I am good at determining my work-related priorities. Or at least I would have said this a day ago, but I am now rethinking what I previously thought. Sometimes the way it really is, just hits you between the eyes, like a snowball with a rock at the center.

The first thing I did when I got up was go check on Tyra. She seemed fine and raced across the yard with her stablemates, Raudi and Hrimmi. They then began to eat the pre-breakfast hay that I set out for them, in front of the hay shed. I do this; then when they are done eating, they then enter the enclosure and eat their breakfast.

Tyra’s poop was uniformly loose; she still had the splats.

As we ate breakfast, Pete and I decided to move her into Tinni’s space so that we could monitor her water intake and her poop outtake. We also put her green blanket on her. I noted that her back end and tail were matted with frozen water and poop.

Tyra

Pete and I left for the hotel. There, I worked for one and a half hours, boxing up the books that came in yesterday. Grr, grr, grr, I had tried to forestall the arrival of these books, but grr grr grr they came in anyway. Of course, grr, grr, grr, I had to take care of them.

I went swimming at noon – it was a good swim – the trick is to stop when I feel as though I’m tiring. I’ve been leaving my swimming suit and towel in the car. Both were frozen when I got to the gym. Yes indeed, the temperature here is dropping. Almost, but not yet, in the single digits.

I next dropped off some of the books that came in yesterday, grr grr grr, at the Palmer Senior Center, then went and picked up some books at Alaska Family Services. I noticed when I was there that their bookshelves need more books, so tomorrow I’ll go and pick them up.

My physical therapy appointment was at 2:00 p.m. I was maybe one minute late. I noted that swimming helped, but that my lower back was fatigued, and my hips were pinchy. Yes, pinchy, that’s now a real word.

I then had a choice. I could either go back to the hotel and work, really late if I wanted, and have Pete come and pick me up (Alys does not drive in the dark), or I could head for home. I decided to head home.

On the drive home, I realized that I’d made the right decision. I also foresaw that there was a change in my thinking. I have been working really, really hard on the book project, to the exclusion of other, more important things, my animals being at the top of the list. No more.

Tyra, I noticed, had two splatty piles and had drank two gallons of water in the 5 hours I’d been away.

I took Tyra for a walk. She was a little slow. I pressed my finger to her gums and noted that her capillary refill time is slow, meaning that she’s dehydrated.

I next got two buckets of water and washed her back end and tail. Her tail had huge chunks of frozen poopy water embedded in the hairs. I broke them up and washed them out. It was getting dark. This took me a long, long, time, and I got chilled.

But there was a reward at the end of the cleanup. Tyra left a semi-solid pile of poop. So tomorrow I will do the same again, and also do some T-touches.

I love this horse and do not want to lose her.