There are two philosophical approaches to my saddle seat lessons.
The Upward Trajectory. Ride the fiery steeds. Try new things. Learn from every horse. Get outside of my comfort zone. Well, a little bit. This is me. I’m not suddenly going to develop four-star nerve.
The Comfortable Shoe. Ride a sensible, familiar lesson horse. Remember what it is like to walk, trot, and canter without drama. Remind myself that I know how to ride. Work on refining the details. Have fun. I spend enough time wearing out my big girl panties dealing with the home team.
These are not mutually exclusive. Riding Sam is the latter. Learning to drive is the former.
Yesterday’s choice was a deep theory lesson on Sam. That’s when Coach Courtney and I talk about the mechanics of riding a lot and Sam stands a lot. He likes those.
Sam grazes afterwards. Once again, I got caught up in the ride and I forgot to take a mounted photo.
Rodney sporting the old beanie on his lone trip last year.
This was supposed to be a new equipment post, since our shipping beanie broke during a recent trailer training session. Material fatigue, not an incident. As it turns out, the one we bought is too small. It pinches Rodney’s ears. Never had this problem. Didn’t know it was possible. Despite being a giraffe, Rodney’s head is a fairly standard size. Well, if not this one, then another.
Rodney wears a head bumper for shipping. Milton does not. Topological intersection of the beanie, the halter, and Milton’s head causes Milton to pull off his halter when he is wearing the beanie. Odd.
Previous Shipping Beanie Experience
My first three horses wore a head bumper for trailering. Mathilda did not.
Mathilda’s owner remembers that she would pull her halter off, a la Milton. My recollection is that it caused her to panic. Once Mathilda put her hoof down, it was not happening. Either way, she shipped without a beanie but with halter fuzzies over the poll, alongside the nose & over the snoot.
Caesar could not wear the halter fuzzies. They reminded him of the shadow roll he often wore over fences. You can’t load a horse who thinks he’s in a jump-off.
I haven’t revisited the idea of halter fuzzies for this pair. It just seems like one more thing to keep clean, particularly since neither one wears a fancy shipping halter. Rodney doesn’t like leather [Here We Stand]; Milton breaks his [The Halter of Shame].
Addition. I feel I must clarify. Milton has only broken his halter once. However, Previous Horse broke his show halter all the d*mn time – including three times at one show – so we are twitchy on the subject of expensive show halters.
Lady waits for me to be done with pictures and get on with her walk. Mud doesn’t slow her down in the slightest.
Rain. More rain. Build-an-ark levels of rain. There was a time when I was a hardy eventer who laughed at the rain and rode through the mud. That time may come again. Now is not that time.
No riding. No hand walks. No body work on wet horses. Fortunately, both horses have rainy day activities on their schedule.
Rodney has been practicing loading on the trailer. At the moment, progress is a two-person task. Either we need one person at the head and one person at the hip to help him arrange his over-sized carcass in a slant load or Rodney needs his village with him for reassurance. Or both.
My goal for Milton this winter is to understand him. Be jumpy at a show. Fine. Be bitey at dinner. Fine. Be chill, when? He never seems to hang out and be a horse, at least not when people are around. So, I sit with him, or stand next to him with a hand on his side. No activities. No grooming. No treats. We’ll see.
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Border color is Benjamin Moore Delray Gray.
If the cartoons look familiar, Timmons drew the comics for the TV show Caroline in the City. Favorite page is where she compares horse breeds to cars, for example: Thoroughbred/Ferrari – Fast, sleek, a nice ride when not in the shop. And so on.
Artistic fail in my part. I envisioned a letter in a freehand style that echoed the cartoons. Alas, the images in my head are shackled to what my hand can draw. So, instead, another computer-aided design using a color from the cover. The art gap feels wide today.
Inkscape. Grid & boxes. The edges of the boxes ended up being more fiddly than expected. First, I had to specify that I did in fact want borders, otherwise there were tiny gaps. Then they exported with a slight color gradient around each box, which had to be bucket filled. No idea why. I’m sure I asked for it somehow. The trouble with a program that gives you the ability to do anything you want is that you have to have some idea what you want.
They are no longer kittens. They are not yet cats. They are … cattens.
Photos arranged in chronological order, unrelated to the text.
Feeding Order
When I serve their wet food, Little One (possible name for female Stubby) eats first. Always. I have to separate her dish &/or face her away from the others, or she growls the entire time. That can’t be good for digestion.
I haven’t noticed a reliable feeding order among the others. At each meal, one of the three is confused and can’t find a dish, but it’s not always the same one.
Affection
They are affectionate but do not demand affection. All four are perfectly happy to purr if picked up or petted, otherwise, they get on with their mysterious, boisterous kitten activities, or collapse in their higgledy-piggledy group naps.
Somewhere between often and occasionally, Princess or Precious (other possible name for female Stubby) will find me and say, ‘I would like cuddles now please.’ Male Stubby shows up for a turn from time to time. The only time Long Tail demanded my attention, it turned out the food bowl was empty.
There is no shelf below the window. She is holding on with her claws.
Bathroom
They are obsessed with keeping me company in the smallest room. The best way to summon all four – short of dinner time – is to have a seat. They gather in and out of the bathtub and play ruffle games with the shower curtain.
This is comfy?
Jumping
Speaking of jumping, they have gotten much better since last report. They now leap with grace and hang time. Their reach has increased. One has been spotted on … drumroll … the kitchen counter.
The dry food for the big cats is on the top of the fridge. Since this is out of the way of the dogs, I leave food there 24/7. We have a deal. They can use one corner of the counter on their way to up to the fridge. We call this area the landing zone and keep it clear. That is the only part of the counter they are allowed on.
The big cats observe the rule and do not roam the counter. I have no idea how I managed to convince them of this. I don’t think the cattens will be quite as obliging.
26. Academy Driving with Whiskey Throttle – 1st of 1
Thank you to Courtney Huguley for the willing Whiskey.
Another driving Thursday! While mainly a blatant attempt to squeeze two posts from one horse show, the driving was an important factor in my weakening in the face of temptation attending the show. I might have held the line against Sam. Might have. Sam & a cart? Resistance is futile.
If I were a selfless soul, I would’ve said, ‘No, No, I’ve driven enough. Let someone else have a chance.’ Ha. Gimme those reins. We have discovered the limits to my generosity.
One horse. Hitch in the ring. Trot around the ring a few times. Same old, same old. Still fun.
The adventure this time was the mud from the recent rain and a very slight bit of terrain. We cruised around the top of the ring at the vertiginous angle of 1 degree. After the class, we exited up a equally formidable slope. I felt as if I was on marathon! Not really, but that’s as close as I get.
Virtual Brush Box 