Proverbial

You can lead a horse to water - and if he's thirsty, he will wrinkle his nose delicately as he lowers his head to drink.

Spotted outside the Mission Santa Barbara on our recent trip down there. Cora was momentarily awestruck by the horses, but then hurled bellicose challenges at them. Happily, the horses couldn't have cared less.

I like the California missions, despite their sometimes decrepit state and despite their despotic history of enslaving the native peoples, for their simplicity and their beautiful gardens. I hope to see them all before I go to heaven.

At Mission San Luis Obispo once, we witnessed a bride arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, her wayward veil lighted by the sun and rising on a warm wind. There is a sweet little park in front of that mission with a stream that runs through town and a delightful statue of a bear on which children love to clamber.

At Mission Santa Ynez, we witnessed the First Communion class emerging from the church, the girls as decorous as miniature brides and the boys dressed in purest white with scarlet sashes. Their mothers must have had a time keeping them clean until after church. The party afterward in the lovely garden was wonderful - we eavesdropped on mostly Hispanic families taking group pictures to mark the day. We even took a few for them, so their whole families could be in the photo.

It doesn't belong on a food blog at all, except for the horse cookie I fed to the patient bay with the rider aboard; the rider had baked horse cookies that morning and shared some with me. The bay was gentle and mannerly, his whiskers tickling my palm as he lipped his treat; my hand came away a little moist from his breath and smelling horsey the way it always did when I owned my own sweet mare.

All these thoughts and memories came while the chestnut drank his fill from the fountain.