Horse Ranch Christmas
Interstate turns to narrow paved highway, then hours of Arkansas dirt with mud splattering windshield. Reach log cabin, wood-burning stove, outhouse. No hotel maid, swimming pool, television, or running water.
Guests do chores before and after riding horses. Christmas Eve Day, assign dinner tasks. Bread bakes, butter churns, I use lard in handmade pie crusts. Wash hands in basin with homemade soap, haul wood and pump water. Wilderness replaces civilization -- a hundred years vanished.
In forest, the perfect pine tree found to chop down and drag to cabin. String popcorn and cranberries. Decorate tree by lantern light. Sipping cider, warmth, stories.
Teens sleep upstairs with handmade quilts. Overnight snowfall, cold awakening.
Feed stove, exchange homemade gifts and do chores. Dinner with apple pie, the best ever. Holiday ride on snowy trails. Bottoms sore from saddles. Absence of luxury changes perspective. No desire to return home.
once tightly closed
blossom unfolds its petals
true gift revealed
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