Winter is now safely behind us. The rains that have fallen have been spring rains, not warm, but not mixed with snow or sleet. I returned home to find the buds on the trees opening. Now looking out the bedroom window, I see that in 24 hours things have gotten greener.

An ATV trailer was parked by the Murphy Road trailhead. They didn’t even allow for the ground to harden. It is hard for me to understand how people can be so inconsiderate. My sense of frustration stems from the fact that I can do nothing about it.

Kids at the Kiita Learning Community book fair

I took Hrimmi for a road ride. When I got back, Pete suggested that we take Raudi and Tyra on the trails. He’d gone for a walk with Shadow and Ryder and determined that the ground was still frozen enough for us to do a short ride.

The horses were not ridden in my absence.

I brushed them all. There was a lot of hair, with the metal scraper it came off in sheets. They’ve almost all made the transition from being winter ponies to summer horses. Winter ponies hang out and eat and often don’t respect boundaries. Summer horses go on trail rides and generally mind their manners. Of course, I prefer the latter. Tinni is the exception. He has Cushing’s, so he tends to shed later. The other reason for this is that he’s also lazy.

We rode up and down Siggi’s trail; our encountering and going over the deadfall left by the windstorm made the ride more interesting for us and for the horses. Pete checked out Peaches trail and said that he’s going to need to get the chainsaw out there and cut new paths through the downed timber. I imagine that he’ll make a platform for the pack, so that he can put the chainsaw on it. This is what a friend of ours in Colorado did.

The ground was a bit soft, so we most went at a walk. I did have Raudi canter on the final stretch of the ride home. I’d read earlier that it is best when first getting horses into condition to walk and canter them, and then later transitioning to trotting. This has always made sense to me for, yes, trotting is hard on horses’ backs.

We took the dogs on the outing – they had a wonderful time, running hard and fast and not caring about the fact that there are still many wet areas out there.

Pete said that Bill said that he heard robins. So I suspect that within a week I’ll be greeting them. I am still waiting to see geese. The thought did occur to me as I flew to and from Barrow that we could have a goose strike. The odds of this, of course, increase this time of year. But once again, I cheated death and got lucky.

I do miss Utqiagvik, although it is not a place that I could ever call home.

Next: 127. 5/10/22: Like Pulling Teeth