The Good Luck Horseshoe

Last fall, we took Matthew to Puck's Farm to see farm animals. It's funny what kids choose to like. The only things he thought were funny were cats. As we quickly zoomed through the farm, we saw all kinds of animals like ducks, geese, roosters, chickens, sheep, horses, ponies, and emus (I didn't even know they had those on the farms in Canada). They also had one cow for milking display purposes, and she wasn't looking good either. I said we zoomed because it was cold, even inside the barns.

As I was taking pictures, I noticed this painted-over horseshoe on the wall, as shown in the photo. I remember that, I said. We used to have one in our old house. As a matter of fact, we used to have one on the side of the house, not just a barn. I knew that a horseshoe was always for good luck, but what I didn't know was that pointing upwards is for good luck and pointing downwards is for bad luck. Pointing downwards means that the good luck will fall out (sounds like barn Feng Shui to me). Now, that is funny, because who would ever want to place the horseshoe facing downward if it meant bad luck? Definitely not me.

Well, well, now that I recall, our horseshoe hanging on the house was facing down. Did we have bad luck? And why was it upside down? I don't think we did. I know it's normal that people get sick, die, or leave the house as time goes by; these things happen, and they're all part of life. It was simply down because we just didn't know, but we had to have the horseshoe anyway.

It always amazed me what we chose to believe in. A few years ago, my co-worker came to the office. She is excited and says to us, - "I got to play the lottery; I am so lucky." We all were amazed at how excited she was. We asked, Why? She replied, "On my way to work, just as I pulled out of the driveway, a tree fell behind me. It missed me by a few seconds." It was a big tree also and potentially could cause a lot of damage to her car, never mind that it was probably very dangerous to her too. Did she ever won the lottery? No, her luck was that she wasn't hit by the tree.

Now let me leave you with this quote by R. E. Shay as something to think about: "Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit."

~ Anna

[Previously published on My Only Photo Journey Blog]