first horse the Zehrer girl owned was a Palamino quarter horse named Honey.  She had won a lot of ribbons at the County and State Fair. The whole Zehrer family had moved on to raising and training Arabian horses, so Honey had been put out to pasture with the cows. We were able to buy Honey and Al Zehrer even let us take the western saddle to use.  He would not sell it to us, “Just go ahead and use it” he said.  Minnesota nice. 

Twenty four years later Kerry purchased an Arabian mare of her own.  Rosie was nine years old at the time . When I recorded this video, Rosie was 27 years old and she had lost most of her teeth.  Kerry would have to mix the “Senior Feed” with water and present Rosie with a sort of mush twice a day.  Kerry boarded Rosie on a farm outside of Upsala and Rosie’s stablemate was Angel who belonged to the daughter of the folks who owned the farm.  Angel was almost as old as Rosie.  We used to say that Kerry ran a retirement home for horses. 

On Monday the 17th Kerry had to make the very tough decision to have Rosie put down.  Kerry’s youngest daughter Christen did not have school that day because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so she offered to be at the farm when the vet did what had to be done. She later told her mother that Rosie seemed to know what was going on and after the injection she simply knelt down slowly and lay on her side.

Three days later when Kerry went out to the farm, Angel was laying down and could not get up.  Kerry had to call the owner and now there are no more chores to do morning and evening.  It was a tough week for both horses and horse lovers, but there are many happy memories of shared joy.  There is something very majestic about horses.

Rosie is the white horse.  Angel is the bay.                                                                                                            https://youtu.be/iFVIpbaCZsM

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans”.  James Herriot