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September 20, 2019: Rain

This morning Pete observed that the drought that southcentral Alaska has been experiencing is over. This, I thought, is an understatement because it has been raining on and off now for several days. Today it rained really hard – the sky was as dark as it could be. Rather than allow myself to be depressed by these conditions, I determined that I would take advantage of the situation and get some work done inside.

So far, I’ve written up two trip dispatches. I am nearly caught up. I have four more to go. My being done is going to free me to work on other writing projects. I am looking forward to this.

Cluadia and her young horse Fonix
Cluadia and her young horse Fonix


I really want to be out with the horses. I am (however) now reminding myself that I need to remain adaptable mentally, and not give in to weather-related malaise, meaning crawl into bed and wait there until the sun comes out. Indeed, the sun will come out again. I will then need to remind myself that I need to be adaptable, and not give in to weather-related euphoria and spend all my waking hours tending to and riding and playing with the ponies.

In other words, I need to strike a balance. I can do this.

I am actually, right now, cheered by the fact that yesterday I had a cognitively-related breakthrough in terms of how I’m studying my EMT material. I imitated Erin, who is in my class, and put my Trauma Skills sheet information on notecards. I then began to work on memorizing the information that I’d written on the cards.

Today I am going to take the cards and write in particulars, which I will study as I am going about my day-to-day activities. How cool is this? My organizational savvy is (I think) going to serve me in good stead in memorizing and conceptualizing all this material. “All” is a lot of stuff. I often feel like a college freshman – I sometimes want to throw up my hands and say “This is too much work – I just can’t do this!” But deep down, where the daisies grow, I know that I can do this. Thank you Erin, for sharing your study techniques with me.

A comparison can be made here to horse education. Horses, of course, do not study or even plan out their days. In weather like this, they continue to eat and stand around, doing very little. They do interact with one another. For example, this morning I set the hay out and then let the horses back in the pen. Raudi went in first, Hrimmi second, and Tyra third. I then watched as Hrimmi, with her body, communicated with Tyra, telling her to go to the far shelter, this rather than attempt to move in on her and Raudi.

And they interact with me. Yesterday, I did agility, focusing on the use of targets (bucket lids) and hand signals. Claudia squared me away – explaining that I should first use the word hand, and phase out target. And, I should use the word target in directing them to the object in question. This was so beneficial to me, the one who is doing the horsey education. No, the horses don’t go into the arena thinking about what they are going to teach me. I go into the arena thinking about what I am going to teach them. This of course, is on days when it’s not raining.

261. 9/21/19: Weather Dependent

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