June 2011

June 24, 2011: To Recap from June 2010, and BRILLIANT NEWS!!!!

You know it's brilliant news when I take four exclamation marks to express it. I never, ever, ever, ever do double exclamation marks. Triple exclamation marks are an unforgivable sin; quadruple exclamation marks are unheard-of. Well, this news is so brilliant that I can barely restrain myself to four exclamation marks.
I may canter with Skye again! Hurrah! I am delighted, of course, to be able to canter with her again, it's SO much fun; but more than that I am delighted that she's healthy enough to be ridden and treated like a healthy horse. YIPPEE!! Thank You, my Lord! Thank you, parents! Thank you, vet and mutterer! Thank you, Skye!

You'd swear these were lazy days, really, judging by Siobhan...

... but they're pretty much as far from lazy as they come. We've been busy here. I made an exceedingly brainless mistake, even for me, and managed to be completely unable to tie up Kevin's saddle's girth properly, which meant Siobhan and I were back to Kevin's other saddle (where he gets all these saddles, and the nerve to lend them to Siobhan and I, I don't know). It didn't go badly, though; I bit the bullet and cantered a few times and there was not a buck in sight; I'm left to conclude that she was in heat and suffering from hormones, poor thing. I'm now trying to teach her to neck-rein but I still have to wrap my head around it myself.

Considering that just one year ago, Siobhan was still rearing up on people, biting, kicking, impossible to lunge, and generally a pain to be around, we've come a long way. She's quite a pleasure to work with now; not a rear in sight for absolute ages (okay, apart from the time that she flipped over and threw me off, which I try not to remember), Kevin can do her feet without me hanging on to her head, she hasn't kicked for months, she never bites [humans], and I don't know about lunging, but now I'm riding her and most of the time she doesn't buck. She's gone on outrides three times with Arwen; she'll reliably plod around the arena at a walk, will trot around the arena without stopping most of the time, will trot in a figure of eight, and will canter for the length of their paddock without bucking about 75% of the time. She still has her Mustang Moments when she goes ballistic, bucks like a bronco and tries to shoot off, but I can reliably bring her to a halt and her fits usually don't last long. She is surpisingly steady on the outrides with relatively little shying and spooking, though she gets frustrated easily. Her concentration span has been more or less doubled and she can really focus for longer periods now. Her intelligence is still vast and, at times, annoying; she can open one of the gates out of her paddock, luckily there are two and she stays inside. She stands still to be saddled, takes the bit and bridle willingly, holds her head low for the bridle to be taken off, and has good manners in hand. She's easy to stop and not as lazy as she once was - she knows what my legs mean, but at the canter she still doesn't want to go around the arena. The saddle is still a major issue, but we can fix it. I'm suitably impressed with the crazy filly; she's almost three years old now and has learned sooo much in the past year.

Skye is getting along famously; she picked up quite a lot of weight while we were on holiday (more on that later) and is now in what I deem an acceptable condition, though still a little bit skinny. She is happy and looks healthy, with a soft shiny coat, pink gums, and a happy lively attitude toward life. I've been riding her every day since we got back (barring today, which was her planned day off), just walking and a bit of trotting, and she is starting to act her age, that is a mature and steady horse and not a mad rocketing-about filly. (It was fun while it lasted but I'm quite relieved to have my gentle, obedient mare back again.) I think this is likely to change when I take her out to the Shuddering Woods tomorrow, though. Rain took a picture of Skye and I trying to be Anky von Grunsven (hope I spelt that right) and Salinero, bareback in a windy little arena in the middle of nowhere:

I like where her head is! And guess what, she's not hanging on my hands, it just takes a little bit of playing on the reins to get her there, and she stays there. I'm very impressed. It probably looks better with a saddle, since I appear to be sitting on her shoulders in this picture. Hmm, I need to work on that...

Arwen is being okay, she finally brings her head in more consistently at a trot, I rode her out yesterday and she was crazy, flighty, and scared of everything as usual but only did one spinny act and no major spooks. She was looking at everything very nervously, though, and prancing and chewing her bit, but we'll get there eventually. She's just very hard on my hands when we ride out - actually she's very hard on my hands, period. She also doesn't know how to do an extended trot, for some reason. We also jumped a little "course", three jumps each less than 40cm high arranged in a rough circle, at a trot. Not a massive achievement but I was impressed because she went over them well and got the hang of looking for the next jump. Then we jumped two small jumps 7m apart and what do you know, she put in two canter strides in between and jumped them both in wonderful rhythm. Yay!

As you can see Arwen was Looking at Things all the time on the outride. There was a Terrifying Smell, she protested, trying to rear and prancing in a circle. The smell of a Terrible Monster, she wailed. This happened about ten times during the ride.

I lunged Achilles in the bale camp for the first time; without the poles to guide him he was actually very good and went around in a nice circle, making it bigger and smaller as I asked him to. Good stuff. I was pleased.

Thunder and Dancer are also doing well; they've both walked around their paddock, the mares staying at the top and eating hay, with only one or two naughty moments, and both have trotted nicely in hand, and both have very nice manners when they're being groomed though Thunder doesn't like his tail being brushed. They don't kick anymore, though Thunder had a Little Moment when a flock of guinea fowl flew up and spooked him; he reared up to his full height and flung his forelegs at the sky. He got one foreleg hooked around the lead rein so when he came down I held him there on three legs, smacked him and told him in no uncertain terms that he was a very naughty boy. He was suitably repentant and behaved himself for the rest of the session. All he wanted to do was play today, while I was working Dancer; eventually, having achieved a nice session with her, I turned her loose and they had a ball, galloping about and rearing and biting and having lots of fun. I tried to take pictures but Thunder is always trying to poke his nose into the camera/cellphone.

On Wednesday there was something fascinating in the distance, which made for some nicely posing horses and some nice pictures. Cyclone also sparks an array of pricked ears and photo-friendly expressions.

Okay, I'll stop now, I know the pictures make it slow. Anyway, I printed out the first draft of Sparrowhawk, all two hundred slushy pages of it, and now I'm sitting with a big black pen and making notes. I think it will be much improved when I'm done with the second draft. I also wrote the first draft of a short story I intend for the Fantasy Review Short Story Contest and the unnamed W. I. P., the one about the humble prince, the arrogant groom, and the magic horses, is progressing in leaps and bounds.

Oh, and the new group of Frieslands, group 18 (the Ps) came yesterday. They look fantastic. Poor group 17 isn't doing as well as it could; there are some skinny little beasts in there, and we don't know why. They're being given lots of food and TLC now, and the worst of them are in a nice snug shelter right under our noses. Six of the big heifers went home yesterday, too, including Mom's favourite, Arabesque (seen on the How to Take Care of Heifers Page), much to Mom's dismay.

Nine o' clock and all's well!

June 10, 2011: You've Got to be Kidding Me!

First, this:

Yes, that is frost, not snow!

And then, this:

Yes, that is a whopping great puddle of RAINWATER! Aaarghhh! Cold I can stand, wet I can stand, cold and wet, I detest. Well, one thing is pretty much certain: If any midges still survive, they are Supermidges and can stay as a reward for their amazing toughness, unless they carry AHS, because then they can be as Supermidge as they want, they MUST DIE. I'm just hoping that none of the horses catch a cold, as one morning at 5:30 AM it was ice cold and bucketing rain and poor Skye was shivering dreadfully. Her immune system must have taken a knock after the AHS so I'm worried [again].

The frost was beautiful while it lasted, though. For a few, brief, silver hours the world was transformed into a winter wonderland of ice and white. The sky was a translucent, fragile blue; it was like being inside a gemstone. All warm, living things left the momentary ghosts of their breath behind in little clouds of curling steam. Winter is beautiful.

Skye seems fine though, and I rode her yesterday. I'm just allowed to walk and trot a teensy bit but if Skye had had her way we would have constantly galloped. She's very full of beans. The first two times I rode her last week, she bucked and leapt all over the place and generally behaved like a two-year-old on its first outride but I couldn't have been happier; it's plain that she is feeling great. Yesterday there was no bucking but she pranced the whole time, arched her neck, and when I didn't let her gallop she performed a quite beautiful piaffe out of sheer excitement. She was fantastic. I'm over the moon with joy. Thank You, God.

With all the rain the foals have been having lots of fun. Rain means puddles and puddles mean mud. Back in the blissful summer when Thunder was about four or five months old, he was petrified of water, so for half an hour we focused solely on one lesson: Puddles are Fun. Indeed they are; now every time Thun sees a puddle he jumps in it and starts pawing like mad. It was quite annoying at the crack of dawn to splashed all over by a madly happy colt. Puddles, he announced gleefully, pawing up sheets of water, are indeed Fun. In the end I think he must have rolled in the puddle because at lunchtime he looked like this:

... that is to say, utterly filthy.

Furthermore I had a horrible stuffy cold and spent too much time in bed to have many adventures, but on Sunday I rode Siobhanny in Kevin's nice saddle. I swim in it, but it sticks to Siobhan's back like a blackjack and even though she gave one colossal buck, the saddle stayed in the same place and so did I. I was delighted.

Nune and Rascal both had bullcalves.

I appreciate that it's not the best picture in the world but this is Nune and her son Nicholas.

And this is a far nicer picture of Rascal, her son Rakker, and Mom.

Now I've gotta run. Oh, except I had a breakthrough with my WIP and it is now booming along and I can see pretty much exactly what's going to happen for the next three or four chapters and I more or less know what's basically going to happen to the very end of the story. Poor old WIP still doesn't have a title. Oh dearie me.

Now I've really gotta run!