Space-age sweat scrapers. Dunno how I feel about them. OTOH, I do know how I feel about free text. So, here’s the deal, I will send these two unused specimen (specimens?) to the first two folks who ask. In return, you must provide a 50 to 500 word, engaging & edifying product review that I can use as a post. If you are interested:
Step 1) email me your particulars using the blog email, listed over there —–> and down a bit.
Step 2) Let me know that you have done so HERE. That way I know to check the Gmail account & the hordes of other contestants will know that one has been claimed.
For those of you who do not have horses, or who do have horses but do not wish to change your scraping methodology, I offer the recommendation of a horse trekking essay, “Horse of a Different Color: Kyrgyzstan July 2006” in Holidays in Heck by P.J. O’Rourke [Atlantic 2011]. As the title is a pale imitation, the text lacks the verve of his classic Holidays in Hell [Atlantic 1988]. Still, PJO on an off day is funnier that the rest of us on a good day.
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Gratuitous Kitten Pic
I’m not the only one in the house who enjoys LEGO.
Rodney’s heat therapy set-up. You are looking at a Western wool saddlepad (colored, striped), two microwave heating pads (mostly hidden), & a piece of sheepskin (white, fuzzy), all being held in place by an overgirth. When Mathilda has had enough, I toss her two microwave pads & English sheepskin saddlepad on his hindquarters. He can happily stay this way for upwards of an hour, even in summer. Rodney is part lizard.
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Gratuitious Kitten Pic
A few nights ago, I had a dream about horse shopping.
An old riding buddy (LCM for those who knew me back when) and I were just finishing up an incomprehensible dream activity. As she was leaving, I remembered to ask, “Do you know of any horses for sale.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I may have one, if I buy that chestnut.”
With dream insight, I knew that meant she was willing to sell me a horse of hers I had admired for many unspecified time periods.
End scene.
Before leaving the known ‘verse for DragonCon over Labor Day weekend [Monster], I promised myself that September would be different. I even said as much to my horse hunt fairy godmother [HHPR#1] in a pre-trip email, “When I return, it will be a new month, a new season. I will be organized, productive, stop drinking soda, exercise more often… In short, turn into a completely different person. Oh, and find a —- horse.”
In Atlanta, I had a blast, but failed to create a new persona. This month has looked a lot like last month & the one before & the one before [Spinning]. Part of the problem is motivation, but part is logistical. Between the three kittens and the two geriatrics, my day is eaten up with chores. Cosmic payback for so many years bragging on the low-maintenanceness of our menagerie.
So, the dream was my subconscious’s way of kicking me in the pants. Not one to ignore a k. in the p., I decided to do something, anything. Since my local horse association appears to be selling 15-handers at the moment, I fell back on the saddleseat lesson idea [Random]. Kinda like moving a balky horse. Get going in any direction, then steer back to the intended course.
Success! I have a lesson penciled in for 2 pm on Thursday. I say penciled because last time, we tried for a month but couldn’t get our schedules to synch. If nothing else, I should get content out of it, no small thing after nine months of blogging every day.
What did you do today to advance your plans?
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Gratuitous Kitten Pic Sick kitten dispensation.
I aim to swim three days a week as my out-of-saddle exercise [Spring Fitness]. However, a forecast of 71o for this evening is making me reluctant to dip my toes – much less the rest of me – into the outdoor pool. I know it will not be heated sufficiently. Nothing short of the whirlpool sauna ever is.
Plus, I should be doing more. One decent use of this enforced no-riding period would be to get in shape. Then I could get on and be ready to go. It would be ridiculous to start riding and then have to get fit at the same time.
What to do?
Swimming, exercise machines, other gym work – Driving to a workout seems a waste of resources. Then again, so is a horse show, which I would go to in a heartbeat.
Running – Popular with riders. Stop me if I’ve told you this one. At Rolex one year, I wanted to get a soundbite from David O’Connor. He said he was in a hurry but he could talk if I wanted to run back to the barn with him. He said run. I heard jog. He took off at a pace that left me standing still, notebook pages waving in the breeze. So, is running particularly suited to riding or just an adaptable exercise that one can do anywhere, anytime, with a low bar to entry?
Biking – Go with hubby on the weekends. Mostly leg power, unless one is willing to push one’s self into aerobic exercise. I’ll let you imagine how often that happens.
Karate – Plays to my strengths: tightness, control, legwork. I’ve even got the kiai down. I learned all about the value of sound helping strength when I worked at a bookstore and had to lift heavy box of books. OTOH, shouldn’t I be working on my weak areas?
Aikido – A more flowing marital art. All that dropping and rolling would be good fall protection. However, all that d&r is based on the ability to do a backwards somersault. I don’t roll. I am too stiff and tight through the back. Instead of curving into a ball and rolling over my shoulder onto my feet, I slam flat on my back and lie there like a distressed turtle.
Yoga – Way too motionless. Part of a firefighter’s turn-out gear is a PASS device (Personal Alert Safety System), a little black box attached to the airpack straps that goes off if the individual does not move for 30 seconds. If the person continues not to move the noise increases up the decibel scale to earshattering. Useful when one is looking for a downed FF. Less useful when one is standing around on air waiting to go into a training exercise. It is common to see folks having to shake their device every so often to shut it up. In that situation, my PASS never goes off. Never. I cannot be still for 30 seconds. Yoga is out.
Tai Chi – Yoga in motion. Again why drive to a class when I have Claire Hooten’s marvelous DVD, complete with reverse view? Two things I lack, a big enough living room & motivation. Add (very small) freeweights and stretching to the list of things I could do at home if only I was motivated.
Pilates – is, or was, the hot new thing for riders. Took one class. More accurately, started one class. All the exercises seem to me to be a variation on the sit-up. If you can’t do a sit-up, the rest of the exercises are moot.
Yes, I can’t even do one sit up. I am that out of shape. But more than that, I have baffled sports advisors and physical therapists with my inability to achieve even a baby, beginner sit-tup. Without a tiny start, I have no base from which to improve. I suspect it has to with my back, as above.
How do you crosstrain? What do you recommend?
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Gratuitous Kitten Pic Cat & mouse games in the 21st century.
And back to Mathilda. I feel the need to defend us. We weren’t ignoring her feet. We knew they were a problem. [Borrowing Trouble & More Mathilda]
In the past, Mathilda got shod for the summer. We finally learned to shoe her at the late May blacksmith appointment. Otherwise, she would get sore overnight when she suddenly decided it was summertime, necessitating an out-of-schedule blacksmith visit. In late May this year, she was still on the critical list. We were thinking day to day, or perhaps week to week, waiting for something to happen. Shoeing was too much forward planning. Plus she was having so much trouble with her feet, adding more weight to them did not seem wise. Now that she has stopped giving us fits on a daily basis, shoes are still out. It takes diligent file management to get her trimmed in the short amount of time she is willing to hold up each foot.
Sadly, we had even been congratulating ourselves on having gotten through to September with a barefoot mare. Yes, she was a little off on the rocky sections of the pasture but we tried to keep her off of those. We piled extra shavings in her pen. We put compost on the path to the water trough to make it softer underfoot. We painted her feet with Venice turpentine. It all helped a bit. Apparently not enough. Silly minions.
There is a lesson under all of this self-justification. For 20 years, we got used to thinking of Mathilda as a smart, tough old cow. A blacksmith in another state refuse to put shoes on her because her feet were so nice. In bad weather, she was the one to lead the herd to the safest place. She was the one on the easy-keeper diet. If any horse was a throw-back to the toughness of wild horses, it was she.
Now that she is not 100%, insults that she previously laughed off become serious. A simple cold can become pneumonia to someone who is already sick. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that a second mechanical issue, even a slight one, could be a problem. Damn hindsight.
So, lesson learned. I hope.
What was your most useful hindsight lesson?
(A productive lesson with a moderately happy ending, please. I don’t want to drown in a pool of borrowed regret. Got enough of my own.)
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Gratuitous Kitten Pic
I’ve been yapping on about Mathilda a good bit lately. How has the other party been faring? When last we saw Rodney, he had just acquired two front shoes to recover from an abscess.
He recovered immediately. He felt terrific. He immediately felt really, really terrific. As in what-hath-I-wrought terrific. Seriously, he bounced around the field with such enthusiasm and perkiness that I wondered how I would ever cope under saddle, should such a day arrive. No particular evilness, just ALERT! As in the old joke, Be alert. The world need more lerts. I’m happy to say he has calmed down to a tolerable level of Up Ears, Hello World!
Generally.
Just now incoming weather had him a little jumpy. He spooked and ran off when I went to catch him for his heating session. I was not amused. Sometimes, I am Zen itself. I am calm. I stop what I’m doing, move slowly, even backing off to give him space. Other times, I continue at my normal speed and tell him to deal with it. It depends on the legitimacy of his spook, the time since his last spook, and how ornery I’m feeling on the subject. Once the rain came thru, he longer had his knickers in a twist.
Whatever happens, no one will ever accuse Rodney of being boring.
His back continues to loosen up. The adhesion has shrunk to an area about the size of a fingertip. I want to be happy about this but it looks SO close to being all gone. However, when you progress in microns, a even tiny patch can take a frustratingly long time. Plus the softer area creates even more skin wrinkles when it butts up against the fixed part. How will that feel under a saddle?
Finally, I saw him cantering over the weekend. He was on an unknown, important horse mission that involved zipping from the water trough back to the barn. Gorgeous horse. Say what you will about the power and presence of a warmblood. For floating across the ground, there is nothing like a Thoroughbred.
You know how hard-working amateurs hate it when unemployed doctor’s wives spend their husband’s hard-earned money to buy over-qualified horses so that they can steal ribbons at the lower levels? I can’t wait.
[Illustration by Sara Light-Waller, Flying Pony Studios]
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Gratuitous Kitten Pic When you are a kitten, the world is your toy.
Space-age sweat scrapers. Dunno how I feel about them. OTOH, I do know how I feel about free text. So, here’s the deal, I will send these two unused specimen (specimens?) to the first two folks who ask. In return, you must provide a 50 to 500 word, engaging & edifying product review that I can use as a post. If you are interested:
Virtual Brush Box 