As I write this, it’s 11:44 p.m. Outside, it’s light. I rode Hrimmi, and I got in a half hour ago. I realized that if it wasn’t so late, I could go for a second ride, on Raudi.

I just got one horse out because I got home late and then ate dinner. Eating dinner is an act of procrastination, for sure. I snarf down the food thinking if I keep snarfing food down, well then, I don’t have to get up and exert myself.

Most humans relax after dinner. Or they work in their gardens. Now, because the weather is warmer, there is a lot of garden activity going on.

Pete got ready for tomorrow’s fund raising development committee meeting. What he does complements what I do. I handle books and right now the Summer in the Park(s) curriculum development.

Today, he also got 16 newspaper boxes, which community members are going to paint in the next few weeks. As, after my evening ride, I was walking Hrimmi up the driveway, I stopped and admired his handiwork, which is how he loaded the newspaper boxes onto the trailer and tied them in place. The man knows his knots.

If I was to give one bit of advice to any women who were thinking about a man’s attributes, which is whether to date or marry one, I’d say, check out their ability to tie knots. This, I would say, will serve you in good stead in your future endeavors. As importantly, it will serve as an indicator. If the man can tie a knot, or better yet, differing knots, he most likely will be able to do other hands on tasks such as change a flat tire, hang a gate or door, build a set of stairs, put in a root cellar, nail on a roof, do an oil change, fry an egg or cook an omelet, dig a hole, fill in a hole, trim a goat’s hooves, and put a pack saddle on a horse.

There are other things. But these are the things that Pete can do. By the time he appeared in my life, I had finally come to the conclusion that any man that I would be serious about would have to be hands on.

Being hands on, of course, requires some intelligence. You have to be able to figure things out and also be able to infer and make connections between one task and another.

Pete will never write a sonnet or compose a love letter. Nor will he take up painting. I knew this when I met him, but I accepted these particular limitations because I knew that these are not survival skills.

These are trifling abilities, or so some will say.

Pete is next going to make wood inserts for the newspaper boxes. Others will paint them. At least that’s the hope. I suspect that I’m going to have to contact potential artists, which I can do. I would not have said this a few years back. Time and circumstance change people and their interactions with others. Of this, I am sure.

Next: 153. 6/5/26: Up Late, Up Early