Our all but non-existent 2018 CDE season has come to a close. Indiana [us last year] has come and gone, in a modified format. We didn’t go. Nashoba [us last year] is later this month. We aren’t going. Sigh. We had such plans.
The Temper Tantrum in Tennessee [not a post. Yes, it merits capital letters] was a set-back, but was not the end. Milton kept working, including two non-compete appearances [MSSP, NEGA].
In June, right around the trip to Georgia, we had mechanical trouble with the schooling cart and with one of our cars, resulting in logistical problems that we have yet to resolve. We have a bad habit of getting stuck. Our 2-year truck search may have given that away.
This barely ticks the crisis meter. We have next year or the year after or the year after that. If we don’t, we will have more issues than whether or not we are driving a horse. I say we, it really is a group effort, even when I’m not on the carriage.
The problem is my social media feeds. Last year, we were in the thick of it. Thanks to the awesome Bliss & the generosity of Coach Kate. Now, I sit at my computer and watch everyone having fun without us. How is this possible?
It is such a shock to realize that the world spins on without one.
Saddle Seat does not hinder my hunt seat.
Hunt seat ruins my saddle seat.
This is not a surprise.
Saddle Seat -> Hunt Seat
Let’s say I rode two-a-day saddle seat sessions for week. If I simply sat in a hunt seat saddle, everything would snap into place. Center of the saddle. Check. Lower leg on. Check. Pinkies out, whip over the leg. Let’s go.
Hunt Seat -> Saddle Seat
I had two excellent lessons with Milton at Stepping Stone Farm on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a lesson with Joanie on Friday. The first half of the saddle seat lesson was spent trying to remember what exactly was involved with this here funny way of riding. I had just been to a show. I had won a class. It was still a struggle.
Legs and seat adjust reasonably quickly, especially with the school horses, who won’t go if I don’t sit right. The hands are a horror show, which is ridiculous, because there is an obvious metric. The whip is held straight down, along the horse’s shoulder. Adjust hands accordingly. The conversation runs along these lines, for several laps of the arena …
Week 18, as of 9/29/18. We enter the teen years weeks.
A month since the last kitten post?! Hardly seems possible. Looks like I spent September talking about Heathermoor [Show Report, 4 posts] and Southeastern [Show Report, 2 posts]. Plus packing for, attending, and recovering therefrom. Too much horse show? Not possible.
They grow. In the space of week 16 to week 17, their paws went from wee adorable kitten pawlets to paws belonging to small cats to I-can-see-the-shadow-of-the-adult-cat paws. When picked up, they are now an armload instead of a single handful. So far, they still tuck conveniently under one arm.
Their jumping ability has increased dramatically. The vault over obstacles they used to clamber up and over. We have several knee-high barriers that we use to keep dogs (*cough* Basset Hound *cough*) out of various rooms. I draped fabric over these to give purchase for little claws. Now they jump the barriers.
OTOH, their eyes sometimes bigger than their jumping ability. There have been several occasions when the front end gets high enough, but not the back half, leading to scrambling, clawing moments, the success of which depends on their ability to dig in. A shiny metal surface ends with a ignominious backslide & thump. They are not old enough to adopt the ‘I planned that’ look, yet. They still can’t make the top of the fridge.
I try to keep the big cats out of the protein-rich kitten chow. Years ago, we had a cat who gorged herself to the point of illness. In the past, I have used a cardboard box with cut-out, kitten-sized entry. These can be a pain as they get pushed around or upended. This time, I got clever. I tied the door of their travel box so that it would only open a little. Worked great until I found the adult Blue stuck inside, unable to push his way back out. I need to make a new box.
Until then, I am engaging in food gymnastics, depending on who is in or out. Adults cats in? Kittens have access to cat food but not kitten food. (Yes, I know many believe cats should be indoors. Part of their brief is to de-rodent the barn, a task on which they are falling down to a shocking extent. I’m waiting for this lot to get big enough. I’m hoping that being born to a barn cat conveyed a genetic advantage in mouse-hunting abilities. But I digress.) Orthogonal to the cat location is the dog location. (They have an outdoor pen.) Dogs out? Food can go anywhere. Dogs in? Yes. Daytime? Barrier up to keep dogs out of hallway. Nighttime? Hallway needs to be clear, so that the German Shepard can come do the loyal dog thing at the side of the bed. Cat/kitten food trays moved into bathtub. That makes six permutations of food choice & location. Not my most efficient plan.
Names remain uninteresting: Long Tail, Princess, Stubby & Stubby. They don’t care. The only name that matters to them is “Kitten! Kitten!” which means chow time.
I’m sure they think I am obsessed with their hind ends. Whenever I pat one or pick one up or pretty much do anything with one of the kittens, I have to check the tail. It’s the only way I can tell who I am dealing with.
I have discovered that Princess and the female Stubby have little hooks on the ends of their wannabe tails. Long Tail and the male Stubby have tails that come to a smooth point. This helps me distinguish between the two Stubbies in the dark, without rooting around with the more obvious bits.
While the are similar in looks and are obviously siblings, there are a few differences. Long Tail and the male Stubby have sleeker, lighter brown coats and more pointed faces, marginally. Princess and the female Stubby have fluffy, darker coats and rounder faces, marginally. Male Stubby is the heaviest; female Stubby, the lightest, again marginally. Apologies for the blurry and erratic photos. Clearly, we need to work on our kitten photography.
Milton has stopped pooping on the trailer. Well, he still poops if the trip is long enough or if a sufficient amount of nutritional by-product has reached the end of his digestive tract. He has stopped pooping because he’s on the trailer.
Poop-O-Meter points to relaxed.
When I groomed for or rode the crazy opinionated jumper mare [photo, story], she knew what it meant when I was the one getting her out of the field. Horse show! Horse show! She would start pooping immediately and continue at regular intervals. It was a masterwork of resource management. No matter how much she had generated, she could always squeeze out a few more balls. She did not do this in her daily life. It was a performance reserved for competition mornings.
Poop-O-Meter points to excited.
Milton still has trouble peeing anywhere other than at home. It is often his first act after getting off the trailer. Even before getting back into the field. I’m sure he’d prefer to make it over to his preferred pee spot in the pasture, but needs must. At least he held it until he got home. Or so I assume he thinks.
Piddle-Meter points to bashful bladder.
Horses are weird. But then, I’ve just spent an entire post considering horse poop and pee.
An administrative post. A new (as of yesterday, 9/28/18) abbreviated About page points here [About]. This page contains previous & expanded introductory information.
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People & Horses
The Writer
Hello. My Name Is
I was a freelance writer who wrote, photographed, or edited for anyone I could talk into paying me. While my mainstay for 20+ years was equestrian journalism, I covered everything from Atrial Fibrillation to Zoos. I still do a bit of work, but my professional life quieted down in 2008.
Because it is easy to overlook mentioning the obvious, I am a white female, in my middle 50s, living in the Southeastern US. [A Look Inside My Head] [Split Personality]
The Horses
I have two Thoroughbreds, Rodney and Milton, who live in the backyard. They are pasture ornaments at the moment. Mainly. The goal is for both to become competition horses. Meanwhile, I have been showing American Saddlebreds in the Academy division with Stepping Stone Farm. [Cast of Critters]
The Blog What’s with the two names?
For 6 years, the blog was titled Rodney’s Saga. Then I got frustrated, again, and left, again [Getting Off the Struggle Bus]. When I came back, I wanted a new title to take the focus off Rodney and his vast, glorious uselessness. Changing the title was the work of seconds. Changing the url, i.e. rodneyssaga.com, is more complicated. Particularly as I want to maintain continuity. I need to figure it out, or hire someone to figure it out for me. It’s on my ToDo list. [Bright-Eyed, Bushy-Tailed, & Back to Blogging]
Why Virtual Brush Box?
Attributes of a Brush Box
A container for horse paraphernalia.
Non-horse-related objects can be found in them as well.
Odds & ends accumulate in the corners.
The contents are unique to the person using it.
[The Winding Path to My New Blog Title]
The Blog History
Rodney’s Saga is a daily blog is about my two horses, along with other horse-related activities in my life. The first post was December 22, 2011 [We begin. Again.].
The blog began as a column, Back to Eventing, written for the USEA website. I wrote it for nine months before they changed their emphasis. Then, I continued it on my own as Back to Riding [Reposts]. As an experiment, I consolidated the monthly Back To Riding and weekly Facebook into the daily Rodney’s Saga for a year. Once the year was up, I kept going [Where Do We Go From Here?]. After that, the blog proceeded to the present, broken up by the with the occasional snit. [A Sea of Statistics].
The Comments
Comments are closed after 30 days as a spam control measure. Please feel free to comment on a unrelated later post or email me, virtualbrushbox@gmail.com. [Comment Policy]
The Schedule
Unless I change my mind. Some schedule days are carved deeper into stone than others.
Monday. Milton or Rodney
Tuesday. Ditto
Wednesday. Adventures in Saddle Seat. Started as a specific day November 2015 [First post Whither Now? Saddle Seat Version: Blogging]
Update November 2018
The entire subtitle edifice is getting cumbersome. From now on, I will only subtitle posts that pertain to a specific sub-plot. At the moment that means: Adventures in Saddle Seat, Driving/Jumping Thursday, Photography, & Graphic Design. Unless the content is obvious from the title, e.g. Foto Friday for photography. Generalized horse posts & Milton/Rodney posts will stand on their own.
Looking Backward
Back in July, I opened a new Instagram account to match the new name of the blog [New Title, New Instagram … or Not]. For reasons known only to them, Instagram canceled that account the day I posted about it. I elected not to jump through their hoops to restart that account. I took a break.
I lasted a little over a month.
So why did I return? I missed the pretty pictures and the updates on peoples’ lives. I find Instagram a much more congenial place than Twitter. Five minutes of reading tweets and I want to hide under the couch. Doesn’t matter what account. Twitter’s default state seems to be outrage. YMMV
Also, I have an immediate family member on Instagram (Waves Hi!). My family has a low social media presence. I have to go where they are.
Looking Forward
The old VBB account was hot off the press when I posted about it. I wonder if the newness combined with one or two people following at the same time convinced Instagram that it was a bot. The world may never know. This time, the account – @myvirtualbrushbox – has been in place for several weeks. It has a few followers. We shall see what happens today.
Looking Around
According to my self-imposed rules, Instagram doesn’t “count” for photography on Friday. The way I use Instagram is all about content, i.e. catching the cute photo op. Friday posts around here are supposed to keep me accountable for technical improvement.
What to do. Get over the idea of archiving my Instagram feed? Not likely. Archive it on another day? Storage Saturday has a good ring. Work on incorporating more “art” into my Instagram photography? A worthy goal, but not one that helps me with f-stop and aperture. Realize I have fallen down the blogging rabbit hole & move on? I shall ponder.
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Instagram posts for August & September 2018, @myvirtualbrushbox. Previous recap [July 2018]
Breakdown
Horses – 4/9, or 5/9 if Spotted counts as Horse rather than Other
Cats – 2/9
Other – 3/9, or 2/9
Home 5/9
Elsewhere 4/9 – two shows, one lesson, one other
Virtual Brush Box 