Tempest: violent and windy storm commotion disruption hurly burly. I can not take photos of wind even as it blows sideways at 40 MPH. It takes more than I know. It looks like a sunny day with smoke along the ground. Wind wakes me up at 4am rattling, breaking like waves against the house. Scout and Al the Dogs do not whine to go out. While Tony and I drink coffee with the bed covers up under our armpits, I talk about retirement. Seven years here and right from the start I always said: I'm not retired yet. Seventy I will retire and make at least one more choice: Western Washington, giant trees, rain and beaches. I foresee Tony with a walker, Beau dies by 30, Scout the 16 yo lab mix no longer with us, maybe not even Al. That iss too painsful to think of. We buy a woodshed that looks like a mini-barn and fill it with tools, a small pen for 2 pet goats and straw for our Pyrenees that are past middle-age by then and we string an invisible fence up. Kansas is 21. If Kaly finds a good home at 7 we will sell or if not I will be long-lining at 90...I have to snap at Tony to get him out of bed. Sunrise did not bring the wind down. By the time he has finished his breakfast drink, I will be done at least one stall. I am up and out. March 1: no physical restrictions starting today. Hernia repair will hold. I am even on both sides of my belly. Just this has made me 10 years younger. I carry outside goats 4 flakes of compressed timothy. Ellensburg has internationally renowned hay and here the big hay sheds sell seconds. The goats pile out of their shed but I walk on top of snow to the lee side and spread hay on clean snow. The stalls go fast. Badger lays on top of a 2 tier hay stack. Jaci Chan spreads out in the hay on the floor. They do not go out in this wind. Liz the chicken and a rooster cluck for layina. By the time I've mucked Kaly's Tony is in the barn. He pries the boot on Kansas shoeless right front then we slowly walk her through the barn. I hold Kaly back and her mom joins her in that stall with turn-out. Two big flakes of Dave's timothy go on clean snow outside. Tony wrestles Beau's boot on his shoeless left front, feeds him inside and I finish cleaning stalls. On my way to the m anure pile the wind picks the heavy rubber bowl out of the wheelbarrow and turns it upside down with molasses cob grain intact on the ground. Quick I let the nubian, cindy, out of the goat pen and she gobbles grain. The baby goats and their mom, the pregnant ewes get compressed hay I set in a line in the lean-to. I string up a rope between the 2 turnouts to give the goats a safe, windless area away from Kaly in case she decides to chase them again. Maybe today fighting the wind will be enough for her. Tony fills the inside water buckets and I fill the outside. The sun is shining. The wind is screaming and up my nose. It is so good to be able to carry, lift, move. Back in the house, homemade bread with broiled cheese. I sneeze and sneeze. I say: I will not be ready to leave for 5 years. I say: You and I know so much now. We know how to work with the weather and around our own limitations and we can almost work together. And then there is what this place will give the 3 grandson; it is so precious.

1) Hernia repair January 1/30/17 2) Spinal cerebellar ataxia slows Tony to a crawl 3) Gutted the goat herd and sold Spud the Buck 7/16 4) 2 Great Pyrenees come to live here 5) house doubles in size 2015 (contractor runs off with young woman) 6) garden eaten by rodents 2016 7) plant blackberries 2016 last but not least: Kalypso born to Kansas April 2015 Isolation living on a mountain with a man who has progressive neurological disease. What if he had a stroke? It would be no different, an emotional instability, discouragement. What are the choices we can make? I have come to the dream of my life so late, by the seat of my pants. Samuel Becket would say: I go on. This is the longest winter yet and last time I went out to rescue the sled I sunk in snow up to my knees. Tomorrow I am officially free of surgical restrictions and maybe I will go out and rescue the sled. Too many ways to be too old: for young horses for being relevant in poetry in word usage for cute shoes This is a strange place Tony and I started. I am the organizer, the planner, the daydreamer. Tony is the one who can exist in repetition. The horses pull Tony to the barn; they are his closest relationships. Kalypso is his princess. Kansas is the Queen and Beau ever gallant and handsome. Tony keeps walking for the horses. While we are on this land by ourselves we do not see how often Tony stumbles, how many times he falls. Here we are normal for us. At 65, I went for my medicare wellness check and the ARNP said to pick up all the non-rubberized rugs...In the past year and a half I have smashed my head so hard I lost words (with my helmet on) and been trampled by a young horse two times. So far, we do not give up.

Animal Babies After Tony's Mom dies at ninety seven, he comes home. His Mom was the third oldest in Provincetown. Because of the brain disease, air travel makes Tony more wobbly but he manages. Kind of like a joke, I bought three day old anaconda chicks while he's gone. A week before our order of a dozen Banties arrived but the feed store held on to them an extra day. They are so weak. Four die. After the chicks come home, one more dies and then they start living. At night I cover the box up with fiber board. The heat lamp is clipped to the goat delivery pen. It frosts at night but the chicks keep living so I buy three more. The anacondas are like pillow puffs. The brown Banties commandeer the big yellow puffs. The Banties surround them and settle in. They peck at each other when week old Banties try to steal an Anaconda Puff. Then Cindy Lou goes into labor two weeks early and I am running. Cindy doesn't think she wants to walk to the delivery pen but she comes along slowly. All the other goats want to sniff her. When they can't see Cindy they start wailing. I take the big, plastic heat lamp from the chicks and twirl the blue cord, secure it, and clip it. I get an old metal heat lamp for the chicks and resecure that one. Keep one eye on Cindy. Run to get the green towel and the shot glass for Iodine. Run back and Cindy is licking off two babies. She is frantic. Grab the towel and help. Cindy licks me too until we all just stop and sit still and all the babies are going to be okay for right now. A week and Tony comes home. He is confused about the number of chicks but he's scared to say anything for a day in case he has the number wrong.

Last day of February: Guarantee me that no one told the patient she could crawl down the hall if she wanted her dinner. I need to know that didn't happen. Let's say she has Borderline Personality but maybe her back really did go out. "Pop" she said it felt like. But still, Probably "crawl down the hall" weren't the exact words that fell like pins out of someone's tight mouth. Twelve hour shifts, staff becomes a resevoire of irritation. My head aches this morning. I am angry and restless. I make the vegan strata with real milk. That will teach you! Chance of two inches snow accumulation. The weather swings back and forth. Tony, speak to me like an adult I say. How do two people learn to cooperate successfully in old age? I want to downgrade my responsibility. Okay, I just want a downgrade, any kind of downgrade! Tony buys five young goat does from Bob and Bernice. Here are the names: Lady Rose, Page, Sharon, Bunny, Honey.

Presidents Day

One more time I send an application to Harborview but they will not call me and I am filled with February despair. When I come to the house Tony says again: There is nothing I can do. Of course that is not true. John sells Christmas trees in the winter. He has set up a lot and parks his van. Tony pulls the guy who delivers newspapers by car out of the ditch this winter. There are things. So much is now for me to figure out, come up with the ideas, the motivation, the positive attitude and, make the money. When I sit still I can picture Provincetown, Tony's male family sitting around the kitchen table smoking cigarettes and bitching. I can see his sisters with waist long black hair, standing, oooking, washing and escaping to the tourist motels to do the washing cleaning. The men sit because all they can do is fish and if the fishing isn't good they are off the hook. But I did not ever live in Provincetown. And I have been through this once before. The kids' father: If I don't have the money then I can't send you the money. And me saying: you expect me to come up with the money no matter what! I remember loosing the house. And I do not want to be in that place again and Tony is not that person. So, I start talking. Tony is going to go up the road this morning and talk to Bernice, ask about a few more does. I am telling Tony that I want him to be so busy that he has to say: Penny, I can't do it all, help me out. Then, I can say I'm not going to the big city hospitals to try to find a job. Then, I can just say, I live here. This evening is the first hot-tub of the season!

Working seven p.m. until seven a.m. When the kids were little I used to pick up donuts Sunday morning on the way home from work. I worked every weekend to be home during school days more but really, Morgan and Gus were on their own too much of the time. Now, with the psych unit closing in eleven months, nurses' work schedules are heaved and tossed around. This month I am working nights. I am half here: a ghost. My life is focused on awake or asleep. It simplifies everything. I sit down in one place. I pace myself. Tony and I celebrate Valentines on the next free day. But, first I get up at two in the afternoon with sun pouring in the bedroom and classical music playing in the kitchen. There is no wind. Tony helps me brush the horses and I ride both. It is Kansas best time of day, tea time, but Beau does not like his schedule thrown off. I am exhausted. Tony cooks steaks outside and I bake a chocolate weight watchers desert and make a big salad. We listen to the violin on the tiny player and eat with the single candle that drips down the wine bottle and Tony coddles the wax. I say I love you Tony and he makes a joke. No, no, it is time to be genuine. Tony smiles and looks down. I say, you know I can't do this without you don't you? He says he knows. I say you will get more handicapped as time goes by but we will just have to make adjustments. Tony says he thinks that will be the key, being able to make adjustments. The steak tastes really good. Tuesday the forecast calls for snow.

It's like swimming in the dark. Why, you ask. Always doing something I don't know how to do. Something with working night shift all of a sudden. Twelve hour nights. It draws calcium out of my bones. I become brittle. And there is the writing. Marketing. Reading. Open Mike, I as?. It is twenty years since I did an open mike, a poetry slam. Then I could rely on my looks at least. Now, not so much. Maybe I could puff the gray hair out and wear dark colors but that only goes so far. Five minutes the descriptions say. So, I get up on stage and say: I am reading from my book "Memories of a Female Trucker." Five minutes, and I can always read in one breath. I am sure I can still do that. There are no cigarettes in bars these days. I will miss the cigarettes. So, if I can get myself to drive to Seattle and do the open mikes, and if I acknowledge that I am loosing my job as a psychiatric nurse in one year and no one wants to even call me for an interview anymore, then I can move ahead to the horses. My mare is lying outside in the wind. She is lying on grass that is barely sprouting through the clods of dirt. There are patches of snow in the shadows. My mare has her green blanket on. She is fifteen. She would like a baby, yes, positively, she says. It is expensive. It is risky as are all pregnancies. Babies come at great cost. Small horses have boundless energy and razor sharp hooves. I have an email today: yes, O'donnell is standing at stud in Port Orchard. That is what it is called: Standing at Stud. The thought holds so much promise. The thought is like a pledge of faith that this life is worth continuing. In the free moments, Tony and I clear the dresser and plant rows of Walla Walla Sweet Onions and cover with chicken wire to keep the cat off. The neighbors will come to dinner tonight. I have the pie crust waiting in the refrigerator. This is something that I know how to do.