On the days when the sun doesn’t shine at all, like today, it does seem like we are enveloped in darkness. The daylight that we do get appears late and ends early. El (sister) asked me if I have seasonal affective disorder. I said no. Actually, now that I think about it, I have affective disorder. Always, the wrong emotions at the wrong time. Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night – rage, rage, and all that bullshit. There is just more of the wrong emotions when it’s dark.

Actually, I think that I am doing better in dealing this year than in previous years. I am being really focused. This morning, Pete got up early (!) emoticon, emoticon, emoticon, and got outside at the crack of

dawn and plowed the driveway and the surrounding areas. And I took Raudi for a ride.

I am going to ride her in the mornings more often. I was just that much more attuned to her and vice-versa. Her habit of stopping – I worked on it, by using my body and had some success. It was really revelatory – she balks when I am off balance. I also started to relax my hands and arms and invited her to move forward. And I relaxed my piriformis muscle, which is on both sides of my sacrum. I was so well balanced towards the end of our ride that Raudi near bolted on the end section of Siggi’s loop – she took a turn really tight I nearly came off. After, I praised her for her efforts because for the longest time she’s been pokey.

I didn’t get the other horses out today – rather, I worked on Forks. The material that I have is now all in order – I just need in interview form to be filling in the blanks. I talked to the fellow who owns the septic waste company – he was very suspicious when I told him about my project – said that he would first have to see if anyone at the fair was backing this project. This was the first time that this has occurred while working on this. Well, I told Pam Meekin who is one of the two guiding lights – Carole Henry is the other, and she called him and let him know that I was legit. I would forego talking with him, but alas, septic disposal is an integral part of this puzzle. People need to know what becomes of this sort of Fair waste.

Carole and I figured out that I should write an article about the book for the Palmer paper about Forks. This seems like a good idea given that Nate at The University of Alaska Press has expressed an interest in this project.

I put a lot of hours in on Forks today. Tomorrow I will not be able to do as much since Josh the farrier is coming, to be followed by Brooke the acupuncturist. We are going to have her take a look at Tinni who seems to be moving a bit slow these days. Rain is in the forecast, so plans could change. If they do, I will just continue to keep working on Forks.

Yeah, rage, rage, Do Not Go Gentle into the Good Night. I totally understand what Dylan Thomas was getting at.

Next; 12/8/17: Autonomy and the Spirit of Play