I’m heading back to New York on Thursday, going to spend the day with some carriage drivers, hope to get a sense of the people at the heart of this story, this controversy. I’m meeting one of the drivers – Stephen Malone – at the Clinton Stables in the morning, I will ride with him to Central Park and around the park and also meet some of the other drivers waiting in the carriage lines. I have heard from very few of the drivers, this is a story of human beings as well as animals, I want to hear their voices and grasp their perspective. I am eager to ask them if they plan on driving those fake vintage electric cars if the horses are ever banned.

I’ll be getting up around 3 a.m., Maria will drive me to the train station in Albany, and I’ll be hauling my camera and gear around, heading back upstate in the late afternoon or early evening. My writing on the horses has gone to a free-lance editor, she will go over them in the next week or so, my agent will decide when to publish the e-book, tentatively called “Who Speaks For The Carriage Horses Of New York?” Today I was invited to read from the book when it comes out at the Manhattan Saddlery, the last equestrian tack store in New York City.

The store invited me to talk about the e-book and also read my poem “First, They Came For The Horses,” I said I would be happy to go and I would not charge a speaking fee. What a cool idea. It’s not exactly the kind of reading or book tour I’m used to, but it is an e-book and it is unusual to do readings for e-books anywhere. Connie Brooks let me do one for “The Story Of Rose” at Battenkill Books, I appreciated it. I am sorry that this e-book will only be available digitally, but it needs to come out soon, not in a year or so. It will be available everywhere books are sold, and I would love to patch together a book tour if it is possible. I’ll surely go to the Manhattan Saddlery, sounds pretty exotic.

I would imagine this trip would be my last to write about the carriage horses, I will have seen pretty much everything I wanted to see first-hand. I will surely be following the story but I’m not sure I have a reason to go back unless I’m invited. Of course, I’ve said that several times and seem to be going back.

It looks like Zelda is “bagging up,” as the farmers say her udder is dropping down along with her belly. Photos to come.