Nancy says to get a new posting on her blog and she sent over a jumble of happenings, mostly written on Sunday. The theme of all these things is that she is feeling better, growing stronger, and doing more everyday sorts of activities. Anyone want to go to garage sales with her?
Our trip to bring the new horses home took about 4.5 hours. For a potty stop, we exited the interstate highway about 15 miles short of our pick-up destination. This short time coincided with the arrival of about 100 black leather-jacketed gents and ladies on motorcycles, upon questioning, Nancy found they were assembling to ride in a funeral procession for a local solider killed in Afghanistan. The Yakima paper carried the story the next day.
We loaded the three horses and returned home, only Nancy left an hour later to play music. She puts it this way: Yesterday I turned around and went to town to play music at the Retirement Center where they are able to get up and dance and are in good shape. They always feed us too. Yesterday it was homemade potato soup, best I’ve ever had, by a resident. These are apartments – where folks are living – not a care-center. They do their own cooking and have their own apartments. We entertain them and them us every second Saturday of the month, at 2:00 p.m.. It is really a rewarding experience for all involved.
On the way home yesterday from playing music, I stopped at a yard sale and got for $2.00 total the best deals of the century !! — Donation of a large roaster (to our riding club for baking beans); 3 pieces of clothing. A nice blue denim shirt for John and a reversible yellow vest (looks brand new) [made of waterfowl feathers and parts and a little down] we both can use, and a great corduroy coat for me, with new quality too, and big brown buttons probably worth more than $2 paid for all. Good day at only one yard sale that was on the way home.
Sunday a.m. we snuck out the back door (dogs out the front) and walked to the new horses and fed them and then out to the others past the barn and fed them, and then walked up through the woodlot to the road for the paper, and on the way there, we encounter 11 deer. I did not have my camera along – too bad; but, really, we have dozens of deer photos and while some individuals are recognizable to us, they basically look like the deer that were here 10 and 20 years ago.
We walked back down the driveway. That was probably six times as far as my original 1/2 trip up the drive with my walker a few weeks ago. I am definitely improving, and no longer using the walker except in the grocery store. Not in the pasture nor even holding on to John. I’m on my own. Well, I did take his arm to cross the small creek north of the barn, and while stepping on the edge of the plank to cross the irrigation ditch. That’s where the older horses are getting their water now.
This morning John worked with the new mare, Cheyenne, in the round pen. She had a halter on – we usually don’t have them on except as necessary – and she would not stand for him to take it off. After 15 minutes going round and round – with many stops for reflection – her lungs convinced her brain that standing still makes good sense and then she got turned loose in the pasture. The young gelding, Breeze, allows us to approach him with only minor apprehension on his part. He is very curious – only 4 years old.