Wednesday, September 6
Sep. 7th, 2023 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Sunny, and still reasonably cool. Nice weather.
Setting another day for our hay guy to deliver bales. After last night's rain, our yard is too wet for him to drive his tractor on. It would tear everything up.
My Sweetie spent the day working more on the door frame on the front of the house. I know it's been a real pain in the ass, but I think he's doing a great job. He's building it all out, where a lot of contractors would have torn the whole door frame out and rebuilt everything, but his solution doesn't require that, and it saves a lot of time, money and effort. His fix was very clever.
I did some laundry and picked more beans out of the garden. I ended up with a pretty good haul again.
I also got some nice cucumbers, which is a pleasant surprise. Most years I don't get much for cucumbers (while everyone else I know who plants them gets an over abundance). I love cucumbers, so this is nice.
I went to see River, and he was in a good mood again.
We had a lesson today.
At the beginning of our lesson, R kind of slumped into her chair (she can coach just fine from there), and said something to the effect that "if she looked drained, it had nothing to do with me, she just had a lot to process from the person before us".
I have noticed that the woman she coaches right before us really seems to do a lot of "emotional work" with R. To the point where I wonder if she wouldn't be better served by seeing a therapist. Working with horses can often bring up a lot of feelings, and it's not that there is no place for that with riding lessons, but it really seems like she maybe needs more help dealing with whatever is being brought to the surface when she rides.
I've more than a few times looked "busy and really not-listening" when they've had intense huddles in the barn where there may have been tears, and just gone about my business.
She was able to coach us just fine, and I think it might have actually been good for her to work with us on just plain old biomechanics things.
We worked on a Liberty pattern (one of the "levels" in the Liberty Association that you can compete and get a score on your performance). We ran through the "backwards direction change", and so on.
I got a bit more useful feedback about the circle to the right that has become such a monster (River just wants to go to the outside of the arena, because it's easier than a smaller circle).
Then I put the saddle on, and we worked on equitation, and did some useful work there to soften him up a bit, to keep him from just going into "zombie mode" on the rail, and the role of my inside leg in all of this.
To me, it was a good session, we didn't have to drill anything over and over, and at the end of it, we still had River's attention (the moment he's had enough, he zones out and quits trying, so you have to not overdo anything and keep changing things up).
He had a really good look on his face when I got off, you could tell he was happy, even though we'd been working. Like he had fun. That to me is probably the most important thing.
I came home, and my Sweetie had already given the animals time in their pastures so we brought them back in.
He had a bath while I washed, snapped, and bagged the beans and made supper.
We watched more "Schitt's Creek".
We know about Guantanamo Bay, the military post in Cuba.
At one point, there was a lease agreement between Cuba and the U.S. to build what WAS more of a "naval station". Fidel Castro wanted them to end the agreement, but the U.S. would not leave this site.
According to the lease agreement of 1934, BOTH countries would have to agree to end the lease, OR the U.S. would be able to end it by leaving. So basically, it means "the U.S. will leave only if they want to leave".
The United States considers themselves to be "leasing" it still, and they keep issuing checks to Cuba for the lease, but Cuba refuses to cash them, because they wanted the U.S. to leave, They consider the base to be an imposition, they are unwilling parties to this base, and consider the land to be stolen from them.
For the U.S., it is a strategic position for defense of the Panama Canal and the coast of the U.S., and likely also a way of having a military presence in Cuba since relations are usually pretty intense between them.
https://www.boredpanda.com/charity-restaurants-jon-bon-jovi-soul-kitchen/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
Sunny, and still reasonably cool. Nice weather.
Setting another day for our hay guy to deliver bales. After last night's rain, our yard is too wet for him to drive his tractor on. It would tear everything up.
My Sweetie spent the day working more on the door frame on the front of the house. I know it's been a real pain in the ass, but I think he's doing a great job. He's building it all out, where a lot of contractors would have torn the whole door frame out and rebuilt everything, but his solution doesn't require that, and it saves a lot of time, money and effort. His fix was very clever.
I did some laundry and picked more beans out of the garden. I ended up with a pretty good haul again.
I also got some nice cucumbers, which is a pleasant surprise. Most years I don't get much for cucumbers (while everyone else I know who plants them gets an over abundance). I love cucumbers, so this is nice.
I went to see River, and he was in a good mood again.
We had a lesson today.
At the beginning of our lesson, R kind of slumped into her chair (she can coach just fine from there), and said something to the effect that "if she looked drained, it had nothing to do with me, she just had a lot to process from the person before us".
I have noticed that the woman she coaches right before us really seems to do a lot of "emotional work" with R. To the point where I wonder if she wouldn't be better served by seeing a therapist. Working with horses can often bring up a lot of feelings, and it's not that there is no place for that with riding lessons, but it really seems like she maybe needs more help dealing with whatever is being brought to the surface when she rides.
I've more than a few times looked "busy and really not-listening" when they've had intense huddles in the barn where there may have been tears, and just gone about my business.
She was able to coach us just fine, and I think it might have actually been good for her to work with us on just plain old biomechanics things.
We worked on a Liberty pattern (one of the "levels" in the Liberty Association that you can compete and get a score on your performance). We ran through the "backwards direction change", and so on.
I got a bit more useful feedback about the circle to the right that has become such a monster (River just wants to go to the outside of the arena, because it's easier than a smaller circle).
Then I put the saddle on, and we worked on equitation, and did some useful work there to soften him up a bit, to keep him from just going into "zombie mode" on the rail, and the role of my inside leg in all of this.
To me, it was a good session, we didn't have to drill anything over and over, and at the end of it, we still had River's attention (the moment he's had enough, he zones out and quits trying, so you have to not overdo anything and keep changing things up).
He had a really good look on his face when I got off, you could tell he was happy, even though we'd been working. Like he had fun. That to me is probably the most important thing.
I came home, and my Sweetie had already given the animals time in their pastures so we brought them back in.
He had a bath while I washed, snapped, and bagged the beans and made supper.
We watched more "Schitt's Creek".
We know about Guantanamo Bay, the military post in Cuba.
At one point, there was a lease agreement between Cuba and the U.S. to build what WAS more of a "naval station". Fidel Castro wanted them to end the agreement, but the U.S. would not leave this site.
According to the lease agreement of 1934, BOTH countries would have to agree to end the lease, OR the U.S. would be able to end it by leaving. So basically, it means "the U.S. will leave only if they want to leave".
The United States considers themselves to be "leasing" it still, and they keep issuing checks to Cuba for the lease, but Cuba refuses to cash them, because they wanted the U.S. to leave, They consider the base to be an imposition, they are unwilling parties to this base, and consider the land to be stolen from them.
For the U.S., it is a strategic position for defense of the Panama Canal and the coast of the U.S., and likely also a way of having a military presence in Cuba since relations are usually pretty intense between them.
https://www.boredpanda.com/charity-restaurants-jon-bon-jovi-soul-kitchen/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
