I'm Depressed Lately

Obviously I haven't been blogging much lately, and it's for too many reasons to list. Short version of the past nine months: going grad school in epidemiology, trying to decide between vet school/med school/doctorate program, & Royal is now semi-retired.
I made the decision to retire The Fuzz from recognized competition after Otter Creek HT. Long story short we came in last after middling dressage, one rail in stadium, two refusals & a heaping helping of time penalties on x-c. It didn't help that I was going through a combination of panic attack & meltdown that weekend, so I wasn't at top form mentally. I really tried to get us around x-c with no refusals, but we had a stop at the up bank & a very simple brick-and-blue jump. So, that was surprising. Royal loves up banks, started doing them before I even thought about eventing him. He's never hesitated at an up bank before, so the whole thing caught me off guard. But the other reason I've decided to retire him from recognized competition is his lungs. Since he normally lives outside 24/7, he's not used to the dust from a stable. And the barn I bought him from used sawdust instead of shavings as bedding. He lived there for 3 or 4 years, so all those years of breathing sawdust anytime he moved seems to have affected him in his old age. He coughs whenever the weather changes, especially when it gets really cold. He never seems to be distressed by it, just coughs a couple times & goes back to whatever he was doing, but he coughed constantly at OC, to the point of me nearly scratching him. Luckily he coughed himself out, but it was still worrying. Even more so when the cough stuck around for a couple days after we got back & he was not longer in the stable. Of course, he's 19 now, and I think his age is starting to catch up with him. But now I'm definitely reluctant to stall him for any non-emergency reasons. Obviously I can't know for sure that his breathing problems played a role in our OC weekend, but I can't help but think they may have. And it's a sucker punch to the gut to know that you might done something to cause your horse discomfort. So, I'm not willing to risk it. No overnight shows for us anymore.

If were in Area I or II, we'd have a plethora of one-day HTs where we could show out of the trailer. But those simply don't exist in Area IV, and the last non-stabling HT, my beloved Steepleview, is no more. OC and Roebke's Run both require stabling on show grounds, and everywhere else is too far to go in one day. So, that's it. We're out of options. We can still do a few schooling shows next summer, but I'm not very focused on those either. At this point, I'm too busy with the quarter-life-semi-crisis of WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE?! to focus on shows and such. But still, it's sort of depressing to no longer have that in my life for the time being. I used to love planning out the summer with shows and outings, and it's just not going to be the same without a Big Show goal at the end of it.

The other reason I'm depressed can be summed up in one handy-dandy graphic:

The competition world, while admittedly never really having horse welfare at the forefront of it, seems to be ignoring horse abuse more than usual lately, and it's rather pissing me off. People suing the USEF because they got caught drugging their horses, people getting pissed because they got eliminated for spurring their horses hard enough to draw blood, and this shit:

That's eventer Meredith Little, and that is blood on the mouthpiece of her DOUBLE TWISTED WIRE GAG BIT IN THE MOUTH OF HER HORSE WHICH IS STRAPPED SHUT WITH TWO CHAINS! God damn, that is a horrible bridle and I am stunned at this absolute lack of compassion towards her horses. Absolutely stunned and horrified. Incidentally, that was the first of two, TWO!, incidents where her horses were bleeding from their mouths and competition official did both 1. Jack and 2. Squat. I can't improve on the The $900 Facebook Pony's post of the subject ( http://the900facebookpony.com/2015/10/23/when-does-control-become-abuse/ ) but let me just say that this travesty goes beyond Ms. Little and her depraved indifference to inflicting injuries on her horses. At both these competitions, officials looked at her horses (plural!), who were BLEEDING FROM THEIR MOUTHS, went

and let her keep competing. That is a staggering display of lack of concern for horse welfare. Absolutely unbelievable. And those same people had the gonads to be offended when other competitors and spectators expressed concern over the fact that someone who made their horses bleed from the mouth on two separate occasions was not disciplined in any way. Let someone who injured their horse keep on trucking: meh. Express concern over aforementioned horse injuries: HOW DARE YOU!

In a world where almost everyone is carrying cameras at all times in their call phones, you'd think equine competitions would be very concerned about making sure the sport is absolutely squeaky clean with nothing that could be sent to the press or PETA showing blatant horse abuse, but you'd be very wrong. When you stand by while bleeding horses go undefended, you have no moral high ground and no standing to complain when someone poles their horses or puts shards of glass in their boots. You are no better than they are.

Can you tell I'm mad about this?

So, eventually I'm going to get another horse. Most likely an ex-racehorse or a retraining project. And I'm going to have to decide if I want to compete in recognized competitions or not. The fact that I'm even waffling about that saddens me. I love showing, especially eventing, but the thought of having my money and time go towards support organizations that actively aid and shield horse abusers is sickening. And the USEF has basically rolled over and licked the boots horse abusers because MONEY and MEDALS. Ms. Little can brutalize her horses around x-c courses and place well in shows, so she can pretty much do whatever she wants with impunity, it seems. It's common knowledge that pretty much all high level hunters are on drug regimens that would make Lance Armstrong do a double take, but their owners are rich, so nothing gets done. We can't implement true safety rules, like mandating a full medical evaluation after you crack your helmet falling off on x-c because then the pros may not be able to ride a dozen or more horses every other weekend. Hell, half the sessions at this years annual USEA convention centered around how to make sure the pros could make as much money as possible. Never mind that adult amateurs and juniors make up at least 80% of entries in any given recognized event (or any USEF recognized competition of any discipline, for that matter). Never mind that amateurs buy the horse gear that makes it possible for pro riders to get sponsorships. Never mind all the GMOs that would collapse if all the AAs and JRs took their money and time, and went home. Nope, AAs and JRs barely warrant a mention in the eyes of the USEF and all the sport specific orgs.

I did not renew my membership with USEA, but I did renew it with the Central States Dressage and Eventing Association. I'll still do a handful of local shows with Royal as long as he's still got fire in his feet and spring in his step, and I'll do that with my next horse when they're ready, but I'm not showing in anything that involves the USEF or USEA for the time being. They're going have to work really hard to get my support back.

Applefest

Fall in definitely here in Minnesota, what with the colorful leaves and crazy fluctuating weather. Royal and I have been laying low, and mostly just hanging out. I don't mind having lots of downtime; Royal not getting younger and I don't see any point pounding on his joints for no reason. It's also been too wet to do much of anything. All the rain in the spring and early summer meant that it never fully dried out, and the back pasture and creek flood every time it so much as sprinkles. So, that means lots of hanging out and walking on the road.

The horses are still happy to say hi. Witness what happens when they're in the Big Field.

And I went up to Bayfield for Applefest and got a big bag of apples, which makes Royal very happy.

So, not much to report here. Just meandering into fall and steeling myself for winter. Hopefully this year won't be as bad, but I'm still stocking up on glove warmers.

The Things We Ask Of Our Horses - And Ourselves

There's some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks, mostly since California Chrome lost the Belmont, and then a week later, two eventers were killed in competition on two separate continents. I've been thinking about what's fair to ask of our horses and ourselves, and how we define fair.

Note: I am drinking a kind of beer I've never had before. You have been warned.

***

Tradition. It's a word that I would like to greatly reduce the usage of. Of course, it has some benign contexts ("We have to get milkshakes! It's tradition!"), but often it becomes an excuse for pigheadness. We can't change the way we do things because that's the way we've done them, and we've always done them this way because no one's ever changed them. It's a cycle. So when ideas were floated about changing the Triple Crown, they were shot down. You can't change the Triple Crown, it'd diminish the accomplishment. Except the Triple Crown has changed, just as racing has. The track surfaces are different, the drug rules have changed, the tack has changed, veterinary medicine and farrier techniques have advanced in leaps and bounds, even the horses themselves have changed. So why would tweaking the schedule be that much more different? Some people raised the prospect of limiting the races to horses entered in all three with no fresh challengers, but I like the idea of stretching out the time between the races. Have the Derby on the first Saturday of May, the Preakness on the first Saturday in June, and the Belmont of the first Saturday in July. That way, fresh challengers become less of a problem, and three-year-olds don't have to go through the toughest five weeks in horse sport. Everybody wins.

It didn't diminish Secretariat's victory that he raced on a different track surface than Sir Barton. Does it matter that Affirmed was probably fed a very different diet than War Admiral? So, let's change it. Give the young'ins a rest. Winning 3 races back to back is already a remarkable feat, even if they are a month apart. I highly doubt the Triple Crown is ever going away, so let's help the horses out.

And let's help ourselves out. Eventing is also having a "come to Jesus" moment while trying desperately to pretend it's not. When two people die in different competitions on two continents, serious changes need to be made. But the powers that be will just keep twiddling their thumbs and create safety theater rules aimed at punishing the lower levels whilst ignoring that most of the serious accidents was taking place at the upper levels. A few rogues like Denny Emerson have made some suggestions that actually may be effective, like lowering the x-c speeds or limiting the amount of trappy combinations that can be on the courses, but that doesn't seem like it'll happen soon. Just convince people to buy more fancy helmets and vests designed to stop their necks from snapping when their horse falls on top of them.

We don't like looking at the system as a whole. We're so busy inspecting the veins on the leaves that we've neglected to notice that the forest is burning down around us. When people keep playing by the rules that were made when horses were expendable, horses pay the price. Royal is not my toy, he's my partner. And I'm not the exception. Horses are not living ATV's, they're dance partners, and the rules of our sports need to recognizes them as such. If a fence keeps causing problems, take it off the course. If people are throwing three-year-olds into an trial by fire that hoards victory like a starving man, change the rules. We don't have to be bound to tradition if it's not helping us.

Our horses deserve our best efforts.

Rain, Please To Be Going Away

Good news first: Royal and I got 3rd in the 2'6" jumpers at Carriage House! That makes a ribbon in every class. Veni, vidi, vici, sort of.

But, for the past two weeks, we have had a ridiculous amount of rain. There are rivers in the pastures where there really ought not be, and it's getting annoying. Yes, moisture is good for the crops, and hopefully we can have a good year for hay, but my rain boots are tapping on Death's door. Can we just have a week of nice sunny weather to let everything dry up, please?

But this is Minnesota. The weather is an uncaring beast, and we have to make do. Royal and I have had a quiet couple of weeks. He didn't seem any the worse for wear after Carriage House, and that was a hard day. We've had a few rides out and he lost his galloping privileges after he spooked at some puddles, but for the most part, he's managed to keep his feet on the ground most of the time.

We did have one one incident. The day after the horses got their hooves trimmed, Bandit decided to be an assbutt and lead the other horses on a merry journey back and forth across the Big Field while I was trying to get Royal. After galloping around like an idiot, he was all fired up, so we had to take a walk in order for him to calm down enough to eat his grain. Today we tried playing online in the Big Field, and it was... challenging, to say the least. Even in the high areas, there was standing water and knee-high grass everywhere. He was not a happy camper and we ended up having to move out to the road to get him to relax and stretch out.

An event that I was hoping to go to was postponed and cancelled due to flooding. The next event is in a couple of weeks, and like everything else, it's outdoors. This week is supposed to be rainy, but hopefully next week will be nice and we can get some practice in.

The rabbit who's taken to hanging around. She like to finish the crumbs of Royal's grain

Starting Fresh

Spring has made its way to Minnesota and it's been glorious. Today it was sunny and in the 70s, so I walked a mile and a half to my favorite tea place, just because I felt like it. Next week it may get a bit cold, but for now, soak it in.

I rode Royal for the first time in months on Sunday, and it was mostly good. I removed about 6 currycombs of hair beforehand, but there were still clumps of hair bouncing down the road after us like tumbleweeds. We made it down to the Sheep Of Death and I could see that he was starting to sweat, so we turned back. I had periodically been asking him to back up as a way of keeping his brain from wandering too far off, but some reason, about halfway back, I asked him to back up and he decided it. Was. Not. Happening. Started skittering sideways and flinging his head in the air. I was laughing and trying to get him to at least try to back up, when he planted his feet and reared. Not very high, but still went up.

Oh hell no.

I was off in a shot and asked him very strongly to back up and back up fast. He, of course, was still in "NO!" mode and kept trying to go sideways or barge forward. It took about a quarter of a mile before he stopped fighting and took a few step straight backwards. He was all sweaty and worked up, but he started yawning and sighing. I got back on and he backed up like a champ. So, I have no idea what all the fuss was about, but happily he seemed to be over it.

It was very nice to have this view again.

So he was having a bad hair day. I haven't unleashed the thinning shears yet.

We'll see what happens next time. Conniption fit or no, we got to get ready for show season.

Slowly Emerging On The Other Side

Still not dead yet, and trying to get back into the swing of blogging regularly again. Winter is doing its usual thing of having around like a most unwelcome guest and making everyone sick with cabin fever. We would like to be able to go outside without feeling like we're going to die, if that's not to much to ask. Please, and thank you.

Still, life continues apace. I'm still spending my days at Grown Up Job and spending a couple nights a week and weekends with Royal, trying to get us back up to speed. Mostly just through walking. Most winters I'm able to do stuff with Royal at least a couple of times a month to keep us in the swing of things, but not this year. The last time we really did anything was in December, so both of us are out of practice. He's in his usual mode of "What? There's dirt? And grass? Under the snow? Ya don't say." that he gets in every spring, so a lot of the walks have been about keeping him focused and sane. He's getting better, although our last walk had him spooking at the shed we've walked past hundreds of times. So, steps forward and backward, every time.

Despite the harsh winter, all the horses have maintained their weight nicely. They were going through hay like crazy (So happy we have the big hay nets!) but have come though to MudSeason looking pretty good.

Although the shedding process sometimes makes him look like he has a skin fungus.

So, not much to report on. Hopefully we'll finally be able to saddle up this weekend and continue prepping for the summer. Right now EHV-1 has made its way to our region and shows all over are being cancelled. The first show I have planned is Carriage House, which isn't until the end of May, but who knows. The Horse Expo is in 3 weeks, and they're on lockdown as far requiring all horses to have a clean bill of health prior to coming onto the grounds, but that's not a guarantee. A horse can be completely fine on Monday morning and near death on Tuesday night. If there's an outbreak at the Expo, all bets are off. I'm watching the news, and hoping nothing bad happens between now and then.

Still Not Dead Yet!

Take THAT, polar vortex!

Yes, I've dropped off the planets as far as online stuff is concerned, because I've been too busy with real life stuff. Real life stuff, which includes moving to my VERY OWN APARTMENT. It's full of cheap and free furniture, and I don't have a table and chairs or a TV yet, but it's mine!

Between searching for a new place, moving, and settling in (still not totally settled in yet), I haven't been able to do much with Royal. This ended up not being a bad thing, because it's been SO UNBELIEVABLY COLD! Seriously, where did I move, Siberia? People took it in two ways: the Tough It Out crowd

and the rest of us.

The horses weren't happy about it. There's only so much you can do without building a heated barn, but they had plenty of hay and shelter. So, considering there would only a day or two of reasonable temperatures in a row between arctic plunges, I basically have mentally written this whole winter off. I've ridden maybe twice since December, and most of my time with Royal consists of hanging out with him while he eat and trying to think warm thoughts.

But hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train and warmer days are ahead of us. In the meantime, I have some posts brewing about helmets, and the newest Tropes vs Women in Video Games. But for now, I'm tired and want to watch Doctor Who for a while.

Spring is coming. I can almost taste it.

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Sorry for the radio silence on my part. It's been a crazy month for me, mostly due to the fact that I got a New Grown-Up Job, which means I have been very busy and haven't a lot of time to do stuff with Royal. Plus I've sick the past couple of days, so my motivation to do anything is fairly low. But, I have some posts brewing about helmets, and the latest Tropes Vs. Women video, but they'll have to wait until I'm no longer under the influence of cough medicine.

Until then, here's one of my favorite Christmas tunes:

The Sunshine Award

Not much to report on with Royal lately. It's been cloudy and gloomy and raining for a while now, and I haven't had much motivation to do a lot with the Fuzz. We keep working at the Basic Alignment Exercise, which I've ramped up by asking him for after a canter-trot transition. He tends to get very frazzled after downward transitions, so I'm trying to help him keep calm. But, since we have no shows or anything to go to for a few months, I'm happy to let him get fat and fuzzy and let his mane grow like a bunch of weeds.

He's still adorable, though.

So, in lieu of any excitement, I've been nominated for the Sunshine Award by reading The Reeling, so let's try that.

1. Mares or Geldings? Either. Both can have their strengths and weaknesses, so whichever is the right horse at the right time.
2. English or Western? English. I don't mind hopping of western and messing around, but you will pry my tall boots and breeches from my cold dead hands.
3. Do you prefer “younger” or “older” horses? Younger, I guess. I like horses with lots of life left in them, and the ability to train them how I want. Royal was fairly young when I got him (6 turning 7), and that has allowed us to have many adventures together.
4. Have you trained a horse from ground zero? Yep, actually in Royal's case, I would say I started in the negatives. I think I'd much prefer ground zero next time.
5. Do you prefer riding or groundwork? Both. Both is good.
6. Do you board your horse or keep it at home? Board. 
7. Do you do all natural things or just commercial stuff?(in sense of products) Both, I guess. All of my grooming lotions and potions are all natural, but that's about it. I like science, and will always try to use the best stuff I can get.
8. All tacked up or bareback? Both! I haven't really ridden bareback in a while, but it is so fun.
9. Equestrian role model?  The Parellis, Karen Rohlf, Walter Zettl, Uta Graf, anyone who puts the horse first.
10. What’s your one, main goal, while being in the horses world? To have fun and learn as much as I can and be the best horse woman I can be.

So, now I tag anyone reading this. Yes, you! Write your own if you want, I'd love to read it. :)

Gaming While Feminist, Part 2

Part two of Tropes vs. Women In Video Games! Full transcript here.

I like how Anita shows the recurring patterns, like "In ____________, your wife is brutally murdered and you then have to rescue your daughter." Usually people will try to claim that it's just that one game, but these sorts of violent themes are pretty ubiquitous in video games. Which reminded me of an article I read a few years ago: 5 Reasons It's Still Not Cool To Admit You're A Gamer.

Favorite part:

But damn, we're about to hit the 40-year mark on video games as a form of mass media. Forty years after movies were invented (the late 1930s), Hollywood was making The Wizard of Oz--a movie that people are still renting and buying 70 years later (they even re-released it back into theaters in 1998 and it made about $20 million--there were people still willing to leave the house and buy a ticket to see it).

Will people still be playing Bioshock 70 years from now? Hell, hardly anybody is playing it now. Sometimes I pop it in and it makes me feel really smart for five minutes, then I spend the next hour firing a flame thrower at a giant mutant with drill hands.

 Gaming needs to evolve its storytelling mechanisms and ideas. People can only play so many shoot-em-up games before they become pretty much indistinguishable from each other. Pretty much every other form of media has a huge variety of types of stories (action, mystery, romance, etc.) that enjoy a wide audience. And no one insists that people who mainly watch film noir or romance movies aren't "real movie-goers", they way that some people who say casual gamers aren't "real gamers".

Even my beloved Nancy Drew games have used the Damsel in Distress a couple times. In The Final Scene, you have to rescue your friend who's being held hostage in a theatre that's about to be demolished and you have to rescue her before the building comes crashing down. And in Ransom of the Seven Ships, Bess has been kidnapped and you have to meet the kidnappers' demands in order to get her back. And, honestly, I don't really like either game. They just don't feel as engaging as the other games, and I really don't get into them as much as the other games. Especially in RAN, it seems like once they had the "OMG RESCUE THE VICTIM" plotline, the developers just stopped and didn't bother to flesh out the rest. It was a very confused game, and no one really seemed to like it. Since then, they've been a lot better about making the plots feel more complete and even though they used a sort-of DiD type of plot in the latest game, it still felt like a full Nancy Drew game, complete with deep philosophical musings about learning from vs. forgetting the past, mental health issues, and how we remember the dead. (I swear, there is at least one person on that team with extensive knowledge of philosophy/sociology/psychology/anthropology and I LOVE THEM for it. Seriously, whoever you (all) are, you are awesome. Keep it up.)

Video games have a great potential for exploring the deeper themes of human existence, since the medium is so active (I consider movies and books to be more passive, except for the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books). The first-person-shooter type games have their place, but hopefully deeper games will gain more traction and gain a bigger audience.

Keep it up Anita! Can't wait for Part 3!

Gaming While Feminist, Part 1

This video needs to be watched by everyone who ever has or will play a video game, or anyone who knows someone who has or will play a video game, and everyone they know.

Full transcript here. It's long video, but well worth your time.

I'm a unabashed, unashamed, in-your-face feminist. It is a major part of my identity and something I feel extremely strongly about. I am also a gamer, albeit a fairly casual one, and have been playing video game for a long time. For a while, one of my favorite possessions was a red Gameboy Color, and I played the crap out of Pokemon and Super Mario Bros. I also used to play Legend of Zelda once a year at the hotel in Little Amana, Iowa and got very good at the first two hours (you had to pay by the hour). Now my games consist of Angry Bird, horse games, and Nancy Drew on my PC. I don't own any special consoles (although now that I found out that Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is available on the Wii, that may change), nor do I spend vast amounts of time gaming. But I do consider myself both a casual gamer and a feminist.

In my experience, there are two types of games: level-up and storytelling. Level-ups are fairly straightforward: you increase your skills and try to keep moving up the levels until you beat the game. They're not necessarily easy (Angry Birds tends to frustrate me frequently), but they tend to be fairly simple. Storytelling games still have the level-up component, but there's another layer of "why". You're not leveling up for it's own sake, you're leveling up in order to find out the rest of the story, and the gameplay tends to be a bit more complex. Angry Birds and about half of my horse games fall into the leveling-up category. The other horse games and Nancy Drew fall into the storytelling category. Personally, I tend to prefer the storytelling games. I like being given a "why" beyond simply beating the top level. And so those are the games I end up playing the most.

The leveling-up games tend to be gender neutral. The horse games allow you to choose the gender of your character at the beginning of the game and I don't think the Angry Birds or Pigs have been assigned genders. So, not a lot of feminist influence. But the storytelling games I play tend to be feminist friendly. The main character is always a young woman, either trying save the family farm/horses or lead her school to victory, along with increase her and her horses' skills. There's almost always a love interest (which turns out VERY badly in one of the games. Good lesson on being careful in relationships), and in the end, our heroine leads her team to victory and/or saves the ranch/horses. Very positive role models. And Nancy Drew? Nancy kicks ass. She goes on all sorts of adventures, from a ranch in Arizona to a manor in England to a haunted inn in Japan. She always finds the culprit and brings them to justice, mostly using her wits and skills. And the games are always well-researched (the game that heavily involved horses impressed me quite a bit. All the horse related information was extremely accurate. Colic and founder information? Always check your cinch/girth before mounting up? Horses aren't machines, so don't ride them too hard? Pinch me, I must be dreaming). Nancy is also a great role model.

And we need more female role models in video games. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, with lots of people playing many different games on many different consoles. It's a HUGE industry that can appeal to a wide demographic which includes women. But it's so hard to find positive and strong female characters in games, and they're more the exception than the rule. And it shouldn't be that way. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 47% of gamers are female and women over 18 is the one of the fastest growing group of gamers. But many games seems to developed for and marketed at guys under 30, with any other group of people who may also be playing these games a mere afterthought. And if you try to point out that many video games contain bad stereotypes of women, some people freak out. The woman in the video, Anita Sarkeesian, became the target of horrifically vicious harassment and abuse when she simply created a Kickstarter to fund the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games project. It was astounding how cruel these people were. But in the end, she raised nearly $160,000 for the project (she started with a goal of $6,000) with nearly 7,000 backers. Obviously people want to this issue is important and want to discuss it. And I'm one of them.

I'll be following the series and posting the videos and transcripts as soon as I can. So far, this is the only video that's been released, but I'm very excited to see the rest. I'm very happy this project is going forward.

Notes From The Infirmary

I'd like to say the recent lack of posts was due to many awesome adventures in places that are not cold and being crushed beneath mounds of snow. But in reality, I've been sick with the flu and now the Cold From Hell.

It all started last Thursday, when I got the fevers and muscle aches. In some ways, it was good that I have no beau or paramour as I would have been all

Needless to say, I haven't done much with Royal lately. It's also been pretty cold lately, so that also puts a damper on any plans. But we had some nice rides, and lots of undemanding time.

Still, I will be very happy when I can breathe properly again.

Rejected. Again

What the rejection e-mail says:

What the rejectee reads:

Crap.

Happy 2013!

We made it! The world is still here (Take THAT, people-who-don't-understand-how-calanders-work-and-think-ancient-people-were-magic), and it's still winter. I survived the holiday craziness despite have the cold from hell, and would really like to please start doing stuff with my horse again if the weather can find it in its metaphorical heart to cooperate. I know this weekend is supposed to be nice, but if that could last for the rest of winter, that would be super fantastic.

Anyway, 2013! The odometer has kicked over and it's time to assess last years *New Year's Resolutions(tm)* and tentatively consider new ones.

For myself are:
-Cook at least 1 meal per week, something that involves mixing, or stirring, or grilling, or baking. I absolutely hate cooking and find it much easier to get something on the way home or stick something in the microwave, but I'll try some new stuff this year. Sorta-kinda successful. It went really well for a while, but after a string of failures in the spring (I may have succeeded in turning chicken into rubber), I kinda gave up for a while. I've been trying again, but I think I'll always be "cooking challenged." <sigh>
-Begin running in the spring/summer. I tried this last year and between the bizarre spring and horrid summer, never got the energy up for it. And I can't afford a gym membership or treadmill, so it's outside or nothing. Hopefully this year the weather cooperates. Complete failure. I tried, but the weather went absolutely insane again this year, and I was never able to go beyond a couple of days. I really want to run as a habit, but I just can't seem to get beyond the first week.

For me and Royal
-Compete in the Starter division at the spring Otter Creek Horse Trials, and finish with a score. Nope. Too close to finals, and was able to go to other local schooling shows instead. Not a complete failure.
-Compete in the Beginner Novice division at the Roebke's Run Horse Trials and at Steepleview Horse Trials, and finish both with a score. Fail on the former, complete and total success on the other! I didn't have the finances for Roebke's Run, but was able to get it together for Steepleview and we not only finished with a score, we brought home our very ribbon from a recognized HT!
-Take at least one cross-country jumping lesson. Sorta-kinda fail. We was able to do some xc schooling in Bayfield, but no one was yelling at me about my leg or hand positions. I would have loved to have gone to the Schooling Days, but it fell on the same weekend as the Tour Stop. So, maybe this year.
-Go trail riding more! Success! We forayed up and down the dirt road and to a local park, and even faced down the Sheep of Death more than once. I wasn't able to get to the park as much as I wanted, since extensive work on the bridge that runs through started mid-summer and didn't end until recently, but I want to get there more and trailer to the local state park a few times this year.
-Compete in at least 2 schooling shows. Success and then some! We made it four (Pipe Opener, Carriage House, schooling HT, and Hunt Cup). None ended in complete disaster and we had a good time at the PO, CH, and HC.
-Self-assess to Level 3 in On-Line, Freestyle, and Liberty and be well into Level 4 by the end of the year. Almost there. I would say we're solid L3 Online and Freestyle, and I'm not sure about Liberty. We keep progressing, but I've stopped putting level labels on them. We've just having fun.

So, a mixed bag. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I really wanted to make it to Otter Creek and Roebke's Run, and I'll do everything I can to make sure we get there this year. But what else do I want to do this year?

For me:
-Take up running. No, really. For real this time. I hope.
-Figure out how to use an "exotic" piece of cooking equipment. Crockpot/Slow Cooker? Panini Press? Wok? Who knows? I'll figure something out, even if it involves writing the names of various types of cooking equipment on slips of paper and throwing darts at them.
-Finish my crochet hat, start and finish the earband, and make something challenging, like socks or mittens.

For me and Royal:
-Go to Otter Creek's Spring HT in either the Starter or Beginner Novice division and finish with a score.
-Go to Roebke's Run Summer HT in the BN division and finish with a score.
-Go to Otter Creek's Summer HT in the BN division and finish with a score.
-Go to Steepleview's HT in the BN division and finish with a score.
-Keep road riding and trailer to the local state park at least four times
-Take a proper xc lesson
-Swim in Lake Superior again!

All in all, I hope I have a more successful year in 2013. I lost so many core institutions after May/June when I graduated from college and had to take an involuntary leave of absence from the job I'd held since I was sixteen (not due to anything I did; there's a majorly annoying and pointless contract dispute with a different group that means no one in my department is working now), and I felt lost and directionless for a while. Now my life is slowly getting on track again and I feel a lot better. I feel this could be a better year for me.

Speaking of which, long time readers may remember that I got rejected from vet school almost exactly a year ago. I did a file review and made most of the suggested improvements (at least the ones I could) over the summer/fall. Still, the applicant pool changes every year, and I'm so scared to get my hopes up. I'm somewhat embarrassed to report that my heart races every time I check my e-mail and there's a new message.

It's mostly spam/unimportant stuff, though. :/

I would like to stop freaking out about it. I worry about getting the big "R" letter again, although they do try to soften the blow.

Happy 2013 everyone!

Our Pens Have Turned Into Inksicles! Our Assets Are Frozen!

Water freezes. It's supposed to when conditions are right. Sometimes this causes problems, as the conditions are right but the situation is not.

Early this week, I noticed the water in the trough was low. No problem, I thought as I fetched the hose from the garage. This had been the home of the hose, as the garage is attached to the house. Ergo, the garage is kept at an above-freezing temperature and the water in the hose remains in liquid form. Not that cold and fateful day. Apparently, the temperature of the garage was just cold enough to create a hose-sicle, from which no water would flow. I tried using a hair dryer to warm up the hose, but to no avail. Eventually I gave up, and we decided to store the hose inside the house for a while to melt our hose-sicle, and I carted buckets of water to the trough. The hose-sicle was especially stubborn, and refused to thaw until the next morning.

That should have been the end of it. We should have been able to simply hook our former hose-sicle to the spigot and filled up the trough. But no. Now the spigot decided to become a spigot-sicle, despite my sister aiming the blow-dryer at it for a good five minutes.

Early afternoon, I decided to try to persuade the spigot-sicle to thaw. Armed with the hair dryer and warming ambient temperatures, I turned the handle of the spigot-sicle as far as it would go. Nothing. The hair dryer was turned to high, and I waited. After a little bit, water started to drip, and that drip turned turned into a trickle. I yelped with joy and bolted back into the house, grabbed the hose, and dragged it out to the spigot as fast as I could. I was pleased to discover that water was physically able to flow through the hose, and unraveled in the direction of the trough. I triumphantly watched it fill up.

The horse, however, had been watching the whole time, and all of the gave me a look that clearly said, "You humans are so weird." And went back to eating their hay.

Can winter be over now?

Winter Blechs

It's been a while since I've written about Royals' and my hijinks, but in the meantime, my hours at my jobs have sharply increased. It'll be good for my wallet (Hello Smart Pad/trailer repairs/2013 season!), but I've had a lot less time with Royal lately. And the weather has had more personalities than usual. While my attitude towards the summer heat was

My attitude towards the descent into winter is more

Wake me up when it's over.

Royal and I have had some good sessions, though. He was a star in our Contact session, taking the contact and even offering to canter. We've also continued playing with one-rein ground driving and the Weave pattern. But honestly, it's hard to accomplish much. I have to make sure he doesn't get too overheated and sweaty, otherwise it takes him forever to dry off. It may be a good idea for me invest in a nice fleece cooler, but right now my main strategy is to keep our sessions under 30 minutes and repetitively easy. I'm still trying to teach him new things, but right now the next steps in our progression involve the 45-foot line or bridleless riding, neither of which are very do-able in our circumstances. I'll do what I can, but I wish the weather would just pick a season and get it over with.  It may be a very quiet winter.

Royal And The Cows

Since Bayfield, I haven't had a lot of time to do stuff with Royal. I started a new job on Tuesday and had a last-minute eye doctor appointment complete with The Drops That Make The Light Hurt And Turn You Into A Vampire. But, we've still had some time to try new things and make some friends of the bovine variety.

The neighbors cows had lived behind the back pasture as long as Royal's been here, but they recently got moved to the pasture across the road. Royal wasn't exactly a fan of cows before, and having to stare them down as we walk down the small side street to get to the road is not his idea of a good time. I think he has a hard time figuring out what they are from a distance and it probably looks like a swirling mass or color.

Once he gets close to them, he seems to remember that they're the same cows he's lived next to since late May and doesn't seem too bothered, although still not exactly happy.

"Yeah, there's Bessy, and Daisy, and Betty. So? Can we go now?"

The other Big Thing is braiding! My arch-nemesis of show turnout. Last year I was able to cobble together a sort-of decent job at Steepleview, but this year I want to do better. But bands are just not doing the job, and yarn seems too complicated. A while back, I discovered Braiding Wire, which seemed to be a reasonable compromise. It arrived on Saturday, so I decided to give it a shot.

It turned out okay, better than I thought. I have a bit of a learning curve with holding the wire and the braids, and Royal's mane is way too long. It probably needs to be able 2 inches shorter and I'll have to double up with wires in the middle of the mane, but at this point, I like it. I was able to do more than 4 braids halfway decently and even the middle braids stayed relatively nice. I'll have to practicing (which I'm sure Royal will be thrilled about), but right now I'm a lot more hopeful than I was with the bands. I think this will work.

Quick Update

This last week was pretty quiet, apart from the Parelli Tour Stop last weekend (Which deserves its own post. Will blog about that later). Pedicures were on Wednesday after a rain storm. Royal was all traumatized because he was wet, but got settled down well. I told the farrier about his sensitivity, and he was a bit more conservative this time. We'll see how he does.

The next day, I took him (and my sister's young dog) for what turned out to be a strange walk. I wanted to see how he was on gravel and he wasn't too bad. A little reluctant to trot, but otherwise seemed okay. We walked down the side street, and all was quiet, until we heard gunshots coming from the south. They seemed distant, but loud. It's too early for hunting, so I have no idea where it came from. Then it was quiet again, until we heard trumpet music. Yeah, trumpet music, in the middle of the day, in a tiny little street in north central Minnesota. Weird. We were most confused. I thought we had accidentally stumbled onto the set of an absurdist movie and a panda in a top hat was going to walk out of the cornfield and offer us bananas.

"Bananas sound yummy."

Friday we went for a trail ride up the road. We passed the Sheep of Death easily enough, but they have back-up: Demon Llama! Demon Llama stayed in the back of the pasture, but we exchanged glances. We will meet again, I'm sure. We got a little further up the road, but Royal decided that was far enough. I'm guessing his feet were a bit tender, as he wanted to stay in the grass on the way back. It'll probably take a while for him to get more sole back, but he's doing pretty well.

Who Set The Themostat To "Texas"?

Well, not much has happened on the Royal front because it has been HOT. REALLY REALLY HOT. I start melting at about 90 degrees, and it's been well above that since last Wednesday. Royal, despite being a mix of two desert breeds, hasn't been enjoying it either. This has been his overall attitude for the last week.

Not a happy camper.

We've done a few things here and there. A little trail ride with my sister and Xena last Wednesday, which went really well. We had a short jumping session Friday evening, which didn't go quite as well. I just had some easy stuff set up (cross-rail, vertical, small double combination) and Royal started rushing. Quite a bit, although not as bad as he used to be. It used to have a real panicky feeling, like he thought the jumps were going to kill him. He wasn't that bad, but more like he was just really nervous about the whole thing and wanted to get it over with. I stopped when he popped over them like they were no big deal, but hopefully that was the last of the Rushing Relapse. We did another little trail-ride Saturday morning (95 at 10am. Oy.), and some On-Line sessions Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday was Jumping From A Walk in order to stop the Rushing Relapse, and it appeared to work. Or maybe that's because it was still around 100 degrees at 6:30 at night. We'll find out when (if) it cools down. Thursday was just some playing around with circling and sideways games, which also went fairly well. Everything's been a half-hour or less, since that's all we can really stand in the heat. This was the temperature as I drove to a job interview Monday night.

 

The heat wave was supposed to break last night, but it was still at least 100 with high humidity. Supposedly it'll cool down tomorrow. I really hope it does, since I've been itching for some galloping and road riding, and everyone will be much happier.

BJ

BJ went to a new home yesterday, with a new owner who promises to love and spoil him. It's for the best, but it's hard on the rest of us. Me, because I've been his primary decision maker in terms of vet and farrier care over the last seven years; and Royal, who's lived with BJ all that time. Apparently last night, he was very distressed without having BJ in his paddock, and wouldn't calm down until another horse was put in with him. He'll move on Saturday, but it'll be a confusing few days for him.

I kept thinking of a line from Black Beauty: "We don't get to choose the people in our lives. For us, it's all chance." We've tried to be Squire Gorden's to all our horse, using a kind hand instead of a harsh one, and making sure all their needs are met. Hopefully, BJ has found his Squire Gorden or Jerry or Joe, and I think he has.

Still, I'm going to miss the little guy.