Ambushed By My Mailbox


 
Years ago, when I was young & hopeful, I received a large check at the end of a big job. Instead of having it disappear into the general fund, I splashed out on life memberships for the USDF and the USEA.

I have never used them.

It’s been over 10 years. I have not evented. Only in the last year have I ridden any dressage tests at all. None of them required the intercession of the USDF.

If I think about it, I realize how far I am from my equestrian goals. (Yes, yes, blessed to be riding in any fashion. Blossom where you are planted. Glorious photo with inspirational caption. Meanwhile back in my petty reality.) If I think about it too much, I come over all superstitious and wonder if I jinxed myself. Would I be eventing and dressaging if I had never sent in those memberships? I know that’s not logical.

Usually, I don’t think about it. I mean, think about the memberships. I think about equine competitions – the ones I’m doing and the ones I am not doing – all the time. As you know. Some day, maybe, I will need those memberships. Meanwhile, I remain on their lists. So, I have this exchange every so often.

Mail: Hey, thanks for being a member!
Me: Hey, thanks for the reminder!
(Searches for sarcasm font.)

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Chiro, Dunno

The home team had chiropractic adjustments two weeks ago. I have not blogged about it because Milton has been off and on lame since that day. These are NOT related events.

The doctor went to Stepping Stone Farm first. I went over to watch a few horses. When I came home to get these two ready, Milton was waving his right front foot in the air. Really, Horse? Today? I wasn’t overly worried. The presenting physiologic symptoms were minor. The attitude was pitiful but Milton has a tendency to be … um … emotional about injuries.

I figured that chiropractic work was mostly structural (?), so the doctor should be able to see something anyway. He poked and prodded. Milton spooked at the mounting block. Doc told me that horses should get a couple of days off or you lose the advantage of the adjustment.

As I suspected, by the next morning, Milton was 95% sound, at least well enough to gallop up to breakfast. Between chiro and foot, he got the rest of the week off. Toward the end of the week, it rained. When I finally rode during the weekend, all we could do was walk [When Life Gives You Rain]. Maybe his back was a trifle less tight when I first got on, but data is limited.

Then, at the beginning of last week, Milton showed up waving the left front. Slightly puffier leg/ankle. A few nights of stall rest. Done and dusted. We think he tweeks a tendon/joint/important moving part while cavorting in the epic, endless mud that is our lot these days.

I have thoughts on my opinion of chiropractic before the appointment and whether or not those opinions were borne out during. However, I want to wait until I have an after to report. We need to have done more than stomp around, in particular, I want to see how back & butt adjustments affect Milton’s canter and canter transitions.

Rodney also got done. Doc didn’t find much. I didn’t sense a great deal of change in Rodney’s way of going in the limited time we worked [Walk]. He hasn’t done much either because … drumroll … I have also been off and on sick for the last two weeks. Gadding about in public [Being Mobile], exposed my defenseless system to all manner of new germs. Rather like sending a child to kindergarten, Indexed (that would be me at x).

Bad weather, lame horse, sick. Conservation of misery?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

State of the Blog: Call for Ideas

On My Mind, Miscellaneous Thoughts

 
Happy with the blog. Not planning to change. Am looking for advice on interesting adventures for occasional variety. The following is a combination of topics and techniques, as they occurred to me.

Require Action By Others
Guest Post – hosting. Yes, please. I have pressed friends, family, and total strangers into writing posts. To know me is to get drag into the gravitational vortex of the blog. I have an open invitation in the header of the blog, above. I joke that I like not having to do the typing for a day, which is true. Really it’s all about hearing other people’s stories.

Guest Posting – writing. Meh. Sounds too much like work. Seriously, that’s what I get paid to do. I guest posted for New York Cliché, New York Cliché, Guest Post: Born and Raised a New York Native….But Now?, and was tickled [In Which I Reblog Myself]. Statistical probability would allow for the existence of other places wherein I would write for free. None come to mind at the moment.

Illustration. Would love to work with an illustrator. Not sure how that would work with daily posting. Expenses could rack up quickly.

Blogger meet-ups. Another ‘Yes, please.’ Given the frequency that I fail to haul my ass off the farm, horse shows would be the best bet. Unfortunately, there are vanishingly few ASB bloggers out there. If you are a saddle seat blogger and show in the Southeast, come say Hi at the next show. I’m with Stepping Stone Farm. Otherwise, this one will have to wait for hunter/jumper, dressage, or eventing. Lots of bloggers in those disciplines. Not sure how many are in the Southeast.

Contests & Give-Aways. Historically, I have proven horrible about picking a winner. I end up giving the prize to everyone. Not a sustainable model.

Collaborations. With other bloggers. With other creatives. With a puppeteer? An electrical engineer? ?????

Could Do On My Own
Post my novel. Get a publish contract and a movie deal. It worked for John Scalzi with Agent To The Stars (novel), 10 Years On (print release) & 20 Years On (online novel), and for Andy Weir with The Martian (novel & movie), How a Series of Blog Posts Turned into a Multi-million Dollar Bestseller. Need to write it first.

Model Horse Show. Rumors of one coming to my area, Central Alabama Live model horse show. We have established that I have not done the background work to show my own string [What Happens at a Model Horse Show?]. Volunteer? It’s likely to be a Saturday and those get spoken for quickly.

Participate in Photo Shows. I could. I haven’t [M is for MEPSA]. Clearly the mood has not struck me.

More Low-Key Photo Challenges. It’s on the list, as I find likely subjects. [Low Key Photo Challenge, Holiday]

Back-Burner Ideas. Along with model horses & photography, there is still stamps & LEGO bricks. Not sure what to do with either of these, but the interest is still there. Also, graphic design & books. Ditto.

Book Reviews. Meh. Been there. Done that. Keeping up with what upcoming books takes far longer that one might expect. Not ruling out commentary on a random book that catches my fancy. As I’ve said elsewhere, I do not need more books to read nor any prompting to buy books.

Blog Hops. I do them when the topic strikes my a chord [What Makes You, You? A Blog Hop.] Generally, I don’t have trouble thinking of things to say. (Yeah, yeah. Anyone who knows me IRL can stop chortling now.)

Research and Write About X. Meh. Again, work. Plus, I need excuses to get out of the house. I spend enough time on my posterior staring at a keyboard as is. No, I’ve never learned to touch type. OTOH, I’m generally composing as I type. Brain speed and finger speed are approximately equivalent.

Go Places. Do Things. Write About Them. More this style of thing. A western lesson? Find out about the Alabama State Horse? ?????

Problems
Access. Without a magazine or widely-read blog behind me, I am reluctant to bother people. They deserve a return on their investment.

Time Considerations. I don’t calculate how much time I spend on the blog. I don’t want to know. I tell myself an hour a day. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. This is one reason I am eliminating any repeat projects. So, an adventure needs to be interesting in its own right for me to devote extra time to posting about it. An adventure would have to be hella interesting for me to make it a regular feature. Such activities exist. I don’t know what they are [What I Want From My Blog].

So I’m asking you. Hit me with your ideas.

[Previous SotB posts]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

The Under-Appreciated Walk


 
Rodney and Milton and I have done a lot of walking. At home, we are trying to keep our shit together. At new places, we are trying to keep our shit together. In the winter, we are stomping through the mud. So, I’ve been thinking about the walk lately.

In bad weather, we try to make it interesting [Rain] or do what work we can. Both Milton and Rodney have a tendency to shorten their front ends. Milton telescopes his neck. Rodney curls up like a shrimp. Recently, we used the walk time to work on getting both horses to stretch their necks out. When a horse sucks back, it is almost automatic to adjust the reins to reestablish a connection. Instead, I kept my reins the same length, repeated the request to move forward, and gritted my teeth to ignore any telescoping, inverting or shrimping.

Since Milton is green, I kept him on big circles and booted him forward. I wanted to trot. How I wanted to trot. But then I started to wonder, would trotting help or would I simply be making the same mistake faster? Instead of trying to squeeze in a few steps of trot, we staying in walk and keep at it.

With Rodney, I added figure 8s to give him something to focus on. He would want to trot off, but trotting on a tight turn was too much work. Similarly, rounding the front end and going forward from the back end was too much like dressage. Out came the neck.

After a few repetitions of the exercise, both horses had made what felt like real progress. All three of us were certainly tired. I felt that going slowly had helped me be clear in my own mind, which enabled me to be clear to the horses.

To work at the walk properly, you need a ground person, or at least I do. The changes are so small, I needed someone telling me, ‘Yes, you got a response. Reward it.’ Or, ‘Nope, not yet. Keep trying.’

Have I discovered a fundamental truth of flat work?
Or
Am I fabricating a theoretical silk purse out of the sow’s ear that is our footing?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

The Downside of Being Mobile

You would think that I would be thrilled to be vehicularized once more [Wheels]. I am. However, it is dawning on me that life is not all beer and skittles.

Errands
Honey, would you get hay tomorrow morning? Oh, wait. That’s right. I can get hay. Any time. And unload it. All by myself. I can’t be an empowered 21st century woman and expect my husband to do all the heavy lifting, can I? No really, I’m asking, can I? I’m madly trying to think of a logic that works here. No such luck.

Exercise
I am back in the pool. After this long, the best I can manage is 10 minutes, maybe 15 with lots of breaks. Locate non-barn, muggle clothes. Dress. Drive. Change. Swim. Reverse process. Seems like an awful lot of work for not much return.

Ennui
For seven months, I’ve had an automatic excuse. I can’t socialize, volunteer, otherwise participate in the outside world because I can’t get there. So I fell into a rut. Now, the excuse is gone. The rut lingers on. It reminds me of the time I broke my ankle. I was delighted to get off the crutches and into a walking cast. No one warned me that being allowed to walk on it was different than wanting to walk on it. Ow. Ow. Ow. So, my isolation crutch is gone. Now I have to start walking again. Metaphorically. Psychological-ow. Psychological-ow. Psychological-ow.

Update
The fourth E would be Exposure [Dunno, scroll to end].

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

A Wordless Short, More Show Photos, Winter Tournament 2018-19 #3

Adventures in Saddle Seat

 

No lesson since the show [Report]. So, a few more of Deb’s photos [A Wordless Story]. This time of Sam & me. Welcome back, Deb.

Photo by Deb Kesecker
Photo by Deb Kesecker
Photo by Deb Kesecker

 

I know I said wordless, but I have to point this out. Did you notice that she got me *just* as I was swinging into the saddle? You can tell by the small amount of daylight between me & the horse and that my butt is still off center. Nice timing!

Now that I’m talking, the first two are of me getting on for warm up. The last is me readjusting my stirrup after swapping with one of Sam’s other riders.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott