Fear

I am sometimes overwhelmed by panic about the "nomad" project. Especially when the horses are uncooperative, or the weather is horrid, or the house, and my bookshelves, are espeially inviting, or when I cook something fanciful and complicated in my huge kitchen. But most of all, I get scared when insomnia gets hold of me, and I lay silent in the bed at night, the grandpa clock upstair beating hour after hour in the dreamless darkness, and endless wreaths of words unfolding in my brain, anchoring me into uneasy wakefulness. I have visions of horrible damp camp places, smoky fires, cold nights, accidents. I created a scale for fear states: 0 is "jolly go merry", 10 is "blind flailing terror". Most of the times, at night I settle on grade 9, "scared s**tless".

I am however in good company. TomBoy is also a scared creature. He is huge (for a pony), and remarkably strong, but he is still a big baby. He has the face and manners of one who still believes in Santa Claus. He has a puppy look about him that is painflully cute. It is terribly difficult to draw lines with him, and establish rules. It must be done, but it always leaves a bitter taste, a sense of guilt. He looks at you with those huge puzzled eyes, and you can figure him sucking his thumb and spilling tears.

Today walk was relatively succesfull. He only "muled" three times. Once he actually needed to do some toilette business, and I had to apologize for being so inconsiderate as not to get the hint of his meaningful looks. The second time was because of a very scary, tarp-covered wood pile. It is well known that tarp-covered wood piles are a favourite ambush place for huge horse-eating sabre-toothed tigers, so we all convened that the wood pile had to be approached with utmost caution, everyone of us trying to hide behind someone else, and no blame was put on anyone. But the third time was embarassing. A family of four, leading a black and white terrier the size of peanut, appeared on the path, and nothing could convince TomBoy to move another step until the father of the family led the offending dog 20meters out of the path into the woods, and every other grinning member of the family had passed us, and sunk the horizon in the opposite direction. "This is my haflinger horse. I call him Braveheart". Who knows. May be he hunderstands things about terriers that we can't even suspect.

In order to gather a bit of courage about our future life I took out the dutch oven today and made roast chicken. This was a variation of this recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/My-Favorite-Simple-Roast-Chicken-231348
which is the best recipe for roasted chicken I ever met, and one of my favourite dishes. A 12 inches dutch oven is just a tad cramped for a whole chicken, but you can cut a small one in a half, or roast a packet of chicken legs. In any case, pat dry, sprinkle generously but judiciously with salt and pepper, and lay on the bottom of the dutch oven, skin up, with a mere sprinkle of olive oil under it. Close the dutch oven and roast for an hour or until the meat is done, with the cover well closed. When almost ready pile more embers on the cover of the oven and let it slightly open to let the steam out, so the skin becomes nice and crispy. Remove the chicken from the oven, overturn the cover, carefully discarding the embers, and lay the chicken on it to keep warm. Scrape up and mix the juices of the chicken on the bottom of the oven, using a tiny bit of water to mollify them if necessary (but only the minimum needed). Scatter a spoonful of fresh thyme leaves in the juices, take the pot from the fire and melt a nice piece of fresh butter (50 g or so) in the "gravy". Pour over the chicken and serve hot.
You will understand by now, that I will need a pot of fresh thyme on my travels. Of all fresh herbs, it is the oneI cannot abide to do without.