It was a great pleasure to see Ken Norman this morning. When someone has been in great pain as long as Ken has, you tend to forget what they were like before the pain began. Ken was in pain for nearly ten years. A willful and work-obsessed man, he didn’t really deal with the pain until last December, when he had both knees replaced in a surgical procedure that left him in even more pain for months.

A farrier’s life is not an easy or simple life. Ken and his wife Eli had a long and hard and painful winter, Eli broke her wrist, was in great pain herself and needed surgery. She fell down Friday night and the pain returned, but nothing new was broken. Ken looked about 20 years younger, his demeanor was easy and cheerful – he can be grumpy and mono-syllabic and stoic – he looked great, he moved easily and smiled readily. He even cracked a few jokes.

Modern medicine is challenging and difficult,  but it can be miraculous. I was thinking, watching Ken, that just a few years ago I would be dead and he would be crippled for life. And here we both are, back at it, feeling better. Ken’s recovery was long and hard, but we could see this morning that he is coming through it. I may not have ever known Ken when he wasn’t in some kind of pain, it was nice to meet him again, to see him reborn.

Few people have the will, skills and strength to take care of horses and donkeys. They are important, necessary to keeping animals in the every day world. The animal rights activists in New York claiming it is abuse for horses to pull carriages would do well to avoid Ken, they would get an earful or worse. People like Ken make it possible for animals to remain in our lives, I am grateful to him and to his  new knees. I am also grateful to the many generous people who supported him on his gofundme drive before the surgery.