Wednesday, November 29
Nov. 30th, 2023 02:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Still eerily warm weather for this time of year. I am getting concerned about how dry it is here. We don't have any snow, and haven't had hardly anything for precipitation in any form since September. That makes it very dry, and we will need a lot of moisture to make up for it so that spring isn't dry as well.
I think my Sweetie is getting better at sleeping at home for work. For a while, I know it was hard for him to get back on his "work schedule" because when he was on vacation, he stayed up later and would sleep a LONG time, like ten hours a night. When he had to start getting up for work again, he was just not sleeping well in anticipation of needing to get up early. At least now he seems to sleep when he goes to bed, not all restless like he was.
I talked with my Sister E for a while, as I was at the barn but just letting River eat. We didn't talk long, but she was telling me how her friend's horse, the one I mentioned a few days ago, died. This was the mare that had the still born foal that she never expelled, and it was basically decomposing inside of her womb.
They figure the foal had been dead for quite a while, and it made the mare very sick. By the time they realized what was making her sick, it was probably dead for weeks. They removed the fetus, did what they could to clean her womb, put her on antibiotics, and she still died.
It's pretty sad for my sister's friend.
I had a lesson with River tonight. Once again, I was ready to work right on time for my lesson at 6 pm, and the person before me was just standing there with R, yakking away about things like the upcoming Christmas get-together, and yada yada yada yada.
I warmed up for a few minutes, and then walked over to them and stood in front of them with River. When THAT didn't work, I grabbed the whips we work with, stood in front of R, and said "What are we working on today?". That kind of snapped her back to reality, and it worked. The other person doesn't seem to realize that it's MY LESSON TIME any time after 6 PM, and now when there is another lesson right after mine at 7 pm, I can't go over, I have to be out of the arena.
So, we went to work.
I don't like having to be rude like that, but if I'm not, I lose 15 minutes sometimes on my lesson, and that's not fair to me.
We worked on lunging, which needed to be cleaned up a lot as far as my cues and the clarity of my body, and to get a clean response, because some of the hazyness needs to be fixed so our Liberty circles can be better. The biggest thing was to get a good, forward canter that he maintained without me needing to constantly be after him (he slows down after half a circle and tries to trot).
He needs to be better about maintaining whatever gait I ask for, without me babysitting him to keep going. That way, at Liberty he knows he is responsible for maintaining the gait I assign, without having to keep after him.
He was nice and forward once we clarified my goals.
We also reviewed the "away" circle, and looked at some options for the Spanish Walk. The way we're trying to teach it right now isn't working, so we're looking at alternatives.
A good lesson.
I came home and ate and visited with my Sweetie for a while before he went to bed.
I learned that most chewing gum is made of plastic. Basically material similar to car tires or glue. It does not biodegrade for thousands of years, and is a real problem in some cities where people leave gum in public places, where it has to be manually removed.
https://lomi.com/blogs/news/is-gum-biodegradable-compostable#4
https://justoneocean.org/chewing-gum
Still eerily warm weather for this time of year. I am getting concerned about how dry it is here. We don't have any snow, and haven't had hardly anything for precipitation in any form since September. That makes it very dry, and we will need a lot of moisture to make up for it so that spring isn't dry as well.
I think my Sweetie is getting better at sleeping at home for work. For a while, I know it was hard for him to get back on his "work schedule" because when he was on vacation, he stayed up later and would sleep a LONG time, like ten hours a night. When he had to start getting up for work again, he was just not sleeping well in anticipation of needing to get up early. At least now he seems to sleep when he goes to bed, not all restless like he was.
I talked with my Sister E for a while, as I was at the barn but just letting River eat. We didn't talk long, but she was telling me how her friend's horse, the one I mentioned a few days ago, died. This was the mare that had the still born foal that she never expelled, and it was basically decomposing inside of her womb.
They figure the foal had been dead for quite a while, and it made the mare very sick. By the time they realized what was making her sick, it was probably dead for weeks. They removed the fetus, did what they could to clean her womb, put her on antibiotics, and she still died.
It's pretty sad for my sister's friend.
I had a lesson with River tonight. Once again, I was ready to work right on time for my lesson at 6 pm, and the person before me was just standing there with R, yakking away about things like the upcoming Christmas get-together, and yada yada yada yada.
I warmed up for a few minutes, and then walked over to them and stood in front of them with River. When THAT didn't work, I grabbed the whips we work with, stood in front of R, and said "What are we working on today?". That kind of snapped her back to reality, and it worked. The other person doesn't seem to realize that it's MY LESSON TIME any time after 6 PM, and now when there is another lesson right after mine at 7 pm, I can't go over, I have to be out of the arena.
So, we went to work.
I don't like having to be rude like that, but if I'm not, I lose 15 minutes sometimes on my lesson, and that's not fair to me.
We worked on lunging, which needed to be cleaned up a lot as far as my cues and the clarity of my body, and to get a clean response, because some of the hazyness needs to be fixed so our Liberty circles can be better. The biggest thing was to get a good, forward canter that he maintained without me needing to constantly be after him (he slows down after half a circle and tries to trot).
He needs to be better about maintaining whatever gait I ask for, without me babysitting him to keep going. That way, at Liberty he knows he is responsible for maintaining the gait I assign, without having to keep after him.
He was nice and forward once we clarified my goals.
We also reviewed the "away" circle, and looked at some options for the Spanish Walk. The way we're trying to teach it right now isn't working, so we're looking at alternatives.
A good lesson.
I came home and ate and visited with my Sweetie for a while before he went to bed.
I learned that most chewing gum is made of plastic. Basically material similar to car tires or glue. It does not biodegrade for thousands of years, and is a real problem in some cities where people leave gum in public places, where it has to be manually removed.
https://lomi.com/blogs/news/is-gum-biodegradable-compostable#4
https://justoneocean.org/chewing-gum
