Virtual Brush Box

Branding Without Having A Brand

Writing About Writing

ttdr: I have a writing website, willwriteforfeed.com. I don’t know what to do with it.

Blink and a year goes by.

What Have I Done?
Reviving my writing career is going even more slowly than progress with the horses, which I would not have said was possible. About this time last year, I made grand statements of intent [In Which I Stare, Blinking, Into the Future July 2018]. Notable lack of activity ensued. Then in January, I bought/rented my domain name through Blue Host. Maybe outlay of actual money would galvanize me. Uh, nope.

After several months, I made a feeble stab at starting my writing website & got immediately overwhelmed. Somehow, I connected the business site on WordPress.org to the blog on WordPress.com (note letters following the dot). One of the first questions it asked me was, Did I want to connect to a Gmail account? I guess so? Whereupon it downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from the blog.

One service I offer is grant writing. I may not understand what an XYZ is. I know that if you have two, you need a plural verb. Let’s say you want me to edit your grant. You click on my writing page. You are immediately confronted with my most recent whinings about my horses. Not a professional look.

I have no problem with people reading my most recent whinings. I would not blog if I did. However, I want it to be a clear subsection of the business site. Here’s all the wonderful things I can do for you! Here’s all the wonderful things I have done! Oh, by the way, if you want to know more about me, click here.

Right now, the willwriteforfeed.com About is the same as the blog About page. The Archives tab lists 109 posts, all from 2011 & 2012 for some reason. As best we can tell, these are COPIED from the blog not LINKED to the blog. The difference is important.

It wasn’t a computer problem so much as me not understanding the ramifications of the question I was answering. The program simply did what I told it to do. Increased flexibility is one reason to switch to WordPress.org. It can also trip up the unwary user. With moderate computing power comes moderate responsibility.

According to the nice folks at Blue Host, the best course of action to fix this is to delete the WordPress segment of my Blue Host account (confused yet?). Then I reinstall WordPress to my account without letting it know about the blog. Since the posts are copies of the original blog posts, nothing should happen to the blog. Should. We hope. You can see why I reluctant to do this.

For the moment, I have paused to consider.

On a separate note, Blue Host has been great. I spoke to two different people at the Blue Host call-in number. The first one sorted out simple domain name & login questions without making me feel stupid, which is an admirable skill in tech support. The second took over an hour attempting to figure out exactly what I had done and how to undo the snarl before coming up with the Gordian Knot solution.

What Should I Do?
Speaking of all the wonderful things I have done, I am also stuck over what to put on the page.

Take clips as an example. I have several hundred. I think 300+ at last count? Almost all of them are pre-digital. So no convenient links for me. I would have to get permission, scan the articles, and host them on my site. Not an insurmountable problem.

Unfortunately, most of my clips predate the collapse of the publishing industry, along with everything else, in 2008. That makes them all over 10 years old. My first freelance assignment was in 1989. Some of the clips are 20 or 30 years old.

At any time, old references are an issue. At this historical moment, the publishing industry has changed beyond anything we could have imagined back in the day. I remember faxing articles in. Who even remembers fax machines these days? I would essentially be waving stone tablets and asking folks to admire how well I chiseled my work into them.

Every aspect I try to address seems to lead me in this sort of circle. What services should I offer? How do show my digital savvy when I don’t have any? How do I get jobs without current references? How do I get current references without jobs?

I’m not going to starve. This is an administrative problem at most. But I do get overwhelmed and go back to hiding my head in the sand.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

What Does Your Phone Say About You? Instagram Recap, June 2019

Photography

Posts through mid-June 2019 from my blog Instagram account, @myvirtualbrushbox. Previous [Looking Back, Milton & Moonlight, Instagram Recap, April 2019].

Posts By Subject
Five Horse – Milton 3, Rodney 1, Other 1
One Horse Adjacent – hay trip
Two Cat
One Other – roses

Posts By Location
One Home – tabby kittens
One Barn – Milton’s ear
Four SSF – Rodney, Ricky & Lucy, Milton in bunny ears, roses
One FHF – Milton & poles
Two Other – Clydesdale, hay

Most liked – Clydesdales

Process Notes. I use my latest Instagram photo as my home screensaver both for variety and to remind me to post to Instagram. I posted the rose photo mainly to get the Budweiser theme song out of my head after 10 days of looking at the beribboned, big, bay butt [Even The King].

My lock screen saver is a quote from Psalm 118, This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. The Bible Gateway, Psalm 118:24, page list 53 versions. It’s fascinating how a slight difference in wording alters the tone of the phrase.

When a local evangelical got on my case about being saved, I wanted to wave my phone in their face and ask ‘Is this religious enough for you?!’ But that felt like praying on a street corner, so I made noncommittal face gestures and hoped they went away.

But I digress. On to pictures.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by K T Walcott (@myvirtualbrushbox)

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Philosophical Reflections, Rider

Last week, I talked about coming to terms with the horses we have [Philosophical Reflections Following My Post-Show Snit]. It is equally true that I need to come to terms with the rider I am at any given moment.

I know folks are not happy with the speed I have brought Milton along. I can’t say that I am thrilled with it either. I thought it would go better. I’ve done this before, with an OTTB who had far less retraining than Milton. As for why it didn’t, that is a topic for another post, or the rest of the blog.

The point is we are here. These are the horses we have. This is the rider we have. Barring crisis, none of us are going anywhere.

There are days when I feel bulletproof. I can get on strange horses. I can scorch a jump-off. I can blow around the show ring to the extent that Coach Courtney has to remind me, ‘This is not a chariot race.’

Other days, not so much with the Kevlar. I can barely get on Sam. I fret over crossrails. I dread … well, everything.

On the days when the weenie is strong, all I want to do is walk. I feel like the stereotypical little old lady who potters around, wasting the abilities of her fancy horse. Except in my case, I have two nice horses. The voices are loud on such days.

Stop. This is not a productive way of thinking.

If my current mood is that I only want to get on and walk, well then, I will get on and walk. I can’t do anything about who I am, anymore than I can do anything about who the horses are. Modify? Sure. Improve? Hopefully. Change the basic nature of? Not gonna happen.

In my lucid moments, I know the weenie days come and go. We will ride in the 2′ jumper class. It may take until next year. So be it.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton Wishes For A Time Machine

Me: You had trouble keeping your marbles on the table at the last show [Mid-South].
Milton: It was a very exciting place. I got very excited.
Me: This is the second time you have done well in the lead up and then gone to the show and lost your shit.
Milton: What can I say. I sensitive.
Me: We want you to feel more comfortable at shows.
Milton: That sounds good.
Me: We want you to feel more confident at shows.
Milton: That sounds good, too.
Me: Therefore, you are going to have to work a lot harder at home.
Milton: Wait, what?
Me: Our prep schedules have not worked for you.
Milton: Well, it certainly wasn’t MY fault.
Me: Therefore we will need to change what we do to get you ready.
Milton: …
Me: You know what they say. Don’t work until you get it right. Work until you can’t get it wrong.
Milton: I never say that.
Me: We want you to practice a movement, for example a canter transition, 100 times. Then when you get to a new place, you can worry about the new place, but you won’t have to worry about the movement.
Milton: 100 times? (Fans self with hoof.)
Me: We will also be presenting you with small challenges at home.
Milton: Challenges?
Me: Think of them as puzzles to solve. Once you will learn to face small challenges, um, puzzles, you will be better equipped to cope with a big challenge, er, puzzle.
Milton: So all of this new work is because of three bad canter transitions?
Me: Yup.
Milton: Hmm. Can I have a redo?
Rodney, breaking in: Excuse me, can I ask a question?
Me: Sure.
Rodney: Why am I working hard?
Me: New house rules.
Rodney: Milton screws up and suddenly I am long-lining four times a week?
Me: Basically, yes.
Rodney, turns to Milton: Dude, we need to talk.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton Went To Watch

The Gray Wonder

Schooling Show (Hunter/Jumper)
El Gezira Riding Academy
Harpersville, AL, USA
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Non-compete

A surprise horse show experience! Milton’s first h/j show. My first in over a decade.

Change of Plans
A rainy Saturday morning put our scheduled schooling in jeopardy. So, while the horses digested their breakfast, we went over to check out a local show. We had been to the farm many times with Previous Horse, but that was years ago. We wanted to make sure they hadn’t added an alligator-filled moat around the arena.

The show was small. The atmosphere was relaxed. The weather was gorgeous. The ground was squishy. Since the show was just around the block – or 15 miles, out here, that qualifies as around the corner – might as well go back and get Milton. Standing around the show was going to be the best use of the day.

We arrived. Milton lunged. I got on. We stood. Walked over to warm up. Stood. Walked back to the side of the ring. Stood. I got off to give my knees a break. A brief rain squall sent us all scurrying into the covered arena to wait it out. Near the end of the show, I got back on. After the show, we schooled in the arena.

Report Card Minuses
– As we were tacking up to long line, Milton pulled back, broke his leadrope before I could get to him, and ran across the show grounds, bucking merrily. It was either a horse suddenly coming around the corner or a car passing on driveway. On the up side, no one wondered why we were there to school after that.

– He got fussy about standing at one point. One explanation is that he was bored/over it. Another is that the horse and rider in the ring were not having a harmonious ride. Milton does not like tension anywhere near him. If we yell at Rodney, Milton gets upset. Perhaps the horse in the ring was sending out I’m Not Happy signals. Your guess is as good as mine.

– When we were sheltering from the rain, Milton thought the rain on the tin roof was the weirdest noise he had ever heard. His run-in shed has a tin roof. Then, he took violent exception to an attack tree outside of the ring. Kinda glad I wasn’t on him at that point.

– When we were schooling, I asked for the canter. Didn’t get it. We’ve been having trouble with our canter transitions since our freestyling at Mid-South [Hanging With The Saddlebros]. It’s not just me. He’s less reliable on the longlines as well.

– Of course, part of it is me. At one point, he landed from a jumplet, cantered off, and tossed his head. I shut it down immediately, without waiting to see if it was a simple head toss or a precursor to worser.

Report Card Pluses
+ As we walked toward the mounting block, I got the sense that Milton was a) having a big time & b) trying hard to keep it together.

+ He stood excellently. He had his ears up, studying & absorbing everything around him. When I saw him looking at a trailer in the driveway, I walked him away from the trailer and over to his minion. I thanked Milton for telling me about it and letting me handle it.

+ We jumped a whole passel of little fences. We did four jumps several times each, as they deconstructed the course around us. Started with crossrails; moved up to one-foot verticals. Milton was game for it, but required much hoof holding. There was jumps here and jumps there, and people, and dogs, and piles of poles, and jumps near the rail … and … and …

+ Fortunately ~~stuffing~~ encouraging a horse over low fences is a skill I’m actually good at. I once jumped George [photo] around a 3′ course, which is akin to dancing with a tractor. Milton did all his jumps. Mainly trotting. We cantered one fence that was the second in a line.

Summary
+/- He behaved admirably. I wish our victories were higher up the scale than standing at a horse show.

Update: The horse Milton objected to in the ring was the same horse he may have spooked at. At least he’s consistent. Maybe he’s a breedist.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton’s First Oxer

Grey Wonder, Jumping Diary

Ascending oxer. His mouth is open because his mouth is always open. He is always “Talking.” Milton has many opinions that he feels the need to express. The lines back to the handler are actually loose.

Also this one. Measured 2″1″. This is the height we will need for the Falcon Hill Farm jumper show that is not a goal [Aspirational Events]. Alas, lunging rather than riding. Riding jump height is currently half this. At least we know he can clear it. Gotta start somewhere.