May Rides

A few days late, but this is my May update for Camaro.  

Late April was good, and bad, in terms of rides. There were two days when work was being done in the indoor arena, and the only place to ride was the outdoor--briefly, for a few hours while the horses normally turned out in it were kept in so a few of us could ride in the early morning.  First day of outdoor only went wonderful, except that I was under a tight time constraint and after longeing Camaro for about 15 minutes since it was the first time in the outdoor this year, I only had less than 10 minutes to ride.  That ride was great: he was relaxed and stretchy, just as I had hoped.

The following day was rather a disaster.  Rain was in the forecast, but it was just slightly misty when we set out to longe in the outdoor.  And then came a lawnmower--or rather, a guy racing a zero-turn as fast as it could go up the side of the barn, towards the outdoor, apparently also trying to beat the rain.  Camaro, understandably, in response to the noisy death machine zooming toward the fence did a full fledged Arabian episode of snorting and bucking and cantering like an idiot on the end of the longe line.  I had just gotten him back into a more intelligent state when the clouds opened and the rain arrived.  Rather than get my saddle and bridle soaked in order to ride, we aborted the riding plans for that day and dashed back to the barn.  It was rather frustrating.

Two days later, however, back in the now improved indoor (overhead lighting!! no more spooky shadowy corners!!) we had one of our best rides so far, with Camaro on the bit, attentive, forward, and yet relaxed.  He got extra treats that day.  

May has been up and down.  Although even the down days are better than most our good days last fall.  There's improvement.  The connection is nearly constant rather than hit and miss.  He's less distractable and more focused.  We've been working lately on developing different trots; there's warm up trot (oh yeah, we trot a lot more in warm up than we used to because he's not nearly as spooky as he used to be six months ago), there's our 'regular' trot, there's the stretchy trot (for a horse that liked to go with his nose up like a camel, having a stretchy trot on demand is awesome), and now there's what I call 'short trot' (slightly collected) and 'big trot' (more power than regular trot, this should become our extension months from now).  We have multiple walks, too.

Some days we have a few honest to goodness leg-crossing steps of leg yield. Other days he wants to plow a diagonal path with his shoulder instead of cross his legs.  Some days our turn on the forehand is smooth.  Other days it's like prying his feet off the ground one by one.  But overall, we are better than we were when Spring began.  Halts are really getting square and almost entirely off my seat, hardly any rein involved now.

I think we're just about ready to begin focusing on canter.

His favorite first stop in turnout is the water tank.

Sewing Update, May

 Since my April sewing update, I have sewn way less than I knit. And I didn't knit a whole lot.

I got the borders, a solid red fabric, put on my Christmas quilt.  I do have both backing and batting for that, but put my sewing machine away upstairs in the room that's supposed to be for crafting (I had to put it up there so I could use the dining room table for other things) and have not worked on that quilt one bit in the last three weeks.  It would be so nice to have room upstairs for a nice table to sew on.  The desk where the sewing machine lives when it's actually upstairs is nice for small work, like masks, or single quilt blocks, but just not good for anything long and/or large.

Did I think to take a picture of the quilt with it's borders sewn on?  Nope. *sigh*  I'm in a phase currently where life seems to be going at full throttle and I'm getting dragged along behind, just trying to stay on my feet.  Kinda miss winter, it's a little less packed with stuff.

I do have pictures of a few quilt blocks I made for a forum quilt that I am participating in (and head up annually).  They all feature the same blue fabric, as that is this year's forum quilt fabric.  It doesn't look it from the pictures (some were more cropped), but with trimming, all the blocks are the same size: 12.5".

disappearing 9 patch

ocean waves variation

four-square

Knitting Update, May

 As is typical this time of year, my knitting time has been cut way back.  I managed to finish the Christmas stocking (#1 of 3), with the exception of the embellishments (icord hanger, stitching a bow on each wreath, finding a star button to sew onto the top of the tree) that I will do all at once when I have the other two stockings knit.  No picture to show, because I forgot and it's all ready tucked away upstairs.

Rather than start stocking #2 right away, I've been concentrating on my pair of Early Spring shorty socks.  Sock #1 is done, and Sock #2 is about 75% finished--I only need to do about 24 more rows on the foot and then knit the toe.  Hoping to have that off the needles by this weekend.

I learned a new technique on these socks: the German short row heel.  I may actually like this more than a gusset heel (which is my go-to heel treatment).  I definitely love it a million times more than the wrap and turn heel.  

IRL, heel doesn't look as funky as in this photo.

Last month, I finally finished Dressage Riding by Watjen!  Before I'd gotten to the last few chapters, I knew that I wanted to make a goal to always be reading a dressage-related book this year.   So as soon as I finished reading Watjen, I picked up Four Legs Move My Soul by Isabell Werth and Evi Simeoni.  That will be my slow reading horsey book for the next couple of months.

As far as fiction reading goes, I read Lisa Wingate's newest (I think, it was published a year ago. . . ) novel The Book of Lost Friends.  It read very quickly, for the most part being engaging and hard to put down. 

My current fiction read, just started over the weekend, is The Late Bloomers Club by Louise Miller.  I read her debut novel a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it, so I'm hoping this second book is just as good.