Looking For Lessons, The Big Nope

Riding Journal

Awareness of the outside world. While I am not personally a fan of either bars or medieval torture instruments, I’ll cheer on whatever it takes. The Buffalo News: Free beer offer results in more vaccinations than all Erie County first-dose clinics last week, Tan, May 8, 2021. BBC News: Covid: Dracula’s castle in Romania offers tourists vaccine, May 9, 2021.
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Unrelated photo for visual interest. The peacock kids at Stepping Stone Farm.

And now, the story I teased yesterday. [Looking For a Lesson Horse]

Read a post about looking for a jumping instructor at Lyrical Equine: Selecting a trainer. Commented,

This may be obvious, but since its jumping, look for safety first. What is their attitude when a horse/rider has a problem? Ive seen lessons that cause me to walk away. Are the horses careening about like racecars? Ditto. We all need support but shouldnt be overfaced. Where you fall on that continuum is personal & needs to match where the trainer draws the line. $0.02

Here’s what prompted the first part of the comment.

In an unidentified time, in an unidentified place, unrelated to yesterday.

Went to check out a possible jumping instructor. Watched lesson. Older kid/young adult on nice looking horse. This was not the trainer on a horse. Not the trainer schooling the assistant trainer. This was client having lesson.

Here’s what I saw.

The horse ran at the fences, hesitated in front, went straight up in the air like a helicopter, then bucked afterward.

Every fence.

Maaaaayyybe a horse will run at a jump from an excess of enthusiasm. I’ve ridden a few. They are rare and to be treasured. Rushing is more likely to stem from anxiousness.

The rest of the litany – hesitating, popping up, fussing – is a horse saying no as loud as they can. Any one of these behaviors is a red flag. All four is mind-boggling.

The horse needed a complete body check, a complete tack check, and then to go back trotting crossrails until they were happy with their job.

The trainer’s answer? Raise the jumps.

Bye, Felicia!

Did they …

A) Not know.

B) Get caught in a pressure situation. Money had been spent. Expectations had been raised. I imagine it’s hard to tell a client that their fancy show horse needs to go to rehab.

or

C) Not care.

or possibly D) Have a training theory that I don’t even want to contemplate.

In no situation do I want to be around someone who fails to advocate for the horse at that level. Call me a tackbox quarterback who can’t jump my way out of a paper bag. Fine. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Looking For a Lesson Horse

Riding Journal

Awareness of the outside world. No masks at barn described below. I wore one. The four people there did not: Possible New Instructor, boarder, and two construction guys building the new show barn. OTOH, they were all outside and naturally more than six feet away from each other. Vaccination status unknown.
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Unrelated photo for visual interest. Our first adventure in riding for an hour involved much stand practice. Play to your strengths. [Clinic Prep]

And now back to our regularly scheduled post.

Went to a barn to ask about jumping lessons. Looking for a school horse to jump in a calm, unexciting fashion while I try to remember how to point a horse between the standards. I picked a barn that had a high level of activity, possibly indicating an established lesson program.

Let’s call it New Barn and Possible New Jump Instructor. Will be less vague when/if I go back & find out what level of representation they are comfortable with.

We chatted. They did this. I had done that.

They said this horse here did the X-meter jumpers. I said that the last time I was doing jumpers, we were still using inches. And the Warmbloods had not completely taken over, but I didn’t mention that bit.

They start with a new student lesson. Was it okay if it wasn’t until next week? I smiled noncommittally, nodded, and thought, Next week!?! Do you know how far I had to wind myself up to come talk to you? If I manage to get on one of your horses this month, I will consider it a great and shining victory.

Lately, I have been getting on Rodney with aplomb. The way one is supposed to get on a horse.

The very idea of getting on a new horse brought it all back. My stomach hurt. I was flustered. No change. I know I shouldn’t hate parts of myself, but I wish I wasn’t like this. It’s not like these reactions are holdovers from situations where they come in handy. It serves no useful purpose.

How flustered? I took me three tries to add a new name to my phone. Okay, maybe I don’t have a lot of practice meeting new people and getting their info in real time.

How flustered? I blanked on Stepping Stone Farm.

Me: For a lark, I took saddle seat lessons.

Possible New Jump Instructor: Where?

Me: … um …

Seriously?! I have half a closet full of clothes monogrammed with SSF and the SSF logo.

Speaking of SSF, here’s the message I sent Coach Courtney from the parking lot of Potential New Barn.

Began quest to find jumping version of Sam. Feel like I ought to give her your number so she can get the straight scoop: good rider, hot mess. I feel I did not convey the depths of my messdom. I guess (they)’ll find out soon enuf. Sigh.

Finding an ASB barn was easy. Had a name. Went there. Said Hi. What did I know from saddle seat? It is harder to find jumping instructor. I have way more opinions on jumping than I do on saddle seat, or even dressage. Which reminds me of a story. Which I will save for tomorrow. [Riding Toward Random]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Deja Vu All Over Again, An Exercise in Graphic Design Recycling

IMAGES

Awareness of the outside world. Did you know that the UK celebrates Mother’s Day on a different day than the US? I didn’t. I learned this interesting fact early on the morning of Sunday March 14.


Wait!? What!? How did I miss this!?!? Okay. Calm down. Deep breath. Apparently other countries do things differently. Who knew. timeanddate: Mothering Sunday. Instagram post by @allontheboard. For non-Insta folks, Evening Standard: All On The Board review.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Happy Mother’s Day!
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#36days_8 and #36daysoftype
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No, you are not imagining it. Yes, you have seen this design before.

… how can I celebrate 36 Days of Type? … all 26 letters and 10 numbers is a bigger mountain than I care to climb right now … maybe a few … maybe one … I don’t have a design idea for Sunday …

… check the calendar … see what they have for that day … 8 … 8? … seriously? … score!

[Blog Logo in Blue]

[Counting Posts]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Email from the Moon, Where Moon Rats Work, Fiction

Words

Laura:

So what do the Moon Rats do?

Well, you’re right. The Moon Rats don’t just work in toilets and life support. Be hard to maintain an aura of mystery if that’s all they did. Yes, yes, dignity of work and all that, but you have to admit not many of our cultural icons spend the day inspecting bowel movements. It’s just that’s where most of us interact with them. [Since You Asked]

The other place you see the dudes in black is as drivers. The are the best EVA drivers on the moon. Name it, they can drive it. Delivery vans. Exploration trucks. Tourist buses. Partly of it is practice. Also, they seem to have an more intuitive understanding of how to handle mass in 1/6 G.

You can drive locally. Most people don’t. The Moon Rat system is pretty efficient. Plus there’s the whole not-dying issue. That’s the thing about living on the moon. There are few minor accidents. Definitely no do-overs. Failure is generally fatal the first time.

So, the other place most of us encounter Moon Rats initially is as tour guides on the sight-seeing trips we all take to gawk at BEING ON THE FREAKING MOON. I say encounter rather than meet, because they make terrible tour guides.

They speak softly. They say as little as possible. They do not answer stupid tourist questions. Oooh, What’s that? Where are we? Why does the earth look so big/small/whatever. You are expected to shut up and look up the answer yourself. They just sit there, silent and impassive, watching you. We call it the Moon Rat stare.

Why do they do it if they dislike it so much? Partly for the hard currency. I think partly b/c they don’t want us noobs to go out, die, and clutter up their nice clean moon. Incidentally, if you are not a Moon Rat, you are always a noob.

I’m told it is different when you go to the smaller, off-site habitats and science stations. Every project is supervised by Moon Rats. Hard not to get to know people when you are living on top of each other in a goldfish bowl.

Every so often, some company gets a wild hair and insists they don’t need to pay the Moon Rat rates for supervisors. So they go off and start their own habitats. We have a saying up here:

There are old Loonies.
There are bold Loonies.
There are no old, bold Loonies.

Yeah, Loonies. apparently that’s what non-Moon Rat residents call themselves. Tourists, Loonies, and Moon Rats. I’m not sure when you go from tourist to Loonie. Probably have to stop using caps about BEING ON THE FREAKING MOON.

Oh, Moon Rats also make a ton of money in mining and piloting. That is dark side industry. Haven’t found out much about that so far.

Next time, Moon Rat art.

Speaking of art, I finally read Hail Mary by Andy Weir. He’s pretty much required reading up here. Back when Sheila Voss was stuck here at the beginning of the colony, people referred to her as a real-life Mark Watney. There’s a wing of the hotel named after Artemis.

I know you’re not a fan of old books. You have a point. Since it was published back in 2021, the social codes alternate between comical and cringeworthy. Still, I think you’d find it fun.

You could say that Hail Mary reads as The Martian in a rocketship. Protagonist in isolation, undergoing a life and death struggle, punctuated by catastrophic accidents. Since it starts that way, I’m not really giving away much of the plot. The underlying premise is vastly different.

Finally, I don’t want to lose these letters to a system purge of my work email. So I’m saving them down in the cloud. [Archive]

Yours from another heavenly body,
Liz

~~~ curtain ~~~

Sounds of Spring

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. Tomorrow. “I am leading a free virtual walk thru the Audubon Mural Project in Hamilton Heights on Saturday May 8th at 11AM.” Leigh Hallingby, @Harlemwalksnyc. Register at The Audubon Bird Murals Project: A Virtual Tour. If link doesn’t work: https://www.mas.org/events/the-audubon-bird-murals-project-a-virtual-tour-2/
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It really does sound like that.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

If It’s Pink, It Must Be Spring

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. NYT: Do You Live in a Political Bubble?, Wezerek, Enos and Brown, April 30, 2021. Enter your address to see the political party of the thousand voters closest to you. My address? “You live in a Republican bubble. Only 7 percent of your neighbors are Democrats.” This is my surprised face. If you click over, once you get the map, scroll down for the commentary. For the assist, Balloon Juice: Odds and Ends (Open Thread), Cracker, May 4, 2021.
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SWAT(R). What the cool kids are wearing for ears, eyes, and zippers.

Given how hard it is to find the original pink, I assume most people prefer the clear version. Can’t understand why. I want to know when to reapply and where it is so that I don’t run my hand through it.

Horses are about equal for fly bites in their ears. Rodney gets way more bites on his belly. Weird.

Milton was so not into the photo shoot. This was the best of 13 while I ran out of hands to hold the phone, focus on his ear, and keep him from nosediving to the grass.

SWAT Posts
I said the same thing back in 2012. What can I tell you, I’m consistent.
[Foto Friday: A Tell-Tale?]
[Foto Friday: Face Painting with Swat (R)]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine