Thankfulness

Thank-ful-ness.
Sometimes things have a way of showing them self to you. They create a feeling and your so comfortable with it that you barely pay it any mind then one day suddenly there it is. Its been there all along but you were too busy or not in the right frame of mind to notice it.
Yesterday I realized one of those things. I am tremendously grateful and thankful for.....you wont believe it........ a clothes line. I love laundry on the line. I kinda hate putting it up there but the reward of seeing up on the line is what pulls me through the part I dislike. It is satisfying and fulfilling to see it and to smell it after it has dried in our warm Michigan air. We have this beautiful smell in our yard in the evening, kinda sweet and comfortable. I am not even sure what plants or trees make that smell but if you leave your clothes up after dark or even overnight they smell just like that the next day. And ooohhhh if you put blankets or sheets up and leave them over night, they smell like the sweet summer air for several nights after you put them on the bed.

I think my love affair with the clothes line goes back to summer days at my grandparents house. Gram always had laundry on her clothes line. She had a beautiful sturdy clothes line that I often tied my Pony Pebbles to. Much to my Grams despair I would do this even when there was laundry on the line. I can remember thinking that I shouldn't do it, Gram will not approve, but justifying it was easy, I would say to myself Pebbles was the most wonderful pony on earth she couldn't possible harm Grams sheets. In my eyes that pony was perfect. Actually I still see her as perfect. Looking back it amazes me how wise she was. She wasn't much older than 5 or 6 when I started riding her. My Grandpa had saved her from a Kill pen. She was very petite but had perfect horse confirmation in a little package. She was a Sorrel with Flaxen mane and Tail. That pony was smart she knew how to handle children. She had a load limit. If you were of a certain age or certain size you were too big for her. She would figure out how to get you off her back, most of the time a small half hearted buck would do the trick, nothing hard enough to hurt anyone just enough to announce her protest. If that didn't work she would trot you to death with short choppy steps that no one could stand.
I have heard such horror stories about Ponies but I often think to myself" if I were a pony I would not want some of those brats on my back either". Maybe ponies are justified in their behavior, I don't know? I do know that my pony was the best on earth and the wisest. After all she even taught me to be thankful for clothes lines.