Tuesday, February 27, 2018

A Muddy Situation

A Muddy Situation

As I have mentioned before, the park tried to fix our rocky, washed out hill trail by dumping a bunch of clay on it--filling in the drainage ditch.  Now, it is a terribly muddy mess where they tried to fix it.  Cole hates mud.

We have been waiting for the river to go down, and it has been a long wait.  There has been so much rain.  Sometimes, if it isn't raining, we ride on the loop behind the barn, and sometimes we try to navigate the mud on the hill.

One day, Kevin and I were riding Starry and Cole up the hill to go home.  They were very excited, and we could feel it.  The worst muddy section just happens to be the the single spot in the entire park where Cole is likely to have a Cole burst.  It is a short, steep part of the hill that is preceeded by corner.  I call it Cole Burst Corner.

As we approached that area, we could feel both horses building up in excitement.  I felt like I was riding a coiled spring, so I hopped off.  I would prefer getting my feet soaked to rocketing up a hill and through the mud.  As I dismounted, I saw Kevin doing the same thing.  Starry was just as excited as Cole.

Well, you couldn't imagine how bad they were.  Both were trying to charge through the mud.  As Cole was circling around me on the muddy incline, I saw Starry nearly push Kevin over in the mud.  Somehow, we made it to the top to the dryer trail.

Seems we had a problem.

The rain kept coming for the next few days; making things all the worse.  When we could, we rode on the loop.

Finally, we had a dry evening.  We were on the loop, but Starry was being Starry.  He didn't want to lead, but he didn't want Cole in the lead.  Sigh...  Kevin suggested riding down the street, down the trail and turning around when we got to the muddy part.  Sounded like a plan.

When we got to the top of the hill to take a look at the mud, Cole spun 180 degrees towards home.  Yes, I had a problem.  Cole's hatred of mud made him refuse to go through it before I even asked.  Kevin suggested we go down the hill, since we were there.  After Cole's display, I wanted to show him that he can't  refuse to go through the mud just because he doesn't like it.

We headed down the hill.  Cole did go, reluctantly--then very quickly--to the bottom of the first little slope where it is dryer.  I praised  him on the way down and clicked him at the bottom.  Starry walked down slow and careful.  We then picked our way through the swamp where the ditch was filled in.  The rest of the way down the hill was uneventful.  We rode back and forth a few times at the bottom.  When they seemed settled down, we decided to go home.

We had a plan.  When we reached the mud, we would do "stop and click" over and over.  That would do 2 things.  It would keep them from getting too much speed and reward them for not getting too much speed.

They were excited, of course.  They wanted to get home and through the mud as quick as they could.  Starry was in the lead.  Cole thought he went to slow and wanted to pass.  We asked for a "whoa," and I barely got one--yet it was one, so I clicked and treated.  Kevin did, too.  We were working as a team.  We did a few more steps and repeated.  We got through the first stretch of mud.  Cole still wasn't stopping well, but he was stopping.  Starry was doing a little better than Cole.

And now, it was time for Cole Burst Corner.  Remember, he will try to charge up here even on dry days if he is in an energetic mood--and he certainly was on this day.  We stopped and clicked at the bottom of the slope.  Then we took 3 steps and did it again.  It was keeping them under control.  About halfway up, I felt a difference in Cole. He had relaxed.  His head was at his normal height, and he was no longer taking those short, fast steps.  He understood!  We continued in this pattern until we got to the top.  We arrived with great success!!!

On our next scheduled ride, Kevin got to the barn before me and was already on the hill.  I hurried and saddled to get out there to join him.  Cole was very hyper.  We managed the mud quite well, but that was no surprise.  It wasn't going away from home that was the problem.

Halfway down the hill, he was able to see Starry at the bottom of the hill.  Cole started to bounce and try to trot.  Kevin saw us and waited for us to catch up.  We walked back and forth at the bottom a few times and then started to do some trotting back and forth, too.  Then, we walked up the hill to the muddy section, turned around and went back down the hill.  Cole was still very excited.  Starry was slow and careful.

After more back and forth at the bottom, it was time to go home.

The first thing I noticed was that Cole was more sensible in the muddy section by the ditch.  He wasn't what I would call good, but he was going where I directed him and stopping more willingly.

When we got to Cole Burst Corner, I really noticed the change.  After about 2 halts, Cole just walked like an ordinary horse.  We continued with our multiple stop/clicks, but it was no longer an "event."  The horses were significantly better, and it was only their second lesson.

Kevin and I plan to continue this training method to instill good behavior.  We will gradually reduce the number of stops and replace them with praise.

The way I see it, we could suffer with the problem all spring--or take the time to fix it.  I'm glad to say it is already taking less time than I thought it would.

I sure hope they will fix the hill this spring...

Friday, February 23, 2018

My Life Really isn't Boring

As I looked at my list of posts, it looks like all I have been doing is reading.  Sure, I do a lot of it in the winter, but I am still taking long walks, hanging out with Kevin, riding 5 times a week, learning Calculus and dreaming of spring, which is right around the corner.

I love my life, and I am so glad that I retired.  I will have to start blogging about other things than reading!

Book Review: "Moorland Cottage" by Elizabeth Gaskell - 1850

Another fine story by Elizabeth Gaskell.  Two people fall in love, and want to get married.  That should be the end of the story.  Instead, roadblocks are thrown in their way.  Will love endure?  Will it triumph? 

I enjoyed this story, a lot.  The people were very realistic with flaws and good points, too.  I was hoping true love would prevail, and a surprise ending changed the path of the story-and happiness was found.

Book Review: "Family Happiness" by Leo Tolstoy

He is the master, and this is a masterpiece.  It is about the birth and death of love--or is it about the metamorhpasis?  No young people should read this novella, for it will disillusion them.  It is for the older folks, like me, who can nod in recognition.

More than just a typical love story, this also has the hero much older than the heroine.  She is just a teen when they meet and fall in love.  He has wisdom on his side.  He remembers his own youth and the path he had to travel to reach middle age. She is just beginning with the journey, and he lets her make the mistakes she has to make to grow up.

The story is very sad, but very true.  Not that everyone will experience such a journey.  Tolstoy's experience with love and marriage was actually quite worse.  Mine was much better.

I am so glad I had already gotten through that point when I met Kevin.  I fear that, rather than let me make the mistakes, Kevin, who is quite a bit older than me, would have joined me in reliving them.

A very fine, fine story for older people.

Book Review: "The Drop" by Dennis Lehane

Sometimes you just have to read a good, contemporary novel just for fun.  This is one of them.  I liked it--like junk food. 

A bar in Boston is used as a drop for the Russian mob.  There is robbery, death and mystery.  The main characters are losers--all of them.  I didn't like a single one of them, and didn't get sad when any of them were killed.  I did like the dog.

The story moved well and entertained me, but the character development was fairly flat--but that might just be because I have been reading Tolstoy. 

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Book Review: "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Long ago, I had a Sherlock Holmes book, and couldn't make it past halfway.  I just had a hard time reading it, and didn't like it that much.

Since then, Kevin and I have watched all of the TV series "Elementary: and the PBS series "Sherlock."  We loved them.

When I saw this book for only a dollar, I thought I would give it a chance.  I had a hard time reading it, again.  I liked the stories, but I kept stumbling when I read it, and I would have to go back and reread the sentence.  I then decided to take a closer look.  On just a couple pages, I found numerous misplaced commas and missing commas!  Doyle was loose with his punctuation and a bad writer--with good stories.  Whenever my unconscious mind hit bad punctuation or run on sentences, it stumbled.  It goes to show you how important proper commas are.

After that, I didn't read as carefully, and I enjoyed the stories quite a bit.  I liked comparing them to the TV shows, and seeing what they derived from the stories. 

Don't read them carefully, and they are very entertaining stories.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Book Review: "The Mare" b Mary Gaitskill

This is not my typical type of book, but I thought I would give it a try since it had horses in it.  It is about a troubled poor girl that has a trouble rich woman take her under her wings. 

The characters were very realistic and very troubled.  The horse scenes were mostly accurate and showed how horses can help people through difficult times.  I often wanted to yell at the characters because they were being so ridiculous, but the horses were always accurate and true.  But isn't that how horses always are?

I liked the book, even though it was out of my genre.  If it wasn't for the horses, though, I wouldn't have cared for it at all.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

A Rambunctious Ride

A Rambunctious Ride

The other day, the driveway at the barn was a sheet of ice.  Since I haven't taught Cole to ice skate, yet, I decided to ride him in the indoor arena.  I have been avoiding it as much as I can by riding out on the loop in the back of the property or down to the river, so it was more than a week since we had been in it.

Christie was riding her Paint, and I thought that might provide me with an interesting challenge.  Except for Dante, I have barely ridden with any other horses in the arena all winter.  Cole needed some exposure to other horses.

The ride started out well, for the first 30 seconds.  Christie rode past us at a trot, and Cole leaped up in the air and tried to chase after them.  I spun him and proceeded down the wall.  That was just the beginning.  Just a minute later, Kevin did something in the barn that made a loud noise.  Cole decided it was time to run from the noise and leaped up in the air.  I spun him, again.  Do you see the pattern?

I told Christie I would stay on one side of the arena and ride him in a circle until he settled down.  I started at a walk and then added some short stretches of trotting.  He managed at least 3 more surges.  I had to yell over to Kevin to stop making so much noise.  Cole isn't a spooky horse--he was just in a spooky mood.  Poor Christie.  I bet she was happy I came out.  I was looking for a more challenging ride, and I got it.

I started to feel Cole settle down and become more focused on me instead of the other horse.  Hooray!  I was hoping to get my full ride in before Christie's other horse came out with the trainer--the one she only had a week--but no such luck.  The trainer led out the other horse.  She is a big, black Quarter Horse mare.  I thought, at first, that he was going to lounge her, but here it turned out that he wanted her to spend time with another horse in the arena.  That was exactly what I wanted to do with the other horse.  It looked like Cole was going to get a much longer lesson on being ridden with other horses in the arena.

I carefully walked and trotted about.  I didn't want Cole to disrupt things.  He was being good, I'm glad to say.

The trainer didn't know what the mare would do, since he had never had her in the arena with another horse.  I was so relieved Cole was behaving much better than before.  He walked the mare around and practiced standing.  At one point, Cole surged forward.  I sighed and spun him, again, to get him under control.  I glanced over at the mare to see her dancing around.  This time, Cole was just reacting to the other horse instead of causing the problems himself.

A little bit later, Cole was at it, again.  I got him under control quite quickly--in time to see the mare rearing way up into the air--twice.  The trainer was so happy that he decided to try this lesson with him on the ground where he was safer instead of in the saddle.

Our ride was over, and I brought Cole back to our barn.  I told the trainer I would close the door.  First, I had to get Cole to his stall.  When I got back to the door, I saw Christie running towards me.  She was trying to get to the door before her mare, who had escaped from the trainer, reached our barn.  I got the door closed before either one got to it.  The trainer later explained that the mare watched me open the door, lead Cole through and then took off for the door--pulling free from him.

It was a challenging session for both of us this time!  Maybe I will ride Dante with them, next time instead of Cole.  As long as he wasn't anywhere near them, he would be a gentleman, I'm sure.  He may even set a good example for the mare.

(If she was close to him, though, he would be terrified.)

Book Review: "The Mysteries of Udolpho" by Ann Radcliffe - 1794

I remember my surprise, one day, when my niece told me that the book, :The Mysteries of Udolpho," that is mentioned in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" was a real book!  She recommended it to me, so of course, I had to read it.

It is a very melodramatic, adventure story.  The first part of it is rather slow.  There was too much description of the heroine's travels for my liking.  After I got through all of that, I found an exciting, page-turning novel.  I never knew what would happen next.  There was murders, many mysteries, bandits, several haunted castles, romance--you name it.  What a fun book this was.

Monday, February 12, 2018

This time of year, we start getting a little more sunshine, but there are still periods of much clouds.  We have just finished about a week of nearly solid clouds.  This morning, when I got up there was sun!

I wasn't half as excited as Thunder.  Rather than taking his morning nap under the table, he sat by the window in the sun--and didn't nap at all.  He just kept looking outside.  Later, he moved to the dining room table--and when the sun left that--he went back to the window.

He wanted me with him, so I did spend some time with my arms wrapped around him.  He ten curled up in complete happiness.  He loves to have me in the sun with him, but in the summer, I get too hot to stay a long time.  This time, I could stay until my leg started falling asleep.

Later, when the sun no longer came in his favorite windows, he was charged with solar energy.  He has been running and playing and talking and just being totally adorable.  He gets sun crazy.  I think it was exacerbated by the recent lack of sun.  Whatever the cause, I am loving it!