Milton Gets Shafted

Friend Sharon [Masterclass] came over to watch Rodney’s lesson [Dressage]. Taking advantage of the extra pair of hands, we asked Milton how he felt about shafts to either side [Practice Cart].

All horses are prone to claustrophobia. When flight is your defense, being in a box is a threat. Furthermore, Milton is off the track. The shafts of a cart might remind him of a start box. Would this be a problem?

Apparently not.

We did not attach cart to horse. Greg led. Sharon and I each took a shaft, wrapped one of the harness straps around the pole and held on. Hence the need for a second set of hands. If the call came to Abandon Ship, all we had to do was drop our straps and step away.

Milton was completely amenable about everything, including the cart/harness arrangement pulling strangely around corners. We never took our eyes off the horse, but Sharon and I found our attention drifting sufficiently that we were exchanging stories in short order. Milton was that calm.

Gold stars for everyone!

Human quick release. On day 2, we rigged a way for me to hold both straps – only because Milton had been so good on day 1. Piece of cake.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Rodney’s Dressage Lesson

Breaking out the britches.

I trotted my horse! For the first time in 7 years! Said that way, it’s pitiful. Nevertheless, Rodney and I trotted for the first time since 2010.

I’ve had my eye on the dressage instructor Mr. E for a while. He seemed sympathetic to horse and rider. We (cough Greg cough) decided that now was the time. Even if we weren’t ready, ya gotta start somewhere. If I waited until I was absolutely ready, I’d never have a lesson.

I was expecting more of a consult than a lesson, heavy on the discussion. Instead, Rodney and I moved for 30 minutes. No need for stops to reset his brain, either. Mr. E maintained a steady flow of instruction that kept both horse and rider organized and – as a result – calm. Right now, I doubt I can recreate the conditions on my own. That’s okay. We did it.

Mr. E had me pick up a contact with an exaggerated giving motion to encourage Rodney to stretch his neck. We did a few halts. Mr. E saw something in the halts that made him think a trot transition was not out of the question. I said that when I trot Rodney in hand, he flings his head up and gets tense. Mox nix, I was told. That was in hand.

So we did a few steps of trot. Rodney picked up a quiet trot, shuffled along, then ran out of gas in a few strides. Kaloo! Kalay! We trotted a few more times. Rodney failed to get his knickers in twist. After once around the ring in each direction, we declared victory and stopped.

Mr. E complimented me on being willing to trust him and try the trot – which had NOT been in my lesson plan. Really, it wasn’t so much trust on my part, as ‘Well, you’re the new guy. I’ll give you some rope and see what you do with it.’ Same result, more cynicism.

Afterwards, Rodney’s back was mildly tight, particularly on the right – scar – side. This is something we will have to attend to any time he works.

Rodney was very, very proud of himself.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Letter Art: Daylight Savings

In honor of More Time at the Barn – aka Daylight Savings – in the US, the blog name spelled out in time zone abbreviations. Who knew there were so many?

Réunion Time
Oral Time
Davis Time
Niue Time
Easter Island Standard Time
Yakutsk Time
Samoa Standard Time & Singapore Standard Time
South Australian Daylight Time
Afghanistan Time
Gilbert Island Time
Argentina Time

Sources
Wiki: List of time zone abbreviations & http://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/time-zone-abbrevs.html

Time Zone factoids
Naming conventions, problems of, in Time Zone Abbreviations from Code of Matt: Adventures in programming, featuring Time Zones! The Internet is a weird & wonderful place.

China is one big time zone.

Several places are offset by 30 or 45 minutes.

Map & explanation of clock time versus solar time.
The poor man’s math blog: How much is time wrong around the world?
Updated, The poor man’s math blog: The time it takes to change the time

The alphabetic spelling was not hard. Wiki: List of time zone abbreviations has every letter except Q & X. Timeanddate.com: Time Zone Abbreviations – Worldwide List has Quebec & X-Ray, both military time zones. As in, Quebec the NATO call letter, not Quebec the city. Worldtimezone.com: Military Time Zones- World Map of Time Zones

Lettering 2017

[Connect The Dots]
[Pen & Pastels]
[NYC 2016]

Previous Lettering
[2016] [2015] [2014] [2013]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

You Know You Have Fallen Down The Lettering Rabbit Hole When …

 

Me, behind a Coke Zero truck.
(Please note that I waited for an intersection to take the photo.)
Hmm, that R looks odd.
It’s too thin.
The O is even thinner.
(looking left) Ohh, the E and Z are progressively fatter.
The letters are “losing weight” from left to right.
Cute.
Hmm.
The R has rounded ends.
The O is round.
Then why do the Z and the E have square ends?
It would have been easy enough to round them.
That way, the letters would have an organic, “human-body” feel.
This way, half the letters are square and half are round.
For no reason.
This is just stupid.

You know you are a letter nerd when you have violent opinions about a label.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Foto Friday: Hitch

I would prefer to leave it here, but since I said something earlier [Umbrellas], I should follow-up.

The installers-who-shall-not-be-named did an inadequate job.
They they tried to pass it off as adequate.
It took an hour of yelling to convince them to fix it.
It took a week to fix it.
We were treated like filth.
What ever happened to customer service and the pursuit of excellence?

Still, it’s better than the hitch installation in our previous truck. Those folks punched a hole in the fuel tank.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Lesson Success, Photo Fail

Driving Thursday
Posh channels her inner Road Horse before settling down to go like a lady.

The plan was to use Greg’s SSF driving lesson as a photo shoot to practice my long-neglected camera skills.

Not so much.

Turns out I can either take pictures or observe. Not both. Am I looking at light and photo angles or am I looking at the horse’s attitude and the driver’s thumb position? So, I put down the camera and paid attention.

Watching reinforced the idea that tiny changes on the part of horse or human can have a big impact on overall impression. Posh would go from fancy to flat and back to fancy in a few strides. No obvious flinging of head or gnashing of teeth, just yup, yup, nope, yup.

My riding is in a similar place. I’ve taken care of most of the gross errors (most of the time), such as position, control, and so on. Now, I’m trying to pull it all together and sell it to the judge. In dressage, this would be interpretation and artistic expression. Hunters ditto. In jumpers, it would be shaving that extra second off the inside turn. In eventing, keeping the ideal, bouncy canter through the combination to the skinny. In any discipline, it’s the different between blue and not-blue.

Railbirding is some of the best learning available.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

I Get Gold

Saddle Seat Wednesday

The gold version of the silver medal I earned last year [Loving the Loot: My Academy Award].

“A bronze medallion will be awarded for earning 15 points in the first year of competition, a silver medallion for 15 points in the second consecutive year, and a gold for 15 points in the third consecutive year.”
ASHA Youth Awards: Academy Awards Program

Greg earned bronze for his driving shows.

Squee.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott