Horses & Other Interests
Awareness of the outside world. World Wildlife Day 2021, Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet.
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Rodney gets tense in the sandbox.
We will head over to Full Circle Horse Park to stand and look and walk and trot until Rodney no longer gets tense in the sandbox.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Awareness of the outside world. Drive-Safely.net: The Top 5 Defensive Driving Tips. Caveat. I have not explored the site extensively. What I have read seems reasonable.
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Lende shipping boots from Carousel Tack Shoppe.
I’m old enough to remember back when shipping boots were verboten. One must use bandages and wraps. Shipping boots aren’t safe/will fall off/will cause the decline of western civilization as we know it. Then Lende came out with their deluxe version. Suddenly, shipping boots were okay.
I’m old school enough that I remained dubious over the years. I faithful rolled and wrapped and rerolled my double-length shipping wraps. Even after Milton came down from Canada in his padded shipping boots, I wasn’t convinced. Milton shipped places first, so we used his boots. When Rodney shipped by himself, I used my wraps. Eventually, I tried the strap-on boots for Rodney. Not so bad. Then we started shipping them together. Two horses meant boots for one, wraps for the other.
Hmmm.
Major difference in effort.
The boots seemed to do everything that my wraps did.
I caved.
Gotta admit, eight boots on and off goes much faster than a set of wraps.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Awareness of the outside world. As of today, the house will be 50% fully vaccinated. I wait semi-patiently for mine.
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Remember when I was so happy that the feed store had Milton’s feed? [Hey, Isn’t This A Horse Blog?]
Yeah, well.
The next time I went, there were out again.
They said they’d have it in a few days. BUT last time this happened, they were out for three weeks. That was the first iteration of the great feed bag quest. “Ended up hunting down the last bag of Starch Wise in four counties. Farthest I’ve been from the house in months.”
[The Beginning]
Nope. Although we still had plenty feed, am not getting drawn into that again. Solve the problem today. Found feed. The other local store was out. I had to go aaaaaaaall the way to the out of town store.
The issue here? The two stores are functionally the same distance from the house.
Store H is 25 miles away, a few ex-urbs over. There are lights and turns and traffic. Estimated drive time is 41 minutes. Because it is in the Birmingham area, it is still “in town” and therefore close.
Store T is 31 miles away, straight out into the countryside. Very little stands between me and said store. Estimated drive time is 39 minutes. The majority of the drive is on a straight, empty, two-lane country road with nothing but trees for company, which drops me into distance driving mode, which makes me think of the other end as far away.
To recap.
Store H – 25 miles, 41 minutes. Close.
Store T – 31 miles. 39 minutes. Far.
Perception is weird.
BTW, store C, referenced above, is 80 miles away. That can legitimately be considered a long way to go for a bag of feed, particularly when one gets a wild hair and decides to come home via the back roads instead of the highway.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Awareness of the outside world. CAM The Covid Art Museum
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I miss travel.
Doyer Street at Chatham Square
Manhattan
Taken in 2019
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I found this fascinating.
Houston & Broadway, if memory serves.
Manhattan
Taken in 2019
“In 2011 a wire broke near the United Nations building, which caused a problem when repair crews couldn’t get past security to fix it.” Mental Floss: There’s a Wire Above Manhattan That You’ve Probably Never Noticed, by Serafino, 2017
NPR: A Fishing Line Encircles Manhattan, Protecting Sanctity Of Sabbath, by Laborde, 2019. With audio.
Manhattan Eruv – The Jewish Center
Or not.
During my trip, I used a map that looked something like this. Screenshot from Mental Floss article above.
As I finished drafting this post, I checked the Jewish Center map. It appears to include all of lower Manhattan, dated before my trip. Who knows what I took pictures of on Houston. This would also explain why I couldn’t find it in another location from the first map. Still cool.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott
Awareness of the outside world. For your amusement, Kitty Letterer.
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tldr: Content shift. Monday to Thursday – on brand. Friday – fitness. Saturday & Sunday – whatever random sh*t I want. Literally. That’s what I write on my calendar.
What Was
Old schedule from About page
Monday – Mood On Monday (current events), maybe
Tuesday – Competition reports, when there are any
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – Rodney & Milton
Thursday – Fitness
Friday – Photography, maybe, or horsekeeping if I have been too much about riding and not enough about appreciating having them around to enjoy.
Saturday – Words
Sunday – Images
Section updated December 19, 2020.
A while back, I started posting on specific topics on specific days, mainly to make sure that important topics, i.e. my own horses, didn’t get over looked. [Whither Now? Saddle Seat Version]
I often took saddleseat lessons on Wednesday. So that became my ASB day. Thursday was for driving. Only driving didn’t always happen. So I used Thursdays for fitness activities. It was vaguely related since one needs to be fit to ride well. [We Say Goodbye to Driving Posts, For Now, Challenge, Do Something You Are Bad At]
Then there was the will I/won’t I about weekends. I decided that weekends would be about things that amuse me, in the hope that some of them will amuse you as well. Even so, I tried to keep the content horse related, or at least horse adjacent. [Weekends Off and Weekends Not Off]
Now, I’m not even doing that.
What Is
New schedule on About page
Monday to Thursday – Horses
Friday – Fitness
Saturday – Words
Sunday – Images
Section updated February 26, 2021.
I had to face it, photography was not happening. So, I dropped photos from Friday and replaced it with fitness, currently my walking in parks greenspace adventure. I still consider that horse-adjacent, see above rationale. Call it 50% on topic.
That divided the week neatly into two sections.
Weekends have been completely cut loose. I will make not even the slightest attempt to stay anywhere even vaguely related to the purpose of this blog. Whatever frosts my cupcake. Verbal example, current events commentary, formerly Mood on Monday, has moved to Saturdays [Intruder Alert! The Vaccine Trials Volunteer Returns, Guest Post]. Visual example, [#hourlycomicday].
In return for giving myself permission to mentally splurge on the weekends, I will make an extra effort to keep the first four days of the week on topic. Rodney and Milton. A personal journal with a performative bend. To balance recounting my story with entertaining you. [Bright-Eyed, Bushy-Tailed, & Back to Blogging]
Therefore, if you want horses, tune in Monday through Thursday. If you enjoy random variety, stayed tuned for the rest of the week.
And that is this month’s insight into how the sausage is made. [State of the Blog Archives]
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Awareness of the outside world. The problem is not just a place to ride. Access is an issue when a barn – or any high land-use, outdoor activity – is farther away than an easy commute from an urban center. The hardcore will still make the drive. The potential new audience will turn to other activities.
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Several times around a pocket park & along a walking trail behind a retail center.
Year of The Ox Virtual Challenge, Walk #3 [Intro]
Altadena Park, Friends of (FB)
January 28, 2021
Distance – 6.04 km (3.75 miles)
Time – 1:42:20 min
Current Mileage – 14.39 km (8.94 miles)
To Go – 18.13 km (12.27 miles)
Total Distance – 32.53 km (20.21 miles)
Challenge in miles. Tracker set to kilometers for weekly 5Ks & virtual UK walk. [Digital Fun, LEJOG]
This one is sad. When I moved to Alabama, Patchwork was an event barn. Now it’s a shopping mall, a retirement home, and a patch of regrowth. I covered several competitions at Patchwork for The Chronicle of the Horse. Pre-Internet, so you’ll have to take my word.
Previous Horse and I won a jumper class in the parking lot of the retirement home. It was Optimum Time rather than Fastest Time, so I slowed down to a sedate pace. Everyone else ran around like cats with the zoomies. I was the closest to the OT by leagues. #readtherules.
View from the walking trail.
XC course from Atladena Park.
Looking up from the pasture to rear of the barn.
COH: Obituary for Dr. Chauncey Benedict Thuss
Previous Posts
[Virtual 2021]
[Ox 1, 2, 3]
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Awareness of the outside world. World? World? Still slogging through assignment. The inner voices are cacophonous. Would be happy to blame pandemic but the issues existed before.
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We are 75% of the way. “The Century Club recognizes dressage riders and horses whose combined ages total 100 years or more.” The Dressage Foundation Century Club
Rodney, age 20, & Katherine, age 55
Full Circle Horse Park
August 24, 2019
[Worth 1000 Words]
Jeremy Villar Photography
Doing The Math
Posted self on Sam. [Saddlebred Three-Quarter Century Club]
Got to thinking about Rodney. He’s in his 20s now. I wonder. Yup. Turns out our entire show career – all 4 shows – crossed the 75-year mark. [Horses of 2019]
Rodney was born in 1999, so his show age was 20 in 2019. I don’t know what month he was born. Good bet it was before August. So his calendar age is also 20 in these photos.
While I’m not sure how dressage does it, most disciplines mark the rider’s age as of December 1 of the previous year. I’m going with that. For the 2019 show year, I was 55 on December 1, 2018. In the photos, actual age is 56.
Therefore combined show age was 75. Combined calendar age was 76.
Why didn’t I think of Rodney initially? Either I am in denial about his age &/or he’s not in the front stall when I consider shows I have attended.
[ibid]
Jeremy Villar Photography
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine
Virtual Brush Box 