Happy Holidays!

Again, it has been months since I last wrote. Fortunately, I do not have a new horror story to report. Life just got very busy (or stayed that way) and I didn’t stop to put anything down.

Fred, my remaining horse, continues to improve. We graduated from twice daily walks to daytime turn-out in the big field near my house. I would go down the morning, do his morning feeding and stall cleaning, do his wound care if needed, then take him out to the pasture and let him go. In the evening I’d go open the gate and he’d walk himself back to the barn, moseying along with a few stops to graze along the way. It was pretty cute actually, as he’d always get himself inside his stall to eat his dinner. After a month or so of this I began leaving him out overnight. I’d still feed him twice per day and I’d bring him in every four days or so for his wound care, but otherwise he lived outside. Now he’s out all the time - even in the big rain storms. In the barn, he’d stand outside anyway, so this way he can decide what he wants to do. I still bring him in every four or five days to treat the much smaller wound (it’s about 3-4” long by about 1.5” high now) but then he goes right back out. I’ve also reverted to feeding him just once per day - he has a whole five or six acres to graze on the rest of the time. This has allowed me to regain my mornings, which has been wonderful.

Work-wise I found myself as busy as I have ever been, with five escrow going at once, which, in this Valley, is a lot. Two of those have since closed and so I’m feeling a little relief, but I continue to look at potential new listings, do showings and the rest of the regular real estate stuff.

The holidays are approaching very fast this year, at least that’s how it seems to me. What a difference from last year, when I was suffering from the aftermath of a pulled tooth and Van his hernia surgery and then getting bronchitis. We put up a tree over the weekend and finished decorating it and the house last night. I haven’t gone overboard this year, just enough to make it festive. We don’t get to see the granddaughter this year as she is going south to her other two sets of grandparents instead, though we did enjoy her company at Thanksgiving. We got the good news that there is another granddaughter on the way in the coming year, so we’re very excited about that. In my re-found free time in the mornings I’ve been working on crocheting some new baby items.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. I’ll try to write more often and finish that trip to Italy in the coming weeks. I wish you Happy New Year!