For Sale: Horse Farm by Stream With Acres and Acres to Dream

Eighty acres, stable, pond, corral, red barn, and trails through oak and chestnut groves, wild turkeys nesting overhead. Fig bush, peach trees, berry briars. Historic house included.

I'd have bought it all for the river just beyond, where fields of soy beans and corn frazzle into swamp, crabs swim into traps, gulls and geese patrol the shore.

All it took was $500,000, and hours. To ride and ride.

Also to curry the horses, shovel the stalls, fix the fences, mow the lawns, tend the gardens, harvest the hay and grain, can the fruit the day it's ripe.

But I'd be so busy earning, earning, earning that $500,000, I'd forget to exercise the mares, teach the foals to jump, and spur the stallion through the waves beneath the moon like a silver coin.

Still - if it's still for sale next year....

Though there's an ancient cabin closer to the water that would also suit me well, with an adjacent chicken coop, cabbage patch, crab traps fastened to the shaky pier, and there would not be much point in fussing to keep it up....