(Today, the new Bedlam Farm clothesline went up. Every farm should have one, Maria has always wanted one.)

In the next week or so, we will be getting a new pony named Chloe and a new border collie puppy named Fate. We didn’t name her, but we recognized right away that this was the right name for her, it seemed we were fated to have her. Sunday evening, Dr. Karen Thompson, the very excellent human and breeder who send me Red, send me a new video of Fate playing outside.  I am reminded that she will be a handful, all border collies are, and I think border collie puppies have small nuclear reactors built inside of them, they don’t really ever rest.

I am going to be 68 this summer, the anniversary of my Open Heart Surgery is only a couple of months away. I was sitting in my soft chair wondering if perhaps I am not getting a bit long in the tooth for so much change and excitement, and at that moment, an e-mail arrived from Karen saying “Fate will keep you young in heart and body.” Wow, I think, she is a telepath as well as good friend and breeder.

I think Karen is right. She will be 69 this summer, and she is quite young in mind and spirit. Many things work together to keep me feeling young and eager for life: Maria, my daughter, my work, my blogs, my photography and books, the dogs and animals here, my friends, the small town in which I live. I feel that my life continues to fill up with wonder, I am rich in just about everything but money.

And true riches, I have learned more than once, do not come from money. Some days I need to sit in my chair and nap –  this is a very new thing for me. Today I pushed the new mower up and down the lawn, then I went to the gym, my legs feel like licorice sticks. But I feel quite strong and active, energetic and ambitious. I have a lot of good work to do, many blog posts to commit to words, photos to take, books to write, ponies to meet and dogs to train.

I have never felt better about my writing. It is true that it is good to be older when one is writing, because the longer you live, the more you have to write about. I am so grateful I was not a professional athlete, my career would be so long over by now. Yet I feel it is just beginning.

Karen is right about Fate, she will keep me  young in body and spirit. Life is not simple, it was not easy when I was younger, it is not easy now. It is filled with crisis and mystery, every day. The energy and drive of this puppy will be like a small and joyous cyclone hitting our farm. We will  not get complacement or stale here, no drowsy days without meaning or purpose for me. My new and refurbished heart is filled with love and excitement, it is ready even for a border collie puppy with a blue eye.

This weekend, we will be making a nine-hour trek to Virginia, twice within a few days, we will have to figure that out. When we return, Bedlam Farm will have been reborn again, there was loss here in the winter, life is returning. Maria has been out bringing our porch – a mirror of our lives here, to life again. Flowers are appearing, the wood will soon be stacked in the woodshed, the chickens are at their water bowl again, the stone works from my study are making their summer pilgrimage outside.

Today Maria put up a clothesline in the back of the house, she has been wanting one for several years.

Life is what you make of it, my heart and soul are younger than ever.