Despite our warm spring there has been a lot of snow.

Cross-country tracks are pleasantly deserted.

On Wednesday after the holidays we got up early in the morning and Sid took me to a surgery clinic in Los Gatos. I have had my inguinal hernia for many years, it only took me a long time to realize what it was, and accept the fact that it really wouldn't go away. At my age, I regard some creaky joints and small pains as normal, and most of them show up only occasionally and disappear soon (just to make room for another problem elsewhere). My hernias — the doctor told me a sweet secret during my pre-surgery check-up that I had one on each side — simply won't heal and ignoring them would get possibly worse over time.

Strangely enough, the surgery is done without hospitalization, for which I was glad. I can't stand hospitals. They assured Hippo at the intake that he should be able to pick me up by ten thirty, and then I was thrown into the machinery. I woke up from my narcosis quite unpleasantly, i.e. by feeling as about to suffocate. As they had intubed me, they had somehow irritated my tubes and I got a persistent urge to cough, which I could not, having just gotten my belly sewn up again. This issue lingered for several days; I could not cough off, so I kept rasping and wheezing, until I figured a position lying head-down from my bed, holding my stomach, and at least coughing up something.

It was supposed to be a routine laparoscopy, but during the surgery one of my muscle layers had ruptured, and thus I received unscheduled internal repairs, which turned out to be the second problem. The doctor had promised me that two weeks after surgery I would be up and running, and after said fortnight I was still lurching about like in the last stage of pregnancy (or just before death?), reduced to skirts and sweat-pants — jeans, my stable uniform, were simply out of question.

Hope Valley.

'Cross the country and the forest, indeed.

And now about the positives. I had prepared my family for not being able to lift or carry anything for six to eight weeks, and thus my children had familiarized themselves with operating the washing machine, Lisa learned basic cooking, and Hippo had to call me every day from work for instructions regarding grocery shopping. I must say that the system where I simply supervised the works, did not begin to tire me even after six weeks.

It did not change anything on the fact that I was recovering slowly from my surgery. I must have looked horribly, for Sid gave me an early birthday present to lift my spirits — 1911 by Springfield. At that moment, I was not even able to pull the slide — funny the things one needs belly muscles for, without realizing it. Nevertheless, it was a good motivation. After three weeks I started to go on walks, I had to take off my sweat-pants and wear jeans at least to the stables (I still could not drive in them). I also had hard time sitting down — I could stand up or lie down, which evaporated my visions about catching up on journals and old e-mails, et cetera. I could either function in the household and at the stables, or lounge and watch TV series.

Well, and not to be in it by myself, I had planned surgery for Ned as well. Throughout this winter he developed several melanomas. Given his age and the fact that he's a grey horse, it was not really surprising, but one tumor had appeared in a spot that kept being bruised by the cinch, and so I had invited a vet to cut it out. Given the location of the wound it was clear that no-one would be able to ride on this horse for several weeks — and this way we had been recovering together. Ned had a much better time of it, I'm sure.

Blizzard.

Lisa with Marshmallow.

After four weeks, we drove up to the mountains again. My family went to ski the slopes, I was still not ready to imagine even properly sit on a lift, much less endure shocks on the way downhill, or carrying my skis from and to the car, and thus I went cross-country. Those stupid four miles of more or less flat meadow took me an hour and a half, but the landscape devoid of crowds pleased me and this years' heaps of snow were truly picturesque. Still I whimpered in the evening, lying in my bed. The kids met new friends at the hotel, and their active father had organized a campfire, which was great. I wanted to join them to be sociable, the father turned out nice to talk to, but I had reached a phase when I was not able to stand up, much less sit (that presses on the belly), and I stumbled away again to my bed.

On Sunday we first stopped in Hope Valley and took out our cross-country skis again. We did not again manage to lure out Hippo to try it, but honestly, most of the snow on the meadow had melted away, and thus the kids and I stumbled around the woods. They liked it there a lot, but my neglected muscles liked it a lot less. After about an hour of terrain ride, I gave up and went to read in the car; the kids went to play in a brook bubbling through the meadow. In the end we had to remind them repeatedly that we still wanted to continue to Kirkwood and ski there with their new-found friends.

An so everybody skied at Kirkwood, while I read. It was very warm, and I could stay in the comfort of our car with food and drink in reach. Hippo and Tom dropped out first; Lisa remained on the slopes with the friendly family for another hour, practically to the closing hour. Given the poor snow situation and my health issue, it was a very successful trip.

Carol and Walker.

Help, too many goats!

On the following weekend, we had organized a birthday party for the goats. The animals, naturally, don't give a bleat, but our kids wanted to see last year's baby goats again, and thus we had invited them all for one afternoon to the stables. Goats remember their environment and family, and our baby goats had been sold to become companions, pets, and lawn mowers (for goats, a more accurate would be to say bush-whackers), and none of the made it into a stew. I bought a huge cake, bow ties for the bucks (or more accurately, wethers), colorful scarves for the females, and we were ready. Only, there are not too many pictures, for apparently everybody focused on partying and no one stopped for snapshots.

And as if there weren't enough goats, Shelly had sent me a picture of a tiny buck, whom she got a chance to buy. Alas, Shelly also just bought a ranch, and needed some time to fix up fences, while the original owner resolved to get the buck sold as soon as possible. I offered to let the baby buck stay with our goats for two weeks; eventually, I drove to pick him up, since I, unlike Shelly, don't go to work. My interest in the buck is very selfish — I needed a mate with paperwork for Twilight and Licorice. To own, and more importantly, to house a billy goat is no walk in the park, and so people don't do it, and hence having someone near WILLING to own a buck, is actually a great deal.

I picked up Thor and his paperwork (the children had decided that he deserved some dignified and powerful name, into which he will grow), and hurried to pick up Lisa from school. With the baby goat in a carrier. Peoples' reactions were priceless — everybody had to ask that it was really a goat bleating from the carrier, and that they haven't gone mad. Joined by Lisa, we went straight to the stables. Poor Thor has peed all over himself and wept continuously, just like any little baby in a stress situation. And a baby goat coming up on five weeks of age is still a baby, who should still be by my reckoning with his mother — but the mother got sold as a show goat, and her kids sold in all directions, and that was that. Thor kept refusing to drink from a bottle, was scared, and kept calling his mother, simply horrible.

Thor.

Thor is such a baby.

For the first two days is was quite a workout, but eventually he took to the bottle, and got used to our female goats. I first had thought that we would take him home for the night, but he so obviously needed other goats, I rejected it after first few hours. I also came up with a theory that Thor's mother was black — the poor kid keeps following our black Licorice, and when I showed up at the stables in a black t-shirt, he kept cuddling up to me. He was generally missing contact — Thor would cuddle with his mother and siblings, sleeping together; for our goats he is a stranger, and although they learned over time to accept him and respond to his calling, he never became their little baby goat.

In the midst of goat trouble we set out once again to the mountains, having three days of school holiday. Accompanied by Klárka and Honza for a change, I wanted to try my downhill again. Cross-country conditions were bleak, for Hope Valley had melted down, and even meadows at Kirkwood did not look promising. In the end, skiing with Honza had worked out great — he does not seem to get caught up on athletic accomplishments, but is a decent skier willing to take our children to some more demanding terrain, while Hippo and I tried to teach Klárka to improve. I had discovered that I was able to cope to with groomers, but black slopes and natural terrain was not for me yet — so I went slow and stopped frequently, and that was OK with me.

For the rest of the holidays, Hippo had to go to work, while me and the kids had to take care of the baby buck. We took Klárka along twice — and it usually developed into the children running around, taking the goats to a pasture, exercising earthworms on the creek bank, and getting all muddy, sweaty and hungry. Jolly good.

Taking it easy skiing with Klárka and Honza.

One can ride backwards, too.

On the second holiday Sunday, I finally made good on my last year's promise to Lisa, and took her vaulting. In the last fall, when they did registrations for the next season, Lisa had a broken toe, and we gave it up then. Now the club opens for drop-in lessons on Sundays. Whoever shows up with twenty five dollars, may try it for an hour. You can come several times, skip out, no commitment.

Naturally, now that we resolved to take Lisa there, it started raining. To my surprise the lesson was still being held, and to my even greater surprise not in a covered paddock, but in an open sky vaulting ring. Alright, the practicing ground was covered, with mats and gear relatively dry — but it was just a roof, as the barn had only two walls, and it was cold and clammy there. No one of the participants seemed to mind. And when the coach insisted on the kids practicing falls from a wall into the round pen, girls would throw themselves head-first into soaking wet bark shavings. An hour later I was freezing, damp, and grumpy — while Lisa was completely soaked, warmed up, and enthusiastic. Since then she had spoken rarely about anything else, and thus we should see if such a path would be suitable for our circus performer. She had out-grown her pony Sugar, and he is now leaving with Shelly to her new ranch, and won't be available to children at the stables. Time for a change had come and the question is, which way to pick momentarily.