Back with the Home Crowd

Yesterday, Camille and I made the long drive back home.  It took us just shy of twelve hours including short stops for lunch, frozen yogurt and dinner.  I unpacked the cooler, Brett took everything out of the car with Camille's help, and then I watched the Olympics -- leaving the rest of the unpacking for today. 

My foot handled all the driving just fine.  Before I went to bed, I un-taped the toes and they seemed okay that way so I left free during the night.  This morning, they were stiff, to be sure, but didn't hurt so I tried wearing a real shoe down to the barn for chores.  At first, my toes complained but then they settled down and were pretty happy.  Happier than in the clunky heavy boot anyway.

I checked on my garden before getting the dogs.  My grape tomatoes are in need of harvesting.  The sauce and slicing tomatoes aren't quite there yet.  I love eating grape tomatoes as a snack -- bits of ruby red sunshine exploding sweet in my mouth.

Normally, when I go into the back yard the dogs meet me at the door and then race me to their gate.  They love to play (Kersey) and patrol (Sedona) while we do chores.  This morning, they met me at the door as usual.  Sedona immediately started squeaking like a tea pot and wiggling in welcome.  Kersey ran in circles around us.  But instead of running to the gate, Sedona dropped to the ground and waved all four paws in the air to make sure I knew how happy she was to see me.  We eventually made it out the gate and down to the barn where Brett was busy making up the morning buckets of vitamin supplements for the horses.  Brett immediately noticed that I wasn't wearing my walking boot --and suggested we go for a ride this afternoon with Flash and Winston.  Is it any wonder I push the recovery on my foot?  He's worse than me! 

Brett put the supplements in the stalls, filled Winston's bucket with water to soak (his supplements are kind of goopy -- coarsely ground flax seed base we mix with water to make it palatable), and went to let the horses into the barn.  Kersey immediately drank from Winston's bucket.  She will eat or drink anything.

Winston was too busy eating his supplements to give me the time of day.

But Flash stuck his nose over the stall door so I could give him a kiss.

Jackson was staring out of his stall with longing.

But it wasn't me that he wanted.

He was waiting for this:

So I got to work mucking the pasture.

I'm pleased -- I fed the goats, the dogs and mucked the pasture this morning.  That's almost my full list of responsibilities -- Brett did the chickens and Camille is here to feed her rabbits.  And, I did it in regular shoes without pain or fatigue.  Yes!