Tony's daughter, Jessica, has a wide and caring sensibility. Even though Tony is her father and carries the gene for Machado Joseph Disease, she has empathy and compassion to listen how living or sitting, or laying in bed next to this disease turns a screw in me. Jessica says there are so many people in her family with the disease it is something that has always touched her. I hope that is the only way it ever touches her. What a blessing to be honest and speak form words, take them back, and restate them in another way to someone not in a hurry, not afraid of the sadness, the way it twists and turns you. It was a gift to spend the week with Jessica. And we all loved Patsey the DD goat, Rick, Jessica, Makaila and Nick. Patsey was carted around front legs dangling. She was hugged and held. They woke up thinking of her. Today was a 7.5 on Patsey's scale. She is drinking better from the bottle. She nurses, she takes some drinks from the bottle, goes back to nursing and finishes with the bottle. She never tries the grass, the hay, the grain. I push dandelion flowers in her mouth. The yellow disappears, she spits it out mottled, I push it back. One day at a time, no solutions, just hope this is a good day.

Bitterbrush: Antelope brush, quinine brush, one of the most important and palatable native shrubs in the Western United States. Flowers early summer. Wrote a rough draft of a poem about Sonja. Knew her in high school. Sonja and Plum. Wonder if I can write a series? Rough drafts for summer. Last talk with Anne for 6 months. I have some relationship boundaries now. They feel over the top but probably under the bar. Last night Tony was on a tirade. I talked, I listened, I walked away: there's nothing I can do/I can't fix it. So many of my poems are Tony Atypical Ataxia and the travail of goats. I want to bend the helix and write about bloodlines of horses, dogs, cats, goats, chickens and the dysfunction of society not prizing adolescent girls. Can I do it? Rough drafts: Bird by Bird, Annie Lamont.

The murderous night, many people exhale and never draw another sip, that part of night plagues me. Time I never felt so alone. I have the weight of dumb-bells pressing on my shoulders. My mother, my father. They looked out for me. What's best, what's worst. A handicapped man, a disabled truck driver no longer able to drive, to decide, lives in a fog. This man only able to look out for himself - it takes his whole nucleus to keep one foot side-by-side lurch. But there was a Ted talk on FB and it said that in Africa people say "I wouldn't be me without you." And I try to hug these words like I would the Pyrenees. I don't know how to build this house, how to manage 30 acres, how to raise goats, butcher goats, eat goats, have 3 horses, 4 dogs. I don't know how to maintain this thing that bucks and kicks like a camel in a sand storm before hit lays down and buries its face. Yet, no one else would come here with me. In the mornings there are the young things, the silky soft things, thick black mane on Kalypso, the smooth brown and white spots of my blind baby kid. Three baby kids hop and race and race and race like outboard motors stuck on high and I feel my lips smile.

Grandsons. Drop them off at the truck stop North Bend. Their mother is so thankfulfor the days. But then my first hour at Kathy's taunt weave of thoughts about to split and fray. Stand to leave then sit back down and another hour for an inch under the surface where my thoughts are my thoughts and not who wants: what's there to eat, can we watch a movie, can we go down to the creek, can we start a fire? Finally Kathy and I talk about men. Somehow it comes out of nowhere how badly men age: Truck driver, CEO, contractor. Once it was enough that they were muscled and healthy. Provide and then not sole providers and then no providing at all. They used to stand out in the world. Did things only each one could do and the point was not to share. It was the wheeler dealer one way or the other. And we women did all the other things. All-the-other-things. In a cooperative, with feeling and we are still doing it. These men got anxious and depressed. They are surpassed. Their muscles are slack, hands shake, and carburetors lie rusting in the junk yards. But Kathy and Jacki and I, we never could rely on our beauty our ability to wear bikinis unabashedly. We were impossibly supple, lithe with smooth skin but only saw the quarter inch of roll above our jeans. We saw that our eyebrows spilled forward toward our nose, that our cup size was never enough and we went into aging counting only on our own resilience. There is a myth that men age well but women decline. But it was always only appearances. Men, our generation, age badly.

Give a little shake of my head to find myself in Roslyn. Always just the tiny town to slow down through on the way to a trail head. Then Northern Exposure - "You really should watch it. You remind me of the woman who owns the store." Not a compliment; I was forty five when Russ said that. Now, parking in Roslyn two, three times a month. Favorite Pre-Hispanic restaurant in Roslyn. Buy stamps in Roslyn. Writers Group Roslyn. Poets' Pot-Luck Roslyn. Last night, first time in seven years, fellow poet drives out from town to give me a ride to Roslyn! Today: all plans are off. Snows this morning, rain now. Tony cleaning goat paddock stalled out and Mike cancels due to weather. My cold is boring into sinuses. I saute onions to deep and dark then will add wine, French Onion Soup. Bread in a bowl to rise by the wood stove. Signing up for $5 retiree class CWU, looking for me student ID. Find five cards from my mom. She says, from years ago in Flordia, that my plane has just taken off and all my worries are sorted out. Which worries? Life leaks worries. No one shares worries like a mother. I will spend the rest of this day with tears stinging behind my eyes. Now, horses are my salvation.

Last night Jaci the Akbash is limping on her left hind. Can't get her in the barn. This morning I throw my jacket over my nightgown, shove my barefeet in barn shoes and run out in the gloaming rain. At least Jaci follows me to the barn-yard so I can shut both gates and restrict her running. Later I will find her inside the barn. Jaci needs to stay off that leg. When I asked Tony w nights ago, he is eating the meat loaf special at the Buzz Inn. Tony says what he likes about the goats is the tax right off. I say I like goats. I like the animals. I like being part of the ecosystem. When we go to take 2 young does up to Bob and Bernice's buck, Oreo, the 2 I pick are very pregnant! Eeesch. Good we looked closely. We move Rene and her 2 down to the goat shed. The pregnant 2 come in the barn pens with Poppy. Then the 2 does that are Cindy Lou's daughter and foster ride up to Bob and Bernice's. I give this bunch their shots, the non pregnant their dewormer and all of these get their feet trimmed. Mike says he can come Sunday and pound T-posts so we can make a paddock for Kalypso especially but also give us more alternatives for all 3 horses. Then with Mike's help we will increase the side of the goat shed pasture. This is what I buy at the Old MIll this morning. (after Badger gets his shots and ears cleaned - 95 lbs) 1 horse dewormer, 3 5-way horse vaccines, bottle of goat dewormer, bottle of goat CDT vaccine, 2 dog vaccines and dog dewormer. We are ready for April Fools Day! And I feel good. There is a live-wire of vitality in this work. (The beautiful, long haired young women take photos of Badger's first store experience and he did well.)

Proximity: nearness in relation, occurrence or place time and order. Push-pull for me to go on an overnight with a friend. Henrik is here from Denmark for a clinic. Because of the snow this year, I can't ride and neither can Jackie. I am the grandmother clock pendulum. On one side is the attraction to be with humans who have verbal conversation but the other side is my lifelong rash from proximity. Horse clinics are a soup of pathetic fallacy: words that give human feelings or qualities to animals. Am I any different? Don't I come face to face with my own fear of emotive claustrophobia in each horse? Man from Blue Mountains, he says he lives in the most beautiful place in the world and the elevation is 3,500. I do not tell him that I lived in the most beautiful place in world at 10,000 feet on a forest service road, Flat Tops, Rocky Mountains. Instead, I tell him about Kalypso running straight into me, me flying threw the air. He says that it takes only one time to get killed. He wants to give me advice. With horses there is ten different types of advice per quarter inch. I watch Henrik, I watch the horses and riders, I wait to go home because I didn't drive myself. But eventually we do go home and I did survive. Today, I take Kali out and keep her out of my space. I am the capital R for Respect, and she is the little r. I make a plan to longe two times a week and the other days Kali will walk shoulder to shoulder with me and after we get to the end of the driveway, we will cross small creeks, we will circle sage and bitter brush, go up through the blue gate and around Rod's out-buildings and she will not knock me down. Beau will walk with strength and Kansas will settle down and not be the princess. By the time I am done with all three horses, picked up poop again, filled buckets again, swept the barn again, I clean the pen Josie and her new baby sleep in. I toss the old water across the barn's cement apron and give Josie clear, cold water. I give Josie cob, soy and a pinch of horse vitamins. The baby boy sleeps in the 20 gallon, blue hay bucket. He is a white-beige with a dark stripe down his back. He reminds me of his uncle long gone. When I pick him up, I wonder how long I can keep him with us. I name him (yes, I name him) Carl Junior.