Running On Empty

BEEP. BEEP. That’s the fill alarm on my idea tank. Halfway through the year (Thursday was post #183 [Zoo]) and over two months into mare care, I’m floundering. I’ve squeezed the subject of grazing down to dessicated stalks. In response to my pleas, a blogger friend suggested a horse hunt update. Sure thing. I’m all over that:

Booted in the butt by her email, I attempted to rally, really I did.

Step one: The Chronicle of the Horse Giveaways forum. Ignoring the high cost of free horses, most of them live in the Mid-Atlantic. I don’t.

Step two: Craigslist farm+garden. More multi-horsepower tractors than single-horsepower horses.

Step three: Equine Now. The horses in my area tend toward barrel & gaited.

OTOH, whenever I find myself wallowing in excuses, I think of Amy Tryon. In one interview or another [Tribute], we talked about living outside the equestrian mainstream. Most of the shows in her area were hours away. Her solution? Host a show at her barn. Translation: stop whining, suck it up, & do something about it.

Got any suggestions for a) blog posts or b) how to overcome the horse-search lethargy?

Two Forward, One Back.

This Ferdinand moment is Mathilda grazing on her own in a little temporary pen we roped off in the corner of the pasture. One step closer to letting her out on her own, which is one step closer to resuming what used to pass for my life. We dug up a hank of old uncharged, braided, electric mesh. Years ago, we would turn Mathilda & Previous Horse out on the front lawn to mow the new grass. This lasted until PH had a Thoroughbred moment, began to channel voices, and trotted right through the fence and down the driveway. So we knew that a) she was used to it & b) in the event of a crisis, the rope would break. This lovely state of affairs lasted ~25 minutes until she used the rope to scratch her butt, threatening to take down the whole works. From this, we divined that yesterday’s application of medicated cream had dried & was itchy, Hubby hosed her off. I stood on roll prevention patrol until she was dry. Sigh.

Any progress to report on your end?

Being Happy

Grazing Supervisor lends a paw.

Yeah! Mathilda stayed out grazing for almost an hour & a half. Previously, 45 minutes was her limit before the backend began to drift. I would have waited longer but it was closing in on breakfast. Snaps to Ernest Cline for making Level Three of Ready Player One almost as relentless as the southern sun.

Summer has whacked us over the head with a vengeance. Full of resolve, I went to pay a little overdue attention to Rodney. Only to find that he was too sweaty to brush at 6 pm in the evening. Instead, he got a shower and a pat. He’s an amazingly happy horse. Provided the sky is not currently falling, he gives off the vibe of a person looking for reasons to be pleased. Needless to say, he enjoyed his bath.

How has summer hit your household?

Grazing II

Grazing is peaceful. I came to this profound conclusion on Thursday when Mathilda and I were out for her evening hand-graze. In addition to a headache, I had my knickers in a twist over some perceived injustice in my life. After 30 minutes, my headache and bad mood had faded.

I knew it was easy duty. I stand around & read. My idea of leisure is to sit around & read. How is this a hardship? Since my primary tasks are to keep Mathilda from rolling, Rodney from approaching, and myself from tripping, I am therefore required to read light, frothy books that do not clog my processor. Guilt-free beach reading. Plus, doing my good deed for the day means I can take the knot out of my necktie [The Scout’s Necktie].

All of which lovely and green tea and crumpets, but on Thursday I realized that it’s all about the sound – that continuous white noise of grass being ripped in half. It’s quiet enough not to intrude but violent enough to be soothing. It’s the organic version of popping bubble wrap.

(Photo notes: Mathilda is wearing Rodney’s grooming slip. That’s right, my 17+ hand giraffe has the dainty head of a 15h 2″ mare. I wish I could get a picture of M grabbing grass stalks with her prehensile upper lip [Grazing]. Alas, my recent bout of stealth photography has left her suspicious of anything in my hands.)

[Later – or running, or flirting, or … Rolling is only an issue right after a bath. The rest are everpresent opportunities. Silly cow.]
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Help you with those bootlaces, Ma’am?
(Click to view.)

Life Is A Zoo

Opening this = flashback to kidhood. This explains much.

Yeah! Second week in a row that I have been back to volunteer at the zoo [Serve]. I can’t go for as long as I used to and last week Hubby had to stay home, but it’s a small step toward reinstalling our regular routine.

Mathilda is past the 24/7 hoof-holding phase. She is self-sufficient in a wobbly, limited-space way. Our current conundrum is that our property was not designed to be a rehab facility. We were set up for a small herd to wander at will. We don’t have a range of stalls, lay-up stalls, small paddocks, and fields to offer an increasingly wider field of play as the patient’s mobility increases. Nor can we adequately separate two horses who don’t get along – or perhaps two horses who get along too well. (Silly slut!)

Back when I was on crutches after a foxhunting accident, I was astounded at how much stuff cluttered up our floors. It’s like that. We are having to retool mid-crisis. We have intentions of finishing the side field to use as a paddock but life keeps getting in the way. When life doesn’t, Mathilda does something spectacular and torpedoes the weekend.

Family zoo joke:
A man sees a friend in a car with three monkeys, “Why do you have monkeys in your car?’
His friend says, “They were left to me in a will. I don’t know what to do with them.”
The man tells his friend to take the monkeys to the zoo. The next days he sees the same friend, still with three monkeys in his car, “I thought you were going to take them to the zoo?”
“I did.” Said his friend, “They loved it. Today, we’re going to the movies.”
(Later – my mother says this joke is properly told with penguins. Google agrees. No idea where the monkeys came from.)

Know any zoo jokes?

Show Calendars & Sympathetic Magic

The website for the 2012 Alltech National Horse Show is up. No Adult Jumpers. The prizelist isn’t available but none last year AFAIK and the intro blat doesn’t mention it as a new event. That means I will either have to jump higher or the show will have to get bigger.

We will ignore the reality check of my current riding status – at this point, I might as well dream about Grands Prix – and ponder why we salivate over the dream of attending certain Big-Name shows.

Better Judging
At the one registered dressage show Previous Horse attended, I felt he was evaluated fairly as a short-strided, little Thoroughbred. We still nailed down the bottom of the class, but we lost for the right reasons. At a tiny, local dressage show, PH was excused for being too lame to continue. I’m still incensed:
a) Granted he moved like a sewing machine. Give him a 4 on movement and I will not breathe a word. Don’t tell me he’s lame because he doesn’t move like a Warmblood.
b) He was a jumper. He saw no point in a collection of circles. Put a jump in front of him and you will see plenty of “desire to move forward.”
c) This horse would take to a fainting couch with a cold compress if he suffered a hangnail. There was no way, no way at all, that he was bravely soldiering through the pain to finish Training Level Test 3.
But I digress.

Better Facilities
Bigger shows have better footing, better lighting, nicer stalls, fancier jumps, prettier cross-country fences, and so on. But beyond an acceptable level of safety, how much of this is necessary versus how much is bells & whistles? A well-run regional show can have the same amenities but less pizazz.

Just Because
Would I drive 8 hours, past several states to show Baby Novice at the Kentucky Horse Park? In a heartbeat.

The National has been peripatetic since leaving New York. If you replace all the boards in a wooden boat is it still the same boat? Well, the Alltech show still has the NHS orange and black color scheme that makes my Manhattan-raised heart go pitty-patty. So, yes, short of a revival at Madison Square Garden, this is the National.

Where is your dream show?