Friday, February 17
Feb. 18th, 2023 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Decent weather. A little cooler, but the sun is so lovely right now.
A good, short phone conversation with my Mom. She had her brother visiting (he lives in town and visits often), and was in a good mood. She even laughed a bit. I talked with my Uncle too, since he was there.
I am grateful pretty much every day that she is in a care home now, and that she seems comfortable and cared for. That last couple of years of her living at home was awful.
I went to see River today, and R also had Phoenix in the barn in case I had time to work with him.
I did work with him for a while. Nothing demanding, just getting to know each other. We did mirrored leading (where we work on matching steps), some low-key yields, backing, and then a fair chunk of time where I just desensitized him to the whip since he seems a little twitchy about it. We use the whips a lot for communicating (not beatings), and they DO touch the horse a lot. River for example, doesn't jump forward if it brushes his side, but Phoenix still does sometimes.
Phoenix was super sweet. When we were just chilling, he does this thing where he just comes and rests his head on your shoulder for hugs. You could tell he was confused about how tall I am compared to R (I'm probably four inches taller), and he was like "whoa, that's weird". Phoenix is a pony.
Then I worked with River. It's nice to have a break from the obstacle course. Whenever there is a class coming up and everyone is practicing, it starts to feel like overkill by the end.
I'm trying to find something interesting to do for an "open" class for R's fund raiser. You do a few things that are kind of interesting, like if your horse can bow, or if he likes to kick the ball around, or lie down. I'm not sure what to do with River.
Then I rode for a while, and focused on not using the neck rope at all, to see if I could get him to back up softly off of my seat, and to carry himself better on one direction (lately it feels like he's been leaning on the neck rope). It's quite the thing to realize that you are actually just riding now without any tack at all. Yes, it's in the arena in a fairly controlled environment, but still.
Last night I worked on my own neck rope (I've been using R's) and I used a fancy long knot to make a handle. I've made some braided items over the years, using Turk's heads and such, and this knot is probably the most complicated thing I've done. I don't know if I can be consistent about doing it again, but I'm proud of it.
I didn't do much else today. I came home and had a nap.
I learned that Mozart had a sister named Maria who was possibly every bit as talented as he was, but her career was not allowed to develop when she reached a marriageable age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_Mozart
Decent weather. A little cooler, but the sun is so lovely right now.
A good, short phone conversation with my Mom. She had her brother visiting (he lives in town and visits often), and was in a good mood. She even laughed a bit. I talked with my Uncle too, since he was there.
I am grateful pretty much every day that she is in a care home now, and that she seems comfortable and cared for. That last couple of years of her living at home was awful.
I went to see River today, and R also had Phoenix in the barn in case I had time to work with him.
I did work with him for a while. Nothing demanding, just getting to know each other. We did mirrored leading (where we work on matching steps), some low-key yields, backing, and then a fair chunk of time where I just desensitized him to the whip since he seems a little twitchy about it. We use the whips a lot for communicating (not beatings), and they DO touch the horse a lot. River for example, doesn't jump forward if it brushes his side, but Phoenix still does sometimes.
Phoenix was super sweet. When we were just chilling, he does this thing where he just comes and rests his head on your shoulder for hugs. You could tell he was confused about how tall I am compared to R (I'm probably four inches taller), and he was like "whoa, that's weird". Phoenix is a pony.
Then I worked with River. It's nice to have a break from the obstacle course. Whenever there is a class coming up and everyone is practicing, it starts to feel like overkill by the end.
I'm trying to find something interesting to do for an "open" class for R's fund raiser. You do a few things that are kind of interesting, like if your horse can bow, or if he likes to kick the ball around, or lie down. I'm not sure what to do with River.
Then I rode for a while, and focused on not using the neck rope at all, to see if I could get him to back up softly off of my seat, and to carry himself better on one direction (lately it feels like he's been leaning on the neck rope). It's quite the thing to realize that you are actually just riding now without any tack at all. Yes, it's in the arena in a fairly controlled environment, but still.
Last night I worked on my own neck rope (I've been using R's) and I used a fancy long knot to make a handle. I've made some braided items over the years, using Turk's heads and such, and this knot is probably the most complicated thing I've done. I don't know if I can be consistent about doing it again, but I'm proud of it.
I didn't do much else today. I came home and had a nap.
I learned that Mozart had a sister named Maria who was possibly every bit as talented as he was, but her career was not allowed to develop when she reached a marriageable age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_Mozart
no subject
Date: 2023-02-19 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-19 09:56 pm (UTC)I wonder how many of Mozart's songs were actually written by her, and those weird letters were musical code.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-20 07:14 am (UTC)I wonder why no one's been able to figure out "spuni cuni fait" yet?
no subject
Date: 2023-02-20 08:23 am (UTC)The phrase you mentioned was used in a letter to his cousin. Some speculate that it means something along the lines of Spuni (spin) Cuni (rabbit) fait (make). Make the rabbit spin? Who knows.
We can't rule out the possibility that it was just some dirty inside joke.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-21 06:50 am (UTC)