After my birthday I’m usually depressed. The feeling is what I feel when I was a kid, the day after Christmas. In part, because I am then having to deal with the fact that, yes, I am now really another year older. And being older, I know the number of years I have left are numbered. Add to this, time is now speeding up. I thought that it would reach a continuum and then remain at the same rate, but no, it is going by even faster. So I can in terms of time, half the number of years left. This, and having few family members left, seems to me to be life’s greatest unfairness.

Alys and Tyra

I am not depressed today. Actually, I feel a near sense of euphoria. The only time I feel euphoric is when I experience the gift of a good ride, like last night, on Tyra. I took her on the trail and around the loop – she has plenty of energy and takes her job, which is that of a riding horse, seriously.

Woke up this morning to rain. This is a good thing, I thought because the past two days the weather was excellent early on, cloudy and overcast midday, then rainy when I headed inside. I took advantage of an open window of opportunity and both days, got all four horses out.

At the back of my mind was the thought that I am falling behind on my EMT studies. I suspect that had the weather been good today, I would have again hopped out to take advantage of the window.

No, I will resume studying shortly. And I have class tonight.

But this morning, as I was picking up heavy, sodden, wet horse poop, it occurred to me that, yes, we pretty much do have our horse act together. True, there are a few things that need to be done – for instance, I want to cut down the brush behind the house leading to the horse arena. And I want to put in railroad ties from behind the house leading to the arena. This way, I’ll have easy access from the house to the playground. And we have a few enclosure fence posts that need replacing. And the rubber mats in the horse pen need to be pulled closer together. They have slipped out of place. And I need to put more gravel in the pen itself. The water is puddling up.

Ahh, the operative phrase is dialed in. We are there. I reflected back as I put the buckets out in the yard for Bill. We have done an amazing job, having 2.5 acres to work with. We have a manure management system – what Bill doesn’t haul away we compost. We have an enclosure in which the horses have shelter and contact with one another. We have a playground of higher learning. And is this serendipitous or what? We have a loop road with very little traffic and access to state trails. Yes, the trails are trashed, but there’s a rumor that those who are in positions of power may bring about change.

Dialed in, indeed. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

Next: 259. 9/19/19: Trauma Drama