State of the Blog: Call for Ideas

On My Mind, Miscellaneous Thoughts

 
Happy with the blog. Not planning to change. Am looking for advice on interesting adventures for occasional variety. The following is a combination of topics and techniques, as they occurred to me.

Require Action By Others
Guest Post – hosting. Yes, please. I have pressed friends, family, and total strangers into writing posts. To know me is to get drag into the gravitational vortex of the blog. I have an open invitation in the header of the blog, above. I joke that I like not having to do the typing for a day, which is true. Really it’s all about hearing other people’s stories.

Guest Posting – writing. Meh. Sounds too much like work. Seriously, that’s what I get paid to do. I guest posted for New York Cliché, New York Cliché, Guest Post: Born and Raised a New York Native….But Now?, and was tickled [In Which I Reblog Myself]. Statistical probability would allow for the existence of other places wherein I would write for free. None come to mind at the moment.

Illustration. Would love to work with an illustrator. Not sure how that would work with daily posting. Expenses could rack up quickly.

Blogger meet-ups. Another ‘Yes, please.’ Given the frequency that I fail to haul my ass off the farm, horse shows would be the best bet. Unfortunately, there are vanishingly few ASB bloggers out there. If you are a saddle seat blogger and show in the Southeast, come say Hi at the next show. I’m with Stepping Stone Farm. Otherwise, this one will have to wait for hunter/jumper, dressage, or eventing. Lots of bloggers in those disciplines. Not sure how many are in the Southeast.

Contests & Give-Aways. Historically, I have proven horrible about picking a winner. I end up giving the prize to everyone. Not a sustainable model.

Collaborations. With other bloggers. With other creatives. With a puppeteer? An electrical engineer? ?????

Could Do On My Own
Post my novel. Get a publish contract and a movie deal. It worked for John Scalzi with Agent To The Stars (novel), 10 Years On (print release) & 20 Years On (online novel), and for Andy Weir with The Martian (novel & movie), How a Series of Blog Posts Turned into a Multi-million Dollar Bestseller. Need to write it first.

Model Horse Show. Rumors of one coming to my area, Central Alabama Live model horse show. We have established that I have not done the background work to show my own string [What Happens at a Model Horse Show?]. Volunteer? It’s likely to be a Saturday and those get spoken for quickly.

Participate in Photo Shows. I could. I haven’t [M is for MEPSA]. Clearly the mood has not struck me.

More Low-Key Photo Challenges. It’s on the list, as I find likely subjects. [Low Key Photo Challenge, Holiday]

Back-Burner Ideas. Along with model horses & photography, there is still stamps & LEGO bricks. Not sure what to do with either of these, but the interest is still there. Also, graphic design & books. Ditto.

Book Reviews. Meh. Been there. Done that. Keeping up with what upcoming books takes far longer that one might expect. Not ruling out commentary on a random book that catches my fancy. As I’ve said elsewhere, I do not need more books to read nor any prompting to buy books.

Blog Hops. I do them when the topic strikes my a chord [What Makes You, You? A Blog Hop.] Generally, I don’t have trouble thinking of things to say. (Yeah, yeah. Anyone who knows me IRL can stop chortling now.)

Research and Write About X. Meh. Again, work. Plus, I need excuses to get out of the house. I spend enough time on my posterior staring at a keyboard as is. No, I’ve never learned to touch type. OTOH, I’m generally composing as I type. Brain speed and finger speed are approximately equivalent.

Go Places. Do Things. Write About Them. More this style of thing. A western lesson? Find out about the Alabama State Horse? ?????

Problems
Access. Without a magazine or widely-read blog behind me, I am reluctant to bother people. They deserve a return on their investment.

Time Considerations. I don’t calculate how much time I spend on the blog. I don’t want to know. I tell myself an hour a day. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. This is one reason I am eliminating any repeat projects. So, an adventure needs to be interesting in its own right for me to devote extra time to posting about it. An adventure would have to be hella interesting for me to make it a regular feature. Such activities exist. I don’t know what they are [What I Want From My Blog].

So I’m asking you. Hit me with your ideas.

[Previous SotB posts]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

The Under-Appreciated Walk


 
Rodney and Milton and I have done a lot of walking. At home, we are trying to keep our shit together. At new places, we are trying to keep our shit together. In the winter, we are stomping through the mud. So, I’ve been thinking about the walk lately.

In bad weather, we try to make it interesting [Rain] or do what work we can. Both Milton and Rodney have a tendency to shorten their front ends. Milton telescopes his neck. Rodney curls up like a shrimp. Recently, we used the walk time to work on getting both horses to stretch their necks out. When a horse sucks back, it is almost automatic to adjust the reins to reestablish a connection. Instead, I kept my reins the same length, repeated the request to move forward, and gritted my teeth to ignore any telescoping, inverting or shrimping.

Since Milton is green, I kept him on big circles and booted him forward. I wanted to trot. How I wanted to trot. But then I started to wonder, would trotting help or would I simply be making the same mistake faster? Instead of trying to squeeze in a few steps of trot, we staying in walk and keep at it.

With Rodney, I added figure 8s to give him something to focus on. He would want to trot off, but trotting on a tight turn was too much work. Similarly, rounding the front end and going forward from the back end was too much like dressage. Out came the neck.

After a few repetitions of the exercise, both horses had made what felt like real progress. All three of us were certainly tired. I felt that going slowly had helped me be clear in my own mind, which enabled me to be clear to the horses.

To work at the walk properly, you need a ground person, or at least I do. The changes are so small, I needed someone telling me, ‘Yes, you got a response. Reward it.’ Or, ‘Nope, not yet. Keep trying.’

Have I discovered a fundamental truth of flat work?
Or
Am I fabricating a theoretical silk purse out of the sow’s ear that is our footing?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

The Downside of Being Mobile

You would think that I would be thrilled to be vehicularized once more [Wheels]. I am. However, it is dawning on me that life is not all beer and skittles.

Errands
Honey, would you get hay tomorrow morning? Oh, wait. That’s right. I can get hay. Any time. And unload it. All by myself. I can’t be an empowered 21st century woman and expect my husband to do all the heavy lifting, can I? No really, I’m asking, can I? I’m madly trying to think of a logic that works here. No such luck.

Exercise
I am back in the pool. After this long, the best I can manage is 10 minutes, maybe 15 with lots of breaks. Locate non-barn, muggle clothes. Dress. Drive. Change. Swim. Reverse process. Seems like an awful lot of work for not much return.

Ennui
For seven months, I’ve had an automatic excuse. I can’t socialize, volunteer, otherwise participate in the outside world because I can’t get there. So I fell into a rut. Now, the excuse is gone. The rut lingers on. It reminds me of the time I broke my ankle. I was delighted to get off the crutches and into a walking cast. No one warned me that being allowed to walk on it was different than wanting to walk on it. Ow. Ow. Ow. So, my isolation crutch is gone. Now I have to start walking again. Metaphorically. Psychological-ow. Psychological-ow. Psychological-ow.

Update
The fourth E would be Exposure [Dunno, scroll to end].

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

A Wordless Short, More Show Photos, Winter Tournament 2018-19 #3

Adventures in Saddle Seat

 

No lesson since the show [Report]. So, a few more of Deb’s photos [A Wordless Story]. This time of Sam & me. Welcome back, Deb.

Photo by Deb Kesecker
Photo by Deb Kesecker
Photo by Deb Kesecker

 

I know I said wordless, but I have to point this out. Did you notice that she got me *just* as I was swinging into the saddle? You can tell by the small amount of daylight between me & the horse and that my butt is still off center. Nice timing!

Now that I’m talking, the first two are of me getting on for warm up. The last is me readjusting my stirrup after swapping with one of Sam’s other riders.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

When Life Gives You Rain

Jumping Diary

 

 
You make an impromptu, introductory water jump.

 
Puddle. Puddle with pole in front. Puddle with pole in middle. Milton never refused. He did skirt the edge of the water once or twice. More in the manner of, ‘Hey Boss, did you know we can get around this?’ When he got the idea that straight through was the way to go, I got a distinct impression of, ‘These people are weird.’ With much wandering at his own pace, much sniffing of water, and lots of praise, Milton progressed. I think he liked learning a lesson and liked being good at something.

I, on the other hand, see only my flaws on the video, i.e. drawing my leg back to kick, piano hands expert enough to qualify as a Steinway. Override much? I am tugging the right rein to keep Milton from veering off to the barn, which you can see in the distance.

Once again [Cantering This Way and That], no actual jumps, but a first step.

Blogging note: I had to add a Cross-Country tag. Woo-hoo.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Which Way Should I Go? Trailering Poll

On the trip to Stepping Stone Farm there are two turns I hate. Deal with or avoid? Overall, the trip is easy. It is less than 20 miles on low-traveled, country back roads. There is one stoplight.

The first turn I hate is at a T-intersection on the way to the barn. Traffic from the right is on a curve. Not a bad curve nor a blind curve, but a curve none the less. A driver at a moderate speed and/or a driver paying attention would have no trouble seeing me pull out.

At the stop sign. I stop. I look. I roll down the passenger window to listen for oncoming traffic. This works when I am driving the truck by itself. With the trailer, it takes so long to get moving off the slight hill, that a car has time to come around the turn. At which point, I either keep going and hope they stop OR stop in the middle of the intersection and hope any traffic from the left can stop in time. Neither is a good option. The alternative is to go down the road to turn at a nice, open 4-way stop. The detour is 1.3 miles.

The second turn is into our driveway. We have to swing wide to avoid putting trailer wheel in the roadside ditch. This puts the truck and trailer in the oncoming lane briefly. As above, there is a moderate curve. To avoid this, I go around the block so that I can turn left into the driveway. This way, the turn is already wide. The traffic behind you knows about you. The traffic in front can see you. The detour is 2.5 miles.

Although the mileage is short, the detours feel long because I have left the direct path. Am I being a weenie? OTOH, what is a few minutes to avoid an accident? Then again, if I go a few miles/minutes for a better route, what is the limit? 5 miles? 10? 20? There may come a time when I can’t avoid a tricky bit of driving. Should I learn to cope now?

 
Thank you for reading & advising,
Katherine Walcott