Virtual Brush Box

Low Key Photo Challenge, Rain

Photography

Process Notes
Top: avant garde or just weird?
Bottom: Not bad for a non-macro lens.

Procedure for Low Key Photo Challenge
1) I post photo(s) on a given theme.
2) You comment below with a link to your photo(s) on that theme.
3) We all click over to see what you have.

That’s it. No prizes. No rules. No submissions. For more explanation, see [Inaugural Edition].

Previous Challenges
[Hello!] [Labor]
[Toys] [Travel]
[Books] [Hay! Look at the Street Art]

Photobomb
Milton came over to check us out. No idea where the scratch on his neck came from. Ow!

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Taking The First Steps

Jumping

Average height: poles & cavaletti on low.
Both horses, walk & trot, ridden & long lines.

Maximum height: Caveletti on high.
Milton at a trot on long lines.

I know jumping isn’t only about numbers. One can jump high by the skin of one’s teeth, or low and competent for schooling purposes. I promise not to chase raw numbers. Meanwhile, they make good metrics for the blog.

At the dressage show [For This I Cleaned My Tack?], my ground crew was of the opinion that if I had been jumping, I would not have cared what happened in the sandbox. He was not wrong. At our debriefing, we decided that if I want to jump, let’s get to it.

First step is ground poles. Teaches horse to pay attention to their feet. My clever carpenter built cups to rest the poles in, preventing them from getting kicked all over the ring by careless hooves. At it turns out, raising the poles a mere two inches has caused consternation in the ranks.

Lots of walking and some trotting over an endless sea of poles.

This is the first Jumping Thursday. Here’s to many more.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Lights-Camera-Classes, Show Videos, Southeastern Charity 2018

Adventures in Saddle Seat, ASB Pleasure Driving

Southeastern Charity Horse Show
Saturday, September 22, 2018

Bell Cheval’s I’m Joanie in Academy Showmanship

Whiskey Throttle in Academy Driving

Home videos from Southeastern [Show Report]. I didn’t mean to drag this out for a month. The media took a while to wander in. Taken by my in-house cameraman with his phone. Can we take a minute to marvel at the processing power at our fingertips?

Thank you for ~~reading~~ watching,
Katherine Walcott

Lapping It Up

Home Team

I ought to talk about our current schooling progress, or at least our current schooling efforts, but this is too cute. I had to share.

Since Milton doesn’t drink away from home, we always offer water to him before he travels. On this day, he decided to lap like a dog. Endlessly.

I got a text notification just as he pulled up to the trough. After this performance had been going on for a while, I checked the time stamp. Four minutes. So we know that he was there for at least four minutes by the clock.

It was as if he thought, ‘As long as I stand here drinking, I don’t have to get on the trailer and go to work.’

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

More Filler, More Adorableness

Home Team

I’m still irked with Milton for phoning it in at our grand finale for the year. Rodney is being Rodney, blending glacial progress with frustration. So, have some more kittens.

21 weeks as of Saturday, October 20, 2018. Photos in chronological order unrelated to text.

They have reached the age of adventurous but clumsy. Their eyes are bigger than their paws. If they jump into a box, they tip it over. If they jump onto a table, they knock off everything within reach as they land. Multiple this by four.

Last weekend, two kittens and one of the adult cats dogpiled – catpiled? – on me during a cold snap. I tried for a selfie, but all you can see is fur and random cat parts. It is the first time, to my knowledge, that the kittens have interacted comfortably with one of the big cats. Owners – more convenient than space heaters.

The newest yoga pose – sideways-facing kitten.

Bonus Kittens

New Stepping Stone Farm barn cats in training. From the same farm as mine, different moms, dads unknown. That farm has become an inadvertent home for wayward lady cats. Owner conscientious about spaying. Cats kept showing up pregnant. I guess the word got out.

Bonus Cat

Nap, Interrupted. Smudge, formally/formerly know as Rhyme.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott8

AlphaBooks, F & E are for Farley & Ebony

Graphic Design

The Island Stallion (Flame)
Walter Farley
1948 Random House 2003

The Ebony Horse
Adapted by Anne Terry White
Garrard 1969

Even though “Flame & Ebony” is poetic, I put Farley in the title. Fire and horses are not a good mix. I also toned down the color to basic orange. Dark orange & orange red mixed with the black were too evocative of colors on a fire scene. I’m aiming for happy fun letters, not visceral ones.

Farley bought from Discover Books via AbeBooks.com; Arabian Nights from Thrift Books via AbeBooks.com.

TBR? Maybe the Arabian Nights. Never got on the Farley train. Suspect it is too late. To tell you the truth, I bought these for the blog. That is not a good precedent. I do not need encouragement to buy books.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

This Is Why I Don’t Set Goals

Home Team

Back in the heady days of starting to ride Milton [Milton’s Show Schedule], the original plan for last weekend’s show [For This I Cleaned My Tack?] was to do the small three-phase.

Ha.

Okay, it wasn’t so much a plan as a hope. Lots of stars needed to align for that to have happened. More realistically, there was the idea of jumping around one of the little stadium courses.

Ha. Ha.

At least we could do walk-trot-canter dressage tests and come back the next day to school cross-country, this time at a trot [Mr. Excitement Regards His Future]?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Because of my thwarted plans, I was not prancing about about farting rainbows and spouting platitudes.

Every ride is a special occasion.

If you are lucky enough to be on a horse, you are lucky enough.

I believe these platitudes. I was not feeling these platitudes. Instead, I was watching horses of all shapes and abilities go over teeny, tiny, wee jumplets, and thinking,

‘That should be ME!’

I hate goals.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott