I’ve been reading Animals as Teachers and Healers: True Stories and Reflections by Susan Chernak McElroy. I can’t say that this is a great book. I like the little anecdotal accounts that McElroy includes in each chapter, but I like the vignettes that she elicited from other authors even better. I skim through McElroy’s writings because in her attempts to draw parallels between her experiences and others, she loses me. Too redundant for my tastes. But I’m continuing to read this book because I do like others’ short stories.

A good day of grazing for Tinni

Last night, I read Chapter Five, “Totems, Dreams, and Visions.” It’s in part about animals coming back to people in their dreams. Maybe my reading this section gave my subconscious permission to dream about Tinni. Or maybe this was coincidental. But there he was, in a morning dream, in his stall. I gave him a huge hug and told him what a good horse he was. He didn’t say anything but seemed content.

I think this Tinni was the Tinni I used to know. I do not know if his soul has departed or not. It’s hard to say because he was in some ways a very noncommittal fellow. Or maybe he had no reason to complain. His needs were tended to. Early on when we got him, he was slightly depressed because he missed having a little girl to dote on him. Later, he either resigned himself to life as it was here, or he thought that things were okay.

His after death feelings will most likely remain a mystery.

I have told just a handful of people about Tinni’s passing. I don’t know why this is. When spring comes, I am going to have a celebration of life for him.

Having just three mares feels very strange to me. A better term is incomplete. Four was a good number, and one gelding provided a nice balance.

I have not had any dreams about Ranger the Goat. He left reluctantly. We put him temporarily in the compost station – a week ago Pete hauled him up in the sled to the manure pit behind the hoop house and buried him. I couldn’t do it, that is have my last glimpse of him be in a dead, semi-frozen state. My last memory of him is him standing in the doorway of the goat shed.

In both instances I do wonder if I did right in the final few months for both of these animals. If I could go back in time, I would have had an acupuncturist and a holistic veterinarian work on them. And I would have found a nutritionist who then might have prescribed special diets.

It’s easier to do these things in the Lower-48 than it is here. More and more horse people are leaving, the community is not what it once was. I don’t know about the goat community – I was never a part of it.

I carried my dream around with me all day. Now that I’ve written about it, I will discard it.

Next: 32. 2/1/23: The First Day of the Second Month of the New Year