Unreal. Another nice day in paradise – a bit nippy, but the sun again shone brightly. As Kurt Vonnegut once said “and so it goes.” And as Alys Culhane now says “and hope it continues.”

I was disciplined this morning. I worked until noon on Lessons Twice Learned, first focusing on the chapter about me observing my friend Nancy and Raudi in a lesson. Then I worked on the accompanying sidebar, which is about using soft eyes (peripheral vision) in observing instructors.

Then I went outside. Pete and I took the horses on the old lower and new upper trail. They seemed glad to get t. I ponied

Chickeroo

Hrimmi while riding Raudi – I used soft eyes; this must have worked because the ponying, which was up to Jim’s Road trail, was without incident. Raudi and I are now at the point in time in which we really do know one another quite well. She was attentive but not reactive when a mother moose and her calf went running across a field.

We got home – I cleaned the goat pen – I did a really good job – I did this because I keep thinking that it’s going to snow, but the snow keeps holding off, and the pen keeps getting cleaner.

Last Friday, I got my hairs cut – Betty Pierce, who cuts my hairs, showed me some drawings she’d recently done of chickens. She explained that she was in a chicken drawing phase. Some of her illustrations were of chickens in groups of three, which made me think of my chickens. I mentioned to Betty that I had three chickens, and she suggested that I take and send her some photos of them. The sun (at 3 p.m.) was low in the sky, so the light was both diffuse and at an angle. This was very good for photo taking, so for about 45 minutes I chased Freebird, Chickaroo and Sophie around the backyard – and got some nice images. Doing this made me realize how much I’ve missed doing photography. If I had a printer I’d print up some of my photos.

This evening I did some organizational work for Lessons Twice Learned – first I went through my dressage magazines – the one’s that Katie Long used to own – and I made a list of articles that I might later cite. In doing research, one realizes that they’re getting somewhere when names and themes become commonplace. The most common themes were Sports Psychology, Animal Behavior, and most importantly, equine human mind/body awareness.

I also made a list of books I’d like to interlibrary loan, those by riding Instructor Mary Wanless being the most important. And I made yet another list in which I wrote down things that I still need to mention in chapters 1-4.

So it was a productive day. Just so long as the sun shines, and I’m able to get out, I’ll be okay. Dark now at 5 p.m. I just have to make sure that I continue to make good use of my indoor and outdoor time.

Next: 302. 11/13/14: Moving Forwards