A True Friend Will Clean Your Pony's Poopy Backside

It is winter and there has been something going around the barn.  This has been going on for a couple of months.  At first it was thought to be a change in the hay, but that has been ruled out.  The ponies would have a solid poop, but said poop was preceded and finished with liquid yuck!.  The liquid yuck would run down the inside of their legs and necessitated their poopy back sides be cleaned.  Before my life changed with my father's hospitalization, etc. I was cleaning my ponies poopy butt 5 days a week. 

I had an opportunity to ride a couple of days ago and it took my 15 minutes to clean the dark ponies nether regions.  I hadn't been at the barn in 10 days.  Between the rain, the need to blanket and the big Friesian tail, he was a disaster.   I can't be there to keep him clean right now.  So, I did the only thing reasonable - I asked my good friend and Pas De Deux partner if she would clean my ponies poopy butt syndrome.  She was already feeding him apples - I was hoping she would handle the other end as well.

And as a true friend would - she said yes. 

Yep, the measure of a true friend in the horse world is a friend that will clean your ponies poopy butt.

The Master's Level 1 Swatch #4

I'm coming to the conclusion that I will never pass Level 1 in the Master's.  Oh, I'll keep going since I will learn a lot, but I have certainly given up any hope of passing.  I find that when I am trying to knit the swatches I get all focused and tense and all I can think of is all the places that I could make this horrible, very bad, never be able to fix it right mistake and then I will have to do the swatch all over again and it will be some weird Ground Hog Day nightmare over and over and over again.  About this time I'm binding off  Swatch #4 and have some kind of "out of body" experience because I suddenly have this weird extra bar thing on the back and I have no idea where that came from so there I am frogging the bind off and back knitting to where I some how dropped a damn stitch. You would think I might notice dropping a stitch, but noooooo.   Temporarily abducted by aliens can be the only explanation.

Over thinking gets me in trouble in the saddle as well.  My trainer has been giving me and ole nimble toes an exercise where we have to back up in a "U" shape.  Don't think about it, just do it.  Yea...right!   This sounds a whole lot easier than it is and being the slightly dyslexic and spatially challenged person I am this is tough.  It is also tough for ole nimble toes because backing requires the horse to back up using his feet diagonally.  You would think it is like walking, only backwards, but it isn't.  It is the same foot placement as the trot going forward.  So, you are sort of trotting backwards at a walk pace and doing a U in reverse. The horse has to figure out what to do with his feet, not ole nimble toes strongest suit.  Standing around hoping someone will give him a peppermint is more his style. 

So asking ole nimble toes to go backward when he can manage to fall over his own feet just trying to walk forward is a tough one.  We managed to get only two correct steps in all the attempts.  Lesley, the trainer, thinks this is good for me because I can't over think it, I just have to do it.  Gets me out of my head.

What does this have to do with knitting?  I just finished my second go at Swatch #4 and blocked it - Blech.  I start over thinking all this stuff and the next thing I know I am so focused on my knitting and my shoulders are up under my ears.  Sigh...oh for the happy ignorance of "just knitting". 

I even bought the signature needles and I am probably the only one on the planet that thinks they are ugly.  I don't like their loud, carnival colors, they compete with the yarn and I don't like it.  I like black, with occasional wild and crazy forays into beige.  My horse is black, my cat is black and my dog is actually sort of grey except for her four buff (think beige) legs.  I realize I am not the norm. So I don't like the colors of the signature needles, but agree they do knit nicely and others probably love the colors.  Lol...I just noticed the yarn I picked out is beige, yep I was just thinking it was light colored and I couldn't use black. 

I did this sweater several years ago, happily knitting on some size 8 ebony needles from Lantern Moon.  The whole thing was a 2x2 rib.

 I don't think it's all that terrible tension wise, but I what do I know, I wasn't over thinking the whole thing - as I have said before: ignorance is bliss.

Got Insurance? Meaning the Helicopter Kind. (Horse Post)

Many of us engage in high risk sports.  They may not seem high risk, like when you are just riding around the bottom pasture at the barn with friends after a hard lesson.  I mean really, how risky is that, especially if you are on a seasoned trail horse that does trail trials, camped in the high country, and logged all kinds of miles in unknown territory without a problem.  Well, about a month ago a friend of mine was doing exactly that, just riding around the bottom of the pasture, last in line. No one knows how exactly, because no one actually saw what happened.  She was right behind her husband, the first clue something was wrong was when her horse came bolting past the group, sans rider. Then it was circus time,  L. was down and needed some serious help.  She had broken her collar bone in three places, fractured some ribs and had a concussion. The pasture is a sloping hill and it had been raining.  911 is called and the first responders came pouring in.  After the fire truck slid and the ambulance ended in the ditch it was time to call the helicopter.  Did I mention that the first responder that did make it to the bottom of the pasture put the neck brace on backwards.  Things were not looking good.  Thank goodness the helicopter peeps knew what they were doing.  They landed the bird at the bottom of the pasture, but L. still had to be transported on a backboard (the neck brace finally having been put on correctly, which only took three tries) across the bottom of the pasture to where the helicopter waited.  This was done with the 4 wheel drive "Mule" that had been loaded with hay to feed and now carried a body on a backboard with some 10 people holding on to keep it from sliding off the hay bales while the Mule was slowly driven across the wet, boggy ground of the pasture.

L spend a couple of days in the hospital and then had a complication of a blood clot which extended from her elbow to her shoulder.  More hospital time.  She is on blood thinners for the next six months, the collar bone is healing, but might need surgery which can't be done until after the blood thinners have done their work on the clot.  It might need to be broken and reset. 

As my friend Pat B. has said: "If you are going to ride a horse it isn't a matter of if you are going to get hurt, but when and how bad".

And the price of the Helicopter ride?  $30,000.00.  That's right, 30k.  My insurance only pays $1,000.00 towards helicopter rides.  But for about $40.00 a year you can get Helicopter insurance - seems like a good idea to me, especially for those of us who engage in high risk, back country activities.

And the ponies, well they are up for sale.  The blood clot was the deal breaker, she was waffling about continuing to ride after the fall, but the blood clot sealed it.  She and her husband are hanging up their spurs for less exciting pursuits, though she says it has been a great six years.

Me, I'll be getting helicopter insurance. This isn't the first time that they have visited the barn and I really don't want to spend that kind of money on air fare, I would rather spend it on braces for my dog. Seriously.

Yes, I am a Coward

The problem with plans is that they are always being changed. I don't like change, I am a coward. Sad to admit, but true. I like stability, security, predictability. I get that this is boring, but it does make things safe, and I am a big fan of safe. I have a horse, a big, black, furry footed, beast of a horse. I had planned to go on a trail ride with friends, but cool, very windy weather and my inner coward just took over my body, brain and soul. Every instinct says: "DO NOT RIDE! No, no, no....I think I will knit something instead. Got to admit, knitting is safe - unless you plan to fly on an airplane and someone thinks that you are a member of a knitting terrorist underground and are just waiting for your moment to take over the plane threatening 300 plus passengers with a set of knitting needles. Like that is going to happen, I might drop a stitch and that really would be a crisis.


So back to the ponies and trail rides.....


Doesn't he look innocent? He is until the temperature drops and the wind rises and then he becomes a snorting, spinning, helium balloon. There aren't enough drugs (better living through chemistry) to get me on his back in windy, cool weather. Though I have improved, I ride in weather I never would have two years ago. It doesn't help that horses are perfect mirrors for our emotions - so if I am nervous, he is nervous and I am pretty much always nervy especially when the weather is windy. I have to admire the Drake monster's zealous commitment to saving us both from real or imagined dangers. We see predators everywhere, he and I, though to be honest we do not have the same take on what is dangerous. For example, that jump standard that has been there for weeks, but someone moved it 3 feet yesterday has surely become a threat to life and limb as far as Drake is concerned. I do not share his fear, on the other hand, that 6 inch cross rail looks like trying to jump a 7 foot wall to me and Drake can't even be bothered to get excited enough to actually pick his feet up while trotting across it.

Sigh....oh well, my friends will have a wonderful trail ride because they are the brave sort with an addiction to adrenaline and I will stay at home bemoaning my inner coward trying to remind myself how far I have come overall.