Photo by Erika Bock

This is a photo of the broodmare pasture along the Skeena River in British Columbia, at Trakehner Hof, the farm of Klaus and Erika Bock.  Erika sent me this photo as a Christmas Card, and gave me permission to share it with everyone as part of my Sunday Photos series.

The Bocks have been breeding and selling sport horses for 20 years and their offspring can be found from California to New York.  As Erika says, their goal is to breed “an athletic and versatile horse with a good disposition and a good mind — a healthy horse with a healthy mind.”

If Trakehner Hof were closer to me, there’s a good chance I’d have one of their horses by now, and I hope some day I do.  I love Trakehners, which is the only true breed (rather than registry) of warmbloods.  There’s no better trot, in my mind, than the trot of a well-bred Trakehner.

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This photograph was taken many years ago, from a window in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, long before it was home to the hip and rich.  My friend Ken McKay took the picture when he lived there with my Yankee-Irish horse whispering boyfriend.   The loft was on the sixth floor, and the glass of the window was punctuated by bullet holes but that didn’t stop Ken from seeing the beauty outside it.

Now, Ken’s photographs are part of a group show entitled “Old Williamsburg,” featuring photographs from the early 80s (that’s 1980s) through the 90s.  This just goes to show that old is a relative term, which makes some of us feel rather cozy and warm, as we should around the holidays.

The show is at The Brooklyn Ale House, at the corner of N. 8th and Berry streets.  You can catch it there any day until whenever, from 3pm to 4am (it’s Williamsburg, after all, where you can get carrot-ginger soup and lots of other things that might catch your fancy, at all hours of the day and night).

If you make the trek, or you find yourself there, visit my favorite restaurant anywhere in New York City:  Diner.  It’s within walking distance.

Because of the snowstorm, Halloween got cancelled in much of New England. My little niece Eloise has still not recovered.  This is for her, and for you.