This is the day when we as a nation are both to give thanks and to eat gluttonous amounts of food. I am not giving thanks as a nation, and I did not eat gluttonous amounts of food, so this makes me a non-conformist.

I individually did give thanks to the horse Gods because I have three of the most amazing horses in the world. Actually, they are the three most amazing horses in the world.

Every year I get the horses out on Thanksgiving Day. This is just my tradition. I remember one year I got Siggi, Raudi, Signy and Tinni out. Hrimmi may have been too young to ride. This year I rode Hrimmi and Raudi. Pete rode Tyra.

Squash from the garden

I started out with Hrimmi. It was overcast and when I started out and threatening to rain. The temperatures were in the mid-thirties. Hrimmi had to break trail and wasn’t up for it. She kept stopping, perhaps because she was exerting herself. I could feel her heart pounding, so I gave her long breaks.

By the time I got back to the hitching post area, it was raining. Pete assisted me in finding, then blanketing Hrimmi.

I wasn’t up for going out on a second ride, but Pete was (this was a switch); I was afraid that with it raining, the horses would get cold. Pete finally agreed with me that we should do a short ride, which we did. We rode to Jawbone Junction, got on Peaches’s Loop and took the Lakeshore Drive trail back to Peaches Loop. We completed Siggi’s Loop, then called it good.

We ran into a cross country skier on Jim’s Road. Like us, she bemoaned the fact that ATVers have trashed our trails.

By the time we got back to the hitching post, the rain had stopped and the sky had patches of blue in it. I took the blanket off Hrimmi and did not put blankets on Raudi or Tyra.

Once again, as I rode Raudi, I marveled at the fact that she is now such an amazing riding horse. How, I wonder, did I get so lucky? And it is luck, I cannot deny that.

In the afternoon Pete made Thanksgiving Dinner and I cleaned the house. I wanted to take a nap, but I knew that if I did this that there would not be enough time to clean up. So I forced myself to put things away, then wipe down dirty surfaces. There was quite a bit of clutter and dirt, so I didn’t have a plan. I just went from room to room, then back to the previous room. My approach was much like when I am tending to books.

This evening our friend Robert came over for Thanksgiving dinner. We three ate and talked, ate and talked, ate and talked for a few hours. I listened to Robert and Pete talk about the current political situation and thought that this was going on all across the country.

Peace isn’t a given right now. I don’t know if it ever will be.

Next: 323. 11/24/23: Relentless bitch slapping