Let the story flow through you

So, back to full health and almost back on word count track. I have a much better feel for where my story is going and the characters, so every moment I'm not at my computer typing my story, I'm thinking about the next chapter or how to flush out a certain character or how this person is going to deal with this thing and ah!!! I can't believe I'm actually doing this! By the end of the first week last year I had pretty much forgotten about my story and lost all interest. This year there are a lot of moments when I just can't type fast enough to get the story out of me and onto paper. I love this feeling!

So, first a few pictures of Kaeden to keep up the cuteness and another excerpt. Have a great day all!

Watching football with Roofus

Breakfast time at daycare

Daily Commute

Since I've been putting in serious training rides for two months now we head out of the barn at a brisk walk, after a last minute double check of each other’s tack and helmets. Calista is silent for the first mile or so up Aberdeen Lake Road, content to let Chauncey stay just to the rear out of Minerva’s kick reach. Finally Calista urges Chauncey up next to Minerva, lazily poking the crop at the mare’s face when she lays her ear back at the gelding. “None of that, sissy girl,” Calista chides, and Minerva sets her ears forward again, pretending for the moment that it’s fine to have the gelding next to her. “You are a cat, horse,” I tell her, hoping to forestall whatever Calista is about to bestow upon me. It doesn’t work.

“I have finally accepted that no one, sans one of your pagan gods landing in front of you, is going to stop you from tearing off cross country with just a few horses and dogs for company,” Calista tells me. “Since this is so, Huon, Stan, Lilly and I have decided we are going to help you plan every day as best we can, including helping you contact every far flung family member or anyone else we might barely know to ensure you have a place to stay every night.” I twist in the saddle to stare at her, shocked, as this was the last thing I was expecting to hear from wise, practical Calista. Minerva takes advantage of my distraction to attempt to put Chauncey in his place again, but Calista just pokes her crop at the mare’s head again without even looking away from me.

“I…uh….um….what?” is all I manage to get out. Not my most graceful acceptance speech, I’ll admit. Calista, patient as ever, waits me out. “YES!” I finally shout, causing Chauncey to snort and Minerva to crow hop a little, requiring my full attention for a moment to reassure her that yes, I’m still large and in charge. I glance back at Calista, who has a giant fools grin on her face, holding up her phone pointing at me. “I told everyone you’d react something like that. I have proof now!” And she laughs manically as she tucks her phone back in her cantle bag. I ignore this for an attempt to get back some dignity and say instead, “Do you know how hard it’s been, not to ask you guys for help on this? I know no one really agrees with me putting off college for this, so I didn’t want to fan the flames!”

Calista nods, agreeing with me. “That’s why we had a meeting about you,” she tells me. She makes it sound like she and my closest friends are my principle and teachers, sitting down to discuss my school work and classroom behavior; slightly ominous, even when you know you have little to worry about. “We knew you weren’t going to change your mind, and we know you mostly want to do this alone. But we want to help, so we know you are as safe as you can be. And, as Stan pointed out, at least you’ll be on solid land, not trying to sail the seven seas in a tiny little boat.” I laugh, as those stories were what my friends had brought up in the first place, to try to argue me out of my trip. “So, we’ll help you plan, and a few of us want to ride with you for a bit this summer, until we have to go off to college in August, if you’re okay with some company.”

We ride in silence for a bit, while I digest my friend’s offer. I really want to ride alone, but I know that I’ll want company eventually. Why not start off with friends, ease the transition a little? We move the horses up to a steady, ground eating trot, staying single file now as we are on an intermittently active logging road that winds deep into the Olympic Peninsula. At the top of a steep hill we pause to give the horses a breather and take in the view of the bay and town through a clear cut section. I hand Calista a crunchy apple pocket pie from my saddle bags and tell her, “Any help my friends give me is welcome, but it’s still my trip, and I have a pretty set idea of where I’d like to go. I’ll detour a little bit if there are places to stay and the like, but I want to keep as close to my chosen route as I can. As for riding along with me, that could work but only if there are prearranged places to stay because I’ll need an extra horse. I was planning to bring two-one of my main riding mount, and Simon to be my pack horse, and then I would switch every day or so. But with someone else along I’ll need another riding mount.”

Calista nods and rips open the tough pie, pausing to offer a piece of fresh carrot to a disappointed looking Chauncey. “We figured there would be a lot of details to be worked out, but we thought it would be worth just offering. A little bit of sun in the middle of winter is better than snow,” she replies around a mouthful of pocket pie. I grin and ask, “So what kind of help are we talking, here? I’m not so concerned about my exact route, or food for myself, its finding water and fodder for the horses I’m most concerned about. I can only carry so much, and even staying in the north I can’t be assured of always finding clean water in summer.”

We turn the horses and start off at a slightly slower trot this time, staying side by side so we can hear each other. “Well, you have all those contacts through the endurance networks, so what we thought we could do is find where the gaps are and see how we could fill them, basically,” Calista offers. This is a solid plan, as I've been active in endurance for six years now. Last year I completed Tevis with Chauncey-way down in the ranks, of course, but we finished America’s toughest 100 mile long endurance ride. The endurance community is the most supportive and open horse community I know of, even more than 4H, and there are endurance riders scattered all over the country, though they tend to group together around where the most rides happen. I think for a minute, and then tell Calista, “Well, until I reach the prairie of Montana, I’m pretty set. There are endurance riders and others they know within a day’s ride of each other from here until then. But from Eastern Montana until Illinois there’s not a lot of people I or my mother knows. From Illinois on until Maine, there’s some family scattered, my mother’s draft horse contacts and her old school friends.” I pause for a minute and Calista drops back to let a loaded log truck lumber past. To their credit, my veteran horses barely bat an eyelash as the huge truck rumbles past a few feet from them.