A Fool But Not an April Fool

Work: PM1 groom & hosing/PM2 groom & equine obstacle course [combination walk & exercises]
Report: did all his exercises despite being in new locations.

Ramblings for the Day: I hold with C.S. Lewis on the subject of practical jokes, “Cruelty is shameful — unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke.” [The Screwtape Letters Bles 1942 Time 1981] Perhaps I am simply too literal for AFD. However in keeping with the spirit of the day, I offer an amuse tete (an amuse bouche for the head):

I took the reins in a firm grasp to show the horse I knew what I was doing. He turned his great head all the the way round, gave me a long, thoughtful stare, and turned his head away again.
“You have to let him know who’s in charge,” said Suzie.
“I think he already knows,” I said.

Not a horse book. The only other equids in the novel are animated by spirits brought up out of Hell. Still, one must give props for clever portrayal where warranted.
A Hard Day’s Knight
Simon R. Green
[ACE 2011, PB 2012]

In the spirit of foolhardy adventures, I have joined NaBloPoMo for April. “Just make the commitment to (1) blog daily for the month (nothing more to it than that!) and (2) to support your fellow NaBloPoMo’ers by reading a handful of the other blogs on the blogroll.”

The only different from what I do already is no chron jobs, which I had been scheduling on Tuesday evenings for Wednesday posts. However, I usually log on early Wed am to check that it worked. So, no substantive change there. The theme for April is Poem, which I will not be following as my appreciation of poetry stops at Jabberwocky [plain & fancy].

Can you name an accurate or amusing portrayal of horses outside of equi-lit?

Blogging Influences

Work: PM1 groom/PM2 groom & group walk [twox3/4].
Report: no heat therapy. Microwave broken. Plus – improved on second lap of walk. Minus – will graze at location x. On the end of halter at location x, he displays tension. Sigh.

Ramblings for the Day: Authors never write alone. At the end of each month (or close thereto), I pause like a caterpillar [4/1 oops, centipede] counting her feet to examine the process of blogging. This month, the books & authors I channel, or try to channel, while I type my posts:

Direct Influence
In “A Visit to the Barber Shop” ( I’m a Stranger Here Myself [Broadway 1999 pb2000]), Bill Bryson starts with “I have very happy hair.” and goes on for four pages about a recent haircut. Anyone can tell a fish story. It takes brilliance to make a reader care about your fish story. To that end, I have loaded Bryson in the car’s CD player. I make a conscious effort to notice his use of metaphors, overstatement, and exaggerated precision. Whether or not I succeed will be up to my biographers to decide.

Indirect Influence
Before my life as a blogger, I wrote articles for horse magazines: show coverage, expert interviews, health care. Informative stuff with the potential for dryness if the writer did not wrestle life and humor into the text. My hero for this style of writing is John Phillips of Car & Driver. His articles entertain without omitting a single engine specification to appease the gearheads, of which I most definitely am not one. For example, In “Project Car: The Lounge Lizard” [C&D November 1998, archived here], his first sentence reads, “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it… well, maybe I have only said it once: Anything weighing two tons and casting a 17.7-foot shadow ought to be a national monument.” Would that I could come up with as good a start to an article on fly spray.

For the blog, I do not consciously look to Phillips the way I do Bryson, but since I wrote these articles for over 20 years and have only been doing the daily blog for 3 months, I figure elements of that style have lingered.

Model
When I started this project as a monthly column for the USEA website back in 2010, I envisioned Back to Eventing as my answer to Kip Goldreyer‘s Thinking Horseman column in Practical Horseman. I would pontificate in a warm and witty fashion on my graceful rise from acquiring a new horse to riding in the American Eventing Championships. Of course, there would be hiccups, this was horses after all, but such setbacks would be occasions for me to indulge in philosophical discourses on the nature of progress, with my trademark touch of humor. However, when your main activity consists of standing at the fenceline admiring the sleek coat and beautiful movement of your pasture ornament, you quickly run out of activity upon which to pontificate.

Goal
In the Acknowledgements to The Chronicles of the $700 Pony [Half Halt 2006*], Ellen Broadhurst thanks the folks on the Chronicle of the Horse bulletin Board who “provided a venue for my writing and then encouraged, cajoled, threatened and ultimately provided the impetus for me to make my words from cyberspace to the printed page.” That’s what I wanted. A supportive cyber-community that would pester me for the important details & shoot me down when I got bogged on the unimportant ones, leading to my award-winning book about my award-winning horse. But, as above, you cannot cajole and comment if I do not give you activity to c&c upon.
(*Out of print but soon to be rereleased on Kindle.)

Wither?
That was then; this is now. The economic downturn has not been kind to the freelance market. So, as I said on the About page, I have committed myself to a daily blog for one year as a writing exercise. I’m taking advice from another favorite writer, Michael Perry, “Raised on a small dairy farm, Perry equates his writing career to cleaning calf pens – just keep shoveling, and eventually you’ve got a pile so big, someone will notice.”

Yesterday was my 100th post. Yikes! Today is 101. 264 to go.

Previous blogging posts
Numbers Game [March 9 for February 29]
Life As a First Draft [Jan 31]

Writers, which authors inform your work?

Zeno’s Massage

Work: PM heat therapy/PM groom & exercise [rp, wv, cx].
Report: After separating the cones to make his maneuvering easier, he did so well that he got ahead of me.

Ramblings for the Day: History reports that at the beginning of the month, the adhesion between underlying scar tissue and the skin on Rodney’s back was an area the size of a quarter [Changes]. I said it and why would I lie? It is easily half that now. So, using a wide-angle lens*, we have made progress. Using the day-to-day zoom, I feel that we will progress infinitely and never reach the end. I’ve broken up half of what was there. I have to break up half of what’s left. Then half of that. Then half of that. And so on.

If I can’t unkink the final knot, have I made it worse? Before I started fiddling, the old injury had frozen into a functional unit. He showed with it for years. Now most of skin moves over the muscle but a small part is still fixed, making for potential under-the-saddle skin wrinkles if I can’t get it all the way undone.

On the other hand, if I do get the skin loosed from the muscle, what then? In her comment [Stinker], Sara Light-Waller of Sacred Touch Healing said, “You’re fortunate that the release is so benign. In some horses that replay of emotional events can lead to some temporarily wild and naughty behavior.” Rodney is by nature an expressive and emotional horse. I have to wonder if he’s saving the fireworks for the final reveal.

(*Can you tell I was taking pictures for Foto Friday this afternoon?)

What long-term piece of progress did your horse finally achieve?

Cause for Cautious Optimism?

Work: AM heat/PM groom & all 6 exercises, including walking into the ring for the 360o turn-around box.
Report: Still unhappy going to the ring but seemed relieved when he realized we were doing the box. Improvement over last time [Joining] & how the plan is intended to work [Blow, Boredom].

Ramblings for the Day: Twee alert. Greg left for work early, so I did the honors with Rodney’s medication. When I went to catch him, he hid his head under my arm. Clearly he was hoping to get out of having to take the nasty-tasting goo. How can one not go all soft & squishy over a horse like that?

The twee-est thing your horse(s) has(have) ever done?

The Return of King Arthur

Friends from the past (Photo by Deborah Rubin)

Work: day off, for Mondayesque reasons. Chance of late afternoon/evening rally.

Ramblings for the Day: Sometimes decisions get taken out of your hands. As I’ve said elsewhere, one of us sits with Mathilda while she finishes her meal. There are more efficient arrangements, but it’s not unpleasant to sit on a stool in the field, watch the horses, and fuss with Rodney while he waits to clean up her leftovers. During the time Rodney eats, not much happens. Narratively, I was all poised to ponder the value of entertaining myself with a book/crossword puzzle versus the gentler joys of being in the moment: listening to the happy chop of horse jaws, admiring the trees, following the squirrels as they race from tree to tree. However, before I could determine if this constituted boredom or enlightenment, one of our cats decided for me.

Arthur, KotK

His full name is Arthur, King of the Kittens, pronounced with the ringing emphasis of Arthur, King of the Britons, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If Arthur could arrange for trumpeters, he would. Last month, I blamed the perky new dog for keeping the cats, particularly Arthur, away from the pasture during morning feed [Barn Dogs]. Since then, Arthur has decided that I could not possibly go on without my daily dose of cat adoration.

Therefore, while I wait, I once again have a lap full of cat. At least until Rodney finishes. At which point, my lap airspace is full of horse snoot. Arthur retreats under the stool but stays within adoration range. One hand to pat the cat. One hand to pat the horse. Two dogs circling in close orbit. Quite the peaceable kingdom.

How does your barn menagerie get along?