We buy a quart of goat milk every week from a neighbor and today we went to pick it up in person. The kiddos got to meet her goats, adorable, and her chickens and ducks, and then we got to go say hi to the horses.

There’s something magical about the horses. They smell like comfort.

Every summer when I was growing up I’d get to go to my cousins ranch in Arkansas and ride horses (and work in the chicken houses, but we won’t talk about that here). Riding horses was magical for me, a city kid. And even now every horse I meet is Sugar in my head cause that was the horse I rode every summer.

My kids, especially the oldest, have been begging us to get a horse for years. Especially now that we live in Montana where it seems every single property you drive by has at least two horses. We’ve been sticking to our guns, their dad and I, no horses because money, feed, time, manure…but it’s not easy.

I don’t enjoy being a crusher of dreams, but the idea of getting a horse just so I can smell it and my kids don’t have to be told no is a pretty obvious no brainer. Still.

I’ve smelled like horses all day. I have had every opportunity to change, but haven’t because then I wouldn’t smell like horses anymore. I love that smell. I love the idea of heading out to the pasture in the morning, swinging up on a pony’s back, and riding down to the river…but since I can barely make time to exercise in the morning before the boys wake up and I have to schedule in the twenty minutes I need each week to clean the chicken pen (lemme tell ya, it doesn’t always happen), I think it’s pretty clear we don’t have time for horses.

But maybe goats?

Just kidding.

I know our lives don’t have room for any of that right now. And that’s a good thing. Our lives are very full. Our lives are very wonderful. And there’s always time for these grand things in the future. The boys will keep getting older, as much as I don’t want them to, and there will be more time in each day and then one day, there will be more time in a day than I know what to do with.

In the meantime, maybe I can go pick up our goat milk and snuggle up on our friends horses every now and again and revel in the smell of comfort.