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May. 22nd, 2005 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI had a busy weekend. Many things I did.
I rewatched The Movie with my younger brother Joe, who came out to visit. It was somewhat better the second time around because I spent less time cringing over the dialogue. Joe was pleased to discover that the evil Count Dooku was also Saruman the White and Luckman Skull from Serial, a factoid he hadn't previously known. (Apparently nobody on the planet but my family has seen the eminently quotable but uniformly horrible film Serial. You folks are missing out. It's dreadful. It's dreadfully bad. Give it a rental.)
I made shortcake for strawberries. That came out well. I made shortcake from scratch, unaware that there exists a shortcake recipe on the Bisquick box. Joe enlightened me on that front, so perhaps I'll have to give the bisquick recipe a go one of these days.
Joe left me alone with both of his children for a while and I'm pleased to report that neither one died or suffered grevious injury at my hands. We also managed not to set the house on fire, so I judged that a complete success. I did let Gwen eat sand, which apparently wasn't a good thing, but she didn't seem too upset about it.
I changed a diaper and drank actual cream soda, both firsts for me. (The cream soda came about because it has long been my favorite flavor of DumDum lollipops and Joe asked if I'd ever had the actual beverage. I allowed as how I hadn't, so he bought me one on the way to The Movie.) I wiped up a lot of drool (the Gwendolyn is an absolute drool factory) and some spit-up.
I watched a bunch of cartoon black crows who spoke like persons of color from the deep south. This shocked me a bit -- it has been a long time since I've watched Dumbo and I didn't remember the racist crow portion of the movie from back then.
I also built a sand castle and refined my mastery of the dribble decoration technique. Said sand castle is pictured here with Bad Dinosaur heading into the water in the background. I realize that a casual observer might THINK that's a small boy in the picture, possibly one named Duncan Ulysses, but no matter what it looks like, that's actually Bad Dinosaur. (Good thing I'm here to help you with these little details.) Seriously. He said, "I'm Bad Dinosaur!" It wasn't like he said it once or twice. He said it about fifty times. As this was obviously important, I'm passing it along. Duncan has a Bad Dinosaur toy which I believe is a T. Rex or perhaps an Allosaur or possibly some other damn extinct reptile thing what stands upright and has big back legs and a big tail and little front legs and great big honking teeth. Regardless of the opinions of experts as to the likely behavior patterns of Bad Dinosaur, the boy is firmly convinced that Bad Dinosaur goes "roawr!" a lot and knocks over trees and sand castles. Water is also involved. Bad Dinosaur comes out of the water to wreak havoc upon the land. I gotta admit, I kept wanting to hum along... Up from the depths, thirty stories high... but my brother Joe assures me that Duncan is not particularly up to speed on the whole Godzilla thing. Maybe it's some kind of racial memory.)
I also, after Joe and the kids left to go home, worked with Cass and Chelsea on reverse. Cass is the small blond child we've seen previously in horse pictures. She also goes by Bubba. I thought Bubbas were supposed to be older and hairier and male and equipped with a permanent wad of Red Man in one cheek or the other. You got me why there's a fifty pound, eight-year-old blond sprite answering to Bubba. 'S not my kid. Chelsea is an older grey mare that Cass is showing in 4-H this year.
Now, Cass hasn't ridden Chelsea much because she's been riding Cocktail, a little red and white pinto pony who's pretty much a plug, dead to the world. Cocktail is reasonably broke to ride, but she doesn't know anything beyond start, speed up, slow down, stop, and turn. (She's ridden by kids under ten -- a tolerance for being yanked around by uneducated hands and a laid-back, kindly disposition with a long fuse are more important for that job than decent lateral skills or lightness on the bit.) Cass likes Cocktail, but Cocktail cannot teach Cass anything about being a better rider. Cocktail is what Cass can ride now and she doesn't have anything more to give Cass at this point. There also isn't anything that Cass can teach Cocktail because she doesn't have the theory, skill, or patience just yet to teach a pluggish little pony who tunes out minor cues from her rider. Cass is not going to be able to spot tiny little tries from an uneducated horse and Cocktail is the sort of dead weight that Cass would have to pick on rather a lot to get a decent try out of. Having Cass try to teach Cocktail would not be very rewarding for either of them.
However, as this afternoon's exercise showed, Cass CAN spot fairly decent tries from an honest, clueful horse who is learning to listen to not-very-good cues from a little mite of a kid with short legs and unskilled hands. Chelsea will listen to Cass as long as Cass shows proper riderly behavior. She will also teach Cass to be more effective with her cues and releases and I believe she will do it without either of them getting killed. If Cass spends time on Chelsea, Cass will become a better rider. She will develop some patience and some ability to look for the try because Chelsea actually knows how to do all the stuff that Cass will be asking her for... she just isn't sure she has to do it for Cass. (In the past, when she's had a small kid on her, all Chelsea has had to do is truck along behind the lead horse, keeping up and not letting the kid fall off. She's not used to having to actually listen to anything under about eighty pounds. This doesn't mean she WON'T -- she is an honest, reasonably kind horse -- but she's going to need to get the hang of it.) Also unlike Cocktail, Chelsea does not have infinite patience and will not tolerate very much yanking from an inconsiderate or impatient rider and this is also a skill Cass needs to learn. Chelsea, more than any coaching I can provide, will take Cass to the next level, to the level of looking for her horse's try, releasing instantly, asking gently and patiently, and remembering not to yank. And that, folks, is why Cass is riding Chelsea this year for 4-H instead of Cocktail.
The reason we worked on reverse is that today Cass told me that Chelsea would not back up for her at the preliminary show yesterday. And I said "Well, maybe she doesn't know how to back up. [This was a flat out lie on my part.] Let's see if we can teach her..." and I went into how to cue for it and how to look for the smallest shift of the horse's weight backward and how very important it was to release the reins to fully slack instantly and so forth. I covered the way to ask for a back up and what to do when Chelsea backed up and what to do if she DID NOT back up and then I had Cass explain it back to me again, how to start and carry on and what to do if she DID or DID NOT back up and then she tried it. She got a couple of weight shifts and then a single step, seven or eight times, and then two very good steps back several times in a row. (There were breaks between each ask, and petting of the horse and so forth. This took about forty minutes.) And that was our day. We will try again tomorrow. Cass thinks we are teaching Chelsea how to back up and, sooth, we are doing the right sort of things to teach Chelsea to back up, if she didn't already know how to do it which she does. I didn't correct Cass, but I wanted to.
Damn it, I am not exactly lying. We are teaching Chelsea to back up for Cass. Why do I feel twinges of guilt, here?
I rewatched The Movie with my younger brother Joe, who came out to visit. It was somewhat better the second time around because I spent less time cringing over the dialogue. Joe was pleased to discover that the evil Count Dooku was also Saruman the White and Luckman Skull from Serial, a factoid he hadn't previously known. (Apparently nobody on the planet but my family has seen the eminently quotable but uniformly horrible film Serial. You folks are missing out. It's dreadful. It's dreadfully bad. Give it a rental.)
I made shortcake for strawberries. That came out well. I made shortcake from scratch, unaware that there exists a shortcake recipe on the Bisquick box. Joe enlightened me on that front, so perhaps I'll have to give the bisquick recipe a go one of these days.
Joe left me alone with both of his children for a while and I'm pleased to report that neither one died or suffered grevious injury at my hands. We also managed not to set the house on fire, so I judged that a complete success. I did let Gwen eat sand, which apparently wasn't a good thing, but she didn't seem too upset about it.
I changed a diaper and drank actual cream soda, both firsts for me. (The cream soda came about because it has long been my favorite flavor of DumDum lollipops and Joe asked if I'd ever had the actual beverage. I allowed as how I hadn't, so he bought me one on the way to The Movie.) I wiped up a lot of drool (the Gwendolyn is an absolute drool factory) and some spit-up.
I watched a bunch of cartoon black crows who spoke like persons of color from the deep south. This shocked me a bit -- it has been a long time since I've watched Dumbo and I didn't remember the racist crow portion of the movie from back then.
I also built a sand castle and refined my mastery of the dribble decoration technique. Said sand castle is pictured here with Bad Dinosaur heading into the water in the background. I realize that a casual observer might THINK that's a small boy in the picture, possibly one named Duncan Ulysses, but no matter what it looks like, that's actually Bad Dinosaur. (Good thing I'm here to help you with these little details.) Seriously. He said, "I'm Bad Dinosaur!" It wasn't like he said it once or twice. He said it about fifty times. As this was obviously important, I'm passing it along. Duncan has a Bad Dinosaur toy which I believe is a T. Rex or perhaps an Allosaur or possibly some other damn extinct reptile thing what stands upright and has big back legs and a big tail and little front legs and great big honking teeth. Regardless of the opinions of experts as to the likely behavior patterns of Bad Dinosaur, the boy is firmly convinced that Bad Dinosaur goes "roawr!" a lot and knocks over trees and sand castles. Water is also involved. Bad Dinosaur comes out of the water to wreak havoc upon the land. I gotta admit, I kept wanting to hum along... Up from the depths, thirty stories high... but my brother Joe assures me that Duncan is not particularly up to speed on the whole Godzilla thing. Maybe it's some kind of racial memory.)
I also, after Joe and the kids left to go home, worked with Cass and Chelsea on reverse. Cass is the small blond child we've seen previously in horse pictures. She also goes by Bubba. I thought Bubbas were supposed to be older and hairier and male and equipped with a permanent wad of Red Man in one cheek or the other. You got me why there's a fifty pound, eight-year-old blond sprite answering to Bubba. 'S not my kid. Chelsea is an older grey mare that Cass is showing in 4-H this year.
Now, Cass hasn't ridden Chelsea much because she's been riding Cocktail, a little red and white pinto pony who's pretty much a plug, dead to the world. Cocktail is reasonably broke to ride, but she doesn't know anything beyond start, speed up, slow down, stop, and turn. (She's ridden by kids under ten -- a tolerance for being yanked around by uneducated hands and a laid-back, kindly disposition with a long fuse are more important for that job than decent lateral skills or lightness on the bit.) Cass likes Cocktail, but Cocktail cannot teach Cass anything about being a better rider. Cocktail is what Cass can ride now and she doesn't have anything more to give Cass at this point. There also isn't anything that Cass can teach Cocktail because she doesn't have the theory, skill, or patience just yet to teach a pluggish little pony who tunes out minor cues from her rider. Cass is not going to be able to spot tiny little tries from an uneducated horse and Cocktail is the sort of dead weight that Cass would have to pick on rather a lot to get a decent try out of. Having Cass try to teach Cocktail would not be very rewarding for either of them.
However, as this afternoon's exercise showed, Cass CAN spot fairly decent tries from an honest, clueful horse who is learning to listen to not-very-good cues from a little mite of a kid with short legs and unskilled hands. Chelsea will listen to Cass as long as Cass shows proper riderly behavior. She will also teach Cass to be more effective with her cues and releases and I believe she will do it without either of them getting killed. If Cass spends time on Chelsea, Cass will become a better rider. She will develop some patience and some ability to look for the try because Chelsea actually knows how to do all the stuff that Cass will be asking her for... she just isn't sure she has to do it for Cass. (In the past, when she's had a small kid on her, all Chelsea has had to do is truck along behind the lead horse, keeping up and not letting the kid fall off. She's not used to having to actually listen to anything under about eighty pounds. This doesn't mean she WON'T -- she is an honest, reasonably kind horse -- but she's going to need to get the hang of it.) Also unlike Cocktail, Chelsea does not have infinite patience and will not tolerate very much yanking from an inconsiderate or impatient rider and this is also a skill Cass needs to learn. Chelsea, more than any coaching I can provide, will take Cass to the next level, to the level of looking for her horse's try, releasing instantly, asking gently and patiently, and remembering not to yank. And that, folks, is why Cass is riding Chelsea this year for 4-H instead of Cocktail.
The reason we worked on reverse is that today Cass told me that Chelsea would not back up for her at the preliminary show yesterday. And I said "Well, maybe she doesn't know how to back up. [This was a flat out lie on my part.] Let's see if we can teach her..." and I went into how to cue for it and how to look for the smallest shift of the horse's weight backward and how very important it was to release the reins to fully slack instantly and so forth. I covered the way to ask for a back up and what to do when Chelsea backed up and what to do if she DID NOT back up and then I had Cass explain it back to me again, how to start and carry on and what to do if she DID or DID NOT back up and then she tried it. She got a couple of weight shifts and then a single step, seven or eight times, and then two very good steps back several times in a row. (There were breaks between each ask, and petting of the horse and so forth. This took about forty minutes.) And that was our day. We will try again tomorrow. Cass thinks we are teaching Chelsea how to back up and, sooth, we are doing the right sort of things to teach Chelsea to back up, if she didn't already know how to do it which she does. I didn't correct Cass, but I wanted to.
Damn it, I am not exactly lying. We are teaching Chelsea to back up for Cass. Why do I feel twinges of guilt, here?
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 04:50 am (UTC)Probably saved the kid quite a bit of frustration. If she knew the horse was being a bit cocky and ignoring her cue, she might have lost interest in wanting to work with Chelsea.
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Date: 2005-05-23 11:01 am (UTC)With Cocktail, it didn't matter. Cocktail was inured to anything but yelling anyway. Cocktail's JOB is to be a relatively nonreactive beater pony for little kids who can't ride.
Hrm. Analogy? Cocktail is an ungeared bike with training wheels, like a kid might have for a first bike. Chelsea is a geared touring bike with hand brakes... not an impossibly slender ten-speed thing, but something mid-range and kind of sturdy. You could take it somewhat off-road if you wanted, but it'd also do ya a respectable job on paved bike paths.
Cass doesn't particularly *want* to work with Chelsea. She *wants* to ride Cocktail. Cocktail is familiar and easy. Cass doesn't have to learn to be a better rider for Cocktail and Cocktail would never do anything to surprise Cass.
I guess that'd be great if we just wanted the kid to not-get-hurt. But we want the kid to gain skill sets, to grow as a rider, to problem-solve and to understand how to teach a horse. The reason we want these things for Cass is that, in another three or four years, the kid is going to get her own three-year-old pony to break to ride. There will be advice and supervision and such, but the bulk of the work will be done by Cass as an eleven or twelve year old kid.
Right now, we're NOT pitching the Chelsea thing as "Cass, you have to be a better rider to get anything out of Chelsea." We're pitching it as "Let's see if we can teach Chelsea how to..." This is not particularly honest, but Cass finds it very motivating and she actually does what I tell her to do instead of blowing me off and yanking on the pony. When Cass listens to me, Chelsea listens to her and thus we build the skills she will need for the long haul as well as fixing the short-term issue of getting along better with Chelsea.
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Date: 2005-05-23 10:50 pm (UTC)