Milton Takes Point, Virtual Tevis, 55 & 48 Miles, 31 Days

Riding

Awareness of the outside world. Yesterday. U.S. Food and Drug Administration: FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine.
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Pfffttt.

Well, THAT didn’t work. less than five hours after the post on bell boots went up, we came out to the barn to find that Rodney had pulled one of his shoes, without disturbing the bell boot. So much for that theory. [Pieces Of Pink Plastic Armor]

While Rodney waited for the blacksmith, Milton went on ahead. Once shod, Rodney eased back into work. Hence the difference in mileage.

On a good note, horses are doing great this year. We can knock out two miles without drama. This is about double what their baseline was last year. Still mostly at a walk, still slow as molasses compared to real endurance horses and most Virtual Tevis entrants, but progress for us.

Turtle power!

Where are we virtually?

Milestones. All Milton. Note to self. Use badges from last year. No need to upload new images. Duh.

Map. 48/55 miles in. Graphic from Tevis Cup: About the Trail, shading mine.

Tevis Cup: Trail Sections & Historic Notes

Data dump

Tuesday, August 17 – 2.27 miles, 1:01 minutes
Wednesday, August 18 – 2.26 miles, 59 minutes
Thursday, August 19 – Milton 3.67 miles, – minutes; Rodney 0. Milton’s “extra” miles added in. [14 Days, also shoe related. Inevitable with with a four-week summer shoeing schedule, or three weeks if you take your shoe off early. Gaaa.]
Friday, August 20 – Milton 2.38 miles, 1:03 minutes; Rodney 0.
Saturday, August 21 – Milton 1.8 miles, 49 minutes; Rodney – 1.34 miles, 53 minutes. Rodney practiced statue while Milton worked. I usu get on first and start my GPS while waiting. Hence different ride times.
Sunday, August 22 – 1.47 miles, 43 minutes. Rodney done, too slippery for Milton to trot, so we headed home despite it being a weekend when we usually try for longer rides.
Monday, August 23 – 1.6 miles, 47 minutes

Distance this week – Milton 16 miles, Rodney 9 miles
Time this week – Milton 6 1/2 hours, Rodney 4 1/2 hours
Rides this week – Milton 7, Rodney 5

Total distance – Milton 55 miles, Rodney 48 miles
Total time – Milton 23 1/2 24 hours, Rodney 21 1/2 hours. Update, left off the extra minutes that went with Milton’s extra time.
Total rides – Milton 25, Rodney 23
Total days – 31

Pace, time to go one mile – both 26+ minutes, per VT results page

Numbers rounded off for ease of reporting. May not add up as given.

My Links
Last week [Working The Walk, Virtual Tevis, 39 Miles, 24 Days]
[VT Archives]

Official Links
Tevis Cup: Virtual Tevis 2021
RunSignUp: 2021 Tevis Cup – Virtual Western States Trail – 100 Miles in 100 Days
RunSignUp: VT results

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

The Week Brought To You By The Letter B

Images

Awareness of the outside world. Andrea Animates: Cooking With Wool.
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Wednesday, Buckets
Thursday, Bell Boots
Friday, Breyer
Saturday, Birmingham

Not planned. Just worked out that way.

Process notes: Inkscape for scaling & rotation. Finished in GIMP. Started as a sketch! Therefore feeling tres artistic.

On a related note
When I was a kid, I had trouble telling the difference between lower-case-b and lower-case-d. My trick was to use the name of my friend Robin. I would put the letter in the middle of her name. If it came up Rodin, I knew it was D. No trouble with any other letters.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Giving Birmingham Its Due

Thoughts

Awareness of the outside world. Birmingham Hammerfest supports the Lakeshore Foundation. “To encourage and provide opportunities for people with disability to live a healthy lifestyle through activity, research, advocacy and health promotion.” LF: About
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Credit where credit is due.

When I moved to the Birmingham area in the mid-90s, I was appalled to find out that it was 20-30 years behind the times.

Woman who worked with young women: They are being told not to excel because that makes their men feel bad.

Me, flabbergasted: Didn’t we already go thru that years ago?

WWWWYW: I know, right?

So, that’s been my attitude toward Birmingham ever since. I’m told it is moving forward. I don’t get in to town often enough to see this supposed progress.

First, a back story. Years ago, I was staying with the snazzy branch of the family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I left the building. Turned right. My plan was to go down to the next avenue and eat at a restaurant I had seen earlier. Reached avenue. Couldn’t cross the street. The New York Marathon was running by.

For years, this has been one of my measures for what I love about city life, that you can stumble across amazing things. I had no idea the marathon was in the area. New York is vast and contains multitudes.

Fast forward to now.

While I waited for my chef to shop at the farmer’s market, I would take my daily walk around Pepper Place. Hmm. Set-up had changed from last time. Everything was wedged into the main market area. Because the normal secondary road …

… was blocked off for a bike race. I had no idea.

Okay, it wasn’t the NY marathon, but it was something. If I am going to claim that unexpected and entertaining finds are token of proper city life, I’ve got to give this one to Birmingham.

Birmingham Hammerfest

ABC 33/40: Birmingham Hammerfest brings cyclists from across the U.S. to race. Bailey, August 14th 2021

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Where The Clicking Is Easy, Virtual BreyerFest 2021, Haul I

The Horse World

Awareness of the outside world. AL.com: Alabama doctor says he won’t treat unvaccinated people: ‘COVID is miserable way to die’. Gore. Aug 17. Hard to argue with “I can’t watch them die like that.”
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“Say what you want about content and fan-engagement, Breyer is a business. Their prime directive is to sell plastic ponies. BreyerFest makes it disturbingly easy to buy plastic ponies.” [On Being An Energetic Couch Jockey BreyerFest 2021]

What I ordered & why.

Twelve seems like a lot, and it is, but it could have been way worse. I like the models with odd colors, what Breyer calls decorators. I should have been all over the BreyerFest theme, Horse of a Different Color. Unfortunately, almost every decorator model was a variation of color on a white base. Straight up white plastic doesn’t do it for me. Personal taste. The only all-color model was Favile, which is why I got a freedom scale model, usually not my favorite. If more of the models had been less white, these photos would look very different. As was, it was easy for me to walk away.

The Bigs

Dani – Appaloosa, Celebration model, came with my ticket. Breyer: Guest Horses – BreyerFest 2021, Breyer: Let’s Celebrate!!

Pollock – Rearing rainbow, one of the main reasons to get the more expensive ticket is the chance to order Special Run models, so I had to get something, right? Otherwise, what was the point of buying the more expensive ticket? I believe this is called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. [Breyer: Amazing in Technicolor!]

Special Run certificate from Breyer: Exclusive Models – BreyerFest 2021.

Apollo – gold, with mane, now Fire has a brother, seemed like reason enough. Breyer: Guest Horses, [First Model]

Favrile – smaller, multi-color. Breyer: Horse of MANY Colors!

The Littles

Avant Garde – purple
Dada – blue & white
Nouveau – yellow and other colors
Rococo – brown & white

Another perk of the All-Access ticket was the ability to order the set of four stablemates, the only way to acquire the complete set, otherwise you got one at random. Breyer does an excellent job of increasing sales through forced scarcity. At least, it works on me. Breyer: Art as Movement.

Kaleidoscope – multi-color, pretty. Breyer: Reveal time!

Kaleidoscope II – got a second one so that I could … I’m not sure what. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Backordered

To decrease the feeding frenzy, the mid-level models – Limited Edition vs. Special Run – were available as backorder once the stock ran out. They won’t ship until December.

Mark of Charm – An ASB. I blame Lexington, which I was watching at the time. Breyer: Guest Horses 2021, [Virtual Railbirding]

Glossy Apollo – same as above except shiny. A comparison to see which team I’m on. “While I bought both the Team Matte and Team Glossy magnet, I am a little bummed they did not have a Team Chalky one.” Breyer History Diva: First Impressions

Outro

Unless Breyer really blows my socks off, I feel like my plastic pony purchases are winding down. At least until I get caught up in next year’s BreyerFest ClickFest. [Horse Brasses]

Props to Breyer History Diva: Second Impressions. The post suggested a Joseph Cornell art box. I am not that ambitious, but it gave me the idea to do something other than a series of standard side conformation shots.

Model Horse [Archives]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Pieces Of Pink Plastic Armor In The Battle To Keep Rodney’s Shoes On

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. Afghan-American Coalition Releases Call to Action for U.S. Government Assistance to Afghanistan. Appears to have a humanitarian focus. Assist to link shared in Instagram Stories by Muslim-American Cartoonist Huda Fahmy, Yes I’m Hot In This.
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Stay! Stay! You hear me, shoes? Stay!

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Feed Buckets and Color Theory

Horsekeeping

Awareness of the outside world. “Lambda has been on our minds (see my last post here). Thankfully, and importantly, Lambda is fizzling out. Delta is far more dominant and pushing Lambda away as an imminent threat.” Your Local Epidemiologist: State of Affairs: August 16, 2021.
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As my grandmother used to say, I am having an H of a time telling the difference between the feeding buckets. (Photo misleading. IRL, Crayola colors.)

We used to have a green bucket for Rodney and a white bucket for Milton. Rodney’s barn color is green. Milton is a large lump of white. Easy peasey. Feed for Milton goes in Milton’s bucket. Feed for Rodney goes in Rodney’s bucket. Go to barn. Feed Milton from his bucket. Feed Rodney from his. No hesitation. (BTW, due to fire ants, we keep feed in the house.)

Then the white bucket broke.

Store did not have white.

Bought a red bucket. Milton’s barn color.

Then the trouble began.

I am not red/green colorblind. I look at the red bucket and know that it is a red bucket. I know we have red as Milton’s color. Ditto green bucket and Rodney.

When I serve up the chow? I have to a stand there and think. This is Rodney’s food. Rodney is the … green … bucket. So his feed goes in that one. When I get to the barn, I have the same problem. I am feeding Milton. He is the … red … bucket. So I feed him from this one.

A bit of color theory, as I understand it. Micheal Pastoureau wrote a series of books recounting the histories of colors. In one of the books, I can’t remember which color, he says that, in the past, bright colors were seen as closer together that light and dark versions of the same color. In other words, bright red and bright blue were considered closer in color than light blue and dark blue.

Weird.

Okay, context was different back then. Pre-synthetic colors were paler and softer. Maybe brilliant color was hard to come by, so it was seen as a important attribute. Also these days, we’ve had images of the color spectrum shoved in front of our faces since we were tots. Our brains are trained to organize colors according to the spectrum.

So, it was an historical oddity.

Or maybe not.

Maybe there is something to the ancients thinking bright colors were similar. In hue – what we think of as “color” – the two feed buckets are different. However, their colors are the same by every other measure: saturation, shade (amount of black), tone (amount of gray), tint (amount of white), shininess, and so on. Pick an attribute, aside from hue, they are the same.

Fascinating.

OTOH, way more color theory that I want to reckon with when feeding breakfast.

Note to self. Buy a white bucket.

Update. New bucket. Problem solved. [On A Day About Food Another Post About Feed]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine