Read Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm for Free Online

the shade of a giant red pine just the way they do every morning, because nothing has changed for them, and they press their bodies together to each other, nose to tail. I can feel their simple equine contentment, and it might even be catching—that Zen book should probably be titled
Chop Wood, Carry Water, Care for Horses
.
    They are like a balm for my bruised heart, my horses are this morning. I’ve wanted to have my own horses ever since my parents took my brother, Ben, and me on a summer vacation to visit distant relatives out west. Our father’s cousins owned an honest-to-God ranch with an honest-to-God name, the Bar F. I was so proud to learn back then that ranching was, at one time anyway, the Link family business. And right then I decided I would have horses when I grew up. It was a girlhood dream I’ve kept close at hand for more than three decades—one I was finally able to realize two years ago.
    I watch Major and Pepper nuzzle each other for a few more minutes as the daylight spreads, then top off their water tank and check the charge on the electric fence. On the way back to the house, I open up the valve on the garden sprinkler, listen to the syncopated bursts of water, then take up my post back on the porch, my lap heavy with library books again.
    And the loneliness returns as if it’s been sitting here in one of my empty chairs just waiting for me. At least this time when I greet the new day here, my beverage of choice is coffee.
    “When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes the heartache of alienation and loneliness, could you use that as a golden opportunity?” the Buddhist nun asks. “Right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart?”
    Well, I can sure try.
    I can try not to brood, and I can try to relax instead, even if I am oblivious to the existence of the place inside she calls the “limitless space of the human heart.” That’s pretty woo-woo for me, but I am about to close my eyes and try to find it anyway when movement in the yard catches my bloodshot eye.
    An injured water bird is skulking around the yard, looking lost. He is an obvious interloper; the Grand Traverse Bay is three miles north and the closest inland lake is at least two miles east. The only water on my whole property is a little koi pond near the south end of the porch.
    The bird’s black form darts over the grass, and his contorted shadow makes me think not of my own shadow self but rather of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven. This bird showed up just in time to spare me another failed attempt at relaxing, meditation, or anything of the like.
    And really, if this were a full working farm, there wouldn’t be time for such feckless pursuits anyway. In an attempt to move in that direction, I have recently named my place the Big Valley, in homage to the television ranch of my youth. After our family trip out west in the 1970s, I practically worshipped reruns of that show.
    Now I imagine that on my best days I am just like Victoria Barkley, the Barbara Stanwyck role—tough, resourceful, impervious to naysayers. Even with modern life trying to press in, my sons could do worse than to turn out like Jarrod, Nick, and Heath when they grow up—hardworking, independent, and fair-minded.
    They’re not here, though; this new bird character is, and he needs a name. I’ll call him Edgar and pretend that the boys are just off on a two-day roundup and that someone up there sent this damaged avian guest my way to keep me company until they come home.
    He is crow-sized and looks all black from a distance, but when he ventures closer I see that he has streaks of brown and tan on his breast, yellow legs, and white shoulders that are mostly hidden by the black feathers covering the rest of his wings. I’m sure he’s injured, because he doesn’t fly, just runs. Advancing toward my koi pond at a forward incline, he leads with the most dominant part of his armature,