It’s 11:41 p.m. as I write this. Outside, it’s dusk. June 21 is the summer solstice, from there it is all downhill. Darkness will again descend. I much prefer winter solstice because it means that light is returning rather than disappearing.

I am writing to you because I think you are my only dispatch reader. I have done a terrible job of marketing my website. Just writing and getting photos to go with the dispatches takes a lot of time. And Pete’s the one who puts the whole thing together.

Hrimmi targeting over the pole

Knowing that you are my sole audience does create a quandary. I know that you don’t have any interest in what I am most obsessed about, making the human/horse body awareness connection. And, in fact, few people do. So I have learned not to say much about this. The up side of this is that I have become a far better listener than I used to be. The down side is that I sometimes feel like a human pressure cooker – I have so much to say about the subject matter.

I would write about my gardening endeavors if I was doing any gardening. Today I badly wanted to start weeding the orchard area. But I had to tell myself no, that I had other things to do. Ahem, if Pete was into animal training – and he is not, well then, I would have more time to garden.

You are a gardener. This will interest you. Our garden is nearly in. We have three garden areas and an orchard. Pretty soon, we will be eating our own fruits and vegetables. We have some flowers growing, but not as many as we’d like. You can’t have goats and flowers. I don’t know of any types of flowers that goats don’t eat.

The pressure cooker speaketh: A great day on the body awareness front. I discovered in lifting my left leg slightly off the ground that I felt a twinge in my right side lower back. Now this may seem inconsequential, but I am thinking that focusing my awareness on my left leg is going to enable me to release the parking brake on my right side.

And it was a huge day on the horse front. I found four one pound ankle weights at the thrift store, purchased them, and brought them home. I then worked with all four horses in the Playground, exclusively on proprioception. I put body wraps on them, and a bareback pad, and then, while each was standing on the mat, I attached the weights. All responded differently – Hrimmi, for instance immediately walked over to the post on the tires obstacle and walked over it, lifting her legs high. This also seemed to enable Tyra to shift her weight back into her hindquarters. And Raudi just seemed happier, having something else to focus on. And Tinni, I do not know what he thought, just that he was thinking.

I had the ankle weights on me for a bit. I am going to use them when I do my own body work. It is just fun to play around and explore and experiment. I don’t have any end goals in mind with any of this – but I am having a really good time.

So when you come up and visit – expect more of the same.
Alys

Next: 166. 6/15/18: Hoofing It