I have been Doing Things!
May. 12th, 2025 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThursday, after work, I decided on a not-exactly whim to locate and dig up my septic tank so that it could be pumped out. I planned for this to be a fairly substantial undertaking because I had no idea where the septic tank was. People are always surprised about this stuff. How can you NOT KNOW where your septic is? The answer is "Look, it was the seventies." Also, it's not like you get a manual when you buy a house. You get the house and after that, you're on your own. Everything is an adventure. So I set out into the yard and commenced to digging.
Okay, I didn't just GUESS or randomly sink a shovel. I made an effort to pick a reasonable spot, to wit, I peered at the direction of the sewer pipe as it left the house crawl space. And I picked a likely spot outside and not very far (about 2') from the house edge to dig an exploratory trench. Happily, I located the sewer pipe on the first exploratory trench. And then I moved like three feet away from the exploratory trench along the "probable direction of the septic" and dug another one. Located the septic pipe again. Moved three feet further away, dug another exploratory trench, etc.
Side note: if you are ever digging to locate a sewer or water line that you do not know the location of, if you can narrow it down a bit, then you dig trenches PERPENDICULAR to the probable location of the pipe. This will give you a better chance of locating the pipe per amount of digging. Digging parallel to the probable location of the pipe is a recipe for disaster because if you're off by like six inches, you will never see the pipe. But if your trenches are crossways to the pipe, you will probably locate the pipe even if your idea of where it "should" be is a little off.
As it turned out, Find And Excavate The Septic Tank was not a multi-day project. It took about an hour and a half of digging WITH A SHOVEL. Nice. I also, in full-on grownupping mode, texted my contact who has a septic guy she recommends (did the septic work for the lodge a couple of years ago) and got that number and called the following morning to make an appointment. Because I am not Having An Emergency Septic Issue but instead have dug up my septic to have it pumped for no particular reason besides "Wow, I should probably do that since I've been in the house for thirty years and haven't done it yet", I was kind of ... "call me when you're going to be in the area, some time in the next month or so". But still, I called the guy and set that up.
Friday, I took half a day off work to play horse with Bird up at instructor's. And that was surprisingly informative. Horse is pretty sound-ish these days, and getting better daily, so I hauled him up there on Friday morning for a ring-based outing in advance of the looming Schooling Show Of Horror, fast approaching on the the 17th.
Goals for the schooling show, just so that you can see where we are here in our useless journey of dressage:
1. Ride both tests more or less correctly without forgetting or omitting any of the directives.
2. Remember to breathe during the tests.
3. Do not cry or meltdown like an overtired toddler.
The tests themselves are Training 1 and Training 3, in which the most difficult things are circles and bendy lines. There is no lateral stuff. There are no extensions or collections. Circles and bendy lines in ordinary walk, trot, and canter. Like, we're not shooting for the moon, here. This is Rider will work on managing her emotions in a low-risk schooling show environment. The stretch goal for this outing is DO NOT CRY.
It was pouring rain on Friday morning so I had the opportunity, while driving the truck and trailer to instructors, to observe that the wiper blades on the diesel truck were shit. Nice. (I subsequently purchased new wiper blades and installed them myself on Saturday, also a Thing Done, go me!)
At instructor's, we were warming up in the rain when some sort of motorcycle-cade came by. This was apparently some sort of Nascar-adjacent effort, the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America. In case you are wondering, as I did, if Kyle Petty was in any way related to NASCAR legend Richard Petty, the answer is yes. Kyle is Richard's son.
There were a lot of motorcycles in the 'cade. A LOT. They started vrooming past about thirty seconds after I'd thrown a leg over my saddled-wet and somewhat... springy horse who was feeling good in the sixty degree wet. So that was fun. (It was not fun, but nobody died. Bird thought he could piaffe. He cannot piaffe.) I rode through both of the tests with some notes from instructor. The canter sections were complete shit. Like llama and bombing on the forehand and bucks in the departures and so forth. Advice from instructor: put stirrups up a hole, sit on your seatbones in canter and expect it. Stop tilting forward. ("You don't tilt forward on Lesson Horse, why do you do this with your horse?")
I tried that with some success in the ring and made notes to try harder to do it at home. In order to get more ring practice on this issue, I also texted N. to see if I could do an outing at her place over the weekend. We'd had pretty good luck with that last year, and happily N. was on board so we scheduled that for Sunday AM.
Instructor concluded with "This is a schooling show. Try not to take it too seriously." (Manage expectations. Yeah, I get it. We're going to die.)
On Saturday, I planted tomatoes and peppers and marigolds. I also fixed up the fence around same (because there have been burrowing efforts under the fence) by flatting and landscape-pinning chicken wire to the ground so that when anything goes to dig, their little footies will hurt. It's mow-overable and the grass will come up through the holes, so kind of stealth hostile architecture in my yard. I am hoping it works to discourage the excavators.
I also dug up one of the huge horseradish plants (I had two) because it was expanding excessively and I needed the room for more tomato plants. I rehomed the spare horseradish at Lala's house because I didn't want to murder it.
I mowed the grass for the first time this year, not a moment before it needed it. That was more of a project than expected because the mower fired up and would run for like ten seconds and then die. Repeatedly. So I took off the carburetor bowl (which I know how to do now, see here) and cleaned it up and put it back on. Boom. Fucking mower runs like a boss. So then I cut the grass. And I cut the grass at the playground, for an hour there.
I went to N's on Sunday to avail myself of her outdoor arena for "cantering in an enclosed space" practice. Bird isn't really convinced about the importance of cantering in an enclosed area. This has been an ongoing area of concern, but the advice from instructor on Friday helped a lot and things were... better. Not great, but better. And I can do the thing, kind of, in a low-stress place with only N. watching.
Happily, Bird has a decent downward out of canter to trot, as long as he's not flailing in canter. And there are a lot of downwards in these tests. But, he can do it nicely and it looks decent. N was like... "Ooh, those downwards are really nice, I wish Gracie's were more solid."
Gracie's downwards out of canter to trot are not quite as steady as Birb's best efforts. She definitely tends towards the head in the air llama drama, but I don't think the issue is one of strength or balance. Her canter is pretty legit and she's fairly balanced in it. I think the llama issue on Gracie's downwards transitions out of canter to trot are more due to... surprise. Like, if Gracie knows it is coming, better, she can 100% do a better job.
So I said to N, "Bird looks like he has a nice downward but there is a lot of prep involved before we do OK, trot on part. For me, it's kind of a closing of the knee? Sitting up-ish? To rebalance him, it's the ask before the ask, the hey, son, get ready part. And it's fairly subtle, so maybe you're not seeing me do it. But there are like four of those before the downward, to make sure he's paying attention and is in a good place and is ready. I'm pretty sure Gracie has a good enough canter to have a nice downward, and I think she's just... a bit surprised about the ask. Maybe try again but with more prepping?"
N. gave that a go, like three times, each one getting VISIBLY BETTER. Gracie totally has a nice enough canter to shift into a trot without llama drama if she has some idea it's coming. N was, "Okay, that's like three half halts, though." And I was "Yeah, it's a lot. Bird can do a good job if I help him out, but sometimes I forget what I'm doing or space out and then we have a shitshow. *sigh* So much shitshow."
It's supposed to rain every day this week except for Monday, but if we have a lighter-rain day I might try for another outing up at N's house. We shall see.
Okay, I didn't just GUESS or randomly sink a shovel. I made an effort to pick a reasonable spot, to wit, I peered at the direction of the sewer pipe as it left the house crawl space. And I picked a likely spot outside and not very far (about 2') from the house edge to dig an exploratory trench. Happily, I located the sewer pipe on the first exploratory trench. And then I moved like three feet away from the exploratory trench along the "probable direction of the septic" and dug another one. Located the septic pipe again. Moved three feet further away, dug another exploratory trench, etc.
Side note: if you are ever digging to locate a sewer or water line that you do not know the location of, if you can narrow it down a bit, then you dig trenches PERPENDICULAR to the probable location of the pipe. This will give you a better chance of locating the pipe per amount of digging. Digging parallel to the probable location of the pipe is a recipe for disaster because if you're off by like six inches, you will never see the pipe. But if your trenches are crossways to the pipe, you will probably locate the pipe even if your idea of where it "should" be is a little off.
As it turned out, Find And Excavate The Septic Tank was not a multi-day project. It took about an hour and a half of digging WITH A SHOVEL. Nice. I also, in full-on grownupping mode, texted my contact who has a septic guy she recommends (did the septic work for the lodge a couple of years ago) and got that number and called the following morning to make an appointment. Because I am not Having An Emergency Septic Issue but instead have dug up my septic to have it pumped for no particular reason besides "Wow, I should probably do that since I've been in the house for thirty years and haven't done it yet", I was kind of ... "call me when you're going to be in the area, some time in the next month or so". But still, I called the guy and set that up.
Friday, I took half a day off work to play horse with Bird up at instructor's. And that was surprisingly informative. Horse is pretty sound-ish these days, and getting better daily, so I hauled him up there on Friday morning for a ring-based outing in advance of the looming Schooling Show Of Horror, fast approaching on the the 17th.
Goals for the schooling show, just so that you can see where we are here in our useless journey of dressage:
1. Ride both tests more or less correctly without forgetting or omitting any of the directives.
2. Remember to breathe during the tests.
3. Do not cry or meltdown like an overtired toddler.
The tests themselves are Training 1 and Training 3, in which the most difficult things are circles and bendy lines. There is no lateral stuff. There are no extensions or collections. Circles and bendy lines in ordinary walk, trot, and canter. Like, we're not shooting for the moon, here. This is Rider will work on managing her emotions in a low-risk schooling show environment. The stretch goal for this outing is DO NOT CRY.
It was pouring rain on Friday morning so I had the opportunity, while driving the truck and trailer to instructors, to observe that the wiper blades on the diesel truck were shit. Nice. (I subsequently purchased new wiper blades and installed them myself on Saturday, also a Thing Done, go me!)
At instructor's, we were warming up in the rain when some sort of motorcycle-cade came by. This was apparently some sort of Nascar-adjacent effort, the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America. In case you are wondering, as I did, if Kyle Petty was in any way related to NASCAR legend Richard Petty, the answer is yes. Kyle is Richard's son.
There were a lot of motorcycles in the 'cade. A LOT. They started vrooming past about thirty seconds after I'd thrown a leg over my saddled-wet and somewhat... springy horse who was feeling good in the sixty degree wet. So that was fun. (It was not fun, but nobody died. Bird thought he could piaffe. He cannot piaffe.) I rode through both of the tests with some notes from instructor. The canter sections were complete shit. Like llama and bombing on the forehand and bucks in the departures and so forth. Advice from instructor: put stirrups up a hole, sit on your seatbones in canter and expect it. Stop tilting forward. ("You don't tilt forward on Lesson Horse, why do you do this with your horse?")
I tried that with some success in the ring and made notes to try harder to do it at home. In order to get more ring practice on this issue, I also texted N. to see if I could do an outing at her place over the weekend. We'd had pretty good luck with that last year, and happily N. was on board so we scheduled that for Sunday AM.
Instructor concluded with "This is a schooling show. Try not to take it too seriously." (Manage expectations. Yeah, I get it. We're going to die.)
On Saturday, I planted tomatoes and peppers and marigolds. I also fixed up the fence around same (because there have been burrowing efforts under the fence) by flatting and landscape-pinning chicken wire to the ground so that when anything goes to dig, their little footies will hurt. It's mow-overable and the grass will come up through the holes, so kind of stealth hostile architecture in my yard. I am hoping it works to discourage the excavators.
I also dug up one of the huge horseradish plants (I had two) because it was expanding excessively and I needed the room for more tomato plants. I rehomed the spare horseradish at Lala's house because I didn't want to murder it.
I mowed the grass for the first time this year, not a moment before it needed it. That was more of a project than expected because the mower fired up and would run for like ten seconds and then die. Repeatedly. So I took off the carburetor bowl (which I know how to do now, see here) and cleaned it up and put it back on. Boom. Fucking mower runs like a boss. So then I cut the grass. And I cut the grass at the playground, for an hour there.
I went to N's on Sunday to avail myself of her outdoor arena for "cantering in an enclosed space" practice. Bird isn't really convinced about the importance of cantering in an enclosed area. This has been an ongoing area of concern, but the advice from instructor on Friday helped a lot and things were... better. Not great, but better. And I can do the thing, kind of, in a low-stress place with only N. watching.
Happily, Bird has a decent downward out of canter to trot, as long as he's not flailing in canter. And there are a lot of downwards in these tests. But, he can do it nicely and it looks decent. N was like... "Ooh, those downwards are really nice, I wish Gracie's were more solid."
Gracie's downwards out of canter to trot are not quite as steady as Birb's best efforts. She definitely tends towards the head in the air llama drama, but I don't think the issue is one of strength or balance. Her canter is pretty legit and she's fairly balanced in it. I think the llama issue on Gracie's downwards transitions out of canter to trot are more due to... surprise. Like, if Gracie knows it is coming, better, she can 100% do a better job.
So I said to N, "Bird looks like he has a nice downward but there is a lot of prep involved before we do OK, trot on part. For me, it's kind of a closing of the knee? Sitting up-ish? To rebalance him, it's the ask before the ask, the hey, son, get ready part. And it's fairly subtle, so maybe you're not seeing me do it. But there are like four of those before the downward, to make sure he's paying attention and is in a good place and is ready. I'm pretty sure Gracie has a good enough canter to have a nice downward, and I think she's just... a bit surprised about the ask. Maybe try again but with more prepping?"
N. gave that a go, like three times, each one getting VISIBLY BETTER. Gracie totally has a nice enough canter to shift into a trot without llama drama if she has some idea it's coming. N was, "Okay, that's like three half halts, though." And I was "Yeah, it's a lot. Bird can do a good job if I help him out, but sometimes I forget what I'm doing or space out and then we have a shitshow. *sigh* So much shitshow."
It's supposed to rain every day this week except for Monday, but if we have a lighter-rain day I might try for another outing up at N's house. We shall see.
