Virtual Brush Box

Images

36 Days of Type
[Project Intro]
[36 Days of Type, A to G]
[36 Days of Type, H to N]
[36 Days of Type, O to U]

Fit To Ride

Awareness of the outside world. As I have said elsewhere, I don’t do April Fools. I am way too gullible. I will spend today hoping I don’t make too much of an idiot of myself. [Why The Silence]
~~~

East bank of the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, Crescent City Bridge in the background. Photo by Michelle.

“The Crescent City Connection ranks the fifth-longest cantilever bridges in the world and the farthest downstream bridge on the Mississippi River.”

“The Crescent City Connection ranks as the fifth most traveled toll bridge in the United States, with the annual traffic volume exceeding 63 million.”

LaDOTD: Crescent City Connection

Virtual Mississippi River

I am – ever so gradually – doing a virtual trip down the Mississippi River.

[Biking and Walking Virtually, Mississippi River, Part One, Minnesota]

[Biking and Walking Virtually, Mississippi River, Table of Contents & General Info]

It’s gonna take foreeeeever.

That’s okay.

No teammates to worry about holding back.

No programs to log into &/or run out of time on.

No pressure.

Totally DIY.

As I have time among other virtual adventures.

Vicarious Mississippi River

One reason this virtual trip works is that the armchair travel is outstanding. OUTSTANDING.

Geology. History. Travel. Politics.

Did you know river traffic fought the building of bridges? National Archives: Prologue Magazine, Bridging the Mississippi, The Railroads and Steamboats Clash at the Rock Island Bridge, Pfeiffer, 2004. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

While it’s true that every place has geology, history, etc., those of the Mississippi River are exceedingly well documented. One could travel vicariously for years.

A handful, for your amusement.

Blog. The Big Trip: Paddling the Mississippi: The Plan. Starting post.

Book. Mississippi Solo by Eddy Harris (Lyons 1988, Holt reprint 1998).

Video. Mississippi By Canoe. Note, many video clips of the trip online, you want the 58-minute video on YouTube. Article on the trip. Chicago Tribune: ABC7 reporter Paul Meincke finds adventure and angels on epic Mississippi canoe trip, Meincke 2017.

IRL Mississippi River

Friend of the Blog, Michelle D. asked me to cat sit. [Archives]

My price was blog posts. I asked for a picture of the Mississippi River, the more mundane the better.

Result is above. Scenic snaps abound. This shows the river as a feature people live next to & cross over & worry about & picnic near.

The residents were not impressed with my cat-sitting skills.

~~~

Trip so far: 185 miles
Total: 2340 miles
To go: 2155 miles

Gonna be a long time before I virtually cross under the Crescent City Connection. One advantage to virtual. I don’t have to worry about high-traffic areas.

Onwards!
Katherine

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. A time gap in the official log? Now the showrunners are just messing with us.
~~~

Spring. Last year’s coastal has been eaten. This year’s coastal has not been cut. We fill in the hay gaps with shredded money, um, I mean alfalfa. [Annoying Shortages 2020]

Border color from US Currency Education Program: Denominations, $1

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. Speaking of ears, a commenter on the Contact page (waves hi!) talked about the donkeys of SoCal. I had no idea. KCET: The Wild Donkeys of the Inland Empire, Clarke 2015.

~~~

Wednesday, Bingo at Stepping Stone Farm.

Bingo is the beginner up-down horse who does double duty for in-the-saddle exercise sessions. As I posted without stirrups, I noticed that I kept pitching up and to the right. I had gotten the habit of being crooked to match my crooked horse.

Note to self. Watch right hip sliding forward on Rodney. I know he is hollow on the right front quadrant, see yesterday. I thought I had addressed this. Apparently not. Apparently, it will be a on-going, constant, every stride issue. And that is why one does leg lessons.

Friday, Frankie at Stepping Stone Farm.

New horse. Go me!

Two lessons last week because camp this week and I intend to stay far, far away.

This is what happens when you put your ears up & arch your neck. Tip of left year just visible.

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. A day of running errands, e.g. hay, cat food, bank, and so on. I assume the world was able to spin without me.
~~~

You may have noticed a pattern.

Milton goes to Stepping Stone Farm to practice with other horses in a group lesson. [Hooves, Lesson]

Rodney goes to Falcon Hill Farm to practice over tiny jumps. [Ears, Ring]

Now that Spring is springing, clinic choices and schooling options are popping up.

We have decided to decline most of the new adventures. We will stay with the current set up for now.

Both horses are in routines that kinda, sorta work for them.

Neither horse handles novelty well.

Neither horse needs variety in their schedule at the moment.

We will use routine to our advantage. Same bat time; same bat channel. They will be reassured by knowing where they are and what they will be doing.

So, for the time being,

Milton goes to SSF

Rodney goes to …

HA!

Milton went on his trip last weekend, above.

Rodney did NOT go on his trip last weekend.

Not sooner had I drafted this than Rodney threw a monkey wrench into our plans. (The draft even contained the words, ‘as soon as I say this something will go sideways’. Again, I say HA!)

The Crystal Cupcake has tweaked his neck.

He’s fine. Okay at liberty. Okay to hand walk. Okay to the to left on the lunge line. He only shows discomfort lunging to the right and under saddle. That’s how I found out about it. He was fine until I got on. Then, he couldn’t reach around to get his mounting cookie. Got off. Flexed just fine. Got back on. Carried himself weird through the neck. Sigh.

(Yes, I’ve been swept up by the cookie train, but that’s another post.)

Another 0.5 lameness. Well, technically it’s level 2. Symptoms are consistent under certain conditions. However, it is so mild, I’m calling it a 0.5. [Tires]

Does it seem as if Rodney has an ever-evolving series of minor mystery ailments? Yeah, it does to me too.

Why? A few reasons.

Baseline. In blog and in life, one tends to highlight the drama.

One. Rodney is a horse. It’s always something.

Two. Rodney is a big horse. Or, more accurately, he is a tall horse. He is a 17+ hand horse on 16-hand feet. Structural stress. Cold-blooded draft horses are built to be that big. Hot-blooded Thoroughbreds are not. I bought him in spite of his height, not because of it.

Three. Rodney is a crooked horse. Foalhood injury has left an small atrophied section behind his right shoulder. This causes compensating imbalances elsewhere. More structural stress. [Fix]

or, possibly

Four. The universe hates me. (While I know this not to be the case, I have moments.)

We will resume the plan as soon as Rodney gets on board.

Onwards!
Katherine

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. ” ‘The supply chain network is so complicated that if somebody sneezes in one place, somebody else gets the cold in another place,’ says Husain.” NPR: Russia’s war on Ukraine is dire for world hunger. But there are solutions, Aizenman, March 6, 2022.
~~~

Recently, a friend needed help (waves hi!), so I went grocery shopping.

I know. I’m as shocked as you are.

The adventure here is that my husband does all the grocery shopping. In the days when I went into the store, I was good for $20-$30 of expensive, packaged treats. Now the dog & I wait in the car.

Back to me in foreign territory.

Text friend: What want? PB&J?
Answer: Sure.

What do you mean sure? What PB? What J?

Same for soup and coffee additives. They were fine with whatever I got. Either they were being polite since I was getting the food, or they are broad-minded about what they eat.

Me, not so much.

PB? Creamy.

Soda? Coke in 7-oz mini cans. Not big cans. Not plastic bottles. Definitely not big, one-liter plastic bottles.

Ice cream? Baskin-Robbins mint chocolate chip or don’t bother.

The problem is that if I don’t see what I like, I don’t eat.

Seriously. I wander off, get involved in something else, and forget to eat.

Those of you who watched me attempt to feed myself in my single, pre-chef husband days are now nodding your heads or rolling your eyes. Or both.

I bring this up here because it explains why I get along with Thoroughbreds.

Don’t like this batch of hay, even though it looks identical to that other batch of hay? Okay, I’ll go to the third feed store & see what they have.

Don’t want to stay in your stall and eat, even though you like this hay and you need weight? Okay, we’ll try again later.

High-strung? High maintenance? Moi?

Onwards!
Katherine