Wind is 40mph. Snow blows sideways, presses into crests hard as cement. Wind crashes to the ground like breakers on sand. Living out in this open is like sand blasted into my eyes. I cannot keep my eyes open. I think there is an answer to a problem. I believe Tony wants to change. I close my eyes to what's infront of me. What I do do is go to the Teanaway. The road is black top except a few stretches. The farther I go into the valley, the closer to the circle of mountains, the lower the wind. When I get out of the truck, Al the Dog hops down with me. The birds are big and raucous. Birds believe it is March. Do they have eyes wide open? There are strips of bare pavement to pull me along. Trees wave deep green, bounce their needles. Snow builds up along the sides of the road. I peer between trees and snowbanks at winter campground picnic tables. If I could have the serenity of a picnic table in winter. Is that what age could bring me? A picnic does not try to solve another picnic table's problems. For some reason the campground is abandoned and plowed. We wind our way and I take many photos of incognito picnic tables. Tables sit hunched under snow like a childhood fort athat I would crawl under, inside, but I need a shovel. The voices and screams, sound of TVs and radios inside trailers and camper, the light of little colored bulbs has drained away like through a sieve. Has the Teanaway River carried it all off to the Yakima and on into the Columbia? Al the Dog already learned to stop at each snowbank view of tables. I believe that my photo series of snow piled picnictables will be in a gallery someday and many people will file past and fill with peace. When I get home the farrier texts that he is almost here. Tony is irritated: I thought he was coming at five. I set to organizing all the animals and then I begin brushing the horses. When Geri gets here, he flames up his furnace. The barn smells like burnt hoof. As he works I braid Kalypso's mane. Her mane is thick, dark, covers her neck and sparks with red highlights like a Ponderosa but it is so fine and soft the braid will be gone in an hour.