Pottering Around the Pasture In The Dimness, Polar Night Virtual 5K

Fit To Ride

Walking

 
Awareness of the outside world. “Since 1919, the Norway-America Association has awarded scholarships to Norwegian and American students looking to study outside of their respective countries.” NORAM
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PolarNight Marathon Virtual edition
Sats Mørketidstrim (5k)
Official Location- Tromoso, Norway
IRL Location – Pasture
Official Date – 21 Nov 2020 to 21 Jan 2021
IRL Date – January 13, 2021
Official Distance – 5K, adjusted by organizers
IRL Distance – 3.2 miles
Official Time – 1:08:23, adjusted by organizers
IRL Time – 1:10:13
Placing overall – 68 of 29(?). Results page has 74 finishers.
Placing gender – 45 of 20(?). Dunno how many but no one behind me on results page.
Placing age (I assume) – 6 of 4(?). Ditto. Turtle power!

Results

International
“In Tromsø, the Polar night starts 21st November and ends 21st January. During this time, the sun never rises above the horizon.” PNMVe

It costs 240!?! Oh, 240 kr. That’s $28.

What about my self-imposed rule of virtual only? It appears that the entire country is erring on the side of caution. ” …. stand out as the closest Western equivalents to Asian nations that have managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic.” Wall Street Journal: Finland and Norway Avoid Covid-19 Lockdowns but Keep the Virus At Bay , by Pancevski, Nov 2020. [Digital Fun]

Local
In the spirit of arctic dark, I decided to do this one at night. Staying home and walking in the pasture was the easiest way to accomplish the plan.

I set out at 6:01 pm, one hour after sunset.

Thoughts you have in the dark. Could I recreate a flashlight if I was yanked back into the past? Bulb? Battery?

It helped that I had walked the path many, many, many times, by foot and by hoof.

It got easier once I took off my glasses. Better dark adaption? A pleasant uniform blur was all I needed? Weird. [I See that]

36 degrees when I finished. I’m so tough.

Butter side up. My flashlight was dim and finally failed a few feet from the front door as I finished. I had just enough light to see my way. This was excellent. The fully-charged flashlight gives off sufficient lumens to land small aircraft. This would not have been atmospheric at all.

Time & temp at start & finish.

Links
The Atlantic: The Norwegian Town Where the Sun Doesn’t Rise, by Leibowitz, 2015

My So Called Creative Life: Polar Night in Tromso, 2019. Pretty pictures.

“Getting over jet lag when there is no sunlight is difficult, so do it somewhere nicer, then head north.” Everybody Hates A Tourist: Top things to do during the Polar Night in Tromsø, Norway

She Walks The World: Tromso, Norway in 2 Days: Polar Nights in the Arctic Circle, by Mynn Lee, 2016

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Nozzle Woes

Horsekeeping

Lucky enough to have a horse

 
Awareness of the outside world. Am aware of the date. Torn between holding my breath and can’t believe we are having this conversation.
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Our new hose nozzle is built backwards. You turn it on by flipping the handle forward. This is wrong. Also, you can that a handle?

Firefighting nozzles release water when you pull back on the handle. This is so that your instinctive reaction, i.e. to pull back, will add water to a situation rather than suddenly deprive you of water just when you might be needing it most.

This is good and proper and the way all nozzles should behave. Even mini-me versions used in pastures. [New Toy]

I had not realized how indoctrinated to this I had become. It feels awkward every time I use the new one. I may need to buy a correct nozzle.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine

Ears In The Arena, Let The Acclimatization Begin

Riding Journal

If you’re riding a horse, you’ve already won

 
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

These Boots Were Made For Shipping, New Equipment

Horsekeeping

Lucky enough to have a horse

 
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

The Feed Quest Becomes an Exercise in Perception

Horsekeeping

Lucky enough to have a horse

 
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

Wires In The Sky, NYC

Images

 
Awareness of the outside world. CAM The Covid Art Museum
~~~
I miss travel.

Doyer Street at Chatham Square
Manhattan
Taken in 2019
~~~
I found this fascinating.

Houston & Broadway, if memory serves.
Manhattan
Taken in 2019

Atlas Obscura: The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home, The eruv, a nearly invisible holy boundary, must be intact every Friday, by Inscoe, 2017

“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.

[NYC Archives]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

State Of The Blog: Shifting The Schedule

Words

Blogging About Blogging

 
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