Ruby’s Gone Viral!

Aloha AIR ʻohana!

What a wild week it’s been in the online world here at ʻĀina Iki Ranch.

Last Thursday, Auntie Val headed off to her weekly writers’ group while I made the drive to Hilo for my weekly EMDR therapy session (which, by the way, has been absolutely life changing). With both of us away from the ranch, Joshua held down the fort—feeding animals, cleaning stalls, and tackling the usual daily chores.

While out tending to the goats, Miss Ruby, our beautiful Arabian mare, caught his attention…and thankfully, his phone camera.

A little while later, as I was finishing therapy, my phone buzzed with the sweetest video. There was Ruby, sprawled out on the ground, joyfully rubbing her belly, wearing the biggest grin imaginable and enthusiastically bobbing her head as if life simply couldn’t get any better.

Those little videos always brighten my day, especially when I’m away from the ranch. I smiled, saved it to my phone, and continued with my errands around Hilo, never giving it another thought.

Then came Friday night…or, more accurately, 1 a.m. Saturday morning.

For whatever reason, I woke up long before my normal “old lady 4 a.m.” wake-up time and, like so many of us do, started absentmindedly scrolling through Instagram. I came across an adorable video of a dog “dancing” to a cheerful little song that sang:

“Every single cell inside my body, every single cell is happy and well.”

In my half-asleep state, I went to tap the heart button…and somehow ended up opening Instagram’s editing tool instead.

Apparently 1:00 a.m. Marla thought that sounded like a fantastic idea.

So I paired Joshua’s video of Ruby with the song, posted it to Instagram, set my phone down, and promptly fell back asleep, thinking absolutely nothing of it.

The next morning Joshua and I woke up, and I excitedly showed him the little reel I’d made.

I create videos like this all the time. On a typical day they might get twenty likes and a few hundred views. On a really good day, maybe twenty-five likes and around a thousand views.

So when we opened Instagram and saw 1,000 views and 30 likes already waiting for us, we thought, “Well…that’s pretty neat.”

Then we went about our day.

The dogs needed breakfast. Ducks needed feeding. Eggs needed collecting and washing for our weekly customer. Joshua cut weed trees for the goats, fed everyone, and cleaned barns. Before long we packed our instruments, delivered eggs, grabbed lunch, and headed to our weekly music hui with friends.

Over lunch, we opened the reel again.

After all, who can resist watching Ruby happily scratching her back?

10,000 views.

We looked at each other in disbelief.

“This is viral!”

…If only we had known.

We spent the afternoon making music with friends, happily showing everyone Ruby’s joyful little video.

Then the notifications started.

Instagram kept telling me another 10,000 people had watched it.

Then another.

Then another.

Honestly, I assumed the app had glitched and was sending duplicate notifications.

By Sunday morning, I realized it definitely wasn’t a glitch.

I finally took a screenshot.

693,000 views.

Nearly 100,000 likes.

Almost 3,000 reposts.

Nearly 20,000 direct shares.

Those numbers felt completely surreal for our little Instagram page dedicated to our little piece of land and all of its beloved critters.

Fast forward to today…

Ruby has now been seen by more than 2.5 million people.

Our Instagram family has grown by over 2,000 new followers.

Her video has been shared directly with nearly 95,000 people, and over 15,000 people have saved it so they can come back and watch it again.

Even now, I’m still in awe.

I never expected millions of people to meet Ruby…

But I can’t say I’m surprised that they fell in love with her.

Anyone who has met her knows she has something special. She’s gentle, playful, endlessly expressive, and somehow has a way of making people smile without even trying.

What has touched me most hasn’t been the numbers.

It’s been reading through the 1,600+ comments from people all over the world sharing how Ruby made them smile during a hard day, helped them laugh, or simply reminded them that pure joy still exists.

If one happy horse rolling around in the grass can brighten millions of days, maybe that’s a reminder for all of us.

Joy doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sometimes it looks like sunshine, soft grass, and an Arabian mare scratching her belly with her whole heart.

I feel incredibly lucky that I get to spend my days with Ruby—from sunrise to sunset—and even luckier that, for a few magical days, the rest of the world got to experience a little piece of the joy she brings to us every single day.

Mahalo for following along with our little sanctuary and for loving Ruby as much as we do.