Friday, April 15

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

The storm in Saskatchewan/Manitoba is mostly done. Maybe all the snow will melt again in a week's time.

Not awful here. Still chilly and grey, but okay.

I folded some of the huge pile of clean laundry today.

I went to see River, and that was good. He was distracted for a while by the one mare who decided she was in extreme danger when her friends all got put in the barn at the same time while she was left outside. She called and called for them. After a while she stopped, and we could resume our work in the arena.

He did well with groundwork/Liberty, and in our ridden work we did a lot with me just using my seat again, and it will take some time before I can guide him with just my seat, as in doing turns or circles. He will give, though, so that's a start.

I came home and had a giant nap.

Today I learned that John Le Carre coined some of the terms he used in his espionage novels so aptly, that they are now part of the actual lexicon. Words like honeypot (a beautiful woman used to entrap someone or gain information), or espiocrat (high ranking intelligence agency officials). Other words like 'mole' might not have been his invention, but he brought the term into the common lexicon.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/spy-words-from-john-le-carre/in-from-the-cold

Comments

[cf2princessawnw]

Clean folded laundry and a giant nap sound absolutely wonderful!

Again I love how to normalize and translate animals reactions so well. You make them so understandable.

I wonder if there's a song called honeypot. I'll have to look it up..

[gottawonder]

I grew up around animals, and have always had horses. I spent more time around them than I did people, really. I don't know if all of my interpretations are accurate, but they are likely reasonably so.

When I am around them, it is like they are having a conversation with me the whole time. Their posture means something, their ear position, what they are doing with their eyes, their tail, all of it is telling you whether or not they are relaxed or comfortable, or tight and uneasy, if there is something in the bush they are worried about, or upset with another horse in the area. They have hormones too, that can complicate things, moods, and different energy on different days.

Horses have a herd hierarchy too, and that matters in terms of what it is like to work with that horse. A horse that is the alpha is going to challenge your authority a little more than one who is lower in the pecking order. The ones at the bottom likely need help being confident.

You have to be able to read a horse when you work with them and/or ride. There are days when I won't ride because he is not focused/wound up about something. You have to know when you are pushing something new too hard on them and they are overwhelmed. You have to stop asking at the right time and give a break as a reward. You need to do something different sometimes so they don't get bored.

They can read us too. Lots of times we try to mask our feelings, and horses can see right through that. You have to put yourself into a calm, balanced mental state to be effective. I don't mean a fake state, you have to kind of acknowledge whatever is going on inside and breathe through it, then get yourself right to work with the horse.

You can't ever go in there all worked up, or it will end up worrying your horse.

This is how equine therapy works. The horse mirrors your state, and you finally see it out in the open.

[sherlockishere]

I love his novels!!

[ratunderpaper]

I think we got the tail end of your snowfall here today. It was pretty, and occurred right after I'd washed and put away my winter boots and had begun fretting about a new air conditioner.