The last two days of our trip were as bittersweet as you
could expect. Friday, the last day of
camp, was just as it always has been:
Games day. The girls were each
assigned to a team; Grace to the "plaid" team and Harriet to the "stars" team. They got their assignments on Thursday, so we
had Thursday night to find a bunch of things they could wear on Friday. Grace found some great plaid shirts at Maynard Outdoor Store and Harriet found some leftover clearance 4th of July
stuff with stars on it, as well as a scarf with sea stars at The Paper Store. The point is – get dressed as crazy as you
can in your theme, and dress up your ponies to match!
We got to the barn Friday morning and they started working
on their horses. Scotty and Reno were on
the plaid team. Star (of course) and
Charm were on the star team.
Harriet was a little disappointed not to be riding Checkers
on her last day at camp, but she soon made good friends with Star. [Tragically,
Star died about a month later that summer when a huge storm brought down a
giant maple tree and she and Tucker ate the fresh maple leaves in the
pasture. I had no idea fresh maple leaves are
toxic to horses, but they found out the hard way. Tucker nearly died too, but thanks to the
amazing girls at the barn who stayed with him and gave him 24/7 care for weeks, including
sleeping in his stall each night for months, he slowly was nursed back to health.]
The games are mostly relay races with the horses. They use each horse for one hour and then
switch to the second one on the team.
The girls had a total blast.
These horses are truly amazing.
None of them are fazed one bit by the costumes and things that the girls
put on them. (Really Checkers – a
traffic cone on your head?!)
(one of my favorite pictures, ever, of Grace)
I seriously think the horses have just as much fun as the kids. They always seem enthusiastic for game day.
(putting the horses out to pasture after games)
The end of camp always brings the infamous award ceremony. I love the things the counselors come up with to award the kids.
I dreaded the end of camp because I knew that the good-byes
would have to come next. I wish we could
just skip over that part, but you just have to do it. The girls went out to the field and sobbed into
their ponies’ manes for a good while.
They gave carrots and hugs and lots of see-you-laters.
Goodbyes are hard no matter what, but when
you say goodbye to a horse you might not see again for a few years, you truly run the risk that it really might be your last.
I dread each time, that Tink and Peppe won’t be there the next time we
visit Hybid. Just look at what happened
to Star. Horses are so fragile and their
health can turn on a dime. Plus, these
horses are getting older. It’s been 11
years already since we met Tink and Grace rode her as a toddler. Rita has an amazing track record for keeping
horses going into their 30’s and even one until 40, but the reality is: that’s
not normal. Nothing about Hybid is
normal. My whole life, I’ve been able to
replace barns again and again, no matter where I have moved myself, or my
horses. But, there’s no substitute for
Hybid Farm. We will be forever trying
to get back there for “one more summer.”
Friday night, we were able to meet up with some more great
people. Clare had been staying in Boston
for the summer, so we drove in and picked her up and met Shawn at
Redbones.
Saturday morning, we were supposed to have driven up to Maine. But, after David and I cheated on the kids and went into Boston, they weren’t having it. They got up and announced “WE WANT TO SPEND OUR LAST DAY IN BOSTON – IN BOSTON!” So, we packed up the car with a picnic and headed into the city.
Man, these kids have grown – they really are too big to be sitting on the ducks anymore, but they shrank themselves down enough to do it anyway.
Next stop: Swan Boats. Yeah, there’s no way we could leave without letting them do this.
Then, we had planned to take a duck boat tour. Harriet has never done it. The last time we did it, she was a resident of my belly and Grace was only two, so Grace doesn’t remember it either. We were so out of practice and had the silly idea that we could just walk up to the kiosk and get on a tour on a Saturday. Unforutnately, they were all sold out for the day, so we couldn’t do it. Harriet was pretty upset, but we were able to reign her back in with a trip to the Boston Museum of Science. They thought the lightning machine was super cool.
We only had a few hours left before we really needed to check into the hotel to prepare for the flight – we’d have to get up at about 2am to make it to our flight, so we decided to book a room and avoid waking the Dotys in the middle of the night as we left. Plus, it would cut our driving time to the airport as well if we stayed closer to the city.
Our first stop was Boston Public Gardens. We ate a hodge podge little picnic of leftovers on the lush, green, grass among the birds, right next to the Make Way for Ducklings statue. Harriet spent a lot of time befriending a little bird who really liked sharing her lunch with her.
We had planned to just go say a quick good-bye to the Dotys, but realized that we really needed to spend some time with them. We had been staying at their house for two weeks and still hadn’t seen them. They came home from the Cape while we were in the city, so we stopped at our favorite Thai place in Maynard for some take-out and took it back to their house to eat. We stayed as long as we could, soaking up as much conversation and letting the girls play with their boys. They have all grown up so much since our last time together when they were still little kids on the beach at the Cape. Linda doesn’t like photos of her boys on the internet, so I’m not going to post any, but needless to say, these kiddos feel like some long-lost brothers or cousins to our kids. 
I was so exhausted and ready to go home, it wasn’t quite as
sad for me as I thought it would be.
Harriet couldn’t wait to get home to her cat, and Grace was doing okay
as well. So, saying good-bye to Boston
felt okay this time. David was ready to
go home like 5 days ago.
Farewell Boston, until the next time. All the way home, the kids were trying to
figure out how they could fly by themselves to do horse camp the next
summer. I would totally let them too,
but it is really too expensive to do every year. But, I can see them heading out on their own
in a couple of years to meet up with their favorite ponies and a place they
still call home.
Sweet, sweet, reunions:
We picked up Stryder to find him just about played to death from his 2
weeks at doggie camp. He had eaten his
bed. He had run out of food days ago (they supplemented him when they realized he was burning more calories than we had left for him.) He was pretty happy to see us, but
might have been a little sad to leave his friends. Kit Cat was beyond overjoyed that we were
home. She had been well-taken care of by
our neighbor, but you could tell she had been incredibly lonely without any of
us, or the dog, in the house. We all got
in bed together for a giant family snuggle.
(Harriet bought a little gingerbread house kit on Martha's Vineyard. She colored it and put it together the very next day because we missed it so much!)
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