Virtual Brush Box

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. A thorough recap of the 2022 IRL Tevis, both the good & the bad. Equine Ink: Tevis 2022 Results.

~~~

We Are The Woe (with apologies to Queen)

We are the woe-ful.
We are the woe-ful.
No time for woork-ing,
‘Cause we are the champions of the wwwoooeee.

Time for for annual check up & shots. Once again, took the horses to the clinic instead of having the vet come to us. Amazing how quickly a clinic visit goes compared to a barn visit. [Rodney & Milton Visit the Vet, Annual Check-up Version, 2021]

This year, the response was less woe and more stiff neck, please serve my hay in a haynet. The woe didn’t look all that different from daily napping, with less grazing. [Woe Is Us, Seriously Look At Us, We Are The Very Image of Woefulness, We Radiate Woe In Waves 2020]

Last year, Milton nope-ed right on out of it. Too much flashback to his surgery. [Visit the Vet]

This year was Rodney’s turn. They were running late, so they offered us stall to get the horses out of the sun. Sounded reasonable. Except being put in a strange stall taps into Rodney’s fear of abandonment. He thinks he’s going to be left there. [My Horses Are Weird, Separation Anxiety Version]

He was much happier afterward, once he got back to his trailer. Much like the clinic trip. “Apparently, they are more comfortable standing being tied to their trailer than moving around in a strange stall.” [Rodney & Milton’s Excellent Overnight Adventure]

Due to the high level of activity at the clinic, we ended up being seen on the concrete apron outside. Milton approved.

Note to self. Next year, have the exam on the porch, for Milton, and let them stand tied to the trailer, for Rodney.

Onwards!
Katherine

Images

Art of the outside world. US Botanical Garden: Take a Virtual Tour.

~~~

Legend

A – I shouldn’t have bad feelings about an entire twelfth of the year. Yet here we are. [Hello September]

U – Stepping Stone Farm goes to the World’s Championship Horse Show in Louisville KY. I go vicariously. [2016, 2018, 2019-1, 2019-2, 2021, Why Green?, Spotted on the Green Shavings]

G – Gochta Day. Rodney [Cast], Milton [Meet Milton].

U – EarthSky: Why hottest weather isn’t on longest day, Bryd, 2019. In related news, Library of Congress: Why is it hot in summer and cold in winter?

S – School starts earlier every year. We are not directly affected but see changes in traffic patterns on roads and in the atmosphere at barns. [Low Key Photo Challenge, Back To School]

T – May this be the year to prove me wrong about August.

Links

Correcting August myths. Live Science: Keeping Time: Months and the Modern Calendar, Coolman, 2014.

HuffPost: Here’s Why August Is Becoming Such A Popular Baby Name, Bologna, 2021.

“In the Caribbean, we start independence celebrations in August because Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago got theirs in this month, 6th and 31st respectively.” Prips, Your Guide To Jamaica: 9 Fun Facts About August.

“The first sandwich was made on August 6, 1762, when the Earl of Sandwich asked for a dish with meat between two pieces of bread. Legend has it that he ordered the meal in the middle of a gambling game and didn’t want to interrupt it.” Prips:Aug #3.

OR

History.com: Who Invented the Sandwich?, Subtitles, An 18th-century English nobleman helped popularize the snack—so much so that it eventually took on his name, Little, 2014/2022.

The History Place: This Month in History, August

Last month [The Illustrated Month, July]

Archive [The Illustrated Month 2022]

Onwards!
Katherine

Words

Books of the outside world. Listening to Semi-Famous by Josh Sundquist. Chose audio because he reads it. “The consensus was that it’s a memoir, they want to hear it from the author, and if it’s fiction, they want a professional actor.” The Everywhereist: What’s It Like To Record Your Own Audiobook?. I concur.

~~~

If You Just Want The Sausage

Technical adjustments should make it easier for me to keep up with comments.

How The Sausage Is Made

Last year, I apologized for my severe delay in commenting. “My WordPress program has developed a weird hiccup. When I look at an unpublished post, I am logged in. When I look at a published post, I am not.” [State of the Blog, Blanket Apology For My Comment Response]

I bumbled along this way for a year or more.

Recently, in clearing my cache, I managed to do the same thing to my phone. Now I appeared as a visitor on my own posts, both desktop & phone. Phooey. It also bounced me out of commenting on everyone else’s posts. Not insurmountable, but time to fix.

Poked around a bit. Installed log-in widget on main blog. I had been logging in through subsidiary blog because I did not see the need for a log-in button on the main blog. [Rodney’s Storage]

No dice.

Contact WordPress. Prompt & helpful.

Online chat with tech support. Turns out the widget I used for the main blog didn’t work for them either. The one I was using on Rodney’s Storage was a legacy that still worked.

As with the doctor’s office, one does not want to be the interesting case for tech support.

Gave me another method without widget.

Still didn’t log me in.

Could I have restricted the cookies? Sure, that sounded like something I would do. Since this part of the problem was my on end, they couldn’t help. Pointed me to article and wished me luck.

Pull up article. Go here. Yes. Click on this. Yes. Pull down this menu. Yes. Click on this option. Uh … nope. Not there.

At this point, I was tired of it all. Annoying because I had been on the page to make the change but now couldn’t get back.

Personal tech support came home. I asked for help.

Handed over phone. Tap, tap. Phone fixed. Tap, tap, tap. Article that shows how to fix desktop. Done.

Well, okay then. Now I am a full admin for my own blog on both my phone and my desktop.

Staying with my philosophy of letting readers talk amongst themselves first. [Comment Policy]

Archives [State of the Blog]

Onwards!
Katherine

Fit To Ride

Awareness of the outside world. “We are a campaign to heal intergenerational trauma, fight systemic racism and transform Black lives. As women organize walking teams, they also mobilize community members to support advocacy efforts and lead a Civil Rights-inspired health movement.” GirlTrek: About

~~~

GirlTrek: June 1st! The Jumpstart is here!

And we’re back. Having restarted exercise, I shall restarted Fitness Fridays. [A Foto For Friday]

I like the variety of the walks listed on the GirlTrek chart (click over for bigger image): in a national park, to support a cause, across town. I will try to add these as available. Generally, I stomp around the field.

I love the idea of intentionality. “#2. A “Trek” aka a walk at GirlTrek is at least 30 minutes in sneakers. It should be intentional.”

Let me tell you a horse story.

When Mathilda was retired, I used to take her on daily strolls. [My Two Horses]

You might not think a horse would need to be walked. They are on their feet (almost) 24/7. Walk. Graze. Walk. Yet, we saw a difference when she and I would do a few laps around the pasture.

I posit that there was a benefit to 20-30-whatever minutes of continuous walking, rather than the stopping and starting she did the rest of the day.

So that’s my plan. One mile of continuous, intentional walking each day.

Note. My pace per mile is closer to 25 minutes, maybe 20 minutes in a 5K, but one mile is nice round number, so I’m staying with it.

July Exercise Summary

Walking. A double handful of walks last month. Not on days when I was in town with The World Games. I counted that as effort, if not exercise. [Volunteering]

So far most of the walks have been at a local pocket park to take advantage of the paved, level path. Will get back to pasture walks soon. Well, as soon as I go around the path with a set of clippers. Greenery regrows fast! [Preferring the Pasture]

Biking. A small handful. Short distance. Still at the prove-you-can-get-on-a-bike stage.

Tai Chi. One IRL class. Probably will not repeat. It’s a long drive for an exercise class. I don’t do one for a while. Then, I decdde that the drive will be fine. Then I do it and remember why I don’t.

All going okay. More tired than I would like after.

Mileage Logs

Walking [Virtual Mississippi River]

Biking [Virtual Great Ocean Road II]

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. My request to join a Facebook group was declined. Why does rejection always hurt? Even if the rejection is from faceless strangers of a group in which you were only moderately interested? And yet it does hurt. Each rejection recalls the other times I was excess to requirements. While I was able to acknowledge that there are people who like me, I was in enough of a tailspin to wonder why they did. IDK, maybe other folks are more mature and better able to handle the opinions of others.

~~~

Once again, no jump schooling.

Last time, Rodney had a minor setback. [All Revved Up With Nowhere to Go]

This time, it was my turn.

I tripped over a branch in the driveway while unloading groceries. On one hand, the bag of groceries kept me from seeing the stick. OTOH, the bag of groceries cushioned my fall. Spent weekend sore and stiff from the sudden redirection of kinetic energy.

Since we weren’t schooling the jumps at Falcon Hill Farm, we set up a grid line of poles and low cavelleti in the riding area of the pasture. Trotted the line several times. Rodney only wanted to run at them a little.

No idea why my horse finds his own backyard so alarming.

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. Women’s Bureau Birmingham Roundtable, flickr photostream by Meg McKinney. For background, news article (not pics by Meg) WBRC: U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau director visits Birmingham to discuss women in the workforce, Maxie, Jul. 28, 2022.

~~~

The wise horse keeps one ear on the instructor.

First ASB lesson at Stepping Stone Farm since dinging my ankle. [I’m Bored Already]

For several weeks, whenever I stuck my feet out to the side in proper saddle seat styling, my ankle would file a protest. Nope. Not ready yet.

At the start of the lesson, ankle grumbled a bit and then was fine. Although I have minor stirrup rubs on both legs, so perhaps my base of support is not as solid as I thought it was.

Also, wore my new boots. After showing them to Coach Courtney, I mostly didn’t think about them, which means they work. [My New Kicks]

Enough about me, onto the horse.

Rode Bubba again. [Ears]

Position came back pleasingly fast. [Remembering]

Ability to properly ride a Saddlebred, not so much.

Rodney curls up like a cowering millipede if I so much as look at the reins harshly. So I have been working on using body weight and legs and the softest possible rein. After two months of that, anything more than a whisper felt like violence.

Bubba, OTOH, wanted to know why I was trotting around the ring with my hands hanging at the ends of my arms like a pair of empty mittens.

The whole point of riding a school horse is that they already know their stuff. One can practice without having to worry about training the horse at the same time. However, that requires that you use the aids they are trained for. You must speak their language.

The level of contact Bubba requested felt deeply wrong to me. What made sense in his language sounded nasty in mine. (Babbel.com: 30 Foreign-Language Words That Sound Dirty To English Speakers (But Aren’t), Koyfman, 2021,)

Bubba is an excellent school horse. He is happy to trot around pleasantly. If you want brillance you have to ask, and ask correctly. If not, meh, not gonna help you out. He is a kind horse. He wants his riders to succeed, but he wants them to do it right.

Later, I told Bubba that he was a bit of a snob. He told me he preferred to think of it as having high standards.

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Introductory note. This was an email sent to yet another hunter barn I am talking to about lessons. All the riding programs around here are full up. I suspect outdoor activities have done well through the pandemic. But I digress.

Devil’s Panties is an autobiographical comic. The artist/author has a rule that if it gets a laugh, it becomes a comic.

This got a laugh.

To be clear, the person who laughed was not the recipient. Or maybe they also laughed, history does not record. The person who laughed was someone who knows Rodney IRL. (Waves hi!)

~~~

Dear X:

Lesson Horse. I am still interested in being on your wait list. You said maybe Sept? Possibly August. While I am waiting, at some point I would like to come watch a lesson and introduce myself.

For the moment, I have another question. What are the rules for showing Academy at your show on the X? Is it limited to school horses?

I am an adult with a fancy horse who has … issues. He’s currently trotting poles and low cross rails. We showed in the fun classes at Falcon Hill. Wanted to check to see if the rules were different for different shows. [Crossrail Contender]

I am an AHJA member, although I have yet to show in an AHJA class. [In Which We Almost Have a Jumping Lesson, In other news]

Jumper tack okay?

I do worry about being in classes with kids and ponies. I would be more worried if they weren’t going to soundly trounce me.

So, okay to bring horse for end of the day classes?

~~~

Closing note. The part that got a laugh was Rodney having … issues. I mean, am I wrong? I included the rest as an update. I do so love being able to reuse text. I added the links for the post. Have not addressed the subject of the blog with new hunter barn.

Also, show management said riding in the Academy classes was just fine. So, off we go to conquer more crossrails.

Onwards!
Katherine