Bookworm award

I was tagged by Mel at The Twisted Path with this Bookworm Award:

Grab the book closest to you
Turn to page 56
Go to the fifth line
Type it and the following couple of lines

The closest book to me is Gray Magic by Andre Norton (alternate title Steel Magic).

I found it on the "free" table at work. It is a young-adult fantasy novel by the late "Grande Dame". I've enjoyed her novels my whole life (she wrote for adults as well) . I already read it as a kid but couldn't resist picking this copy up. It is stamped to originally retail for 50 cents in 1965.

Sara shivered. She was not quite sure what Merlin meant. But she remembered all the talk back on the other side of the gate, the things she had heard Mother and Father say.

"No" -- that was Greg answering -- "there is always talk about another war and the Bomb."

"Avalon still holds fast, though how long we may continue to do so" -- Merlin's eyes were so bright it hurt to look at them, Sara thought -- "no man, mortal or elf kind, can say. It is your choice to aid us or no."

Thank you for the tag, Mel!

The crazy before the storm?

Today it is windy and snowy outside. It is the first real snow we've had this year. We had some light snows that did not stick too much. It is unusual for it to wait until this late in the season to begin snowing in earnest.

When I rode Armani yesterday he was very reactive and spooky. I was able to bring his focus back on me, although it felt like I just had a fingertip hold on it. When I felt like he had been making a real effort for a while I dismounted. He stood obediently, but his eyes were rolling back and forth with every sound. I stroked his neck quietly and he sighed. After my ride, my instructor asked if he'd been spooky too. "Too?" I asked. She'd ridden two horses already that morning. Both of them were uncharacteristically high-strung.

I've occasionally wondered about animals' reaction to seasonal and weather changes. Do they feel the pressure dropping, a change in temperature or the wind? I've heard other horsemen and women mention "fall-fever" and "spring-fever". I've experienced plenty of anecdotal evidence myself. Care to share your own experiences?

Cowboy Weather

Forecasting by plants and animals

Looks like winter is here to stay today...

Wrapping my brain around bending

My instructor has been training Armani once a week this winter. Recently she demonstrated for me how far he has progressed with her. She asked him to counter-canter and half-pass at the trot. He was consistent and light on the contact, and engaged behind. It can be enlightening to watch your horse with someone else. He really looked like an upper-level warmblood; not the scruffy, pony-esque youngster I still pictured him as.

"He doesn't look that good for me, does he?" I asked. Although I already knew the answer.

She explained that we need to work on getting him as good for me as he is for her. So we've been looking at my weaknesses in the saddle. She's pin-pointed "bending" as the area I need to make the most improvement in, before moving on to more advanced work.

I tend to ride by "feel". So I've been trying to remember how things feel when we're doing them right. I can control the speed and maintain impulsion by slightly shifting my weight. I bend through my own body and my inside thigh asks for him to bend. Armani takes a very light contact and I can rotate and shift slightly to change directions. I don't need a lot of leg or rein. It feels subtle and effortless.

My instructor frequently reminds me to use my abdominal muscles. About the only work my abs have been doing lately is coughing. Maybe I should take advantage of that gym membership more often...

Lack of sleep or losing my marbles?

I've been kept awake by a cough for the last couple of weeks. It's the last remnant of the cold I had over Thanksgiving. I hate laying around being sick and useless. Somehow, in a moment of illness induced insanity, I volunteered to host Thanksgiving dinner for 5 with hors d'oeuvres, all the homemade fixings and figured I was also well enough to ride two horses an hour each day that week. "It's just a cold." I said.

"Don't over exert yourself or it will get worse." my husband warned me.

So now I'm left with this cough that won't quit. The cough is frustratingly unpredictable. Every hour or two it will start as a tickle and progress into coughs with every breath. The cough times itself perfectly so that I'm startled awake, just as soon as I start to fall asleep. I'm expecting that any day now I'll start hallucinating that Armani is tap-dancing while signing Berry White tunes.

Last night I started out riding Armani. He seems to know when I'm sick. Or perhaps I know he'll know, so he knows, if you know what I mean. He kept giving me the wrinkled-eye-look and was fussier than usual. Although he seemed perfectly willing to forget his troubles when we shared a banana. (Don't tell my husband. He won't want to kiss those lips.)

My instructor had a load of shavings in her truck bed. It began to pour and she asked if I'd mind if she parked it in the indoor. "Well I'm planning to ride Huey. But that'll be good bombproofing!" I said. Did I say that? Or was it the little goomba germs in my throat who spoke up? My instructor left us to it. Good thing she wasn't watching.

I'd planned to practice bending Huey at the canter over a figure-eight with poles. Strangely... it still seemed like a good idea. As I was cantering over poles on Huey, careening a mere foot beyond the pickup I did begin to wonder. "Careful Huey.", I said, "Only another foot and we'll be jumping the bed..."

"Hmm, that sounds like fun." I thought. Let's hope I feel better soon before I hallucinate I'm at the Rolex and end up in the E.R.

Six things about me

I was tagged by Solitaire Mare of "A Good Horse" with the meme "Six things about me".

1. Like Solitaire Mare, I've got a large Breyer Horse collection from when I was a kid.


2. I like being busy and get bored easily -- much to my husband's chagrin.

1. While I was in college I couldn't afford to ride horses. I went to a mostly male college, where I got into playing video games, particularly PvP games. Although now that I have horses again I don't play very often.


2. I drink a lot of tea; both regular tea and herbal. I enjoy coffee but it makes me too jittery. My favorite morning tea is Lipton. During the day I drink Celestial Seasonings varieties.


3. I enjoy cooking. I like to innovate and have trouble sticking to recipes. My cooking is mostly old New England style with exotic influences. I enjoy eating just as much and like trying new foods.


4. Besides horses, some of my favorite animals are cats and spiders!

I'm going to tag a couple other blogs I enjoy that I think haven't already been tagged with this one.

I'm tagging:
Five O'Clock Somewhere
and
Eventing Percheron

Overwelmed at the Equine Affaire

Last Saturday my mother and I made our yearly visit to the Equine Affaire. It is a birthday celebration of sorts for both of us, since it falls between our birthdays. We planned to do some shopping and to check out a few of the clinics.

We arrived around 10am. Cars were backed up from the off-ramp for the whole 2 miles to the Big-E. By the time we were inside it was around 11am. So much for our morning. We browsed one building before realizing it was nearly 2pm. More buildings to go, and no lunch yet!

My mother is usual nervous to try something new. But I introduced my mother to Gyro sandwiches last year. So she wanted one again.

After lunch we got back to shopping. That is, we started horse shopping.

The two baby Warmbloods (photo left) were gathering a lot of admirers. "Awwww..."

But we managed to convince ourselves that a baby horse was probably not a good birthday present for my (of a certain age) mother.






After horse shopping we shopped for a trailer to haul them with. This is the trailer we were most interested in, although I borrowed this photo from the dealer's website. It is a Hawk 2-horse straight-load with ramp. If you have any experience with these trailers, let us know!

After all that shopping we bought... nothing! We'd been too hurried to see it all. But we weren't the only ones. Although the buildings were so crowded that we thought we'd faint from heat, very few people had shopping bags. Could it be the economy?

That evening my good friend from Connecticut met up with us to see the Fantasia show. Poor planning on the part of organizers led to us being stuck outside in a thunderstorm (with a tornado watch!!) for half an hour. Don't they know that high-maintenance dressage ladies are flammable when wet? We enjoyed the show however. But none of my photos came out well. So if you'd like to see videos, check out these ones taken by another spectator:
Fantasia videos

I particularly enjoyed the aerialist, frankly because he was shirtless. I made a point of hooting and whistling enough to scare my mother back into the depths of her seat. More shirtless men and horses please!

We got home around 2:30am, exhausted. Next year we resolved to get a hotel room.

BLM will delay decision on management of mustangs and burros

From The Horse: Government Delays Decision on Euthanizing Wild Horses

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will round up fewer wild horses and try to shuffle funds within the agency to hold off for now on euthanizing large numbers of the animals in an effort to control herds and spiraling costs, an official said Monday.

Deputy Director Henri Bisson said maintaining the wild horse and burro program for another year will give horse advocates, the BLM, Congress, ranchers, and wildlife advocates time to explore possible solutions and let "cooler heads prevail."

read the whole article...

Update: Government entertaining other options, including an offer from billionaire couple Mr. and Mrs. T. Boone Pickens to create refuge for some horses. read more...


This is the latest update on this story, which I blogged about twice before (1, 2). Personally I'm happy to hear that they'll take more time to consider possible solutions. I hope that a neuter and release program will be considered, as well as tourism opportunities ("Come and see the American West on a safari! See our Mustangs, Bison and more!"). I'm no economist, but when the dollar is low against foreign currency, that might get some interest.