driving miss Daisy

Spring is still teasing us with the occasional warm day interspersed with lots of cold days with and without rain. The ground is waterlogged in places… but the trees have thrown out leaves and some are starting flower buds - I figure we are a good week behind!

Has it really been almost 2 weeks since I last put my fingers to the keyboard? Time flies even when I'm dragging myself through life! I had several days of complete fatigue but slowly I've been getting my strength back… I figure it was the fallout of so many months of mood struggles, but every day has been better - both strength and most happily, mood! I've had several days in a row of feeling pretty much normal! Hurrah!!!

Last Friday I drove myself to Kirsten's to spend a few nights - we were signed up for a horse driving clinic! I almost turned the car around as I was so exhausted that day but I kept on driving… and I'm SO GLAD that I did! We had a fantastic time Saturday learning how to harness and then hitch. After that we got to ground drive the single horse that we were assigned to, and also a pair of huge percherons. The lines seemed to go every which way but I eventually figured out the steering…

They served us box lunches in a covered arena. It was good to be out of the wind… I froze all day even though I was wearing a t-shirt, sweatshirt, fleece jacket, all topped with a wind-breaker jacket! But it didn't ruin the day at all :-) I was however, very happy to get into a warm car at the end!

After lunch we got to drive! It was pretty cool and brought to mind my first time in the cart with Pat Wolfe, behind his two Fjord geldings - I was hooked on Fjords after being behind those lovely horse haunches!

Have you read anything by Ann Patchett? I checked ‘Truth and Beauty’ out of the library the other day and am enjoying it immensely… there are so many quotable passages that I find myself reading over and over, and sure enough, when I looked her up on GoodReads, there are hundreds gleaned from her many books. She reminds me a bit of Alice Munroe but much less depressing!

I'm hoping that she'll rub off on me a tiny bit!

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Ann Patchett, Truth & Beauty

Awesome!

“ground driving a massive team of percherons”

“driving an actual cart pulled by an actual horse!”

“going back to liquidation to find a second pair of the jeans that I bought last week and finding a pair”

“rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeder”

“Carm getting the garden dug and the pool open… although we are likely ages away from swimming”