The windowsill gallery changes ever day, the curator comes in the night or other times when I am not there and moves things around, adds, thinks, changes locations. Today, in the bedroom windowsill, the ceramic vase sculpture has not one but two necklaces and some mysterious rocks have appeared.
I live in a gallery and sleep with the curator.
Red started to charge over the Gulley Memorial Bridge, but then thought better of it. Smart dog. The water level is just beginning to recede, we should be able to cross over it in a day or two. I think it held up well, thanks to Ed Gulley. Half of our pasture is still flooded, and I don’t know if there is any damage to our fences or not.
We’ll know that later. This morning, raking out our gardens. This afternoon, going over to Rachel Barlow’s house in Vermont to help her assemble the 80 or 90 art kits we are taking to RISSE, the refugee and immigration assistance center in Albany. I think they’ll be quite happy to get them.
Rachel and I wlll bring them to RISSE Monday afternoon, I have to go into Albany to do an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on behalf of Talking To Animals, which is coming out in three weeks. (You can pre-order the book through Battenkill Books online or on the phone and I will sign and personalize it and they will send you a free classy tote-bag. There are 400 bags left.)
Chloe is a hug-a-bug, says Treasure, she loves to cuddle, and she is happy to graze while someone hangs off of her back. I’m not sure why, but it was a very happy visit, we felt good seeing her and good leaving her in this excellent place with two loving humans, two sweet horses, and two loveable but obnoxious little goats, who kept trying to eat my jeans.
When the sun finally came out Saturday afternoon, Maria and I decided to pay a surprise visit to Chloe, Donna and Treasure have told us to drop by any time. When we got to Chloe’s new home, she was up in the middle of the pasture grazing quite contentedly.
Mickey and Queenie, her two pasture mates, have accepted her and the three eat together and hang out peaceably, as if Chloe had been there for years. She was happy to see Maria, they talked with each a bit,and then Chloe resumed her foraging. She was happy to be brushed.
Maria was happy to see her, so was I, and we both felt good about our decision to hand her over to Treasure and Donna, she is ridden regularly, brushed and loved and fussed over continuously, and she has plenty of room to run around and explore and eat, which is her passion.
This is just the way I wanted it, Maria said as we left, “I can brush her and see her and not feel guilty about not paying more attention to here. It is just right.” In a few weeks, Chloe and the other horses will move across the farm to a summer pasture, wide and green and hilly.
Biologists tell us that animals like horses are not happy or sad, they are content or uneasy. Happiness, like jealousy, is a human feeling, animals are not as petty as we are. The primary drive of animals is to exist, to have food, shelter, community and safety. Chloe liked us, now she likes Treasure and Donna.
She does not waste time and energy looking back, or wanting things she doesn’t have. Animals tend to love those who care for them. When Maria brushed her and gave her a carrot, she trotted up the hill to join the other horses. She never looked back.
It is a hard thing to feel you are not doing enough for an animal, Maria is pleased not to feel it any more. And I’m happy too, because the farm just got a lot more manageable and a lot more peaceful.
We are very happy for her.
