Miscalculating

 The sorrow will hit me at the oddest times: I will realize no, I can’t pick up the phone & call Charles to tell him about a funny incident, or complain about my life because he’s dead! And yet my life continues to ratchet along like a clackety ol’ freight train - multiple ones churn by my clinic each day, it never slows down.

It feels as if my life is very constrained these days: my time & energy are limited; I seem to be struggling with increasing shortness of breath. More & more it seems like the effort of loading up to go riding is not worth the physical or financial costs and that’s a bad sign for me, “personally” - I know many people (many of whom are members of my trail riding group - while we might have 170'ish members "on paper", in truth we have a core group of maybe 20 riders who Get Out There on a regular basis) for whom their horses are just pasture ornament/pets & while it’s true I’ve got several crippled retirees (I’m looking at you Kizzy, Scarlett, & Moonie!), I adhere to the philosophy that horses do need a job! I got TwoFace registered with AERC, & felt a mild tremor of anticipation - looking at his (at this point) blank record, hoping to fill it up with good memories as he follows in the footsteps of the incomparable Quigley.

Last weekend I gave more of my time & energy away as I drove out to another NATRC ride to serve as an apprentice judge. While it was great to see my “other half” friends & everyone was very thankful/appreciative, it was a lot to ask! I miscalculated the distance by not studying the maps well enough - the ranch was just outside of Abilene, about a 3.5 hr haul by the backroads even though it's only 160 mi away! I took Baraq because I had promised him a road trip with Mommy but did not ride after all - when I had a couple of hours of unstructured time late Saturday afternoon, I was actually preparing to saddle up to go check out the beautiful trails but then Zach called so I sat down to talk to him - I’ll never pass up an opportunity to interact with my boy.

Elaine called it "Wayfarer Out West" for a reason, it was a beautiful isolated ranch adjacent to a National Guard outpost; one of my conspiracy-minded friends was commenting on all of the "chemtrails"... We did have a few moments of drama Saturday evening, when a helicopter gunship made several flyovers of our camp! (I'll try to post a photo - while I didn't yank out my phone, another friend got a few good "action shots") Fortunately none of the horses seemed bothered. But "it's always something" as we had one escapee Sat nigh, then another lady's gelding suffered a mild tying-up episode Sunday morning - which thankfully occurred in camp so she didn't get stuck out on trail.