Government shutdown scuttles annual fall pony roundup on Eastern Shore of Virginia

YOU BASTARDS.

I’ll be home re-reading my copy of Misty, if anyone needs me.

That moment when you realize that night check missed your note to take your horse’s cooler off…and he wore it all night…and there is a massive manure stain down the shoulder of the cooler you just washed two days ago.

I love where I live.

Not much new to report. Tris is in full work and slowly adding building blocks. Last ride we had a lovely bit of trot, coming up through his withers and forward and steady in contact. I also made the tiniest of breakthroughs in the canter, and if nothing else all the cantering about asking him to please for the love of God soften a bit is upping his fitness level.

Trainer leaves for Florida in 3 weeks so I am all of a sudden cramming to get a few more lessons in. Winter lessons will be a bit easier as there are several other very good trainers at the barn but I want to take advantage of R. while I’ve got her and get some more things to work on through the winter.

We did a long hack with a possible new barn buddy over the weekend, and Tris was clearly happy to be out with another horse and yet utterly chill in the face of the other horse’s carrying on. Love him.

Winter is coming: his summer coat shedding is slowing down and poof, I can almost sink my hand into his fuzz. I washed the cooler and it’ll be back in rotation for those days it’s just a bit too hot to evaporate heat quickly yet too cold to just toss him back in a stall. Luckily he’s never been a horse to run hot – I’ve never had to clip him over the winter, even in full work. I’d like to stick to that if possible. It has been below freezing several times overnight, especially at the barn (higher elevation than my house) and it snowed atop Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the state.

Yesterday. I began my morning seeing old friends and watching XC at GMHA, the perfect start to a crisp fall day.

“A Girl and Her Horse,” Carbon Leaf

You lean forward to go
You pull back to go slow
These are the horse basics you should know

It’s no use to wait
A girl and her horse will never separate
You were done before the gun at the starting gate

And away she rides
To the great unknown
You can wave goodbye
You can spend some time on your own
And wonder why

Sometimes we find we fall far behind on the course
Some things are best left between a girl and her horse

There’s no words to say
A girl and her horse can communicate
‘Cause notion is motion and nothing’s up for debate

And away she rides
To the great beyond
You can wave goodbye
To a girl and her horse
With a bond you can’t deny

Sometimes we find we fall far behind on the course
Some things are best left between a girl and her horse

No time to write much but: vet cleared Tristan’s left front after ultra sounding and he has a spiffy new set of shoes and a close trim in back. He goes back into work tomorrow. WHEW.

I’ve said for some time that Tristan would be a really terrific little kids’ pony someday. Yesterday, I was able to test that theory.

Friends came to visit and stay for a few days with their two year old. On their last visit, we introduced B to Tristan, and he did a little bit of petting and dropped a peppermint in his bucket. I gave him a small Schleich horse that he promptly named Tristan (or, more accurately, “T-Man”). Since then it’s become one of his favorite toys and when he visited his grandparents in Amish country a few weeks ago he very excitedly pointed to horses in the fields and informed his grandparents that his Auntie Amanda had a neigh-neigh too, and he would get to pet and ride it when he visited.

So we went to the barn, and B helped to groom him a little bit, and then I put a bridle on and sat on him bareback for a few minutes while B watched. Then B’s mom got on and sat on Tristan at the mounting block, and then we put B up in front of her. I had Tris take a few steps at a time (“step up” is one of the best vocal commands I ever taught him) and then we were off at the walk. B’s parents stood on either side holding his hands, but eventually we transitioned to B holding the reins and a bit of Tris’s mane and I taught him to say “walk” and “whoa” and to ask for left and right. All told, maybe about 10 minutes but he grinned and giggled the whole time. Victory!

I could not possibly have been more thrilled with Tristan. He stood stock-still at the mounting block, flicking his ears back and forth and paying verrrrrrry careful attention to what was going on. He was obviously deeply concerned about the new little person on his back – not in a frustrated or upset sense; he placed every foot sooooo carefully, and was clearly analyzing every balance shift B made to try and help him out. I’ve noticed this tendency before when my boyfriend has ridden him. Some horses react to inexperienced riders with frustration; Tristan tends to get very concerned and go even more slowly and carefully. He is the absolute best horse I ever could have asked for. I’m so, so proud of him.

Maybe, someday, when I have my farm and my life is a little further along, my own kids will learn to ride on him, too.

Hannah tagged me for the Liebster Award that’s going around, so here you have it. 11 random facts about me, followed by 11 questions.

1. I have had colic surgery. No, really. A few years ago I wasn’t feeling great and went to bed early, then woke up with excruciating abdominal pain, then went to the emergency room, then went in for exploratory surgery when they couldn’t figure out what was wrong from the tests, and when I woke up they told me that an abdominal adhesion, a bit of scar tissue, had wrapped around and tied off my intestines. Which is basically exactly what happens in a torsion colic.

2. I once held Bruce Davidson on course. True story. Read all about it. I was quaking in my boots. (No reason to, he was perfectly nice, but the guy has a statue at the Kentucky Horse Park, for crying out loud.)

3. I used to live in a nunnery in France. I’m not even a little bit Catholic, but that was the housing my college arranged for the three of us who chose to live in the random provincial French city instead of Paris. It was awesome, except maybe for the bells for the 7am mass every day.

4. Speaking of France, I also rode for a year at the equestrian center there and I’m fairly certain the French system of equitation is basically the Thunderdome. If you live, you are a damn good rider. We would routinely have 20 horses in two circles in their large indoor, doing these insane lessons, WTC. Picture the worst warmup ring you’ve ever been to and now imagine riding in that every day.

5. I am a third generation Star Trek fan. My grandfather owned a set of collectible original series Franklin Mint plates and displayed them on the den wall and now they are a legit family heirloom that I hope to inherit someday. There is at least a 1 in 2 chance I was named after Spock’s mother. (The other option being the Doberman my mother’s family showed when she was a child.)

6. I studied medieval military history in college, and wrote my undergraduate thesis on the crossbow. I had so much fun doing it. My advisor – with whom I am still close and see a few times a year for dinner or coffee – still talks about it at dinner parties.

7. I am NOT a cat person. I am such a curmudgeon as to push the barn cat off my lap when he settles there while I’m watching a lesson. (And yet, I live with one. Sigh.)

8. I have gout. Yes, the same thing that fat old man villains in eighteenth century novels get. My body does not process uric acid effectively, and so it builds up in my joints instead and eventually causes pain. The incidence rate in pre-menopausal women is a fraction of a fraction of a percent, but it is also hereditary, and apparently I lost the genetic lottery.

9. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in history, and I actually use them! I’ve been lucky to piece together a career in museums and I’m very deeply involved in the field. I serve on national and regional committees, blog professionally, and a lot of my travel is museum-related.

10. I was on the board of the Save Farscape campaign. Yep. Insanely geeky and yet it taught me SO much about community, advocacy, and passion.

11. I have an almost paralyzing fear of driving on bridges over water. I break out into a cold sweat almost every time, especially if we’re high up or the water is wide.

Here are my questions:

1) Why did you choose your current horse sport or discipline?
Compromise; I wanted to focus on dressage after one too many falls on my head, and it turns out Tristan really likes to jump and run cross country, so we event.

2) What is your horse-related Big Goal, if any?
I’d like a small farm some day. My dream is to be able to retire Tristan to my own land.

3) Pick a horse-related thing about which you have changed your mind. Why?
Rope halters. When I first started Tristan, I liked them a lot and while I never bought one I always had plans to, and I would do ground work with him in them. Now I haaaaaaate them. It makes me twitch to see people tie with them, especially, because if a horse pulls back against them it’s awful. All those pressure points!

4) Favorite apocalypse?
The EMP kind – where all technology is obliterated at once. Probably not a coincidence that that’s the one I think I’d best be able to survive, what with all my living history/agricultural experience.

5) Horses and riding as social outlet: pro, con, or it’s complicated?
Complicated. Some of my best friends and my favorite people have come from barns, but my real reason for going to the barn is to see my horse. He’s my motivation, not a social scene – which is good, because right now 90% of the time I’m at the barn I’m alone!

6) What’s the oldest piece of tack you own?
I have this beautiful, wonderful dressage saddle from the 1940s. It was a gift from a friend who has since passed on, and she rode in it on her horses when she was my age. It’s caramel-colored and flat as a pancake. I’m fairly certain the tree is broken and in any case it would need a lot of work to be usable again, but I love to look at it.

7) Is the glass half-empty or half-full, with what?
Half-full, but it could turn half-empty in the blink of an eye, so you should be ready at any time! I am a prepping, have fifteen plans maniac. I drink almost exclusively water, so we’ll go with that as the liquid.

8) Time to colonize some other planet! It’s a one-way trip. Do you go?

The speed and intensity with which my horse hoovers up grass is a source of constant astonishment to me.