I thought I had it all figured out, that is the balance thing. I decided yesterday to work less on the BLBP project. As I mentioned yesterday, I went home early. Today I decided to take Tyra and the dogs for a walk before heading to the hotel. And I’d planned on taking her for a walk when I got home this evening.

I felt good about my decisions.

I got Tyra and the dogs out this morning. It was sunny, cold, and blustery. Tyra had drunk half a bucket of water last night, and her poop was semi solid but not splatty. I attributed this to the fact that we had blanketed her, and that I cleaned her up, particularly her tail. Out walking, she seemed a little ploddy. I surmised that she may have missed getting packer pellets.

Sutton Library

All was going okay until we got 3/4ths of the way home. I dropped the lead rope, thinking that she might head for home. She did begin to trot, then turned up a pathway on our neighbor’s driveway – and kept going. She went about a quarter of a mile, came to the upper road, and headed toward home, in the direction from which we’d just come.

The dogs and I followed her. It was an uphill climb, good for us all. Tyra also took off on our road, again me thinking that she was going to go home.

Quite clearly, she was telling me that she’s incredibly bored and would like to go and do something. I am not a horse mind reader, not at all, but this was quite obvious.

Again, the plan was to get her out again this evening. Didn’t happen. First, I went swimming. Love that hot tub. Then too much to do at the hotel, as 9 boxes of books were left in the hotel lobby, and by gosh, the drop box was full. Then in came a couple with a bin of children’s books. I had to take the time to repack the boxes and the bin. The lobby books were in boxes with lids, difficult to work with, so I put them in banker boxes, and later, much later sorted them out.

Now if I had struck a true balance, I would have said, “To hell with this, I’ll deal with it all tomorrow.” But having a prefrontal cortex, I foresaw that getting going on this would be difficult since tomorrow I have a 10:00 a.m. appointment with Josh, our farrier, and I have a 2:00 p.m. physical therapy appointment. I also have books that I have to distribute.

I don’t like to drive home in the dark, so I instead called Pete and had him give me a ride home. It was by 9:00 p.m., when we left the hotel, very dark and very blowsy out.

Poor Tyra – didn’t get a second walk. The very good news is that her poop was not splitty, and her tail was not crusty. So tomorrow, before Josh arrives, I will take her for a walk. And yes, getting the other two mares exercised is on my mind.

Next: 311. 11/15/24: A Conversation with Tyra