summer solstice 2009

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.
-Sam Keen



Moomintroll showed us how to celebrate the summer solstice in his own special feline way: stay inside, find a comfortable spot, and just let it all hang out.

The cats have been doing all kinds of kooky cat things this week.

Osage (aka Muffine Eloise) was found in the washing machine, nestled on top of the clothes waiting to be laundered. Yesterday she was in the laundry basket.

Keats slithers in and out as needed to maintain the balance between hunting and relaxing.

Dickens was seen flat out in the hay a few days ago, with a big black mare and two miniature donkeys quite literally eating around him.

Mystic appeared at an upstairs window, asking to be let in. Yes, he was on the roof of our house.

Every now and then I walk into the living room and find them all laid flat out like lions on the veldt, and that especially makes me smile.

And in the meantime:


Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

beating the heat on November Hill

Forecast is for 97 today and tomorrow, and knowing the way it seems to work here, the temps will actually be higher by about 4 p.m.

Here's what we're doing to beat the heat:


Ride at night - daughter was out in the arena last night at 10:45 p.m., riding dressage tests on her pony.

Spritz with cold water in a spray bottle. Or take a bucket of cold water and sponge the horses off.

Offer cold hosings during the hottest part of the day. Sometimes I just wait for these hot, hot days to give full baths, since we give them in the shade of the big oak tree in the small barnyard. I end up getting as wet as the horses, and they get clean AND cool at the same time.

Up the loose salt in the feed.

Mix up buckets of Apple A Day electrolyte water for each paddock.

Dampen the fly masks with cool water - some horses like it, some don't.

Hose down the hay in the nets with cold water and let them eat it wet. It's closer to fresh grass in moisture content, and it's cooling.

Turn on the fans, keep the sun out of the barn, and let them go in and out as they feel like it.

Fill up the Corgi pool and play diving for hot dogs. (we learned this game from the annual Corgi picnic we've managed to get to one time!)

Hose down cap with cold water to keep head cool.

Be anal about pulling shades on the sunny side of the house. It's amazing how well this works to keep the house cool.

Anticipate the big sweaty chores and do them before the heat hits. We did shavings two days ago to avoid doing that particular chore on these hottest days.

Would love to hear more suggestions if you have them! Thankfully we'll be back to high 80s/low 90s by Sunday.

dressage detox (reprinted with permission from jme)

It's about time. Riders and trainers have long complained about the decline of horsemanship in general and dressage in particular, especially as concerns competition. In recent years, only the most spectacular, showy performances have been rewarded at the expense of correct dressage and, more importantly, at the expense of the well-being of the horses. The situation is becoming toxic - for horses and riders. It's time to clean house.
Granted things are unlikely to change when these riders are backed by serious money and corporate sponsorships, but we have to try something to bring the standards back up to some meaningful level.
Grey Horse Matters sent me this link from Philippe Karl's website and I thought I'd pass it along to those who might be interested. Philippe Karl is one of the too few truly classical voices out there, and someone I have great respect for as a horseman. Of course, the Petition only addresses the German Equestrian Federation, however, this organization sets the standards to which we are all eventually subject due to its powerful influence on the FEI. A change in the German system might just positively influence the FEI and other national federations, including the USEF and USDF. I have signed the Petition, and I hope you will consider signing too and possibly forwarding to horsey friends or post on your own blog...



Thanks, jme, for allowing me to reprint this. You can go read many excellent articles on horsemanship on jme's blog, Glenshee Equestrian Center.

And don't forget to read the petition and sign if you agree.

Petition: Reforms of the FN rules

To read the Petition and sign, click here.

another rainy day and more random thoughts

I haven't been able to ride yet today due to rain, but the horses seem to be enjoying the break from the heat, and the fields are drinking in the rain as it falls.

My husband called this morning in some distress because when it rains the turtles get active, and he had stopped several times on his way to work to rescue turtles on the road. His distress was over a turtle he was unable to rescue - he stopped, pulled over, and as he was walking out to move the turtle from the other lane to safety, a truck came by and purposely veered out of its path to run over and kill the turtle.

There was not much I could say that made things better. Perhaps the turtle was sick and a quick death was actually a good thing. Maybe the man will have some sort of awakening later today about his hideous behavior. Or maybe my husband will be moved to some new revelation after witnessing such cruelty. It's very hard to make sense of the things people do sometimes, or what ripples the acts might set in motion.

Here on November Hill, I had to smile when I went out to feed breakfast. It's a rainy day and donkeys must have been in dire need of some activity. I found every lead rope that had been hanging in the barn aisle dragged out to the grass paddock. There was a blue one, a green one, a purple one. Three fly masks that had been hanging in the barn aisle had also been taken out and were soaking up the rain. Two brushes were out there as well.

I wish I'd seen if both donkeys were busily cleaning out my barn aisle, or if Redford did it all on his own!

On another note, I have discovered a wonderful online magazine called Horses For Life.

In an interview with Phillipe Karl, he says:

As soon as the horse is giving his mouth and is flexible in the neck, the rider should train a proper extension of the neck, in order to gymnasticise the whole body in the forward movement. But, each time the horse stops giving his mouth, he is saying: “It is too much, I am contracting, and out of balance,….please stop this and restore the right conditions”. When the rider doesn’t care about that, he tries to manage the horse by mediocre means – using force, tight nosebands, running reins, over-flexion etc.

In fact the fundamental thing is: through a lively mouth (understanding, relaxation, balance, attention), bend the neck, extend it, raise it, as the horse needs and according to what you intend to do. This is more important and more difficult than being obsessed by ONE position, supposedly the good one. The official doctrine is that you will create balance by forward movement. [My rebuttal] is that you don’t teach a young child to stand on his legs by forcing him to run.

There are many gems in the interview, and many of the articles are fascinating. So far I haven't done the paid subscription - but there is a fair amount that you can read for free.

Karl calls his training philosophy the "school of lightness" and I found a lovely video that shows a bit of what this means.

I've been doing a lot of reading recently about bridle fit, including tightness of noseband, bit placement, and weight of reins in the hand, and how this applies to creating bend and flexion. Lightness and freedom is what I'm after, and I'm disappointed to say there's a lot of the opposite going on in the dressage world.

finally - shifted the a.m. routine

I've been struggling mightily to get myself up and in a mindset to ride in the a.m. as mornings are the coolest time of day here and will be for the next few months.

It's been harder than I expected. I was feeling slug-like anyway, so last week I took 3 doses of one of my "tune-up" remedies, hoping it would help. It did.

Then I decided to add morning yoga in so I'd get some stretching and moving done before heading out to the barn. Amazingly enough I've been finding good yoga classes free online. You have to Google around and find the ones that might work for level and preference, but it's been great.

This morning, it was much cooler than it's been being and I decided if any time was right to push myself out the back door, this was it.

Keil Bay went into a sort of shock when I walked out with a clean white dressage pad under my arm and put the beet pulp pitcher in the feed room. Cody and the pony saw me setting out saddle and bridle and figured they'd go back out to graze, but Salina stood by the tack/feed room door and gave me the "you are doing this all wrong, are you having some sort of senior moment?" look.

When she realized that wasn't it, she looked mildly disgusted and went out into her paddock.

Keil got over the shock pretty quickly and stood quietly in the stall while I tacked him up. I told him quite plainly that there was to be no hard work today. We both needed to do lots of walking and get ourselves back in gear.

He followed me from stall to arena and I mounted without batting an eye (or fidgeting with the mounting block for 10 minutes!).

One thing that surely made the ride good was the yoga class I happened onto this morning. It was focused on opening the hip joints! I have never done the pigeon pose before, but whoa - that one truly does open the hip angle and stretches things out.

We had a very nice walk session. Keil marched around like a panther after the ride, which is his way of letting me know he likes doing his work for the day and being free to enjoy the remaining 23 or so hours eating, grazing, drinking, sleeping, eating, grazing, etc.

They were all ravenous for the slightly late breakfast tubs, but I've decided until this new routine really kicks in for ME, if breakfast tubs are served a little bit late, so be it.

I got back inside just in time for lunch. Hopefully I can maintain this routine through the summer. I'll report back on how it goes. :)