Tuesday and still decent weather!
Mar. 19th, 2019 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickGot on the horse again today. Yesterday was a short ride because I was busy laying out a dressage practice area (made of cones and jump poles and jump standards and so forth) so that I can practice failing at dressage before it is time to fail at dressage on purpose in front of people. (This is that can-do attitude I am known for.) Bird, for his part, followed me around yesterday avoiding the survey tape. (For some idea of what's involved, a standard dressage size workspace is 20m by 60m, which for people not equipped with a METRIC survey tape (I am a US-ian in that portion of the country known as Greater Rednecklandia and here our survey tapes do not come in METRIC) is approximately 65' 6" by 196' 10".) He was NOT AMUSED about the survey tape or the dragging around of jump poles and standards. And he hates the cones. Life is rough, Bird.
Today we did hill marches (down into the holler past where the dead things go tippity tap tippity tap Pa-tap-sco, I am still sad that you are dead) which made me cry and then flat work that was not dressage patterns. Two-point at the walk and jog, two point (briefly, I am weak and my horse is unfit) in canter, marching walk, walk-halt-walk, more two-point in trot, better rising trot, rating in trot, about three walk-canter transitions to either side just to check that they still existed, that style of thing. My legs hurt, but the horse was only lightly warm when we got done, not sweated up. (He's still in winter coat, so workload needs to be measured against his warm-ness and against his fitness and so forth. Winter coat keeps me from overdoing in early spring. It's a good thing.)
The footing is getting quite workable up in our work area. Like, weather and horse-fitness permitting, there can be Canter Circuits of the trees. Probably we will just start with one, each way, with a big walk break in between. This year we're doing circuits of the near field, but that'll be later in the year, when horse is fitter and not covered in an inch of fur. The near field has a Downhill Component, which will FEEL LIKE this but is nowhere near LIKE THAT because the tractor doesn't fall over when it makes hay. The hayfield is totally safe for cantering around but, y'know, fear is the mind-killer.
Gonna work on that.
In other news I got a SECOND POSTCARD (!!) with trampoline chickens (they are delightful!) and also a LETTER FROM MORDECAI. As Mordecai doesn't have a personal life or a web presence, I am providing you with his letter so that we can all enjoy it.
It says "Jessica, do you know frogs drink through their skin?" And then there is a drawing. (Mordecai will be six in mid-April.) The drawing... looks like some quadrupedal thing (I would bet that it's a turtle, but we are not talking about turtles but I have SEEN his turtle drawings and it looks like one of his turtles) and several quite respectable tadpoles and at the bottom what I assume is a frog.
This is part of the Why literacy might be important to me project for Mordecai. I sent him a postal-mail letter inviting him to look for wood frog and spotted salamander eggs in vernal pools at the end of March. So, he wrote me this letter back. (He is VERY INTERESTED in frogs and salamanders and so forth. If he liked ponies, we would do ponies. He does not like ponies. He DOES like chickens and there may be a 4H chicken project in his future if he continues to like chickens. You have to be 8 for 4H, though, and right now there is not a lot of reading and writing that he needs to do for the chickens.)
I expect his mom helped him with the spelling but the printing is his and that is FOR SURE his artwork. Happily, I found a packet of colored pencils left behind by a tenant in my apartment. They're not super-fancy but they are sufficient for Writing An Educational Response. (All my letters are educational. The last letter invited him to come, explained that we would be looking in temporary ponds called VERNAL PONDS and mentioned that vernal ponds were a safe place for baby frogs and baby salamanders b/c there were no fish in them.) The Educational Response will thank him for that useful and fun fact about frogs plus also tell how to differentiate wood frog egg masses from spotted salamander egg masses. (Which, we hope, he will remember when he comes, so that he can tell the species apart.) It will be illustrated. I realize that all of this makes me sound like a huge fucking nerd, but wait until I tell you about the development of barbed wire in the Old West. That, for sure, will redeem me from any nerdiness in your collective eyes.
:)
Today we did hill marches (down into the holler past where the dead things go tippity tap tippity tap Pa-tap-sco, I am still sad that you are dead) which made me cry and then flat work that was not dressage patterns. Two-point at the walk and jog, two point (briefly, I am weak and my horse is unfit) in canter, marching walk, walk-halt-walk, more two-point in trot, better rising trot, rating in trot, about three walk-canter transitions to either side just to check that they still existed, that style of thing. My legs hurt, but the horse was only lightly warm when we got done, not sweated up. (He's still in winter coat, so workload needs to be measured against his warm-ness and against his fitness and so forth. Winter coat keeps me from overdoing in early spring. It's a good thing.)
The footing is getting quite workable up in our work area. Like, weather and horse-fitness permitting, there can be Canter Circuits of the trees. Probably we will just start with one, each way, with a big walk break in between. This year we're doing circuits of the near field, but that'll be later in the year, when horse is fitter and not covered in an inch of fur. The near field has a Downhill Component, which will FEEL LIKE this but is nowhere near LIKE THAT because the tractor doesn't fall over when it makes hay. The hayfield is totally safe for cantering around but, y'know, fear is the mind-killer.
Gonna work on that.
In other news I got a SECOND POSTCARD (!!) with trampoline chickens (they are delightful!) and also a LETTER FROM MORDECAI. As Mordecai doesn't have a personal life or a web presence, I am providing you with his letter so that we can all enjoy it.
It says "Jessica, do you know frogs drink through their skin?" And then there is a drawing. (Mordecai will be six in mid-April.) The drawing... looks like some quadrupedal thing (I would bet that it's a turtle, but we are not talking about turtles but I have SEEN his turtle drawings and it looks like one of his turtles) and several quite respectable tadpoles and at the bottom what I assume is a frog.
This is part of the Why literacy might be important to me project for Mordecai. I sent him a postal-mail letter inviting him to look for wood frog and spotted salamander eggs in vernal pools at the end of March. So, he wrote me this letter back. (He is VERY INTERESTED in frogs and salamanders and so forth. If he liked ponies, we would do ponies. He does not like ponies. He DOES like chickens and there may be a 4H chicken project in his future if he continues to like chickens. You have to be 8 for 4H, though, and right now there is not a lot of reading and writing that he needs to do for the chickens.)
I expect his mom helped him with the spelling but the printing is his and that is FOR SURE his artwork. Happily, I found a packet of colored pencils left behind by a tenant in my apartment. They're not super-fancy but they are sufficient for Writing An Educational Response. (All my letters are educational. The last letter invited him to come, explained that we would be looking in temporary ponds called VERNAL PONDS and mentioned that vernal ponds were a safe place for baby frogs and baby salamanders b/c there were no fish in them.) The Educational Response will thank him for that useful and fun fact about frogs plus also tell how to differentiate wood frog egg masses from spotted salamander egg masses. (Which, we hope, he will remember when he comes, so that he can tell the species apart.) It will be illustrated. I realize that all of this makes me sound like a huge fucking nerd, but wait until I tell you about the development of barbed wire in the Old West. That, for sure, will redeem me from any nerdiness in your collective eyes.
:)
no subject
Date: 2019-03-21 01:59 pm (UTC)I'm glad the postcard got there safe! (I just got back to Florida safely, and am so happy to be here, but will miss spending time with the kiddo.)
How did barbed wire develop in the Old West?
no subject
Date: 2019-03-21 04:51 pm (UTC)Early efforts were all over the map. One of my tenants has a very nice display with about 12" pieces of early barbed wires (1870's or whatever) in his apartment. I saw it the other day while I was there fixing a faucet drip and I allowed as how I had no idea there were so many kinds of the stuff. I am only familiar with modern agricultural barbed wire.
For some idea of what-all was going on, in early efforts towards barbed wire, the Wikipedia entry on Barbed Wire and the helpful illustrations provided by eBay are pretty useful. I have an informative book that my tenant has loaned me that I plan to read over the weekend and by then I should have even more exciting news about barbed wire to impart to others. :)
no subject
Date: 2019-03-21 06:03 pm (UTC)