After my last post on all my preparations for an upcoming trip to the mountains, turns out I never even hooked up the trailer. I spent most of Thursday finishing up some shopping and packing the trailer to the gills. I picked up my saddle from a shop in Mollala, where I had them add five D-rings to my Wintec dressage saddle to make attaching my saddle bags easier (beautiful work, well done Flat Iron!) I double checked lists, packed food and swept out cobwebs. When I drove home to start packing the truck, my parents texted…with news that made it impossible to contemplate leaving for a wilderness trip. My dad’s father was in the hospital, and is now on hospice care. It’s wrenching, as we just lost my grandmother, my dad’s mother, last spring right as the pandemic hit, and her funeral was terrible, utterly overshadowed. To contemplate loosing another parent, another grandparent so soon is just…beyond bearing, in some ways.

I spent the weekend more or less on my couch, never far from my phone, feeling alternately guilty for backing out at the last minute and horrible worry, waiting for word. And also, a bit apprehensive and stir crazy, as we really couldn’t venture outside much, the weather shattering heat records for our normally pleasant Pacific Northwest. We’re still in the grips of it, though some marine air is starting to funnel up from the south, ever so slowly. I’ve watched the temperature gauge on my back porch, normally cool and dark, climb past 115 degrees and stay there most of the past few days. I ping pong between deep gratitude for our workhorse heat pump, guilt that we have it, worry for all the animals and folks without AC, and dread of a power outage (our power did flicker just an hour ago, and I held my breath until it popped back on 30 seconds later).

I equally dread the upcoming holiday, even though Independence Day is usually one of my favorites. Despite the terrible weather and drought, there’s always some folks around who won’t heed the warnings, who just don’t care about their neighbors, and inevitably start totally preventable fires throughout the weekend, not to mention the disruption and worry it causes in veterans and animals.

In slightly less dire news, I’ve been giving Tarma a cold hosing every night this week, and last night we finally had a bit of a breakthrough. I ground tie her for this, as she’s more comfortable and able to keep a skeptical eye on the hose throughout. She’d stand for it (unless I moved the hose too sharply) and she doesn’t like the water around her hindquarters at all. But last night she finally sighed, swallowed and relaxed, letting her nose hang in the water for almost five minutes, having finally decided that cold water feels good on a hot day. Of course I immediately ruined the positive moment by putting an aloe mixture on her pink nose, the only thing I’ve ever done to her that made her put her head in the air as far as she could reach and grunt at me. She didn’t offer to kick or bite, but she was very clearly not cool with it. Sorry lady, with your white blaze this is going to be a lifelong thing for you in the summer! She forgave me quick enough when I arrived with her dinner, beet pulp and supplements soaked in cold water with cold carrots thrown in. So, not the post I wanted to write at all, but I keep telling myself there’s plenty of summer yet to explore.

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