It rained hard all night. I who don’t hear very well heard it raining. So it was raining hard. I wasn’t worried about the animals – they all have dry shelters. The dogs, as they usually are, were with us upstairs. Shadow sleeps on the floor, next to Pete, and Ryder sleeps on the left side of the bed, between the walls and my legs.

Shadow will, if she senses I am restless, or I say something to Pete, leap up, come up on my left, and start licking my face. Pete says “over” to her, and she leaps over us both, landing beside her bed.

Ryder and Shadow

The goats and horses have shelters they can hang out in, or not. The chickens are in an enclosed coop. I do let them out, and they come out when the weather is nice. The goats have to be coerced into accompanying me to the horse enclosure in the mornings when it’s raining. They hate the rain, the mud, the cold. This morning they did not accompany me. Rather, they hung out in the woodshed, which is nearly empty.

The sun came out mid-morning. The light, which was not all that bright, was actually blinding. I knew that this was a small window of good weather; nevertheless, I worked inside, first for an hour putting things away, and then for another two hours on the grant for Franz Bakery. This is an easy one; there are just two questions that have to be answered at length. I mentioned to Pete when he was reading it that I felt like writing that our grant sources are our bread and butter.

Pete laughed when I told him this but did not think it was a good idea to include it. I am deliberating. I still might put it in the text.

Pete was working on a letter to an aid of the governor as I was working on the Franz Bakery grant. We finished at the same time. It was Pete who suggested that we go for a ride. I ended up riding Raudi and he rode Tyra. We did Siggi’s Trail first, then cut over to the Tin Can trail. You turn a corner, and there is a tin can on a broken limb. We ride by and tap on it with our crops. Today the tin can was not there. We looked around, did not see it, so we kept going.

We found the rusty old Tin can down on the trail, at what we call the Lower Gooseneck turn. There it was, right beside the trail, on the green grass. Pete got off Tyra, picked it up, carried it back to its rightful place, and then put it back on the limb. We were then left to wonder, who would move a marker like that? I hope that whoever did this won’t do this again.

I next saddled up Hrimmi and went for a second ride. We did the ride that Pete and I had just done, backwards. Hrimmi was moving slow, and eating, so I grew tense, which is why my hip seized up. Lesson learned: ride with another person until the problem is resolved.

Next: 252. 9/16/24: Again, About the Woman who Has Everything