Ever since I retired, I have been able to take a nap almost every day. Sometimes twice a day. I took naps when we lived at the house across the street, but now that we have moved, I seem to take more naps than ever.

Moving changed a lot of things in our lives.

I can remember when I woke up from a nap I would just lie there on the couch and look at the big picture on the wall above me.

It is a 20-by-30 aerial color shot of our horse farm. And my strongest memory of the picture is how much work it took to survive owning a horse farm. The work went from getting 2,000 pounds of grain every month, to feeding the horses twice a day, to keeping the stalls clean, to having to make 3,000 bales of hay each summer, and the monthly hauling of sawdust from Amish country for bedding of the stalls.

That was a lot of work for George during each the 49 years (1972 to 2021) we owned the farm.

But now, since we have sold the farm, we don’t have any of that work to do. Now, when I wake up from a nap, I can lie there and look at that same picture that is again above the same couch and never think of the work. I just think of the good memories of when we had people come to ride and what a lot of fun it was to watch the 4-H kids get ribbons at the horse shows.

The picture of our horse farm is extra large because it includes the training track which is the same size as any half-mile harness horse race track.

We were fortunate to have a special frame made for the picture. It was made to look as though you were looking out a window to see the farm. A friend of ours snapped the picture while he was already in a plane taking other aerial shots of other places. He just happened to look down, and when he saw George’s farm, he snapped a picture of it. When he told me what he had done, we decided to enlarge it, and I would give it to George as a Christmas present. This particular picture was taken on Nov. 1 in 2006. It was on the very same day that George and I had to get a flight to Florida because our son-in-law had just died that same morning.

Sometimes when I look at the picture, I try to count the horses in it. The horses look no bigger than ants. Today I found 12 horses, but I know there are another 12 in the picture somewhere, just not visible. The top of the picture is a mass of autumn leaves on trees, blocking the view of the village in the background.

I could write more about the work of owning a horse farm, but I think I’ll go take a nap.