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January 12, 2020: The State of the Farm Address

Raudi here, lead mare and horse extraordinaire, giving all you out there the annual update. I get the honors, being the animal who has been at Squalor Holler the longest. Tinni is the oldest, but he didn’t want the job. He said that everything is just fine and that Alys seemed to have things covered.

First of all, and very importantly, Alys is currently revising If Wishes were Horses: A Returning Rider’s Search for the Perfect Horse. She wrote it. I wrote Raudi’s Story. We have differing and similar perspectives about my first four years and think that this will interest a broad readership. Alys isn’t as good a writer as I am, but I figured

Alys and Raudi performing a trick
Alys and Raudi performing a trick

that I’d humor her along so that I might get more readers reading my story. Right now, she’s thinking that the two books will be together. Fair enough.

I hope she gets done with this project soon – I want to write another book about some of the adventures that we’ve had together. Alys, who writes up what I dictate to her, says that first she has a few other book length projects that she first needs to finish up.

Anyhow, we’ve had a somewhat unusual winter thus far. We had a lot of rain in November, then we got some snow in December. Now, this January, it has been quite cold. Alys and Pete have been spending considerable time putting on and taking blankets off the four of us. We mares generally don’t need the blankets, I mean that we’d survive without them – but I must say that they are warm on a cold winter’s night.

Alys has been talking about putting hot water bottles on our backs under the blankets. Seems like this is just another one of her many ideas because she has not done this yet. We’re all hoping that she gets to this, quick.

She hasn’t been riding us very much – the walks around the loop and on the area trails have been a lot of fun though.

The goats came down for a visit today. They have had a hard time with the cold this winter. Ranger’s been making noises about hopping in a horse trailer and heading south. Says he has relatives in New Mexico. Stormy isn’t sure she’ll join him. She feels safe here and doesn’t want to risk being eaten. She still hasn’t conceived. They’ve bred her, twice. I say lucky goat. I’m still waiting to have a Tête-à-Tête with the Icelandic stallion of my dreams. I hear that we’ll be doing another long trip in 2021. Maybe then. Alys is for it, but Pete is opposed to the idea.

I saw Alys walking around with a chicken one day. She took it up into the Playground of Higher Learning and she carried her in, over, and under the agility obstacles. Hah. I’d like to see her carry one of us around the course.

The dog Ryder continues to accompany us out on the trails. She’s becoming an old lady dog, doesn’t want to trudge through deep snow anymore. Happens to the best of them.

How come, we are wondering, it’s called a dog’s and not a horse’s life? Is it because dogs get to go into houses and we don’t? This is just another one of life’s unfairnesses.

Next: 13. 1/13/20: Bright Lights: Burning the Candle at Both Ends

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