Decompression Time - the time spent unwinding after getting home from work. Didn't Dick Van Dyke have a martini waiting for him at the door? While that sometimes sounds good, my decompression time involves cleaning pens. It sounds like work, but it really is not. I put on the ipod and drag the green waste can behind me. Just being in the pens casually picking up manure is soothing. No, really. There's something about doing a mindless job that cleans out the mental debris of the day.

The horses do their part too, of course. Even though there is hay in the feeder they'll come over and investigate. The whole job only takes about 20 minutes, but, bless their hearts, if they think I'm working to hard they'll stand between me and the can as if to say, "Stop and smell the manure, pops. Or better yet, scratch these withers...lower, lower, no higher, no lower, ahh right there". You might say this time is spent desensitizing both of us.

And, just as I'm picking up the last pile and the stresses of the day have melted away, I get all the tools put away, look over, and there Jessie is with what I swear is a smile on her face, with her tail up, saying, "You missed a spot".