Update

This is just an update about what's been going on around the place.

Are blogs dead? Not sure, but there was a short discussion about that on Facebook, and it made me think that maybe they are. I suspect they are being replaced with said FB, and Twitter, Instagram, etc. Instant gratification. Blogs took over from the old My Space, and now blogs, if not linked to some of the instant messaging apps, may not get as much attention. In my own case, this blog has been running for a number of years, and only has 14 followers. My Pinterest site has been up six months, maybe a bit longer, and I already have 92 followers. Yes, Pinterest is all about pictures, but in some respect, they are the same pictures you would probably want to share on a blog if it weren't so time-consuming. For those who use their blogs as a personal diary, like I do, then I guess it doesn't matter if no one else reads it but me. But it does make me pause, and wonder if it is worth my time, when maybe that time could be better spent on projects or painting.

Speaking of painting...which I haven't done much of lately because the garage got so hot (daytime temps got up to 113) I just couldn't work...I am fired back up to start a new series. It will run concurrently with the series I've  already been working on, Gypsies, which has one drawing, a finished painting, a painting still in progress (the one I had to set aside due to the heat), and many ideas for future paintings. The new series will be called Ghosts in the Ruins. Figures in decayed rooms. Lots of mould, peeling wallpaper, chipped paint, and plants reclaiming the space that used to be theirs. People looking lost, wondering what happened to the place that they knew, wondering why they are there again, and wondering if they can get back. Back to what? Back to a life before the decay? I want the painting to express a sense of bewilderment. A sense of "Why did we abandon this place, or let things get so bad?"

Since the new series will involve lots of texture in the paintings, I started thinking about how I would get that decayed, crumbling look. As I was sitting out on the deck the other day, it got a bit warm, so I peeled off the sweatshirt I was wearing, only to discover that a dryer sheet had been stuck inside. I looked at the dryer sheet, and thought, "Wow, what a great texture. Wonder if I could use these things in my paintings?" So I am going to experiment with them, glueing them down with matt medium then painting over them to see what kinds of surface textures I can get. And you know, it's always good when you can repurpose something rather than throw it away.

On my reading table is my Big Red Boxed Edition of Lord of the Rings. I hadn't read the book in over ten years, and wanted to go back to the source after having seen the Peter Jackson version so many times. It reinforces just how much the movie veered away from the book, and in some places abandoned it all together.

I have put up four tubs of tomato, pepper, basil soup base. They are now in my freezer, waiting for those cold winter evenings when hot soup tastes so good. I may have enough tomatoes left on the vine to make one more tub. I know I have enough peppers! The peppers went crazy this summer.

Lastly, a quick word about the horse we adopted in July from a kill yard in Washington. After a month and a half, she is finally out of quarantine and in her permeant turnout. She has been such a good girl, very level-headed...until the farrier showed up. She took one look at him and every alarm bell in her body went off. We managed to get her front hooves done, but it was pretty traumatic. She was literally shaking with fear and refusing to let him touch her. So, I have no idea what was done to put the fear of the world into her when it comes to farriers (she has never reacted to anyone like that before, not even the vet), but we will have to figure out something, as her back hooves were in worse shape than the fronts. Might have to give her a sedative for the next few sessions, to get her calmed down and over the fear.

That's about it. The days are getting shorter, nighttime temps are dropping into the 60s, the air is crisper and smells of fall, and we even had a rain/hail system blow through, that washed all the dust and ash from the trees. You could almost hear them sigh with contentment.

Spring Flip-Flops

I bet you thought I meant those funny, must have flip-flops that I personally love, and live in all summer. Nope. This is how I grudgingly deal with bi-polar Spring weather.

As Mother Nature flip-flops between Winter and Spring—one day it's dark, pouring rain and only 44 degrees, the next it's bright, sunny and 72 degrees—my schedule flip-flops in tandem with Hers.

When it's nice, I'm outside working in the yard and garden, clearing out all the dead winter wood and brush. That's when I discover just how many gophers have taken up residence since last summer. In this year's case there are so many holes it looks like someone did several strafing runs over my garden firing 27 mm rounds. I also had to take an inventory of how many plants I lost due to the mini ice age we had back in December. So far it looks like the succulents on the front walkway suffered the most attrition, and I may have lost the star jasmine in the big pot by the terrace steps, but the verdict is still out on that one. Robert and I also decided to eliminate the whole back side of the fenced garden, as it is slowing collapsing into the creek, and it would be way too expensive and labor intensive to shore it back up. Since that section also is in the shade most of the day, then in the afternoon is subjected to direct sunlight and intense heat during the summer, it's a pain in the butt to find something that can grow in those two extremes. The last thing I attempted was hydrangeas, and they have struggled. I may pot them up and put them in the shade on the deck. When I attempted to grow them anywhere else in the yard, the deer ate them to a nub. Yes, anything planted outside the fenced garden has to be deer proof.

The other thing I do when the weather is nice is work my horses. We just got a new one for my husband, who had to retire his old gelding, Apollo, who is now around 25 and looking his age. He just didn't have the stamina for the kinds of horse activities we do. The fact that the vet told us he has arthritis in all four legs, but especially in the hind, just sealed his retirement fate. So, now we have Strider, a seven-and-a-half-year-old Fox Trotter, who needs a lot of work, since his previous owner didn't ride him much. And just last Sunday we learned that he doesn't like going into a trailer. He loaded fine at his previous home, with his first mom leading him in. When we tried at our place he balked, pulled back and broke the tie-in, and we spent two hours working with him to finally get him back in and to stand quietly, then back out nicely. It's going to take many more sessions like that before we go anywhere, since I won't travel with a horse who won't load and unload easily.

Here is a photo of Robert on one of his first rides on Strider. My mare, Delight, is giving Strider the stink-eye as they go by. I think Delight is still secretly hoping Strider will go back where he came from, and she and Apollo can have their privacy back.

With the weather flipping back and forth, the biggest issue we have with working the horses is the bad footing. We have forest clay soil, and despite the varied ways we have tried to augment the ground to make it more workable, it eventually gets too slippery and sloggy to do anything faster than a walk. That's where things are now, which is pretty danged frustrating when the sun is shining and you really want to get some riding work in, and the most you can do is putz around. Not that there aren't a lot of things you can teach or perfect at the walk, but it does get tiresome after about a month. But I battle on, do what I can, and grit my teeth every time it rains and makes the ground even more slippery.

On days where it's dark and rainy, I work on projects inside, or, as I did the other morning, I go into town. Sometimes to run errands and visit the library to replenish my stash, or in this case, I trolled the Goodwill then went next door to JoAnn's Fabrics. It turned out to be fortuitous timing, since I found a few nice things at the Goodwill, and JoAnn's had all their jewelry supplies on sale for 40-75 percent off. I came home with two T-shirts to make another bolero, and a denim short-sleeved jacket for another project I have in mind, which I will go into more on my next post.

Here is a very dark photo (remember, I said it was a gloomy, rainy day) showing the treasures I came home with, all piled on the coffee table in the living room, which at the time was the brightest place in the house. I bought the patterned shirt because the color and leaf design reminded me of William Morris wallpaper. It was the first piece I found, and I figured the chances of finding a color to match it would be slim to zero, so I went poking around looking for a good contrasting color when I found the other T-shirt, which matched the color of the patterned one exactly. That was a lucky find, indeed. 

This lovely little hoard of goodies, shirts and findings, cost me under $20. The only thing I didn't think to get (my mind was in jewelry nirvana at all the things on sale) was some embroidery floss to match the dark green in the patterned shirt, since the binding on the bolero will be out of the solid aqua.

Oh gosh darn, I will have to go back to JoAnn's again. Life can be such a trial.

Horses in Snow

Over the past few days temps have dropped and snow has fallen. Everything is pretty icy right now, but at least the sun it out. I took these photos of our two horses the first day we turned them out after a whole day of snowfall. They had a grand time chasing each other before finally calming down and getting to work pushing the snow out of the way so they could get to the grass underneath.

Miss snownose, Delight. 

Mr. Snowplow, Apollo.

How I Spend Some of My Weekends

Just a picture of me, in a costume again—big surprise, I know. This one taken at the Hocktide Emprise Equestrian Games on May 7-9. This is the only picture of me, other than another taken with my husband, since it's hard to take photos of yourself, especially when you're on a horse. I wrote a more detailed piece about this event in my other blog, Equine Madness (See link in sidebar).

My husband and I had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get back into the horse games again. The picture is of me in my 35 year old leather vest (it belonged to an old boyfriend)—the shirt, and boots are part of my pirate gear, but work well for this, and the pants are my black riding pants. I left the shirt un-tucked since it hid my butt. When I tried tucking it in, it looked like I had a wrinkled bubble butt—which I don't!

I was waiting to ground crew the Courser Challenge for the A list riders, who went first. Then they would ground crew for us B listers.

Equine Madness II — Mind vs Body

Remember the days when your brain could tell your body to do something, and your body would snap to it, saying, “Right! Got it. No worries!” I do. Back when I was in my late thirties, riding usually four to five days a week, and working with a riding coach once a week, my body was constantly in a low-level state of soreness — in a good way. It told me I had worked, used muscles, and my body had done, or tried valiantly to do, anything my little brain had asked. That state of being, my body totally in tune with my brain, made it possible to be in tune with the mind and body of the animal under me. Well, okay, maybe not all the time. But those times when my gelding, Tristan, seemed to know what I wanted before I asked, and we seemed to be sharing one body, are the most sublime moments I’ve ever had on a horse. You can’t describe the feeling to anyone. Seriously, you could use a thousand words, and it wouldn’t come close to describing that measure of connectedness to another creature. It rocks your world.

Jump two decades, add a ten year hiatus from riding, a new horse, and you have a totally different story. And, lest you get the wrong impression, I’m still in pretty good shape for my age. I’m not overweight, have no health issues, and work outdoors in a large garden. But that’s not riding. Riding is balance, sensitivity, and the constant search for that illusive connectedness. When you haven’t done it for a long time, and you start again, things get frustrating. Your brain, reaching back to previous experiences, starts yelling at your body, “Do this...no, no, you idiot, this, this!” Your body, asked to use muscles it hasn’t twitched in years, whines back, “Huh?...Whah? Oh, move these legs where? Are you sure?” Body procrastination.

In the meantime, my poor horse, Delight, is wondering what the heck is going on up there. And I must admit, our first ride did not start off auspiciously. After a few turns around the round pen, me flopping like a beached flounder, my saddle went sideways and I ended up on the ground. Delight stood there looking at me like I was a total imbecile, falling (pun intended) for the old “bloating like the Goodyear blimp when she tightens the girth” trick. Okay, lesson learned.

We’ve had many rides since then, and I have started working with two different coaches when I can, but I’m still waiting for my body to catch up to my brain. May take a while. My brain remembers how things should feel, where legs, seat, hands should be. Body...not so much. It’s coming back, slowly, and when we’re out of the winter weather, which makes riding hard because the ground is so slippery, things will improve quicker as I put in more saddle time.

But even with the riding I have done so far, the change in my body is already clear. My upper body strength is improving (all that stall cleaning, wheelbarrow pushing, horse grooming), my leg strength is better, and answering “the call” a bit quicker (currently that may be wishful thinking on my brain's part), and I’m starting to feel the first inklings of that constant, low-level state of soreness, which tells me this old body is still willing to work.

Actually, this old body is pretty damned happy. I still have a LONG way to go. My balance is still precarious. I still get frustrated when I know where a leg, hand, or my balance should be, and I can’t quite get there. Or worse, get it there for a nanosecond, but can’t hold it. Delight is still waiting for me to catch up, and gets understandably annoyed when she tries to give me what she thinks I’m asking for, when I’m actually asking for something else but giving mixed signals. I admire that she tries.

Come summer things will improve faster. Better weather means more riding time at home, going to events, and getting out on the trail. Soon my brain will snap to my body, “Do this, this, and this, and then this!” And my body will answer, ‘Right! Brilliant. Great idea!”

Delight will be thinking, “Gawd, it’s about time. I was beginning to worry you’d never catch up.”

(Note on the picture. It's a sketch I did in a journal, and the red text is bleeding through from the back side of the page. But I thought the drawing fit the subject, so posted it anyway, faults and all. The handwritten title slightly cut off reads, "Self-Portrait With Manure Fork")