Virtual Brush Box

Fit To Ride

Awareness of the outside world. Took a news blackout yesterday. My outrage meter is already pegged in the red zone. A day of hand-wringing and justification and other people’s outrage would increase neither peace nor progress. Blackout didn’t help. Turns out that sheltering yourself leaves you very conscious that there is something you are sheltering FROM.
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Milton: I helping.

After all the perseverating last month on where to walk and what distance to walk, the problem was solved for me. I have been taking Rodney with me on walks, the way I used to do with Mathilda. That means the pasture, mud or not.[My Two Horses]

The idea is to a) increase his fitness & b) getting him used to walking around his own pasture as a relaxing activity. Why that is so hard for him, I have no idea.

We go for three laps, or one mile. When I take Milton out also that’s two miles. I tried both together. It did not go well. Milton has separation issues.

I’m walking carefully on muddy days. Knees holding up so far.

Previous Post [The Next Step, State of the Fitness, November]

Places

Pasture, mostly walked here

Local park, twice, after a truly astounding amount of rain

Stepping Stone Farm, once [October Walks, same path]

Home Depot parking lot, new, once (Sunday morning, I was careful about traffic). Update [If You Build It, They Will Shop, Walk Report, Home Depot]

Homewood Shades Creek Greenway, new [Impromptu 5K, Walk Report, Charlie Brown Christmas]

Data Dump

Walking. 22 days out of 31. Daily miles to virtual Fuji, which I finally finished! Extra half mile to virtual Mississippi walk. 5K to Charlie Brown Christmas, above. [Walking Virtually Mount Fuji, Virtual Mississippi River Part One]

Dance. 3 classes in three week. Didn’t miss one. Small victory. The Dance Foundation

None. 7 days. Three of them when I had a riding lesson, which knocks me out for the day. Four days of nada, mainly weather related, i.e. dark, rain, deep mud. Been pretty good about at least staggering out to the pasture for a walk.

Biking, stretching, cardio, weights, etc. In future, I will no longer list what I’m not doing. Believe me, if I manage to do any of these things, I will definitely count them.

Total. 32 “days” because I took Rodney for a pasture walk on a dance day.

As I said about No Stirrup November, I’d like to be doing more. At least I did this. [Lessons from No Stirrup November]

Onwards!
Katherine

Dogs and cats living together … MASS HYSTERIA!

Awareness of the outside world. Epiphany used to be one of my favorite holidays. It’s hard to celebrate wise men today. [Feast]
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Where did all my pets go?

Two blog readers who know me IRL mention that the cats have disappeared from the blog.

We are still doing the dog & cat thing. I’m not posting about it.

In a short space of time, we had a series of incidents. Some were good. Some were horrible. A few were definitely lateral moves.

I couldn’t even.

I decided to concentrate on the horses. I pulled pets off the About page and stopped talking about them on the blog. I may get back to them at some point.

Still waiting for a few things to shake out. Lady cats – yes, plural – still need to visit the vet and we still have territorial disputes to solve. Of course, the pandemic has slowed everything down. Fear not, the females are well guarded and the males are fixed.

Sorry for vague posting. Put it this way, I still have jitters from driving to the vet, holding a cat in my lap. The cat is wrapped tightly in a towel to keep her from being further injured by sliding around in a carrier. I am chanting “Drive slow. Be careful’ while crying.

And that one had a happy ending.

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. Ancient Alabama, part eight, “Designated as the Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site … The old mine is one of the best sites in the world to discover the tracks of animals from the Coal Age.” AL.com: Alabama’s ancient coal swamps were a hot, sticky mess of giant trees and massive insects, Pillion, 3 Dec 2021. Footprint site?! Who knew.
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An ASB Christmas gift that I put up for good luck. I have no intention of hiding my saddle seat side when ( … if! … when! … ) I compete in other disciplines.

The doorway in my trailer. Milton numbers to the left. Rodney numbers to the right. Out of frame to the left is a number from Sam.

Are you trailer decor or strictly functional?

Onwards!
Katherine

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. “Boston wastewater makes all the past waves seem almost flat. It is hard to comprehend.” Paul Bleicher @pbleic Dec 30, 2021. Hat tip, YLR: State of Affairs: Jan 3. Source, MWRA: Wastewater COVID-19 Tracking.

Boston wastewater makes all the past waves seem almost flat. It is hard to comprehend. pic.twitter.com/lZidZRKeTC

— Paul Bleicher (@pbleic) December 31, 2021

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You are marveling at the reflection of sky and clouds in the shiny clean fender of my truck.

One of our holiday projects was to wash the truck & trailer. The trailer was a dirty, embarrassing mess. Seriously. I worried what Hunter Barn would think of us when we drove up. Granted, we also went to SSF, but they know us well enough to know that I clean up when it counts, i.e. in the show ring.

Since most of the schmutz was tree spit, every inch of metal had to be scrubbed. Not scrubbed hard, but not sprayed off with a hose either.

All cleaned up & ready to go. Isn’t it lovely?

Onwards!
Katherine

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. “Strive for OK. This is not likely to be the best weeks of life. Lower the bar a bit and be OK with OK for a little bit.” Dear Pandemic: Case numbers are jumping QUICK! What should I be doing? Ritter/Those Nerdy Girls, December 30, 2021.
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Equi-Soft Girth by Stübben.

As I understand it, the elaborate construction takes pressure off the sides to free up the shoulders. Seems to me this places more pressure on the sternum, which is where I would have said Milton had objections, but that area is well-padded and spread out to distribute pressure.

He seems to like it. Less cranky and moving more freely.

If this feels like another in an endless stream of similar posts, you are not wrong. We have thrown many darts at the dartboard. Equipment. Feed & feed additives. Behavioral changes.

Some darts stick. [Miracle Boots]

Some darts fall off. [Naptime]

Each one works for a while but fails to provide a permanent fix.

IMO, Milton wants to be a happy horse. Previous Horse was a card-carrying, certified grouch. Milton is not in that league. There is an answer. We just need to figure it out.

Our current set of Keys To Milton:

Boots [Miracle Boots, More Of The Story]

Magnesium [Milton’s Meals], “Different rider & magnesium seemed to have cut down on the hoppy-hops (crosses fingers).” [Rodney & Milton’s Excellent Instruction]

Supplement for hind gut ulcers

Girth

You would think there would be one, underlying, unifying explanation. If there is, we have yet to find it.

Onwards!
Katherine

Images

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Editorial note. When I drew this (do you draw on a computer? The eyes. Not the letters. From scratch, even the eyelashes. Go me. But I digress.) it was December and I couldn’t believe it was almost 2022. Now it’s January and 2021 seems like it was a long damn year.

Time is weird.

Onwards!
Katherine

Words

First, I want to thank both development and marketing for agreeing to this meeting. You won’t be disappointed. My department has worked out an idea for a whole new sector of holiday movies. New content. New direction for advertisers. The works.

I’ll just spring it on you.

(Pause for dramatic effect.)

New Years Day Movies

Not New Year’s Eve. That’s been done. Ball drops. Crowds. The kiss at midnight. We’ve all seen the movies. Hashed and rehashed.

We’re talking about New Years DAY.

The next day. The first day of the next year. Resolutions. Hangovers. The possibilities are endless.

Here are some storylines.

For romance, Main Character resolves to get fit. Meet cute at the gym.

For comedy, Main Character resolves to learn to cook. Cue kitchen antics.

For drama, Main Character resolves to mend fences with person X, only to find out … drumroll … the rest of the story.

It’s not all resolutions. There is the aftermath of holidays.

What happens after you spend a week with your family? That could go comedy or drama.

Will that city lawyer really give up their high-powered job to marry their high school sweetheart? We could get super meta on that one.

And the marketing. We can sell advertising packages for gym memberships, for diet apps, for language classes. Think of any resolutions you’ve every had. Anything people want to do, someone wants to sell them something to do it. And we want to sell those people advertising space.

As we see, we have a captive audience. Every one is tired from holiday stress. They don’t want to go places or do things. They want to stay home and watch tv. So we give them stories to watch.

We give them stories to watch that don’t have a trace of Christmas. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, it is inescapable for the entire month of December. We are all tired of it by now. So, we give them stories that look forward. Yes, technically it is still the Christmas season. January 1 is the eighth day of Christmas. No one cares about that excerpt curmudgeons and conservative Catholics.

Plus, everyone is shopped out. Buying gifts. Getting gifts. Returning gifts. No one wants to think about more stuff. So, we don’t sell things. We sell services.

New Year’s Day, the self-improvement holiday.

~~~ fin ~~~