Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. Daily Paws: Have You Heard of Doga? Everything You Need to Know About Practicing Yoga With Your Dog. Valentini 2020. Hat tip to Amy for answering my monthly plea for dog news.

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I have magic fingers. I can pet any species – horse, dog, cat – and if they have a tick, I will find it. Mind you, I’m not looking for the darn things, I just find them. Pat. Pat. What’s this bump? It’s a different situation than checking manes and tails for ticks in the summer. That’s deliberate. This borders on a micro superpower.

Magic fingers. I’ve known this for a while.

Turns out I have magic feet as well.

When you combine a dog rest area with a people walk space, you have … um … moments of intersection. I have a pitchfork on permanent standby. I make a point of noting where the dog is standing. I return later for a squishy scavanger hunt.

Doesn’t help. Brown leaves. Brown piles. Stomp.

Magic feet.

I has them.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. What is time even? Listening to Around the World in 80 Days With Michael Palin. It came out 35 years ago. There was a point in my life when 35 years ago was ancient history. Now it is yesterday.

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With the end of Winter Tournament, I find myself examining my equestrian options.

Home Team

Milton and I have drifted so far apart that husband Greg stays home to hold Milton for the blacksmith.

Rodney. Sigh.

Stepping Stone Farm

I promised myself that after Winter Tournament I would stop riding Optimus. He is a busy beginner horse who doesn’t need his schedule clogged by someone who ought to be able to ride other horses.

Had two rides last year on non-Optimus horses. Neither lesson went well. I am so braced for a melt-down that I am riding tight. Horses find this upsetting. [The Lesson That Wasn’t, lesson with Bubba was not as bad, but not brilliant]

Barns change over time, particularly those with a high concentration of kids. Riders grow up, they move off into their adult lives. When I started, there were amazing academy horses. The current crop has more riders in performance, which means their horses are not available for academy.

I miss Sam.

Other Barns, School Horses

No one wants my money. I can kinda see their point. Their programs are full. Why should they make room for me? All they see is an old lady freaking out over cross-rails. They figure, this will be not fun, this will not increase my revenue. They’re wrong about my ability. They can’t see the pieces in the rubble. [Freddie Reintroduces Me To The Concept Of A Course]

Other Barns, Lessons

Those barns with full programs aren’t interested in dealing with the logistics of an off-property AOT. [What I Want From A Hunter Barn At A Show]

Friends Horses

I have had amazing rides on horses owned by friends. Not so much here. [Other People’s Horses]

Tertium Quid

The new horse. More sigh.

Coda

This was gonna be a drama llama post about how my riding career is over. I have no idea where my next ride will come from. See above. Horse shows have receded over the horizon. Whine.

No one wants to hear that. I don’t want to hear that.

Instead, this is me trying to figure out my next step. What I want. What is available. What to do when A not= B.

I think I will be taking March off to ponder. See what happens without riding or horse shows for a month.

Coda Coda

Which leads to the problem of what to blog about. I’ve milked our morning hand-walks for as much as narratively possible. Virtual Tevis does not start until April.

Expect cat pictures and stories from the before times.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE: How I Become a 52-year-old Cheerleader, February 15, 2024, hmccance. Hat tip to Grace.

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Alabama Winter Tournament Association, #3
Rocking S Farm
Helena, AL USA
Saturday 17 February 2024

All with Optimus.

2. Advanced Horsemanship WTC Adult –3rd of 3
3. Advanced Equitation WTC Adult (Pattern) – 4th of 4
8. Pleasure Horse/Pony WTC Adult – 1st of of 3(?)
14. Masters Pleasure 50+ – 1st of 2
26. Academy Driving – 1st of 1

Thank you, once again, to the Gray Family for the outstanding Optimus.

Please note the blue in class 8, against suit riders.

Photo credit, Carrie Williams, stellar show mom.

How To Ask For The Canter

Method 1. Pause. Organize self. Organize horse. Shift horse’s butt noticeably to the inside. Apply outside aids. Optimus will pick up a flawless canter depart every time.

Method 2. Leave horse in a heap. Tip shoulder toward horse. Give a casual Go Canter signal. Previous Horse would pick up a flawless canter depart every time.

Optimus, not so much.

I know this. I don’t always do this.

Got all my leads on the rail in four classes. Blew both (!) leads in the pattern. As a redemption, he started to downshift in a later class. I felt it and caught it in time. I think we had one trot step.

How To Get On A Horse

At ring side. Had to get on horse. No mounting block in sight.

Me, really bad at being catapulted onto horse. [Getting a Leg Up]

Coach James, swears he can get anyone on a horse.

He was right. I did end up on the horse. There was a bit of a splat on my part and a short wander on the horse’s part, but I did arrive in the saddle. Eventually.

Later. Had to get on horse. Class waiting for me. In a hurry. No mounting block in sight. No Coach James in sight. No one in immediate area who had a prayer of heaving my recalcitrant carcass into the air. Stirrup was right there. I was feeling froggy. Foot in stirrup. Spring into saddle.

Getting on from the ground is a maneuver I have not done in yeeeeears. These days, when I get on a horse, I use a mounting block. There is a theory that not hauling sideways on the horse’s spine is a better idea. Plus, it’s easier.

Well, it worked. Inelegant but effective. I was on the horse, motoring toward the ring. And my stirrup fell off. Not off my foot. Off the saddle. The torque of getting on slid the stirrup leather off the bar. Corrected and into the ring.

In future, keep track of the mounting block.

Thus ends Winter Tournament 2023-2024. Previous show [Staying With The Series, Show Report AWTA 2023-2024 #2]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Inky Fool: Snollygosters and Presidents.

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Given to me by an admirer.

An admirer of me? An admirer of shenanigans? History does not record.

Onwards!
Katherine

Exhibit from the outside world. AMNH: Dragons: Mythical Beasts. Interesting dragon facts.

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YouTube tutorial, Love Origami, Dragon

Process Notes.

Basically a modified crane. Tried a different version first, but there was that Here A Miracle Occurs step. Science Cartoons Plus

Another dragon, Ryujin 3.5. by Satoshi Kamiya, was voted the hardest of all origami models. Straw Poll: The Most Difficult Origami: Mastering the Art of Intricate Folds, Krambs, Feb 16, 2024. (As of 16 Feb, in case the results change.) Visuals & how it feels to fold this, Wonko: Ryujin 3.5 Lessons from a Master, 2014.

Onwards!
Katherine

The books are fantasy. The post is non-fiction.

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Narnia

The story I tell is that my mother lured me into reading on my own by reading aloud the first two books of the Narnia series. When I wanted to know what happened next, she handed me The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and told me to find out for myself.

Which makes Dawn Treader one of the first books – if not the first book – I read.

That’s how I remember it.

But we already know about the reliability of my memory. [Pondering The Past, Wondering If It Ever Even Happened]

Looking back, I start to wonder.

Was there a devious plan or did it just work out that way? Maybe a busy single mom doesn’t have time to entertain an inquisitive child. Maybe I picked up the book because I didn’t want to wait.

Maybe it didn’t happen that way at all.

I remember the apartment we were in, so I was around 8. Is that late to start reading chapter books by oneself? Are there other, earlier books that didn’t have the same impact and therefore don’t get a foundational moment?

I don’t know. It’s a good story. I’m sticking with it.

Wizard of Earthsea

Back in the age of the dinosaurs, I was in sixth grade. Our teacher started reading aloud The Wizard of Earthsea, the first of the Earthsea trilogy. Halfway thru the book, our teacher stopped coming to class.

It was a convent school. A disappearance was more problematic than the norm. The head of the order came to our class and gave a disjointed speech, which boiled down to Never think about her again.

The new teacher did not continue where our teacher left off. They decided to read No Kiss For Mother. An uplifting tale about a child who didn’t want to kiss his mother good-bye.

To sixth graders!

Who had been hearing LeGuin!

I was furious.

I immediate found and read the rest of the trilogy. So much for stifling our curiosity.

I often wonder if her choice of book was an indicator of the issues that lead to her separation from the convent.

Books and Their Movies, The Lord of the Rings

If I see the movie soon after reading the book, I might conflate the two. Harry Potter has totally become the movie visuals.

It depends on the time between.

The Lord of the Rings had been in my head for so long that I was not affected by the Peter Jackson movies.

In fact, I didn’t really see much of the first movie. I spend the entire time thinking, Yes. No. Yes, but in a different place.

Also, it’s not just movies. Illustrations can have the same effect. Tenniel is Alice. Baynes is Narnia.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Feb 14, 1849. On This Day: Oldest Photo of a Serving US President. The White House Historical Association: Daguerreotypes: James Knox Polk.

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Shelby Iron Works
January 2024

Technical Details

No meta photo since this was taken as a flyer while doing something else. [Passage To Elsewhere]

Colors. f/4.5, 1/100 sec., 42.0 mm, ISO 100. Manual mode & auto-focus.

Post production. Rotated, cropped, resized, border, & watermark. Border colors, gray for project, yellow for Nikon. [Photo Safari The First], [Quarry, Photography, Things I Forgot]

Photo of wall in context at end of post, after spacers so as not to spoil the ambience of the photo with too much reality.

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Onwards!
Katherine