My Gentle Barn (23 page)

That’s when we had called Larry, a real estate agent, and so there we were, being driven to the ends of the earth and back, looking for a new place. The kids—who were now four and five—came along with us to see most of the properties and they each got to add their vote to the mix. To them it was a grand adventure.

After showing us a slew of properties—including one with horrible drainage in a flood zone and another with a falling-down barn and a house much too small for our family—Larry called us up with genuine excitement in his voice.

“I can’t believe how little they’re asking,” he said. “And I can’t imagine a better fit. This place has your name written all over it.”

This property was in Ojai, not far from the horse rescue where we’d gotten Blue. Larry drove us and the kids on out of the city, back to those beautiful rolling hills. As we drove through the gate and onto the property, I grabbed Jay’s arm. We were all looking wide-eyed through
the window, and Jesse had his nose pressed up against the glass. To the left of the long dirt driveway there were tall sycamore trees next to a creek bed, and on the right was a gently sloping hill dotted with enormous oak trees. Some of the oaks must have been two hundred years old the way their branches stretched out over the chaparral, creating huge disks of deep shadow.

“You wanted shade trees, right?” Jay said.

I nodded, my mouth hanging open.

“We could have a swing!” Molli said.

We drove and drove and yet still we were on the driveway.

“How many acres did you say this was?” Jay asked Larry.

“Seventy.”

“And how many barns?”

“Four. Here’s one, just up ahead.” Larry pointed to an old but solid-looking barn big enough to house all our animals and more. And this was only one of them.

Fourteen times the acreage we’d requested. A hundred and forty times more than we currently had. Four times the amount of shelter for the animals. It didn’t seem possible this was in our price range.

When we got to the house, we saw why.

The structure would be better described as a shack, with windows that were barely visible behind all the wood that had been used to board them up. The stairs up to the high front porch were missing footboards every other rung (they’d probably been used to board up the windows). There was no paint visible on the shingles, which had turned a dark, warped gray and were starting to rot. Yellow tape was strung across the front stairs.

If it had been just Jay and me, we would have snapped up this dream of a property in two seconds. We could have camped out in one of the barns while we slowly raised the money to build a house. But it wasn’t just Jay and me. We had two children to consider. Two children who needed hot meals and running water.

Reluctantly we drove off that property and returned to square one.

“We’re never going to find anything,” I said to Jay. We were lying in our bed in the dark.

“Sure we are,” he said, and he wrapped me in his big bear arms. After hours on the road, a promising buildup, and a shiny new dream yanked away, I didn’t have the energy to be a visionary. It was his turn to play optimist.

Limbo is not my favorite place to be. My heart was no longer completely there on our half-acre but it had nowhere new to land. I continued to work with Blue, who remained inconsolable. I continued to lead my groups and have visitors come on Sundays. I continued to be a mom to two kids and sixty animals. But I was restless and distracted. It didn’t help that notices kept arriving on our doorstep with words like “final warning” and “pending legal action.”

Doubts and a sense of urgency began clouding my perspective, and Jay and I returned to our talks about whether to fight Paige in court or just give up on the dream entirely and get day jobs.

Larry kept calling, but now I was asking loads of questions over the phone before I got back on the emotional roller coaster of visiting places that were
almost
right.
What shape is the barn in? How is the house? Would
you
live in it? When you say a “hill” do you mean a sheer drop into an abyss?

One time he called to say, “I’ve got the perfect place. The house is beautiful. The barn is brand-new. There are ten acres with a very,
very
gentle incline.… It’s just a little outside your budget.”

Oh, just a
million and a half
outside our budget? Sure, I’d love to drive forty miles to go see how amazing our life could be if only we were rich.

Larry’s calls no longer held promise, only frustration and a chunk of my day stolen. So when Jay told me one Saturday that Larry had called and that he sounded more excited than he’d heard him in a while, I said, “Oh God, please don’t make me see any more properties.”

“But what if this is the one?” Jay said. “Larry sounded really amped. Besides, what’s our alternative—shut down the Gentle Barn?”

I succumbed and called the agent back.

“I’m asking you, please,” Larry said, “just come see this property. I think this might be the one meant for you.”

This was not the first time I’d heard him say this.

“I just can’t do it,” I told him. “I think I’m done. It’s running me ragged.”

“If you see this place and you don’t like it, I promise I’ll stop calling.”

Larry drove Jay and the kids and me from Highway 101 south to the 405 north to the 5 north to the 14 north, and I thought,
Where in the world is he taking us now?
As we followed the signs for Santa Clarita, the terrain went from dry to dryer to parched and scarred—land so arid the weeds were clinging by a thread to their life force.
Hell if I’m bringing my animals and kids to live out here
, I thought. As we headed down a steep road called Sand Canyon, I looked over at Jay. He was frowning and squinting hard at the sun-scorched hillside, and I was glad we both seemed to be on the same page.

“I don’t see any houses,” Molli said.

“Me either,” said Jesse.

“I promise there’s a house,” Larry said.

We turned onto another highway and about two minutes later the car slowed and we pulled off the road onto the sandy shoulder and up to a gate. As we drove in through the gate onto a gravel driveway I felt just a bit less disgruntled. I can’t explain why; there were still no trees and the land looked just as barren. But my mood lightened and I found myself smiling.

“Hey, this looks like really good drainage,” Jay said.

He was right. The land sloped in a very gentle grade. And yet, I doubted drainage was necessary; it looked like it never rained.

There were no barns whatsoever. There weren’t even any fences dividing the land into corrals or pastures. The whole of the place was covered with dried-out weeds. Larry stopped the car and we all got out,
and the kids ran ahead of us into the dry grass. As we walked across the land I began seeing perfect spots for corrals and barns. The place was six acres, plenty of space to put in shelters and fence off a barnyard and a corral, plant shade trees, maybe even a grassy area for the kids.

“Look,” Jay said as we arrived at a level spot. “This would be a perfect place for the barnyard.”

“We could plant shade trees right along here,” I said.

Each step of the way we were designing a habitat—corrals, barns, maybe even an infirmary.

“A house!” Jesse yelled.

When we caught up with him at the high end of the property, we got a better view of the house.

“It’s a princess palace,” Molli said.

And sure enough the two-story, gray-blue Victorian—with red, green, pink, and blue trim—looked like it had come straight from Disneyland, or off the top of a wedding cake.

Larry opened the low gate and led us up the front steps. The living room was large and airy, with shiny hardwood floors that extended into the dining room as well as a breakfast nook. There was also an additional family room and a bathroom just off the kitchen. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and two more bathrooms.

“We’ll take it,” I said.

“Ellie,” Jay said, “wait a minute. Don’t you want to talk about this first?”

I turned to face him. “Well, what do you think?”

A smile spread slowly over his face; then he nodded. Molli beamed and Jesse gave me a thumbs-up.

“We’ll take it,” I said.

Over the next days and weeks, the energy in our home and barnyard was completely different. I sang as I fed the animals each morning. I
practically danced as I mucked out the barn. Another notice arrived from Building and Safety, and I threw it on the coffee table unopened. My stomach no longer tied itself in a knot when I heard Paige in her backyard. We were outta there and on to bigger and better things.

We had plenty of work ahead of us. We were going to have to put in all the fencing to create the corrals and barnyards. We would have to build barns and stalls and we’d have to run electricity and water down to them. And with all the money we were about to spend on the property, it looked like we’d be doing all the work ourselves. But we were up to it. Our excitement would carry us through.

A few days before escrow was to close I got a call from Liz at the horse rescue in Ojai.

“Ellie, you’re not going to believe this,” she said. “Sasha has been returned.” Blue’s friend, Sasha.

The little girl who’d received Sasha as a gift had been doing great with her … until her mother decided to get in the saddle to “fine-tune” the horse’s manners. Apparently she had tried to beat the poor horse into submission, at which point Sasha had begun bucking and behaving badly. They’d brought Sasha back to the rescue, returned for defective behavior.

“Liz, that’s amazing. Oh my gosh, we’re going to be able to reunite them.” But where? Any moment we were about to move to a property that had no horse corral, no fences, no shelter. We were hoping to get onto our new land as quickly as possible and start building the corral and barnyard, but we had no idea how long that would take. And yet I didn’t want to put off Blue and Sasha’s reunion. They had waited long enough.

“I’ll tell you what,” Liz said. “Why don’t I arrange for a temporary foster home for the two of them.”

Liz took Sasha to the foster home, and later that same day we loaded Blue into the horse trailer and drove her north on Highway 5. We arrived an hour later, and as I was leading Blue out of the trailer, a horse whinnied just around the corner from where we’d parked. The
moment Blue heard this, she whinnied back and tossed her head and snorted, then rose up on her hind legs, straining against the lead. I had never seen her so full of life.

When we had rounded the corner, Sasha—a black mare taller and younger than Blue—came into sight. I let go of Blue’s lead and she headed straight through the open gate into the pasture. The two horses ran at each other, whinnying. They circled around each other, found each other’s faces and inhaled each other in a horse greeting. They reared up, side by side, then circled again and rubbed their bodies together, then groomed each other with their mouths. Suddenly Blue withdrew and stomped her feet and bellowed. I could just imagine her saying,
Where have you been, Sasha? You had me worried sick! How dare you leave me like that!
Sasha stood patiently until Blue was done scolding her. Then Blue approached again and the two went back to rubbing against each other and grooming each other. They went on like this, loving and nibbling and grooming, for a good hour. Jay, the foster family, and I watched and wept. We couldn’t tear ourselves away until the two horses had finally settled down and gone off side by side to eat and drink.

Before we left that day, we went to Blue and Sasha and promised them they would never be separated again. But the two would have to wait to come to their permanent home until we could get onto the new land and build a corral and shelter for them.