Virtual Brush Box

My Short Happy Modeling Career

Post inspired by my mother’s comment on Saturday’s post. [Repost]

This is one of the vanishingly small number of pictures of myself that I like. It is a good picture because my father was an accomplished photographer. It is a good picture of me because I am annoyed.

It happened thusly,

Background: My father was a photographer of note for his college paper. One of his civil rights photographs appeared in Life magazine. He always said that law school saved his life. If he had stayed with photography, he would have gone into photo-journalism, would have headed to a war zone, and would probably have been killed. He was that good.

Flash forward. When I was wee, I recall him trying to take pictures of me, repeatedly exhorting me not to mug for the camera. It never worked. With one thing and another, he drifted away from photography. When digital cameras came out, he bought himself a PHD (push-here-dummy) camera and started taking snapshots. Not photographs, snapshots. He was particularly fond of the classic tourist pose of family member in front of famous tourist site. I gave him grief for taking such cheesy shots. He happily agreed and keep taking them.

Circumstances: In 1998, my father was working in Florence, Italy. I went over for a visit that happened to coincide with the World Equestrian Games in Rome (Really a coincidence. The dates were not my choice. Not that I was above capitalizing on the chance. But I digress.)

On cross-country day, I stood out in a field getting rained on and having a wonderful time. He went back to the hotel. By the time he picked me up in the afternoon, I was footsore, damp, and cranky. He was well-fed and rested. As we drove back in from the countryside to the city, we passed some scenic and/or historic body of water. I have no idea what was special about that lake, nor why he wanted to stop. He was driving, so we stopped. Lake. Check. Scenic. Check. Can we go now? He asked me to stand in front of the lake so he could get a picture of me with the lake in the background.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

While he was framing and taking the photo, I was thinking, I did not want to be standing in front of this stupid lake indulging your stupid obsession with stupid tourist snaps.

Result: Outstanding picture of me. Go figure.

Rodney’s Progress: Zirgs-prens

Rodney’s poop has changed.

When he first arrived and for years, Rodney had enormous poops. Both the amount deposited and the size of the bolus. For those who might not have spent quite as much time contemplating the subject, horse manure is released as piles of semi-distinct rounded oblongs. Google horse manure if you need a visual. Rodney’s oblongs were huge. As was the total amount. At stall-cleaning time there was always at least one joke made about all of this coming out of one horse. We called them elephant poops.

His manure is now of normal amount and normal shape.

What changed, you ask? Here we enter the realm of speculation.

The theory traces the physiologic changes to progress with his injury [Daddy Dearest]. As his back loosens up, he has more mobility from the withers rearward. I recently saw him hunching up to produce a poop. I don’t recall him putting that much effort into the project previously. It could be sampling error. However, if the external muscles are more engaged, why not the internal muscles? Previously, his digestive material was being pushed through partly by the pressure of accumulation. Now, his intestinal muscles are able to squeeze the tube more effectively, thereby moving the production along more quickly and doing a better job of bolus formation. This would also explain his ulcer/digestive issues if material was not passing through at proper speed.

He has had similar changes in urination behavior, of which it is harder to be certain. Pissing doesn’t leave behind the same concrete comparables.

Anatomically accurate? I have no idea. Getting us any closer to riding? No idea there either. All I can say with certainty is no more elephant poops.

(Title from Tanner’s Twelve Swingers by Lawrence Block [Kindle of HarperCollins 2007 (reprint)]
“There is only one difficulty with this Lettish language. I do not know the word for manure, and it is not the sort of word I can ask Minna to teach me.”
“Prens,” I said.
“And horse?”
“Zirgs.”)

Placeholder II

Update – Title changed. Apparently I wasn’t even being original, Placeholder.

If I were less uptight, I would skip this post and let the blogsphere turn without me for a day. But I’m not, so I can’t. (“Surely I can arrange my life to say something, even if it’s ‘Hi There’ each day.” [Where?])

Hi there.

I have post ideas partially drafted in my head, but can’t bring myself to write them out. This is unusual for me. I suspect too much weekend warrior. I have signed us up for Fat Cyclist’s 100 Miles of Nowhere bike ride in October. Instead of doing 100 each, we will be splitting the mileage 80/20. Yes, I freely admit that my husband is 4 times the bicycle rider I am. Even 20 miles is going to be an adventure. Therefore, lots – for me – of biking to get ready. 8 miles on Saturday + 7 miles on Sunday = severe motivation loss on Monday. (Posts are drafted the day before, hence the 24-hour time lag [Cinder].)

More tomorrow. Possibly.

~~~
New Off Topic post: Books & Questions. Click over to tell me what you are reading right now.

The Mysterious Secret To Opening Feed Bags

When I started at the saddle seat barn, the kids weren’t sure how much I knew about horses. One of them asked if I knew how to tack up. Trick question. My horse, yes. Your horses, not so much.

In their defense, if you see a rider taking once-a-week, school-horse lessons and flailing around at the beginner level, you don’t expect her to have horses at home.

So, I was drizzling about watching the barn rats feed the horses. One of the girls laid the feedbag faceup in the cart. She pointed to the tear strip and explained that the bag opened from the right.

Listen Kid, I’ve opened hundreds of feed bags … and I never knew that. Seriously, getting that stupid ripcord to operate was always a stab in the dark for me.

In my defense, we keep our feed upright in trash cans. Front and back aren’t a consideration.

But really, there is no defense.

Duh.

~~~
Answers to Text Art: College & University Alphabet

Rice – friends\pretty letter
Oregon – pretty letter
Dartmouth – attended
North Carolina State – local, took one class
Eastern Michigan – pretty letter
Yale – family, local
UC San Diego – Tricky to the point of being unfair, but I was there for a term, so I wanted to include it.

Smith – family
Alabama – local, in their alumni magazine, Ancient Lessons
Georgetown – local
Auburn – local

For another twist on a college alphabet, Fercott Photography spells out college names with naturally-occurring letters from each location.

Text Art: College & University Alphabet

How many can you identify? Some are/were local to me. Some are family & friends. Some, I just needed the letter.

Repost, BTE 1 of 9: How I Won the Training Level AEC

Saturday has turned into my admin day, when I don’t have a Show Today post. Over time, I will be reposting the entries from my previous monthly blogs Back To Eventing and Back To Riding. You can catch ’em if you missed ’em the first time. I can include them in the Rodney’s Saga search space.

This one is where it all began. I sold the idea of a column following my purchase of a new horse and my return to eventing. HA! A slightly edited version appeared on the USEA website, Tue 2010-08-31 19:18, archived here.

Back to Eventing: How I Won the Training Level AECs
by Katherine Walcott

“If you build it, he will come.”
Lee Garlington as The Voice in Field of Dreams

The Mission
The title is an overstatement since I am horseless. After 20 years of owning an Adult Jumper, I am going back to eventing. Just as soon as I find a horse to take me. The subtitle is one of those affirmation actualization statements the sport psych books endorse. That’s the goal. Let’s see how long it takes to realize and how the scenery looks along the way.

Our Story So Far
Once when I was admiring a new horse, I was told that the rider had looked for a year. My first thought was ‘How horrible.’ I was so right. Last September, we finished upgrading our fencing and began horse hunting. In the past 12 months, I’ve sat on almost two dozen horses, looked at an equal number, and seen hordes by picture and video.

The Ones That Got Away
Horse 1 – The Class Act: The first horse who had a chance of coming home with us was a young Danish/TB gelding. A true mix, his turning radius was somewhere between the roll-back of a Thoroughbred and the barge turn of a Warmblood. He was pretty, a good-mover, and alert to the fences without being insane.

The verdict: Too fancy. Given a few initial blue ribbons and nothing else to ride, I would succumb to the temptation to push him too fast. Plus, I kept crying. Shortly before we started looking, my 26-year-old retiree passed away suddenly. Whenever I thought about bringing a new horse home, out came the waterworks. A subtle clue that I wasn’t ready for a horse yet.

Horse 2 – The Rolex Horse. Candidate number two was a young, wide-built, 17+ hand OTTB. His conversation consisted of “Huh?” and “Okay!”. For a bank jump, I had to introduce the concept in very small words but then he happily hopped up and down. He had a look I see every year up in Kentucky during the jog. Hey, if sellers can tell me that a horse has Advanced potential after one abbreviated Novice-level cross-country school, I can make equally absurdist claims.

The verdict: Too strong. I lacked the nerves of steel to let him carry on at his own pace. I would always be pickin’ and fussin’.

Horse 3 – The Intriguing Problem: An youngish, black TB who had unfortunate behaviors that I felt could be addressed physically.

The verdict: Too complicated. I was more interested in the problem to be solved than the horse underneath.

The Bottom Line
I’ve built the field. Where’s the team?

Ad Envy

This month’s issue of Show Horse arrived.

On the inside back cover was an announcement for this year’s National Academy Championship Finals.

The pictures are from the 2013 show. I am in back of this photo on the middle left. You can see the patch of white hair. [Posts on the subject listed here.]

I had an epic time [A Horse Show In 86 Tweets] and won pretty ribbons.

However, next time I go, I want to be this dude.

He swept the six Adult WTC classes, including the two national finals. See how how straight he stands? That’s how he rode. That’s why he is bedecked with blue.