darkness is settling in; my wife fell off a horse, and i'm alone. oh yes there are kids around, too many in fact, but that will take care of itself; i will take those home who aren't ours, and try to take care of those who are. it's unusually silent. i took out my hearing aids, because the puppy was yipping at the cows.

the puppy was the first to know things were not right. the kids heard the news, and kind of retreated into their own worlds, but the puppy stood at the front window, waiting for her to return. when the cows came he got very upset. he figures maybe the cows are keeping her from coming home.

no, she probably has a broken hip. i'm not sure how this will play out.

to some degree i figure it's just the price you pay. she was riding every day, and under a lot of stress, and using the horses to alleviate the stress. but horses are stress too. one of them, probably the one that threw her, was a wild apache horse which was never quite tamed from its wild days, and probably it was her idea that he would grow to love her and they could have this wild experience out in the back country out by walker canyon. me, i stay home and try to build stuff; i did finish putting walls on the shed, and then, at her request, got started on a deck which i otherwise might have put off until spring. it's not all that hard and chances are good that i can finish it quick before the really bad weather comes. now, darkness is falling on my project, and i'm not sure if i'll even get back to it in a while.

i don't want to sit around feeling sorry for myself, but at the moment, i'm just hanging by the phone, not cooking, watching darkness fall, doing nothing but feeling sorry for myself. four kids, and i'm kind of a single father. it will all work out, i hope, as i'm sure she needed a break (so to speak) to some degree anyway. she was losing too much weight and suffering from over-stress.

my little empire here will compress. i need to get the truck back (from the ranch), get her back, take care of her, and somehow keep kids going to and from school and practice. it will be a busy time. for one thing, one practice is at 6 am, the other is after school, 3 40 to 5. so there's a possibility of four trips to town, unless i do something to keep that number down. my strategy here will be to ship them out if possible, keep the unnecessary driving down, that kind of thing. all this will start tuesday. tomorrow i have a day to adjust to the new reality.

actually today was my day to do that. here i sit, watching the sun go down, doing just that.