A couple weeks ago the Lassen County Times sent me to a ranch on the high desert, about 40 miles north of Reno, Nev. to visit Gino, a rancher who had called about his Arabian, Star. She had just given birth to a blind foal.
Star and Stormy
I went with a friend. We turned off the dirt road and up the driveway where Gino met us.
I did some research on blind horses before heading out to Gino’s ranch, and a lot of what I read was grim. Most insisted a blind horse should be put down. A horse that went blind later in life was no longer useful. A horse born blind had even less of a chance.
Would Gino have something to say about it? He led us to the corral where Star nuzzled her four-day-old foal.
Gino with Stormy, while Star looks on
While many ranchers might have been discouraged at the birth of a blind horse, Gino chose to see it as a “gift from Jehovah.” I don’t know much about Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it was clearly a bedrock for Gino. That and his wife, who passed the previous year, had been his lifelines. Now it was only his faith.
He and his grandchildren, Ryan and Angie, christened the filly, Stormy, and Gino said he hoped to teach her to pull a cart, so they could offer rides to blind and handicapped children.
Ryan and Angie with the horses
She can serve as an inspiration, he said, that no matter your handicap, everyone has a purpose.
“She might not have eyeballs,” he said. “But she gets around by instincts. Just like we have instincts. The water, trough, for instance. She knew almost from the beginning how to go right to it like she could smell the water or something.”
As if on cue, Stormy ambled over and Ryan cupped his hands and let her sip out of his hands.
Stormy drinking from Ryan’s cupped hands
He said, “You don’t see that often, this trust of humans in a foal so young. But Stormy, she loves to be around people.”
We walked into the corral and Gino stroked Stormy’s gleaming chestnut coat. “I call her the golden cross,” he said. “A perfect Arabian in every way except she can’t see.”
Brushing Star while Stormy nurses
Born on the south side of Chicago before anyone had heard of nuclear weapons and people thought terrorism had to do with Halloween, Gino grew up in foster homes and orphanages. As soon as he started getting comfortable in one, it seemed, he was moved someplace else. Finally, when he was 12, he left for good hitch-hiking across the country in search of his mother who he never found.
It gave him a hardness, but also empathy, and he feels a connection with Stormy; he knows what it feels like to be an outcast. He said he’ll keep her and Star together. They’ll both be well cared for. Although they’ll be leaving the ranch, Gino has made arrangements to board them just outside Reno.
Stormy likes to be around humans
Since his wife died, he’s finding it harder to keep the place together, so he’s planning to sell everything and move to Reno. He also wants his grandkids to have more opportunities, although he wonders if uprooting them from the ranch and taking them to the city is the right move.
As we talked, he leaned on the wooden gate and looked out over the ranch, acres of high desert, sage and creosote bush stretching out to the Fort Sage Mountains. He showed us the scar on Star’s neck where a mountain lion had clawed her and the patch of desert where alfalfa once grew.
Angie and Star
“I’ve looked for this place my entire life,” Gino said. “And now I’m leaving it behind.”
But Gino’s not one to dwell on the past. He reasoned moving to Reno will give him more opportunities to work with Stormy, fulfilling their mission of inspiring the blind.
Gino will soon be leaving the ranch he loves
Probably his biggest fear, and a justifiable one, is that the ranch will turn back to desert and in a few years all signs of its existence will be an abandoned house, barbed wire snaking across the ground and fence posts used for target practice.
“Land is a gift from Jehovah,” said Gino. “It should be used and appreciated. I hate to leave all this but I don’t know what else to do. I just can’t handle it all any more.”
Star and Stormy
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In January, I spent a weekend at the City of 10,0000 Buddhas near Ukiah, California. These people were serious meditators. I think there were some monks who never left the lotus position for days, maybe weeks on end.
Then came the moment when I thought my legs were going to fall off, so I headed outside to explore the grounds. The City of 10,000 Buddhas was once an insane asylum. Things have changed, but it wasn’t hard to imagine its more painful past. Today, the City of 10,000 Buddhas offers education, a library and retreats. There are also dozens of peacocks wandering the grounds.
Male peacocks, with their flamboyant plumage, tend to get the most attention, but I found the plainer, females had their own beauty and glossy patterns as well.
