Acquired Indifference

Today I picked the girls up from horse camp. They wanted to show me the stables — proud, confident, already moving like they belonged there. I’m not a horse guy. Horses are big, and I don’t always know what they’re going to do. So I stayed back a bit. Watched.

Morningside Stable

There were twelve-year-olds carrying feed and water, squeezing past huge animals without blinking. Just doing the work.

I stood there in kind of stunned disbelief. Somehow I was the coward.

And it clicked — this must be what people feel when they step into the chicken yard at Carlson Harvest. The ducks flap, the geese hiss and snake their heads back and forth like a king cobra, and Edward — the current roosters — gets bucky like he’s got something to say. Most folks hesitate. I don’t. I move through it without thinking. But that ease? I wasn’t born with it.

I grew up with dogs. No barns. No birds. This is all learned. I’ve been pecked and flapped at enough that it just doesn’t shake me anymore.

It comes from showing up, again and again. Ripping out the chain stitch on a feed bag and saying, “You look hungry.”

Edward.

Looking like he’s got something to say.

This is where it starts.

That’s what I saw in those girls — including mine. They’ve been around animals. They work. They’ve fed them. They weren’t just visiting the stable. They were part of it.

When you feed people, or animals, or a place — you stop being a stranger. You build trust, without even trying. You hand someone tomatoes, and they remember you. You share eggs, and a door stays open.

I don’t have all the answers. But I’d like to see more people on the street who aren’t strangers. I think we’re all hungry for that.

Feeding folks.

One jar at a time.