Virtual Brush Box

My goal was a companion video from the carriage, but found out I hadn’t started my phone on any of the runs. Instead, I have a lot of ~~useless~~ artistic stills.

Next time.

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

Sine Die Saddle Seat

Saddle Seat Wednesday

I’m taking a break from saddle seat. Yes, I do have a tendency to stomp off.

Maybe because my brilliant idea [Getting a Grip I, II] wasn’t so brilliant. My last two rides were awful.
Maybe because I’m too grumpy about my own riding. My bad temper from this spreads to everything else.
Maybe because I’m an unappreciative, lazy cow. Who knows.

All I know is that I am making myself miserable. I have to do something, even if it’s the wrong something.

I may have changed my mind by next week.

Who knows.

Now I have to figure out what to post on Wednesdays.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton Drives On

Video
I promise, I won’t make a habit of miscellaneous schooling videos, but I want to document the first few days. Below is days 2 & 3, at Stepping Stone Farm, under the watchful eye of Coach Courtney.

Non-video
Day 2
Us: So now that you know what’s going to happen, are you still willing to pull a cart?
Milton: Sure!

NB: Most of the head-tossing on day 2 is from Milton going mad – mad, I tell you – from the gnats attempting to carry him off, as on day 0 [Hitched!]. More fly spray & better weather on day 3.

Day 3
First cones & first equipment mishap. Handled both beautifully.

One of these things is not like the other.

The pin holding the trace to the cart broke. I mention it because Milton behaved so well. We all heard the pop. The trace flew off. Milton’s head flew up (I assume from a large leather strap hitting hit him in the leg?). Yet, Greg was able to bring Milton to a smooth, quiet stop in a stride or two. (Insert shudder for what might have happened.) Good boy!

Goals for 2017
Introduce more cones.
Introduce portable obstacles [Alvin’s Big Green Obstacle].
Introduce dressage figures.
Add britching and kicking strap to harness.
Stop borrowing Coach Kate’s fancy driving bit & get him his own FDB.
Consider switching away from his special snowflake food [Feed Adventures].
Bring on the 4-wheel cart.
K drive.
Ride.
Graduate to driving at home.
Show?

Day One: Maiden Voyage!

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Fate Speaks

Call it Fate.
Call it God.
Call it the Universe.
Call it the human ability to find patterns in random noise.
Call it whatever you want, I can’t help but feel that I’m being sent a message.

Saddle seat? Absolutely. How much ya want? There are enough lesson horses at Stepping Stone Farm that I could ride a different one every day this week and still ride a new horse in the group lesson on Saturday. Suit? If I gave the word, Coach Courtney would have horses for me to try within days. Shows? I could be showing my heart out this year, if it wasn’t for …

Driving? No problem. How about two different styles in three states? Four, if you count vicarious driving in Kentucky.

Riding my horse? Riding in my discipline(s) of choice? Well …

Progress has been stalled by the horse, e.g. Rodney’s fear of his leather halter [Here We Stand]; by external circumstance, e.g. when my stirrup leather broke during Milton’s rodeo demo [Did I Piss Off the Universe and Not Notice?]; and by internal demons, e.g. my inability to cope with a second set-back [Milton Deconstructed].

The latest in the litany of obstacles.

Milton. We finally (finally, finally) get him to a contained space, only to have the driving going so well (Yay!) that we don’t want to introduce riding just yet. Greg has put in a huge amount of work with Milton. It’s only fair that he gets to reap the benefits for a while.

Rodney. Jump? No? Okay, how about DQ? So, we find a dressage instructor who works well with Rodney and who Rodney likes, only to have Rodney get problematic about shipping to lessons.

Lessons. At the few h/j barns that give school-horse lessons, there is heavy pressure to upgrade to having a horse in training. I don’t know of any event barns that have lesson horses. Even if they did, I don’t want to trot around in circles, hopping school horses over crossrails. To paraphrase Larson’s vulture, Patience my ass, I want to jump something.

BTW, That’s why the ASBs work. I don’t know from saddle seat. Therefore, the equivalent of trotting over crossrails is still amusing.

Bottom Line. I want to ride and show my own horse, one who I have worked and trained (with help) and built a relationship with. That seems to be the one thing Fate/God/the Universe is resisting.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Letter Art: Wheels

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

State of the Blog: Avoiding Social Media

This time last year, I talked about leaving my desktop computer dark on Saturday and Sunday [State of the Blog, Weekends Off]. That meant no work, no blog, no Facebook.

How did I manage?

By and large, I have stayed with it. Plus, given our level of weekend activities lately, I often don’t have a choice. Work isn’t so pressing that I need to burn the weekend oil. I blog a few days ahead anyway, so I simply make sure that I have hit the schedule button through Monday before I go to bed on Friday. And Facebook? Ah, Facebook. The feed we love to hate [Taming the Facebook Monster].

Before and during our trip to Kentucky last month [Show Report], I took a two-week politics and Facebook break – in my feed, often the same thing.

It was marvelous.

No crises. No one hurting at me through my screen. I ignored the world in order to tend my own small corner of it. Not everyone has this liberty. I was glad that I could.

On the other hand, avoidance is not the answer. Head-in-sand is not a viable method of getting through life. Plus, some readers (waves hi!) use the Facebook prompt as notification of a new post. I want happy readers.

I’m back to reading the news, as much as I can stand. For Facebook, I still over-read Monday through Friday. On weekends, I turn my system on long enough to post the Facebook and Twitter prompts, then shut it down. Yes, Facebook can be set up to post automatically. I found the program consistently choose the wrong photo to accompany the post, including photos I had deleted. I could put Facebook on my phone, but that is a rabbit hole from which I would never emerge.

BTW, when I got back from my news break, I was amazed to find folks screaming madly about exactly the same issues.

So, I’m trying moderation. We’ll see how it goes.
~~~
Previous SotB posts [list]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott