You're actually ASKING me to yammer on MORE about Keith? Good...cause I can't say enough about him.
Keith is my love, my buddy, my rock star, and he is the patron saint of all animals and children. One look at Keith and they all know that he will protect them from the world.
You could say I married a fancy man, but that was then. We were both confirmed city dwellers, wildly impractical artists and musicians, staying out late playing gigs and sleeping til noon. How lacking were we in basic skills? We used to hire my sister to mow our lawn...we were too busy with artistic, musical and intellectual pursuits.
Then I discovered gardening...Keith asked me not to work so hard, as I was making him look bad. Hehe...I think his ears were seared by my response...
As they say, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, and so it goes. For love of gardening, we sold our first house and bought a 1/2 acre in the middle of Portland. In posession of a 1/2 acre, I fell into fulfilling a lifelong dream of owning a horse.
When the opportunity to adopt Mingus came, a logical, realistic person would have said no way.
Keith said "You HAVE to do it."
He went from thinking he was afraid of horses to falling head over heels with first, Mingus, then each horse that found its way into our lives.
You would still never call either one of us "handy" or "practical," but thanks to our horses, Keith has discovered talents and muscles he never knew he had. Due to my health problems, these days Keith does all the heavy lifting, both literally and figuratively, including hauling heavy buckets of water in the wee hours in horrid weather, loading hay, and felling and cutting up trees. Those who knew him in his earlier life are flabbergasted. Whodathunk?
But what I especially love is seeing the true measure of his love for our horses when it is combined with his love of music. He often sits out in the corral (in summer, of course), playing guitar, surrounded by his biggest fans.
One of my absolute lifetime moments is Liberty Class. I am merely the assistant, which allows me to watch my horse and my husband perform to the original music Keith wrote and recorded for Mingus. I have to say, it's very difficult to be a good assistant when your eyes are filling with tears.