Horses & Other Interests
Work: day off.
If he is going to give me ‘tude [Head Games, Me Next!] over brushing his face, at least now his forelock won’t get in the way. If we start showing before it grows out, I’ll be so happy that I won’t care if he looks like a renegade polo pony.
Your biggest fashion mistake with a horse?
Work: PM heat, exercise [pl]/EVE groom.
Report: extended plank for photo shoot. Stood like a champ.
Ramblings: Despite being comfy & safe in bed, I had a rough night. I dreamt that Rodney was boarded at a small barn by himself. He was turned out in a pasture with no fence (our dog got out last night) and his hoof fell off (a terrible story a blacksmith told me about weighted shoes). As I was trying to untack him & clean up his recuperation stall, suddenly the barn was full of strange horses, 2-3 to a stall, and Rodney had been moved to another barn. They kept telling me that everything was okay, that he was at Frosty’s barn. But no one would tell me Frosty’s full name or where his barn was (no idea where this came from). The part that stuck with me when I woke up was my rage and incoherence. I was furious. No one seemed to understand why. I would try to scream at people but could only manage a hoarse whisper. I never seem to be capable of working up a really good rant in my dreams.
My horse dreams are usually a room (yes, room) full of unjumpable fences, i.e. heading into a wall, or the bell ringing before my dressage test when I still have to tack up, find my boots, whatever. If dreams are random electrical charges/images that our brains sort into stories, why can’t we have holodeck dreams? Galloping clean around Rolex would be my choice.
Speaking of holodecks, reality is catching up. The future promises to be way weirder than our fiction, if not our dreams.
What is your weirdest horse-related dream?
Work: PM heat therapy/EVE exercise [360, cx], groom.
Report: still jumpy in the box. Sigh.
Ramblings: new version of Our Story So Far [upper right corner of screen]. Wasn’t that a pleasant stroll down memory lane.
For newcomers, does this bring you up to speed?
For those who have lived it with me, did I leave any gaps?
Work: PM heat therapy/PM groom & exercises [rp, wv,cx].
Report: amenable during but galloped off upon dismissal.
Ramblings for the day: A well-known essayist [David Sedaris? unusual Google fail], said that his family no longer tells him anything because they are afraid to end up in print. Writer A.J. Jacobs allows his wife to forbid but not kibbitz, “In the past, he has given me censorship privileges but never annotations or rebuttals.” The Guinea Pig Diaries [S&S 2009]
Fortunately for me, my family members/subjects/victims aren’t able to complain. As long as the paychecks continue to fund the carrot stream, I doubt they even care. All of which is by way of introducing a press clips section on the sidebar. May they be joined by many more. Gotta pay for those carrots.
Mathilda in USDF Connection, “The Tail End: Square Horses and Round Holes”, November 2008
Rodney in Horse Illustrated, “Horse Tales: The Horse Next Door”, February 2012
Plus the original monthly blog posts on the USEA website of Rodney in “Back to Eventing”. Sidebarred under Past Incarnations.
Who is your favorite essayist or non-fiction writer?
Work: late-PM heat therapy/EVE groom.
Report: lots of activity, little to show for it.
Ramblings for the day: One cost of having horses in the backyard is long drivetimes. A trip anywhere other than the feedstore is two hours of driving. There went the afternoon. The other cost of having horses at home is the gradual erosion of personal habits. Therefore, one must add in time beforehand to make oneself presentable to reenter polite society. There went the morning. A long-winded way to say that this afternoon’s simple, one-hour meeting kicked the stuffing out of my day.
What is your best time management tip?
Work: PM heat therapy/PM groom & exercises.
Report: Did all 6 exercises [crossrail, weave cones, plank, reverse poles, crossrail, log], including 2-3 reps of everything but the first crossrail, despite it being almost dusk. In the morning, I was out of bed in plenty of time but got caught up in fiddling with the black hole that is WordPress widgets. Must get moving earlier.
Ramblings for the day: New feature since
a) a daily blog was not sufficiently overwhelming.
b) I am ardent fan of Thursday Night Basset Blogging by TBOGG. I couldn’t begin to tell you the man’s political opinions which form the bulk of his posts, but I like me some Bassets.
Caveat: I am not a photographer. I can manage a workmanlike Horse-Over-Fence shot for show coverage and I have supplied pictures for articles when the real photographers where off covering bigger things, e.g. the behind-the-scenes stories at Rolex. So this is by way of let’s see what happens. Apologies in advance to the sensibilities of any photographers in the audience. What photos I have sold are taken outdoors, in bright sunlight, on – I cringe to say it – autofocus. Technical capacity zero. I had a passing acquaintance with the workings of my film camera but have not advanced into the digital age of camera manipulation. Apparently there are 8 Things Every Camera Owner Should Know About Their Camera. Not only can I not do these, I don’t know where most of the buttons are. I want that to change.
[Kudos to Sunflower for refining the photography idea. Thanks to Images by Ceci for the camera link.]
Can you name all 6 common barn textures?
[Hover for answers]
Work: AM heat therapy/PM groom, no exercises.
Report: During grooming, he objected to being brushed on the head. I overruled his objection. [Option A from Head Games]. I just about brushed the star off his forehead waiting for him discover that the brush did not harbor tiny predators. That was enough of an adventure in patience for both of us for one day. Time will tell if we have progress or just a very clean head.
Ramblings from earlier in the day: We own two water horses. A sudden spring snap outpaced a fuzzy mare’s ability to cool herself, so she got her first shower of the year. As we walked toward the water trough/hosing area, Rodney came toodling along. After I hosed Mathilda’s undercarriage, I turned the hose on Rodney as an experiment. No halter, freedom to walk off should he choose. Not only did he fail to run off, he spun in a complete 360o like a kid in a sprinkler & then angled his head so that I could spray under his chin. I dehaltered the mare and they both stood in place as I spritzed one then the other. They would like a in-field fountain.
Now, if I could just remember to turn off the water & stop irrigating the field.
Has your horse ever been too cute for words & too annoying for words in the same day?
Virtual Brush Box 