Alex Hover: Farrier
“It feels very peaceful here,” I say as Alex and I stand in his barn with the warm June sun spilling in through the open doors.
“I’m glad you feel that. I wanted a place that felt peaceful because I didn’t always feel that in places growing up.”
Alex and Penny
Alex has been a farrier since he was in his twenties.
His quarterhorse, Penny, stands still in the middle of the barn, patiently waiting for her new shoes.
I watch Alex work the forge and shape the steel. I witness his decades of practice in action as he prepares each horseshoe. I watch his hands move quickly and efficiently to get each shoe on Penny. He is gentle yet decisive.
You can tell the type of hands that have built a life. Done that elemental work of creating something from nothing. Stories written in callouses and scars. The grit of years spent honing a skill.
You can’t fake that.
Hard work, hand-in-hand with dedication, are what makes a man a leader, a teacher, a master of his craft.
Alex and I trade stories of wild horses and photography. We marvel at the patterns in the smoke and laugh at how small the world seems sometimes.
