The Ramblings of an Artistic Equestrian

Today I am grateful for:

My Sweetie had a bit of time to himself in the living room while I finished sleeping, before Dan arrived today (he wanted a later start).

They worked upstairs again, I presume doing more sanding?

Once again, my husband relayed to me that Dan admired the paint job I did up there, which I appreciate.

Also, at some point, my husband said that Dan was looking out the window and said he just plain liked our property, how clean and simple the yard and the layout of the pastures were, and so on.

That's nice too. The last couple of years our yard has looked "back to normal" after being a torn up, muddy and weedy place with piles of concrete and stuff torn out of the trailer that he was "salvaging" and just SHIT EVERYWHERE after tearing down the trailer and moving the house here, and it was a monumental battle for me (because my husband didn't really see it as a problem) to get it back to being a lovely, simple, tidy yard.

My husband probably has mostly forgotten how bad it was, how little he was doing to clean it up willingly, and how much yelling and screaming and actual physical labor I did to get it back to where it is.

How he resisted me hiring someone to haul away a monumental pile of concrete pilings that was the first thing you saw in our yard when you drove in, and how he resisted me hiring a guy to finish leveling a part of our yard that was torn and lumpy and coming back as weeds because I couldn't mow it.

How I was ready to burn down the seacan that my husband refused to get rid of (it was meant for temporary storage during the work on the house, but when that period was over, he started filling it with shit), so he finally sold it. For those who don't know, a seacan is the big compartment that things are shipped in, and are made to fit the trailers pulled by semi trucks. They are huge.

How every pile of crap became a fight, and how my husband balked at cleaning it up, throwing it away, or putting it out of sight behind the garage. How I never let up, and how my husband just dug in deeper and complained at how I "expected too much".

Yes, my husband has likely forgotten how awful things were, and how he resisted the idea that our yard should be clean and clear, instead of looking like a wrecker's yard or a recycling facility, or some kind of industrial site.

Yet all the time, my husband gazes out into our nice yard, and says, "what a nice place we have here". He's happy that his buddy Dan has noticed.

I look at yards a lot when we drive around, and they tell stories to me about people who likely lost the battle against a hoarder, or people who just gave up, or nice yards that to me could either be all the efforts of one fairly resentful spouse, or the joint work of a couple on the same page.

After I got up and ate, I did dishes while my Sweetie baked his banana bread. I changed the sheets and put them into the wash, and folded other clothes.

Then I put dog diapers in the wash.

I fixed a torn spot on a blanket of Wonder's, and took it outside to start washing it in a big tub.

A friend of my husband's came to borrow a bike. His wife is going to try it out for a while, and might buy it if she likes it.

He's a city kid, but seemed to accept the reality of manure and such.

I helped my Sweetie take the goat pen out of the garage and take the bedding and manure to the compost area while the friend stayed and chatted, because when our chores were done he and my husband were going to bike together.

I held my husband to his word that he would help me clean out the pony/goat water tub this weekend, and to help me by holding Sasha the goat so I could trim her hooves.

After that was all done, they headed off to go biking at the park down the road.

I decided to clean up the remaining shattered glass around the back door from the glass/screen door shattering earlier this year. I cleaned up what I could when it happened, but there was a lot of snow.

Now that the snow is gone, I could get most of the rest. I had to clean up all the wet leaves and such with it, so it turned into a bit larger job.

I'll never get it all, but I got most of it.

Then I went inside and made his dense salads for the week.

When all of that was done, and my husband was back, we had a snack and headed to the barn to see River.

His poor nose looked scabby, and the only thing I can think that might have caused it is that he got sunburned already. He has a pink nose, and I put sunscreen and zinc cream on it all summer, and I guess it's already enough sun to burn it, poor guy.

He did okay with our work, a little pokey but his breathing was okay. He's doing only okay with our "teacup" move, but much better with the turns with the garrocha.

After, I dug around in my tub I keep at the barn and found his cream, and slathered it on his nose. I hope that helps him feel better.

We came home, ate, chatted, and my Sweetie headed to bed.

Today I am grateful for:

Okay sleep.

Not having too much pressing things to do.

I did call my Sister E, who proceeded to vent about her issues for forty minutes and gave no space for me to talk.

She is pretty unhappy these days, with her husband's increasingly surly behavior. I know they are seeing a counselor, which is good, but I think there's something else she needs to consider.

He is an ill man. He has diabetes, which saps his energy and likely makes him have some pretty good mood swings. I know it wouldn't be easy to just forgive him for being hard to live with, but he's not doing well.

Her specific issue today was him blowing up over their taxes; specifically that he was angry about how much they had to pay, and who knows, maybe feeling like he doesn't know if they have enough money?

My sister says he pays no attention to the bank balance, spends what he wants without caring, and has no idea how much they make, what their cost of living is, or anything.

She says she tries to tell him, but then he still seems upset when he sees what something costs (like their taxes).

She says she pretty much HAS to be the one now to do all of their financial things because he claims incompetence with computers or whatever (he still spends lots of time online), and she says she has done most of the responsible things in their partnership for a long time.

So, my thought, is to go ahead and do everything, because it has to be done by someone. He's either unwilling or unable (and not talking about it to her) to take care of these things.

I said she needs to go to the bank and set up things to make them as easy as possible. To automatically have money taken from each of their pension checks and put into an account for paying bills, and have the bills automatically paid from that account.

She needs to then maybe consider an actual book keeper, or just get bank statements, that show all of their expenses vs. their income, and any time he starts to fuss about money, just show him the numbers to take all of the feelings of confusion and emotion out of their disagreements.

I would consider giving each of them an "allowance" that they had to stick to, for anything not included in necessary bills and payments, as well as an emergency fund account that they pay into each month.

That way, if he wants to spend his money frivolously, he can go right ahead, until he spends his allowance, and she doesn't need to feel like she has to control his spending.

He probably won't agree to any of this, but I think she can do it without his permission.

I also think it's time she gave some serious thought to the fact that he really isn't doing well, may be having some early dementia, and she's going to have to look at her options for caring for him soon, and for taking over everything financially.

He won't see a doctor about the dementia, but she could talk to his doctor and the doctor could try to convince him to take it.

Anyhow, we didn't really get to all of this, and I think we need to have a long, serious talk.

We've actually had these conversations before, and she didn't do anything then. So I imagine she won't do anything now, and we'll have these conversations some more, until the shit really hits the fan and there's a crisis.

So there you go. Nice to type it all out for myself.

I went to the barn to see River, who was surprisingly clean today. He was a bit pokey and not very willing for some of our work, but at the end seemed a bit sharper.

He's getting old too, and I have to remind myself that he isn't as perky as most horses anyhow.

The woman with health issues came, and L came to work with a horse too, so it was fairly social.

It's interesting that literally overnight, L has taken on a lot of work with her Mom (R), and it all ties in with R's work. L is living at home, and is stepping into R's shoes doing dog grooming, dog obedience classes, and so on to earn money. It's a little weird, in that L could just become her Mom without ever really becoming herself if she's not careful.

L is going away for college in January, and I think that will be an interesting time.

Another glorious warm day, and things are drying up now, in such a short time.

I came home and my Sweetie came home shortly after from the climbing gym. I cooked, and we watched "The Bikeriders", which was interesting enough. It's based on a documentary about the subculture of bikers in the early years.

It's strange to think of the "first bikers".

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep. I didn't even sleep "late" for me, it just felt like I slept soundly.

In no great hurry, I did animal care and such, and then headed to the "other" town where our mail box is located.

I did get the mail, and paid the one bill that was in it.

I stuck my head into the little thrift store near the post office, but nothing beckoned.

Then I got some quinoa from the little Nutter's store.

Then I went to the Sally Ann, and I'm noticing that more often, I see something that fits what I usually buy, but if I already own similar things (like nice cotton summer pants), I am more ready to refrain. Especially if I have LOTS of something similar.

I did find a few DVDs, and an interesting jumpsuit that I hope looks okay (no change rooms anymore at the Sally Ann), a scarf, and a little freshwater pearl pendant.

On my way out of town, a big truck went RIPPING past me in a "50" zone. Not a LITTLE fast, just roaring through. I was happy to see it get pulled over almost immediately. That area has schools, and there are always tons of kids and people on bikes or folks walking dogs.

My Sweetie was just pulling in when I got home, and in spite of my back really acting up today, we walked around the horse pasture with Roxy as well as Dandy and Wonder. The walking loosened it up as long as I was moving, but it tightens up again if I sit.

Sigh.

It feels a lot like what it was like the last time, the time that prompted me to go to the physiotherapist.

I did stop doing the exercises because they were making my hips hurt.

Sigh.

So, do the exercises to help my back, but accept the sore hips?

I did some work with Dandy to get him to come with me at liberty, though it took him a while to figure out that he would have a lot less work to do if he just walked beside me.

Pony zoomies are pretty cute though.

He did eventually do pretty well with just walking with us. One way or the other, he really needs the exercise.

He is pretty chunky, and cutting back on their food isn't changing his figure a lot yet.

It was so warm today, around 22 C, and sunny, and things are starting to dry out, after having a foot of snow only last week.

It was really good to be able to walk around the pasture for an hour. Good for all of us.

Then we came in and my Sweetie made supper and we chatted before he headed to bed.

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

The world just feels better when you at least have enough sleep.

I did some of the many little but hardly noticeable but lord help us if it didn't get done jobs. Fed everyone, did Mount Dishes, filled the animal water tower, made quinoa for supper and chopped vegetables to knock a few minutes off of supper prep time.

I also scrubbed a filthy but still intact plastic tote, dried it out, and used it for off season sweater and weird undergarment storage (the things I don't use a lot, but don't want to toss).

I went through my underwear drawer, tossed some of the worn out ones, and identified less used garments for the tote.

I must have ten pairs of those bra pad inserts that I pulled out of sports bras because they keep wadding up in there (those "floating" pads that are useless"). I feel like there could be some use for them, but I don't know what. I've seen them re-used to make shoulder pads, but I don't really need those.

I watched a video about Grace Jones, and she is shockingly beautiful and striking. She's had such an unusual career, and such a unique look. Especially at a time where "pretty" was the main aesthetic.

I did outdoor chores, and then headed to the barn for our lesson today.

I really have done a lot to prepare for this freestyle. It sneaks up on you, but my husband found/made a long garrocha for us, and I bought a pattern for a cape, and found fabric (two trips for that) and then made the cape, sewing it by hand because I thought the machine would eat it. Then I used the software for music editing that I used for past freestyles to edit the music that I also spent ages searching for on YouTube to find just the right sound, got the edited version where I needed it to be, then spent ages figuring out how to get it onto my phone.

ASIDE from all the hours of gradually building up an idea of our choreography, learning how to actually use the garrocha and implementing our skills to do something interesting with it, chipping away at it, figuring out how to start, how to hold the garracha, which side I have to be on for this, where I have to start doing that, how to more or less end with the end of the music...

It's always an interesting process, and every year it's challenged me to come up with some new solutions to problems that didn't exist before. Like making a giant snake for Beetlejuice, and getting River used to dragging it, and then getting him used to the umbrella and spending the entire winter learning how to stand up on his back and swing my jacket around.

Then there's creating the props, like coming up with free standing "street lights".

I know it's been good for me mentally and physically to constantly give myself something to work towards, and to keep challenging myself and River.

It combats the winter dumps.

So today our lesson was mostly going through the whole freestyle from beginning to end, to see if it all works together. We did it once without music, and then once with the music.

It went really well all put together, and I even have a bit more time than I thought, so I can add a few elements that I didn't think I would have room for in the pattern.

River did very well today, and it was a lot of fun to finally be at this point.

Now we can work on smoothness and really getting the timing down.

R and I chatted, and then L came out and the three of us chatted.

We talked a bit about some of the other rider's ideas for freestyles (some fun stuff), and one of the riders is getting a new horse that will be boarded at the barn (exciting!), how her cats are doing (one of them seems to have something going on with...immune system stuff? It's having a lot of skin irritation that doesn't show as anything readily identifiable by the vet), and another rider who has had another rough stretch with her health (she is pretty much always ill, and is now dealing with Mono).

It was a gorgeous warm day, around 15 C and very sunny. Most of the snow is gone again, and it's nice to see some water in the marshes (though still low in the local lakes).

I came home and my Sweetie had supper ready, so we ate and chatted before he headed to bed.

Today I am grateful for:

More good sleep. So much dreaming!

Nothing too pressing today, so a low key start to the day.

It's warm enough that the snow is melting and the sun is out.

After chores and such, I went to the barn to see River.

My Sweetie met me at the barn, which is nice. We chatted with K for a while.

One of our topics was Phil Collins, who just keeps popping up in my consciousness lately.

I gave K the birthday card I got for L, who came out later to thank me for the card, which was nice.

River did okay with our work, but seemed tired and not very "on".

He was pretty muddy, so he was probably rolling in muck. His sheet was pretty gross.

I am pretty happy with how progress with the garrocha work is going. He's getting better at the turn towards the garrocha.

We came home and ate and chatted, and that was it before "bedtime". I tried stir fried kale, which is surprisingly good. I've been adding raw kale chopped to my husband's dense salads, but thought I would give this a try. It's a nice flavor.

It feels a bit nuts that he has to go to bed and it's full daylight. His job pays the bills and then some, but it's nuts.

Today I am grateful for:

Making it to the horse event, after a crappy start. My husband was supposed to wake me up, but got distracted by clearing snow and lost track of the time, so I actually woke up on my own with a start, realizing that we were running late.

In half an hour I fed all the indoor animals, made breakfast for myself and my Sweetie, threw on clothes, fed the outdoor animals, made a quinoa salad in case there was nothing I could eat, and away we went.

Of course the snow made the roads a bit sketchy, it took us longer to get there than we had planned, and there was a misunderstanding over which clinician I hoped to see, and when he was in the arena, so I spent the whole drive rigid with frustration, thinking we were going to be too late, when that was nearly the entire reason for me wanting to attend this event.

I didn't sleep last night. I rarely do when I know I have to get up for something. Then it makes the day a lot harder.

I had to make adjustments to all of the animal feeding times because we were leaving the house early.

Dan came today to work on the floor upstairs, so we got him to take Roxy outside a few times while he was here so she wouldn't be stuck in the porch all day.

Dan worked upstairs while we were gone, laying down the fir floor boards, and got ALMOST done, so he's coming back tomorrow to finish.

Anyhow, we did get there, as it happens we had time before the trainer I wanted to see was going to be "on", and it was okay. I just didn't need the jump scare start to the day and feeling like we were going to miss it.

The trainer in question is Warrick Schiller, and he is pretty magical. He worked with a horse who was very nervous in the arena and was almost dangerous to lead when she was upset. He is so in tune with horses that he almost didn't seem to be doing anything besides occasionally drawing her attention to him until she felt safe with him.

He is the kind of person who has done a lot more digging into himself and spiritual work, therapy, and a lot of stuff that is pretty fringe, but the key message is keeping an open mind and seeing what works.

I got to meet him at his booth later, but his books were sold out. I more or less just wanted to thank him for coming to Canada, and just to have the experience of seeing him up close in person.

I know you aren't supposed to meet your heroes, and all that, but he genuinely seems like that kind of wise, kind person that is very open.

He also did an interview later, which was just nice to listen to, even though he says a lot of the same kinds of things on his podcast and on YouTube.

I looked around at the vendors, but didn't feel like I needed anything. We got to see the stallions (places like this often have horses at stud, and let you meet the horse in question). There were some lovely, gentle looking fellows there. I fell in love with a big, white Shire horse with lots of feathers on his feet and the kindest face. Shires aren't often white (or more accurately, he was likely grey).

We ate a burrito before we headed home, and overall (except for the stressful start) it was a nice day out.

I'm so glad we got to see Warrick, it would have pretty much gutted me had we missed him from our own incompetence.

Then we came home (the amount of snow in our yard is astonishing), ate again, and chatted before my Sweetie went to bed, though after I did chores we talked some more.

Edit, the trainer's name is Warwick Schiller, he just pronounces it as "Warrick" so it doesn't sound like it is spelled.