Barn Pixie

exercise: 1.3 mi run (gearing up for 5K w/ sister in law) plus arms, plus 5 stalls and 15 bales of hay and waterbuckets
horses: all three girls! 
fabric: some embroidery, nothing documented

I started off at the gym running. I HATE running. I promised my completely awesome sister in law that I'd run a Mother's day 5 K with her, so I have to start training. I still HATE running, although it feels like it good for me. Also, I need new shoes because my shins hurt. Actually my shins hurt yesterday just from a mile and a half of walking. Clearly more stretching is in order.

I made it up the hill to see the Canadians, and Bob and I rode the younger ones for about 20 minutes. Their ring is nearly passable, if you don't need to do much. All we needed was walk, and halt. Maybe two minutes of trot. Penny (above) had completely forgotten (or was grumpy) about moving off the leg. Ruby did fine for a goofy young thing in spring. Then I took the red mare down the hill and up, getting longer and lower and slower and calmer and really reeeeaching at the trot.

And then I went to Lani's for barn cleaning. I was deeply grateful she had accomplished two stalls. She was mad at all her boys; Blondie had walked all over her going out to pasture, the stud colt had chomped a hole in his pasture mate, and the big fancy bay was being stupid. There is something funny, yet impressive, about tiny funny Lani so mad she could spit.

Lesson tomorrow.

bed now.

and so is the rest of February, and I am so very very glad.

Friday I saw Bunraku puppets, and got to do the left hand of a lady puppet, which was very cool, and then I tore over to the High School and participated in the Teacher, Student and Parent Talent Show to benefit the band's trip to DC this spring. I was one of 8 moms in the music stand drill team. We rocked. Plus we had the real drum major directing us, and he brought a real gravitas to the whole proceedings.

Yesterday after I finally finished all the loose pieces of the February fabric I went to Lani's and rode the blonde haflinger tank. We had a long lesson, and then went walking in the woods. I was so tired at the end I had to reach down and grab my right leg and drag it over the pony's back. I was grateful that he's so short because I kind of toppled off in a very undignified fashion.

Today after a long and arduous yoga session (Sunday is Church of Yoga for me) I made all the February fabric pieces fit together, and it looks like this. That post sounds whiny but I think I am fairly well pleased with it.

Now I get to sit and knit on the pink and orange socks, and tomorrow I will start some daily March thing that makes much use of my new felting thing.

exercise: negligible - mostly shopping
horses: only via the tack shop, but I have new winter gloves and pads for my stirrups
fiber: yesterday and yestoday

I have holes in my winter riding gloves. I am so bummed, because they work really well, but the holes let the cold in and makes them not work so well. They are a nice combo of warmth over the back and thin leather over the insides - palms and fingers - for delicacy of grip. I had to special order a new pair. I was cheered when I realized these had lasted, without getting lost, since '05.

Had a good lesson yesterday, and was then overcome by tired. I fell asleep on the couch in Brattleboro, and I think I was snoring and drooling. It only slightly helped the headache, so I was done when I got home.

Today I acquired a new toy tool sewing machine needle felting machine. I guess it is a tool. I am going to go play with it some more now, and I think using it daily will be the theme for March.

That was weird. I wrote that yesterday, and lj ate it and regurgitated it today, when I was all set to start again.

Monday exercise: 7 stalls, water buckets, horses in from the field
Monday horse: Queenie/Kaboose up the road and back with Bob
fabric: fail

I talked Bob into a short ride this morning. He took little Ruby, and I rode the red mare. I am working on mounting without a block because we have been spending a fair amount of time out in the woods on our own and I want to be able to get back on if we part company. Ruby was great, but my mount went stupid on the way home and was pirouetteing and going sideways and extremely springy in a not-controlled kind of way. So we made circles in the road. Facing away from home she was fine, and we'd work on keeping the fine as we faced the other way, and then circle in the other direction. I was glad the road was small, untravelled, and even unplowed for part of it. Fortunately Ruby behaved with aplomb during Kaboose's pyrotechnics. We finished well enough. I think she does better on her own, although Bob says she doesn't get ridden much out alone. Having to rely on me for courage and direction is helping  her have more faith in me.

Poor Alice is sick, and sleeping on the living room floor next to a bucket hoping she will not throw up. Aerin has finally almost shaken the nose thing she had last week, and we are all hoping the illnesses will hold off til after vacation.

We did see Coraline. I liked the look of it, and I didn't think they took too many liberties with the book. I was sorry they changed the end away from the "protective coloration" bit from the book, because I liked that a lot, and it made me laugh.

exercise: changing flat tire
horse: Kaboose down the road and through the woods - big fun
fabric: shouldn't get cocky - failed today.

I am glad the slow leak in the tire got fast in my driveway rather than, say, Brattleboro. I wish going to do one thing on the car didn't mean doing two other, more expensive things as well.

Great ride with Kaboose in the woods. I was calling her Queenie, which seemed to fit. She was admired by a gentleman celebrating his 80th birthday who told me about working with a pair of Percherons, and a smaller pair, kind of like Kaboose. She liked him, and played pretty pony. I found some itchy spots on her face and withers, and was pleased I could make her relax with pleasure.

I rather wish the anti-bonk measures did not seem to conflict with the ongoing effort to scrape some excess pounds off.

exercise: minimal - barn was done, no Y... and I have to said I'd run in a 5K race with my sister-in-law on mother's day. I think some training is in order.
horses: Kaboose, down the road and back, maybe 2 miles? tiny amount of trotting, Ruby around in the pasture and wading through the snow to make new paths
fabric: done

Maybe Kaboose should be called Red Queen instead - I think she really needs renaming. She was great - on her tippy-toes, but forward and interested both outbound and heading home. It felt odd to have a saddle on her, but seemed like the thing to do at the time. In spite of horrifying things making noises at her and water running across the road, and the companion dog chasing cats under her nose and leaping out of the underbrush at her, we managed some stretching and compressing the frame at the walk, some leg yields and shoulds in down the road, and some slow slow trotting back up the hill. She is shedding, not the great-fistfuls part yet but the hair-coated-glove every time you pat her part definitely. It occurred to me that she doesn't make faces of pleasure when I am grooming her - no itchy places that I can reach, no tickly bits, nothing that makes her lower lip go slack with pleasure.

Ruby and I just bashed around the pasture trying to make some new paths, and trotting and walking with less effort from me. Ruby really gets the clicker, and is almost ready to do something more than touch. The other two are really all about the peppermints, which means, I think, that I have to do some of the politeness training with them next, to keep from getting mugged.

I thought I was cleaning Lani's barn, but it was done. So I had Aerin and a friend of hers who is horse crazy, and we brought in horses, and avoided the stud colt's teeth, and then went and brought in the geezer horses at the barn next door. They were easy - open the gate and in they go. The girls were amazed, they said it was like synchronized horses, both turning, each into his own stall at exactly the same moment.

The last thing I did was drag my sorry self out to the high school to join a handful of parents for a lawn chair drill team. We couldn't find enough of the old fashioned lawn chairs, just the modern ones that fold four ways, and some that were REALLY HEAVY. So we looked around and decided to use music stands instead. So we are the music stand drill team, and we have almost figured out what to do.

I won one of those deeply joyful moments yesterday. I realized in the middle of my lesson that I was really deeply happy with everything, from the pony and the lack of saddle to my teacher and the blowing snow to (even) my fogged glasses and dripping nose. It is easy, usually, for me to be joyful when the weather is nice. It is relatively easy to go out and ride when it is not snowing or raining or outrageously cold. But when I brave the elements and things go even a little bit well, it feels transcendent.

Al says I have a good grip on my sport.

in other news -

exercise: none
horses: none
fabric: rather!  here - have yesterday's too

why is there no religion based on sex?

exercise: seven stalls, 12 bales of hay and (mumble) waterbuckets
horses: only from the ground
fabric: oh very yes

I spent a very productive couple hours getting the pieces ready to go for the next months daily bit. I love the picture I made, and I laughed when I had to color it because there were too many horse feet and I wasn't going to be able to tell whose was who's if I didn't have some additional clues to go on.

Started my first official day as Lani's pixie. Somehow getting the stalls cleaned and horses in is much easier than getting horses out and stalls cleaned. It is still a steady 2 hours of effort. I was hot enough, and the weather warm enough, that I drove home with the windows down, which was fun, and made me think about spring. Of course, this is New England: we still have mud season and black fly season before we can anticipate green things from the ground! Plus we always get our best snow storms in Feb. plus one on April Fools.

So if some puckish horse fairy with a magic wand and a sense of humor whapped you on the head and turned you into a horse, what would you look like? What do you wish you would look like? And finally; how close is that first self image to what you are currently riding?

horse: check
exercise: minimal
fabric: check

I sense a theme.

I did ride. The red mare was a little high from a week off, but walking and trotting solidly and with interest. We even cantered a little. Cantering is bugging me because she pins her ears back and makes horrible faces and it feels unsteady and unhappy in ways I can't quite analyze because I am working on being in the center of her and not falling off and not yanking on her and bendbendbend. There were standards with poles on the ground, so we invented tiny courses, stepping over the poles and bending and turning and finding the next fence. She cares about it, I think, I also think she worries a little. I don't think she's had much schooling over fences. We could maybe try that.

After tons of walk and steady trotting and everything we headed out to the outdoor ring to cool out. She walked along with her head waay down, pushing her nose along in the snow and (I think) eating it, or licking at it. The only other footprints in the ring were ours from a week and a half ago - these people simply don't go outside in winter - I don't know how they can stand it. Part way around the second time, she just folded up under me and rolled. I was laughing so hard at her I couldn't grump - she's been wearing a blanket since she's been at the boarding stable, and I think it itches. She is starting to shed out under it, and she was unusually happy about being scratched during grooming. Rolling with a blanket on must be terribly unsatisfying.

I think she might have slipped on the ice and banged herself up some. She was certainly tiptoeing across the plate ice in the driveway today, and looking carefully at the footing. Interesting watching horses think.