Bits From Hell

Saddle seat bits give me the creeping horrors.

Performance horses show in standard double bridles. The length of the shanks on the curb bits are midway between dressage and western, putting them midway between the two in severity. The bits on the work bridles for suit (performance) horses and on the everyday bridles for lesson horses are snaffles. Kind of. The twists and links and spikes fulfill every prejudice I ever had about saddle seat.

The horses are perfectly happy with these bits.

The lesson horses trundle along ignoring the flailing arms and yanking hands of their student passengers. The suit horses get on with their training. Some even prefer the work bridle to the double bridle. I’ve seen more horses resisting and pinning ears and tossing heads with riders sawing away on gentle eggbutt snaffles.

Nor are the saddle seat bits just for decoration. More than once, I’ve ridden a performance horse in a work bridle who refused to start strokin’ until I grabbed a big ol’ hunk o’ rein. I ask. They wait. I take hold. They say, ‘Okay, you’re ready, let’s do this.’

The more I ride, the more mystified I become.

Goldisnoot Revisited

buckets below
We have established that Milton likes his tea warm rather than hot [Goldisnoot]. At the end of last week’s cold snap, the water deliveryman provided reduced service for the final trip. Hot water placed next to cold leftovers.

No warm water for Milton. 😦

Instead, Milton took a sip of hot, then a sip of cold, then a sip of hot …

~~~
Odd angle photography brought to you courtesy of Charles Mann, author of Photographing and “Videoing” Horses Explained (Trafalgar 2006):

Mann cov

“One of the biggest mistakes I see photographers make is shooting only from their own eye level. I am usually the dirtiest one to leave a show or a photo shoot because I am always kneeling in the dirt – or even lying on my stomach – shooting up at my subjects.”
Get Down, Up or Over – Finding New Angles (p76)

Off Topic: LEGO for Lent

Today’s subject is not horses. For more non-equine content, see my other blog, Off Topic. Rodney’s Saga returns to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

~~~~~~~

Remember that thou art stardust, and to stardust shalt thou return.
The Imposition of Ashes – modified [Lenten Thoughts]
~~~~~~~

My Lenten discipline this year will be to sort my LEGO bricks.

Say what?

First of all, I have bought into the theory that one should not use Lent for giving up bad habits: quitting smoking or eating less chocolate. You should be doing those things anyway.

Neither should one’s Lenten practice be self-serving:

On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice … For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop.
The Screwtape Letters, XXIII
by C.S. Lewis (originally published Bles 1942, online)

A Lenten discipline should be an activity that impacts your life, that disrupts your routine, that causes you to pause and reflect. It should require effort. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant. Music, mediation, sand mandalas aren’t. OTOH, a little bit of non-pleasantness contributes to one’s moral fiber. By this logic, anything can be a spiritual discipline if done mindfully.

Enter my LEGO collection.

Many adult fans had a dark age. The period of time between building as a kid and returning as an adult. In my case, my dark age started when began riding horses [Lessons From BrickFair] and lasted for 35 years. When I emerged from my dark age, I did so with a vengeance.

As a result, I have a lot of bricks. Hordes. Multitudes. It will not be fun to sort them all. Sorting will include gathering sets that have wandered to far corners of the house, washing builds that have gotten dusty, and sanitizing flea market purchases. Just as painters would rather paint than prime canvas or quilters would rather sew than wash and iron material, I would rather be putting bricks together than stowing them in drawers.

Furthermore, many of those wandering sets, dusty builds, and flea-market purchases have become nuclei for attracting more junk, creating corners of the house that look as if we are auditing for Hoarders. Organize my LEGO collection means defeating these piles as well. Tchotchkes will be taken to the thrift store. Artwork will be hung on the walls. Boxes will be stored or tossed.

I will get my house in order.

That’s a reasonable metaphor for Lent.
~~~
I thought about staying quiet on the subject:

“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”
Matthew 6-5 (partial), King James Version, Biblehub

On the other hand, public accountability may keep me going when my spirit flags around day 25.

Plus, it has been well-established that I will turn anything into a blog post. [Life As a First Draft]

ot21815

Goldisnoot

Milton pasture 2 10 15

On the few days a year that the weather threatens to seal over the water trough, we – I am employing the barn “we” here – bring buckets of hot water to the barn. Obviously, this wouldn’t be possible if we had real winter, or a large number of horses. As is, the project is just enough of a P in the A to make us feel virtuous without being impossible to execute.

Mathilda would wait for her tea to cool to a drinkable temperature. Rodney plunges his nose right in and slurps down half a bucket. Milton gets pissed.

The trough is still open but the water is too cold. The water in the buckets is too hot. Milton will advance just the tip of his nose near the water to check the temperature. Nope, this one is hot. Nope, this one is hot also. He’ll go along the row, from bucket to bucket, hoping to find one that pleases his Highness. Then he curls one front foot, in the manner of a prancing statue. This is his mannerism when he wishes to express his dismay with the arrangement of the universe. Then he starts whacking at the buckets. Yes, we laugh at him. We also bring him a bucket of warm water.

It’s good to be one of our horses.