Rest Day

This morning I woke up to Lucy, the old cattle dog, and Jet, the four-month-old puppy, at the entrance of my tent, ready for some petting. We spent the day with the Barton ladies – Angie and her daughters Ellie and Claire (identical twins), and Rachel, who works for the forest service. Ellie cooked for us and took us around to spend time with the animals. The llama (Maggie) was hilarious, instantly likable, and uncharacteristically friendly. She would run up to you from a great distance and put her face directly in your face, sniff you, and then let you pet her. All the others (goats, sheep, horses, donkey, cows, pigs, etc.) mostly just begged to be scratched, so we spent a lot of time doing that. 

In the evening, Angie took us and Rachel and the four dogs up to the cabin they have on a little lake up on the mountain behind their property. It was very cute and rustic with a sort of Lincoln Log style. The road to get there was truly hair-raising. It was a very steep and rocky dirt trail that cut switchbacks up the mountainside. I was glad to not be the one driving. We sat on the mountaintop to watch the sunset and took some pictures with Angie and Rachel. After dinner, we had some of Angie’s homemade strawberry shortcake and did some laundry and talked to Angie about gender non-normativity and identity politics. This pen is dying (as all things do).