Hay is for horses
Lin and I met for dinner Friday night and I got there early so I went to the pasture where there used to be mustangs rescued from the West. Instead of mustangs I found a small herd of beautiful draft horses, 2 foals, 2 mares and a stallion. It was raining and they were grazing pretty peacefully. First they ignored me, then I clucked at them and they sauntered over to me (picked up the pace when the foals showed some interest). This is the head of the stallion: he was huge. Once it became obvious that I had nothing to offer them they got bored with me and all I saw was a bunch of horse butts. I love the tails of draft horses, just these little swishy things. Why do draft horses have shorter tails? So they won't get tangled in the harnesses ("the works")? Anyway, these were neat horses. I love horses.

Saturday was the Preakness. I'd forgotten all about it. I hate to watch horse racing because it's cruel--they race these horses at far too young an age, their bodies are not mature enough for the work they make them do. I loved the Derby winner, Barbaro--had picked him during the post parade to win. Switched the channel at 6 to watch the news, and there was the post parade for the Preakness, so I decided to watch, finger on the OFF switch in case anything went wrong. Well, something went terribly wrong. First, Barbaro, while in the gate, in his hysteria heard something he mistook for the starting bell and bolted out of the gate in a false start. I empathized with him and felt horrible. Then, 15 strides into the race he broke 2 bones in his hind leg and was pulled from the race. I switched off the race immediately and started to cry. I cried hard for a long time. Does this mean I'm unstable? Or just that I really hate to see animals used so inappropriately by humans. These are spectacular animals, really beautiful, but they've been so overbred and their legs are so thin and bones so brittle, not even fully formed yet. Anyway, now the horse's life hangs by a thread after 5 hours of surgery to repair bones that were broken in 20 places. It's an awful story and this is a wonderful horse. But still I eat meat. So what does that make me? A hypocrite?

And yesterday my book club met. We had a great time. Everyone liked the book--Families and other accidents by I forget who. Male characters, which led to a really good discussion. Martha had to leave first, but the rest of us stayed for some intense "what's going on with you" conversation. Much talk about tragedies in our lives, which is comforting but certainly painful for all of us to talk about and listen to. The sun actually came out and I had great plans to mow my lawn when I got home. It was 7 when I got there, however, so instead I watched the interview with Princes Charles, Harry and William, then glided right into tv oblivion for the rest of the night. It was a cold night, 37 when I went to bed and 34 when I got up this morning. Snowing, just small flakes and spitting them just to be angry. This weather is not to be believed. 11 straight days of rain. 911 hours of sunshine out of a possible 9000 for the month so far. The sun is supposed to show up on Thursday so I've asked for the day off. If successful, I will have 6 days in a row off and I will be thrilled beyond belief.