This morning I got up, opened the door, and noticed that more snow had fallen during the course of the night. It looked like the same old, same old, wet heavy stuff. I put on my inside and outside clothes and headed outside. Sassy heard me and started bleating. I let her out of her pen and together we headed down to the horse pen.

I grabbed hay out of the hay shed and first fed Tinni, then entered the mare’s pen. I heard a crack and saw Hrimmi startle, jumping sideways.

I then looked at where the sound came from and saw that a branch on the old tree outside the pen had snapped off and was on the ground outside the pen. I then started looking around and saw that there were broken branches everywhere, including on top of our horse trailer. I trudged through the deep snow to the center of the pen and put the hay out for the mares. This way, I thought, they’d be safe.

Broken trees on the road

I went back up to the cabin and told Pete about the situation and he said he’d check it out after breakfast. His response reminded me of an old New Yorker cartoon. The man is in a chair next to the window, and behind him is the moon, which is larger than life. She says to him, “just this once honey, you should look at the moon.”

In other words, I presumed that Pete did not believe anything was amiss outside.

I went back outside, finished picking up poop, and the took a walk by myself around the loop. There were branches on the road, and every so often I’d hear snap, snap, snap.

All the while, it kept snowing.

Pete, after breakfast, went outside and assessed the situation. He ended up shoveling snow off the trailer and horse shelter roof. While he was doing this, I was attending an online meeting with Milena, Michele who works for Kaladi Brothers coffee, and Erin Kirkland who has an Anchorage airport-based program similar to ours.

It went very well. Pete had talked about their being a Bright Lights II start up in Anchorage, and this may very well come to be.

The advantage I have over the others at this meeting is that they all have a lot going on. Me, I just have this project and my animal-related interests. A good thing, because, for instance, I could not do as Milena did, and drive a vehicle during a storm and attend a meeting at the same time.

And it continued to snow. I cleaned the upper quadrant animal pens and was accompanied by Sassy, who rode the manure sled down the hill.

Pete plowed, which enabled us to get out of here this afternoon.

We met up with Joe, who works for the Goose Creek Correctional Facility, and he took over 20 boxes of books. I was sad to see the writing instruction books go, but I’m glad to see that they will be used.

So Mother Nature keeps pummeling us. And we keep rolling with the punches.

Next: 50. 2/19/22: The Search for the owners of Lot Three