Virtual Brush Box

Lingering Laments, A Heath Update

On My Mind, Miscellaneous Thoughts

Since y’all were kind enough to express concern about my health, I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Mostly fine. Having trouble shaking off the last lingering effects of whatever was bothering me. I’d blame sloth but I have an occasional cough that hangs around like the smell of ripe laundry, enough to convince me that it is not all in my head.

My first theory was digestive troubles. I was a symphony of gas pain after meals and gurgling noises and indigestion when I lay down. Whatever bug or bacteria I hosted had derailed my tum sufficiently that it was not processing correctly. Therefore, my food was not bio-available. Lovely theory, no? Too bad it had no bearing in reality.

1) I hadn’t dropped any weight, so clearly I was squeezing nutrition from what I ate.

2) A week of human UlcerGard had no effect.

Then, after the show weekend [Report, Options], I slept for two days. The next day, I rode 3 horses. The day after that, I slept most of the day. Then, I was busy two days in a row [Lesson, Sloss (pending)] and tried to keep going. Cue stomach troubles.

So, I’m tired. When I got my truck back [Wheels], I started riding, shipping to lessons, and swimming. It was too much. When I try to do too much, I get tired. When I’m tired, my digestive system lashes out.

Which is utterly ridiculous. Half of my rides are walks. I’m in the pool less time than it takes me to drive there [The Downside of Being Mobile]. None of this should wear me out.

However, my brain doesn’t get to make that decision. If my body says it’s tired, then it’s tired. So, I have I stopped swimming, temporarily. I still ride and ship, but accept that I need to rest. Well, I try to accept that I need to rest. And yes, ponder why I think of my brain as “I” and think of my body as a convenient vehicle to carry me around.

None of this is serious, just annoying. Been spending this dark, rainy week napping, writing blog posts, and running errands. With luck next week will be more festina, less lente.

Thank you for reading, and for your concern,
Katherine Walcott

Two Hops Forward, One Step Back

“Adventures Are Not All Pony-Rides In The May-Sunshine”
J.R.R. Tolkein

This is a warts-and-all blog, right? Well, we had a bit of a set-back. TLDR: Milton had an fit of the hops. I sat it. Commence mental gyrations.

The Timeline
T-2 days. Milton had two hissy fits while being lunged. Both times occured while he was being asked for lateral work. Both times, I was just about to say, ‘oh, he’s doing well.’ when he flipped his pancakes. Apparently, it was too much. Even though it was only a tiny bit of quasi-sidewaysness, we need to make it half of a tiny bit, 1 or 2 steps, rather than 3 or 4. He finds lateral work hard. Now we know. He gets upset when life is hard. That we knew.

T-day. Muddy. No way to work in the ring. We did one lap around the pasture at a walk. The next lap, we did the first half at a trot. We had trotted in the field before, but up the hill rather than around the edge.

Milton was not pleased. He laid on the reins and thought about playing the I Was A Racehorse card. He never does that. We pulled up after the trot segment. He started curling his front leg, one of his tells for stress. We walked. We finished up the lap at a mild trot. So far so good.

We start the next lap. A pole sat in our way lengthwise. Crosswise, we could have trotted over it. I told Milton he had to pick a side, one way or the other.

He lost his freaking mind.

Hop. Hop. Hop. Full-on, head down crow hops. I pulled on both reins, as one does. Hop. Hop. Hop. I realized that two reins is a pulling contest I can’t win. Pulled on one rein. Hop. Hop. Hop. Pause. Hop. Hop. Hop. Pause long enough for me to debark.

Regroup.

I got back on. Go me.
I walked. Yay.
We did a few steps of super mild trotting, on a circle, in the ring. It wasn’t the original question, but I was on & we were trotting. Go us.

T+2. Went ahead with jumping lesson [Reaching for the Big Trot]. We know he likes the Falcon Hill Farm ring.

T+4 Schooling at Full Circle Horse Park [Where In The World Is Milton?].

The Upsides
The intent was confused not evil. This doesn’t make a difference when one is pogo-sticking around the pasture. In hindsight, he was expressing himself, rather than trying to ditch me. If he’d wanted me off, off I would have been.

I was yelling NO! as he hopped and I pulled. Ground crew says the No!s were working. Not much, but a bit. No! Maybe? No! Maybe?

I did not feel at any point that I was coming off. I did feel one hop away from that feeling a few times. I had time to wonder what the exit strategy was going to be.

The Whys?
Bad footing? Maybe.

Cold? Possibly. For a Canadian horse, he doesn’t do low temps.

Riding out in “the open”? Who knows.

Did I inadvertently ask him to do lateral work when trying to get past the pole? Maybe, but he was already in a mood.

Was it the new saddlepad? I had tried Milton in a lovely sheepskin halfpad. Day one had been good. Day two moderate. This was day three.

Did he not want to trot around the field again? Clearly.

The Action Items
Can’t control the weather.

Saddle pad is gone. No messing with his tack.

Continue lateral work in hand, where galloping off just means going back to the barn to collect him.

Be mindful of footing issues.

As for riding in the open, that is where the ship of progress took the biggest hit. What I didn’t say in the FCHP post is that I backed out of cross-country schooling.

1) Adding XC to the day would have more than doubled the schooling fee. Walking over a a few jumps would not have been worth the cost.

2) The footing was not bad, given the conditions, but the rain was making the grass slick. Did this count as bad footing for Milton? I didn’t know.

3) I could have walked over a few, like we did last year [Mr. Excitement Regards His Future]. I probably could have trotted (jogged) at one or two really low ones, maybe. I knew I didn’t have it in me to ride forward at the jump and forward away from the jump the way we had done our jumping lesson.

The Upshot
It will be a while before I test the comfort zone again. Fortunately my comfort is zone bigger than it was 4 years ago.

Not as upset with myself as I might be. I stayed on. I got back on. I had a jump lesson. I’ve halfway convinced myself to blame the saddlepad.

We are making progress over stadium jumps. Once we are trotting and cantering those with aplomb, that will remove one of the variables from the XC jumps.

Maybe if my stirrup hadn’t broken four years ago, we’d be further along.

Of course, I wish I was braver and bulletproof. That never stops.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Reaching for the Big Trot, Jump Lesson at FHF

Jumping Diary

Jumping lesson last Friday at Falcon Hill Farm.

Takeaways:

1) Instead of simply thumping away at Milton’s sides with my legs, push him to the outside to get him to step bigger.

Lower leg. I think I remember reading about that as an aid.

2) Forward to the fence is important. Forward away from the fence is equally important.

Much exciting-to-do but unimpressive-to-watch trotting of crossrails. The important part of the video is the last jump where we finally built up a sufficient head of steam to canter away. Videos by Molly McCown. I wore the vest in order to practice with it for upcoming XC schooling.

Not a remedial ride. I asked for help with our canter transition. Coach Molly got on to see what was up. Milton was relieved to have me back, ‘Oh good, it’s you. I don’t have to work hard.’

Milton’s post-lesson reward. I love to watch horses roll. The seem to enjoy themselves so much. I am particularly impressed with Milton’s attention to detail.

Previous jump [Juggling The Options, photo]
Previous Jumping Diary [Still Recording Every Effort, No Matter How Small]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Tiny Victories

Blurry pic of me riding on the buckle.

My ground crew thinks Rodney likes to be told what to do. I think Rodney needs to be comfortable thinking for himself [Fifth Leg Training]. We’re probably both right.

In pursuit of my goal, Rodney and I have been working on the seemingly simple task of wandering calmly along the edge of the pasture. Previous Horse did this routinely for warm-up and cool down. Even Mathilda managed it, mostly [Helmet Evangelism]. Rodney does not find the task simple. I have no idea why. OTOH, pondering what we have not accomplished because Rodney finds life alarming leads to frustration, tail spins, and breaks from the blog.

Moving on.

Rodney’s been walking quietly for a while now, but not *quite* on the buckle. I’ve kept a nice, long, loopy rein to give him his head. At the same time, I’ve choked up on the rein just enough that I can grab the wheel if needed.

First victory. He gets better as we go. When Rodney is wound up, he gets worse as he goes along. This was his MO for years. Most of this winter, the second lap has been better than the first.

Second victory. I rode absolutely on the buckle for the entire second half of the second lap.

The turtle of progress creeps forward.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Where In The World Is Milton?

Milton’s been wearing his traveling pants.

A week ago Sunday, we went to Stepping Stone Farm to practice cantering & jumping [Juggling]. Last Friday was Falcon Hill Farm for a jump lesson. More on this once the media is ready. Sunday was Full Circle Horse Park to get reacquainted with the dressage arena and get acquainted with the new covered arena, above.

At FCHP. we rode in heavy mist/light rain. Been awhile since I’ve ridden out in the elements [Team Awesome]. Milton didn’t seem to care about the weather. As long as the footing was solid, he didn’t mind what was happening above it.

Rodney’s been hanging at home, stomping through the mud.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton’s Spotify Song List

Milton motivation on Spotify.
Created by G-Dog.
Coming to you straight from the 80s.

Update: Songs to be adjusted as we discover what motivates Milton. Our songmeister thinks Milton may be more Katy Perry/Lady Gaga/Beyonce.

More Update. The above is a screenshot. To play the list, you need to have/sign up for an account at Spotify.com. It’s free, or at least doesn’t cost money. I assume such companies are profiting off us in some way. TANSTAAFL. But I digress. Once you have an account, find the search bar. Enter “Milton Psyche”. That should work, at least that’s want I did. Thus exhausts my knowledge of Spotify.

Happy Listening!
Katherine Walcott

Speaking of Shopping Sprees, My Latest Breyer Purchases

On My Mind, Miscellaneous Visuals

Books aren’t the only thing I overbuy [MEPSA Annual 2018]. I’m amassing a small but useless line of plastic animals.

Persian Cat, House Cat, Norwegian Forest Cat, Siamese Cat

Because I need more cats in my life?

Because I’m going to make cute vignettes a la Desktop Stables (this one, or this)?

As I was shopping, a horse jumped into my cart. Since he was on sale, I let him stay, particularly once I looked at the conformation under the holiday trappings, Nice horse, says I to myself. I was right. Winter is made on the Totalis mold, Identify Your Breyer: Totilas.