Pete didn’t ask me what I wanted for my birthday, which is tomorrow. He knew better. I am the woman who has everything, and so there is nothing that he might provide me with. He did give me some flowers, some yellow lilies, which are in the twilight of their years, and tonight he made chocolate chip cookies.

You have everything if what you want is unobtainable. I would like a place with pasturage for my horses. They are in a small enclosure, one with mesh fencing. Pete did replace nearly all the bottom logs with railroad ties, so now they won’t get their hooves caught in the bottom mesh.

Nimby the chicken

He also ordered a load of gravel from Wheel Dog Trucking (that’s a great name for a business), and with his small Kubota tractor, he spread it in the pen, between bouts of rain. The gravel has sand mixed in it, so tonight and for the next six days I’ll be giving the three mares Sand Clear.

I’d like a place with so much room to roam that the horses won’t turn it into a mud pit. I’d like to have a barn and a heated tack room – I could put the horses in large stalls on cold winter nights. I’d like haying equipment so that we could put up our own hay.

I have been fortunate in life that I have gotten everything I’ve wanted. Sure, it would be good to have space so that we can have a literacy program and I can teach classes and have a committed, hardworking staff.

Alaska is one of the worst places in the world in which to keep horses. Would I move? Yes, if this option materialized. If it was out of state, we might have to purchase the property and then move when the book project is solvent.

I’d like to live someplace where we could, in addition to being able to ride our horses, be able to sea kayak and ride our bicycles. I’d like to again get around by bicycle. I am now car dependent. I plan on riding my bicycle more come spring. I’d like to live in an area with less traffic. The Mat-Su Valley continues to experie a population explosion as is evidenced by the high traffic volume on the major roadways.

I would like more animals, say a donkey or two, an Icelandic gelding, baby goats, and all that goes with this – enclosures for the animals, and a milking parlor for the goats. I’d like to have so much land that having a herd of goats would be within the realm of possibility.

I’d like to find a buckboard cart for Hrimmi to pull, and a cart for Sassy.

The chickens are just fine, but a larger coop would enable me to increase their numbers. I don’t like seeing animals in crowded conditions.

I should have written about what I do have. More, more, more, this is the human rallying cry.

Next: 253. 9/17/24: Happy Bird Day 2 Ewe