Most of us who reside on this planet are not completely happy, that is to say, we don’t walk around in a state of unmitigated bliss. Actually, we do when we fall in love, but as the cliché goes, love is fleeting. Unhappiness has to do with the fact that we perceive that something’s missing. Material goods are what are usually missing. For many, including myself, the more we get, the more we want.

Everything: I own five healthy, alert, and smart Icelandic horses. And they are right here on my property. I’m also now starting to work with other people’s

horses. This is going quite well. I have a sense of what needs to be done. I’m only working with kind and gentle horses, and kind and gentle people, which is upping my confidence level.

Nothing: I want to keep learning. I need money so that I can do an internship at the Icelandic Horse Farm this winter. I need more land so that I can put up an arena. I need fencing for the arena, and the use of a tractor so that I can level down the area. I need sand, for good footing. I need to build a horse guest facility, so that I can stable lesson horses. See how it goes? I suspect that as long as I have horses, that I will never have it all.

But it’s well within the realm of possibility that I’ll be able to lease the land across the road. I’m itching to get in there are start cleaning it up. I have been visualizing it as a horse facility. I’ve walked around down there – even though the 10 acres has been trashed out, it has a very nice feel to it.

As I write this, I find myself saying, why not? I can do what I want to do on a limited budget.

So a partial answer to the question, what do I do about the supposed “lack” in my life is to have follow through. Rather than bemoan what I don’t have, I should instead work with what I do have. And too, at the same time, continue to be grateful for what I do have.

Being grateful for what one has, not hands and knees grateful, but rather feet firmly on the ground grateful, is very important. I will not deny that being hands on the knees grateful is also valid. I was this way when the morning following Hrimmi’s birth, I looked over the tailgate of the truck and saw her looking at me. It also occurred to me that yes, there probably is a god. The birth of your own foal (after months of indecision) will do this for you.

Most of the time, I’m both feet firmly on the ground grateful. Every time I look at or ride a horse in my HERD I’m at least momentarily awed. A good example of this was a few days ago, when Pete and I were out for a ride. Raudi consistently picked her own way over the boggy parts of the trail, this after taking some time to consider her proposed route.

Update: Hrimmi is coming along with halter training. Pete and I are working slowly on this, because we don’t want to stress her out. It’s also important that she continue, as she’s been doing, to do things of her own volition.

She’s now spending increasingly more time in the larger paddock, with her herd mates. Mother has pretty much decided that child is now large, smart, and fast enough to watch out for herself. She’s keeping a watchful eye on baby, but now letting her rove around. Raudi and Siggi are being very careful, and only interacting with foal when it comes up to them.

Yesterday, I rode Signy up to the bench. On the way down I ran into Pete and Christopher, who decided the Sutton music festival was too pricey, and instead acted on Plan B, which was to meet up with me. I almost literally ran into them on the downward stretch. I was, moments before, so grateful that I was singing at the top of my lungs. We all went back up to the top of the bench, and then back down. Mare and foal did very well. Signy had no stuck chi.

Christopher has now taken on what I see as the more onerous tasks of cooking and cleaning, freeing Pete and I up to keep him company. He will be here 10 more days. I’m already dreading his departure. He’s the brother that I always wished I had.

The freezer isn’t working, so Pete, going into crisis mode, has taken the fish to be stored in a neighbor’s freezer. We’ll get another freezer, and since we don’t have electricity, store the new appliance elsewhere.

Yesterday I turned my second batch of compost. Caught it just in time. I have two more stations to turn. It’s all been cooking nicely. I’m looking forward to packaging it up and selling or bartering it.

It’s an embarrassment of riches around here. The salmon is now plentiful, as are our own garden-grown salad greens.

Next: 192. 06/18/12: Absence, Part II