Animal Speak

It's a Saturday morning in May and when I went to bed last night, very late, I told myself I would sleep in a bit. This past week, I have been going to bed much too late as just about every evening I've been binging on astrology charts and reminding myself of all the glyphs involved. When a Sagittarius dives into the next topic of interest, it is all consuming.

As it goes in life with animals, your plans are mere pipe dreams.

So it was at some time shortly before 7:00 a.m. that something woke me up and got me out of bed to look out my window. And there he was, Alibi, standing still but whipping and winding his neck around the way he does when he's got something to say.

A couple of weeks ago, just as I was heading to bed a little earlier than usual and feeling proud of that, I feel him trotting back and forth across the paddock. Then I hear his high pitched and forceful nostril snort. Something is not right out there and Alibi wants everyone to know.

I went out onto the deck, the goodles were standing back and watching Alibi for any signal telling them what to do next. I turned on all the outside lights while I hurried back in to put on jeans, grab my mag light, headlamp, gloves because you never know, sturdy shoes ready for whatever. Out with me go the dogs. In the event it's a cougar or coyote, or wandering human, I hope their barking will disrupt the intruder's thinking.

Alibi comes up to me but not taking his eyes off behind him. He's making sure I'm fully aware that he is not comfortable. With his energetic tether, he leads me to the corner of the paddock and directs me to look across the road to the treed landscape. Like any momma protecting her herd, I put a gentle hand on him recognizing his skin is tense and twitching, but just enough so he can feel that I have things under control now and he can let down a bit. He knows this.

With fresh batteries in my headlamp, I head out through the gate onto the road shining my mag light through the bushes and up into the trees, back and forth, looking for any reflective eyes looking back at me. I check back with Alibi to see where his gaze is focused and explore further.

In the end, I find nothing and I head back through the gate not knowing what caused his alarm. He came back over to me and over came the goats. The four of us stood together in the quiet night, letting go of any fear. When I could feel their tension slip away and I could hear Alibi's breath soften, I knew I could start contemplating bedtime again.

Getting back to this morning, unlike the other night, Alibi was not snorting. There was no audible sound from him but he most certainly called me. As I noted his neck wringing, with really really tired eyes I started to take in the scene. He had managed to get his hind leg caught in the electric net fencing around the pear trees.

For my convenience only, I do not have the fence energized. For the most part, they all assume it's always hot...until they don't.

Here we go again, dress up, head out. The goodles are once again standing back and side by side, not in fear this time but in concern. They understand that getting closer to him may stress him out.

Alibi knows me so well he knows I'm there to solve his every problem. He recognizes his hind leg is caught. If you know anything about an animal, you know that anything around their legs generally sets them to panic, particularly animals considered prey. Their legs are their escape. But rather than panic and try to pull out of the fence, which really would be typical of many other horses, he was standing still trusting I would hear his call.

As I approach, not speaking a word, he poops. Ha! Finally he can relax. He cooperates and lifts his hind leg for me so I can untangle the fence and kiss him with reassurance that he is safe to move. Once again, the goodles come over now that everything is clear, and the morning carries on like any other day.

The thinking goes that I might as well scoop poop, let the girls out, and put out some hay while I'm out there.

Tomorrow. Maybe I'll sleep in tomorrow.

If you want to hear what a horse snort sounds like to alert others to danger, this is a good example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtxecUYUH8A

Alibi freezing mid-bite to key in on a deer friend across the road

Attracting Abundance

As I anoint myself with my Young Living Abundance essential oil, I specify to the universe the type of abundance I seek.  Think about it...if you just sent out a general intention of abundance, it could be an abundance of parking tickets, bruised bananas, popped buttons!

The last couple of weeks have been interesting in this regard.  I booked two private teaching events for May, I've welcomed returning private students, the gal at the car wash gave me a $20 bill that she said she found under my front seat, a friend gave me a generous gift, and I received a bonus from work!

So as today is rather windy and I'm a bit foggy from a very late night and early morning, I've decided to go through my mail.  I don't do this as often as I should.

A notice from Delta inviting me to use the last of my miles on magazines was one piece of unopened mail.  I've already used these on magazines but it seems using them before has somehow generated more miles because I just placed my order for 300 weeks of the WSJ (I miss that newspaper), a year of Entertainment Weekly and The Economist.  Shhhh, I whisper to you that the invitation had a deadline which had passed but the return message said my subscriptions were being processed.

There was an invitation from Nielsen to complete a survey on my television habits.  I started to tear it up for the recycle bin when it struck me as possibly a fun thing to do, so I opened it.  There were two very crisp $1 bills in there as a thank you for completing the survey!  I had missed the survey deadline it seems, but as they were kind enough to send me $2, I thought it my duty to attempt to complete the survey.

Another piece of mail contained a $20 discount on a seafood order from Omaha Steaks.  The Seafood Sampler would be far more food than I could handle, or rather my freezer could handle, but my friend April is happy to share the order with me so we each get a reasonable portion of good quality seafood at a very good discounted price, plus the discount!

Last night at Maverick's, in addition to the wonderful people I see there regularly, two students who have been traveling for over a month came in to let me know they were back and ready to resume lessons, my physician was there, and a student from four years ago was there.  Funny to have such connections all there on the same night.

So, I shall be very clear about my intentions for abundance as I would like time to read my new subscriptions and prepare for the next Nielsen survey, but not too much time!