the cup

As always, click on any picture to make it larger.

On my rides to the river, there was one spot where I loved to stop, get off my horse, and poke around. I called it the ghost farm. I always got the feeling that Blue enjoyed the place, too.

I'd peek into the old sheds, wondering what sort of livestock had called them home.

I tried to imagine what the purpose of each building had been.

I once knew a lady who lived in the house; she was the teacher of my adult Sunday School class at the local Baptist Church, years ago. I loved to imagine what life had been like for her, living tucked away in a bank on a hillside in what once had been a coal miner's shack.

Most of the sheds couldn't even be seen from the road.

I'd poke around in the leaves for things that had been thrown away... but I never disturbed a thing. I only looked, and sometimes touched.

Discarded items from lives lived long ago.

Then one day I saw this cup with no handle, and it haunted me until, three days later, I rode back and got it.

I'm so glad I did, because less than a month later, the new owners of the property burned every shed to the ground.

The cup with no handle seems right at home in the cabin my husband fixed up for me at the back of our place, and it reminds me of the fun I had snooping around the ghost farm with my horse.


When I'm at my cabin, as I was a few hours ago, and see the cup, it reminds me of all the fun times my horse and I enjoyed at the ghost farm, just looking at somebody's discarded yesterdays.