I was, as is often the case, having a hard time sleeping last night. Sometimes when this happens, I lift my head and shoulders (our futon is on the floor) and I look out the window. I can’t see down in the horse enclosure, so I don’t know why I do this. It may have been, last night, that I saw a flashing light on the ceiling.

I don’t know. Anyhow, I looked out the window, and my eyes were drawn to the horse pen, and just beyond it. I was instantly filled with fear, as I saw a blinking light. I thought that perhaps someone was down with the horses, doing god knows what. I

Pete turning compost

woke Pete, who was asleep, saying quite loudly, “Pete, there’s something wrong. There’s a flashing light down in the horse pen.” Pete sat up, moved over, and peered out the window.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we have to go and check it out.”

As we were dressing Pete speculated that the problem might be that a tractor light was on.

“You think that someone is stealing the tractor light?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s the light.”

I left it at that. He hurried down to the tractor, and I finished dressing and followed. I was midway down the very icy hill when I made out the outlines of all four horses.

“Everything okay?” I yelled.

Pete said yes, so I turned around and went back up to the house. My concern was with the horses, not the tractor. That’s Pete’s responsibility.

He came back up to the house and told me that the toggle switch that activates lights was on. I surmised that maybe a cat tripped it. Pete thought not, he instead speculated that this had something to do with water getting inside the unit. (My words, I don’t know what the technical terms for what was going on, actually are.)

We talked for a bit before falling back asleep. Actually, Pete went back asleep, I tried but could not. Then, a short while later, I saw it again, the flashing light on the ceiling. I again looked out the window. And I again saw the blinking light. This time I was not afraid. This was because I knew that the problem was tractor related.

Pete, now seemingly irritated, got up, got dressed and went back out again, with the hope of rectifying the problem. I stayed in bed, turned on the light and resumed reading a book in which the author attempts, in a year, to learn to play the French Horn, in hopes of doing a solo at the British French Horn Society gala. This is a book that I have considered giving up, but no, I just keep reading it. The history is dry, and I do not have enough of a music background to understand what it is he is attempting to learn.

I read a few pages. Pete returned, said that he disconnected the battery. So the problem isn’t solved, but at least we know what it is. I of course was just glad that this was a machine malfunction, one that had nothing to do with the horses.

Next: 361. 12/30/21: New Year’s Eve Eve