Here’s An Idea, Let’s Change Several Variables At Once, Saddle, Schedule, and Diet, Part 2, Rodney

Riding Journal

 
Awareness of the outside world. The first customer service rep could not help me because the words and numbers on the computer did not match physical reality. The map is not the territory, Korzybski. We forget this at our peril.
~~~
Rodney’s Saddle
If we are trying it for Milton, maybe a wider gullet plate is the answer for Rodney as well?

On our second trip to Stepping Stone Farm, he absolutely refused to trot. He’d try to canter, dink along, or threaten to blow. His feet were fine. It was another of his many issues.

Swamped by frustration. Again. What is the point if it is this hard? If no one is having fun? There may have been sniffles. (Note, sections of this post were drafted before we tried the new bar. Feeling better now. Incorrigible, unfounded hope has returned.)

We walked down to the round pen. Got away from the jump. Maybe anxiety? Took out one of the wither pads. Maybe saddle fit? I’ve always thought two thick pads were too much. He seemed to like them. Until he didn’t.[Padding]

Back home, rode bareback until we got our hands on a wider bar. (The widest of the standard Wintec set is white and labeled extra-wide. The smaller of the “wide” set is a pale purplish white also called extra-wide. This is not confusing at all. Picture me on the phone with tack store when the item I am holding in my hand is an item they do not sell. Supervisor was awesome. Asked the right questions. Figured out problem was with their inventory. They had the item I did not want incorrectly tagged as the item I did want. Or they are shining me on. Either way, told me to keep the first bar and they would send a new (hopefully) correct bar free of charge once they restock. Since I can’t figure out if this counts as a good review or a bad one, store name available on request. But I digress. Friends hooked us up.)

Rodney’s new set-up is same saddle, same girth, one pad, wider bar. It is a hair lower in front than I’d like but good. The first day, I felt tipped forward. The previous configuration could have been tipping me backward and I had gotten used to that. Second ride much better for me. The part under my seatbones is more comfortable. Seat feels wide. Makes sense. Rodney is a wide horse. He approves.

A solution? For the moment?

Maybe there is no single, fixed answer. Maybe I have to keep changing his padding around. Maybe his back is simply not set up for a saddle. Maybe all we can do is plod around the field bareback. Maybe my horse is unrideable. Maybe I need to move on the next topic.

Rodney’s Diet
Feed. Same.

Hay – coastal. Milton eats his hay and then takes Rodney’s. This I knew. Milton continues to eat while there is hay available. Rodney eats his fill and then wanders off. This I knew. Milton eats fast, as in vacuum cleaner fast. This I did not know. Maybe it’s a racetrack thing? Previous Horse was also obsessed with food.

Last month, we started putting Rodney in the stall for his breakfast hay. With them separated, I could see how quickly Milton whistled through a flake of hay. The dinner-shift feeder thought Rodney was being a weenie about defending his hay even when there were two piles. Milton can’t eat from eat two hay piles at once, but he can sure try. [Routine?]

Rodney is now put up for breakfast and dinner. More me time. A chance to finish his hay. Milton is not pleased. He was getting less before. Now, he’s getting even more less.

Hay – alfalfa. I really need to do a post about the whole alfalfa adventure. Short version. Started because we had no choice. Kept with because rxed for horses with weight gain and stomach problems. Brief, unsuccessful foray into bagged alfalfa.

Since Rodney has both weight and stomach issues, we had stayed with alfalfa over the summer. Now that he is getting all of his coastal, I’m hoping I can reduce the amount of alfalfa. Since they like it and don’t seem to be going ballistic, I’m letting them have an amuse-bouche with breakfast. They could probably get a flake each and be fine with it.

Bottom line, I am overly, possibly unduly, suspicious of Thoroughbreds on high-test hay.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

Here’s An Idea, Let’s Change Several Variables At Once, Saddle, Schedule, and Diet, Part 1, Milton

Horsekeeping

Lucky enough to have a horse.

 
Awareness of the outside world. I worry about winter and Covid. States & countries that were doing well suddenly aren’t. What if that was the summer lull? I know, don’t borrow trouble. We have a gracious plenty already.
~~~
Milton’s Saddle
Since I am cheap and have resisted diving into the horror that is saddle shopping, both horses are still wearing their inexpensive, adjustable Wintecs. This may have turned out to be a good thing.

We have changed Milton to a wider gullet plate to accommodate the vast amount of padding he prefers. For due diligence, we did a recheck on saddle without felt pad. It was a no go. We also ran test of concept with Rodney’s wider saddle. Saddle okay. Milton’s special fluffy girth was a little too snug with the shorter billets.

The set-up is now Milton’s saddle, wider gullet plate, felt pad, & fluffy girth.

Yes, our horse is a padded prince. Your point?

Milton’s Diet
Feed. What can I say, we are eternally optimistic.

Milton is now on ProElite Starch Wise. Apparently, there is a zebra diagnosis out there that horse can have muscular sensitivity to sugar. So we are trying him on a low-starch feed. Even if he is not a zebra, it’s not a bad thing for him to be on a diet feed.

(Taught in medical school. If you hear hoofbeats, think horse, not zebra. The term has reached the Internet mainstream, Wiki: Zebra (medicine). There is even a medical website by that name, Look For Zebras. But I digress.)

As a plus, it’s a pelleted feed. There is an unconfirmed rumor around here that Milton does well on pellets. I realize that the form of the feed is not the content. I’ll take any good omens I can get with this horse.

He has been on this a week now. Seems to be going well. (Crosses fingers.) He did not go sproing the way he did last time. [Feed Change]

Hay. Milton is getting less, details tomorrow.

Overall.
Milton: I’m hunnnnnngry! This is bullshit!
Us: Sorry, Dude. Beer gut is not a good look on you.

Milton’s Foot
Noted for the record. Milton is slowly healing up an abrasion on a rear fetlock.

Years ago, a somersault on a swing left me with ropeburns behind both knees. Took forever to heal since they cracked open with each step. Milton’s cut looks just like my ropeburn.

Where would he find a rope? Rolling – which he does a lot – and getting his foot wrapped in a vine? The field has low-growing plants that would fit the bill. Fortunately, they break easily. After the initial swelling, he’s been fine on it. Weird.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

Quad Cat & Word, Weeks 3 & 4, Inktober 2020

Images

 
Awareness of the outside world. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 1 Corinthians 13:4 (+a bit of 5), Bible Gateway: NRSV.
~~~

Quad Cat takes ink into the digital realm.

Programs: Inkscape, GIMP.

Process: Quad Cat started out as an idea with IRL ink. I discovered that every adjustment meant redrawning the entire thing. If I went online, I could move the pieces around to my heart’s content. Sold. As for the title, Square Cat, Box Cat, Boxy Cat were all taken. How do people come up with original names these days?

Once I started down the digital path, I got sucked into the vortex. ART is straight-up axonometric grid maneuvers.

Inktober [Archives]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

Inktober, I Had Such Plans

Words

 
Awareness of the outside world. Zen Pencils: Ira Glass’s Advice For Beginners. Yes, I have linked to this before. Probably will again. Improvement is not about becoming commercial. Improvement in art is about learning to give physical form to that which exists in your head. Not the point I am making below, but still a good point. Keep working. Get it out there. The world needs your voice.
~~~
With tomorrow’s post, Inktober 2020 is over for me.

I had such plans.

When Inktober 2019 ended, I was so pleased with myself. I had made art. Not a lot, tis true, but art. [End of the Road]

I had such plans.

Carry this momentum through the rest of the year! Incorporate art into my life! Art as a daily practice. Nothing complicated. Decorated words. Doodles. Mark-making. As little as 10 or 15 minutes a day. How hard can that be?

Ha.

“Draw” languished on my ToDo list alongside “Stretch”. Neither got done. Fortunately, lack of art did not come with the unpleasant physical side effects. [Brought It On My Own D*mn Self]

Inktober 2020.

I had such plans.

As last year, I chose the once-a-week option.

Forget the failures of the past year. Spend this month concentrating on committing art each day and then come up with a post each Sunday.

Again, I say unto you, Ha!

I ended up doing just enough to get the posts out. On week three, I couldn’t even do that.

Sigh.

Art joins the pile of things that I like in theory but don’t actually accomplish.

Does this happen to anyone else? Or are my interests unusually scattered wide-ranging?

Inktober [Archives]

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

One Road Ends, Another Begins, Virtually

Fit To Ride

 
Awareness of the outside world. World Bicycle Relief. I’m hesitant to mention specific charities because I never know who is doing good and who is buying ski condos in Switzerland. The Fat Cyclist appears to approve of this one, Just Look at What You’ve Done, 2012.
~~~
Team Peachtree is nearing the end of Virtual Route 66. As of Wednesday, we were at 95%, with 107 miles to go, out of 2,280 total. Therefore, I am scouting around for my next virtual bike ride. [Biking Virtually, Route 66]

Option 1: Ride My Bike – Go Nowhere
No cost, no entertainment.

Get on bikes. Ride. Be done. There is an attraction to not fussing with logging miles, taking screenshots, or updating posts. OTOH, no pretty images to take screenshots of, no armchair traveler tie-in, no blog fodder.

This is what I did for years. As we all know, this is not a normal year. Cabin fever and stress levels are off the charts. Amusement is hard to come by. Which leads to …

Option 2: DIY Virtual – Silk Road
No cost, more entertainment, more work.

One of best parts of virtually walking along the Mississippi river is the amount of reading available: travel narratives, bridge history, river management. When railroads wanted to build bridges across the river, they had to fight the water commerce folks. Car bridges were a later add-on to railroad bridges. [Walking Virtually, Mississippi River, Table of Contents & General Info]

My “route” is the Great River Road. Right now, I am estimating mileage with Create My Route. I have not been looking at streetviews, but I haven’t really investigated how to generate them on my own without a specific address. Between satellite views, books, and media available online, I’m getting enough vicarious viewing.

Ultimately, I hope to follow the mileage in Bicycling Guide To The Mississippi River Trail: A Complete Route Guide Along The Mississippi River by Bob Robinson. Bought a copy. Went walkabout. Can find all my other Mississippi books. Not that one.

Given the success of this method, I looked for other famous roadways to virtually bike.

The Silk Road fits the bill for reading material. It’s an area with millennia of history about which I know little. I don’t think I’d run out of reading even if it took me 10 years to virtually bike the route. I started poking around on websites and in books. Yay research! For your amusement, The Atlantic:A Photo Trip Along the Ancient Silk Road, by Alan Taylor November 27, 2017.

What I’ve learned so far. The Silk Road is not the name of a specific path. Rather, it covers a network of trade across central Asia. Everyone agrees that it starts in Xi’an, China. The end is variable depending on who’s talking.

Trade was regional. You didn’t load your camel in China and walk to Turkey, or Damascus, or wherever. You sold your goods to this dude (and it was probably a dude), who sold it to that dude, who sold it to the next dude, and so on down the line.

The label is a retronym. “The German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term ‘Silk Road’ with the publication of this map in 1877. Before this date, people referred to the route as the road to Samarkand (or whatever the next major city was).” Valerie Hansen: The Silk Road, Gallery

Since there is no one road, I would be on my own for wayfinding. Not a problem. Pick two cities. Figure out the best route from one to the other, which is pretty much what the dudes with camels were doing.

The project would take a couple of years, at least. Encyclopaedia Britannica cites the figure of 4,000 miles. At height of summer with maximum light, we were biking 10 miles daily. As the light and weather ebb, that rate will go down. An optimistic rate would be 2,000 miles a year. If I started horse showing, that number could drop off dramatically.

A long-term project is not necessarily a downside. I’m going to be virtual alongside the Mississippi for ages. Walking 3,000 miles will take far longer than biking 4,000.

The more I read about the route, the more I thought that, while the cities are interesting, that’s a lot of time in the virtual desert. I’ll most likely go back to my original plan …

Option 3: Paid Virtual – Great Ocean Road
Trading money for ease and virtual postcards.

Stay with the Virtual Challenge folks and head to The Great Ocean Road in Australia. This is the company through which I did the Inca, New Zealand, and Route 66 virtual rides. I give them coin. They track my progress on a map, provide streetviews, and send digital postcards. [Will Bike For Bling].

At 149 miles, this should take from two weeks to two months, depending health, weather, and/or other diversions. At which point, I’ll will return to armchair travel planning.

“So the next day we were on the Great Ocean Road, which should be called Good Ocean Road. It was nice, but not overwhelming.” The Big Trip: Melbourne to Adelaide

Any suggestions?

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott

Sans Saddle

Riding Journal

 
Awareness of the outside world. These are the same jeans I had on in a 2016 post [Macho]. No one can accuse me of indulging in fast fashion. “Fast fashion isn’t free. Someone, somewhere is paying.” Lucy Siegle, journalist and author. “Demand quality not just in the products you buy, but in the life of the person who made it.” Orsola de Castro, designer and cofounder of Fashion Revolution. (Original sources lost in a sea of requotes. 32). OTOH, it’s easy for me to sneer at fashion, because I so clearly have none. [My Denim Guide]
~~~

Milton was using Rodney’s saddle. We wanted to ride together. So, I hopped on bareback. [The Tack Change]

I survived an hour & 13 minute ride! Go me!

Granted it was all at a walk, but that’s the longest I’ve ridden bareback in ages.

Getting off was a bit of a sideshow. My right leg was not responding particularly well at that point. By the time I managed to heave it over the horse, I lost control of the dismount and ended up slithering down his side. There were sound effects.

Rodney is reasonably comfy, for a Thoroughbred, but has a big, swinging stride. I practiced staying loose and sitting up tall.

You may now be impressed with my balance.

You may now be impressed with my fortitude.

You may now ignore the one-handed, white-knuckle grip I had on the mane.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine Walcott