Riding Camaro, April Edition

 April has been a good month for riding.  I've been able to work Camaro 4-5 days a week this month.  At the beginning of the month was Spring Break for the school DD1 teaches at, which meant I wasn't needed to care for Faline in the afternoons.  Translation:  I had absolutely no timetable I had to work within for five whole days, and I spent my mornings leisurely grooming and riding Camaro.  It was a fantastic week, we had great rides, and I cantered him (something I had only touched on once last spring, shortly before he had his laminitis episode) two separate days, as well as rode him outside for the first times this year.  

Backing up a bit, I should probably explain that last fall, the county drain commission came through the farm that I board Camaro at and tore up the two biggest pastures while replacing a large section of the drain that runs through the property.  Losing her two best winter pastures meant the farm owner had to some shuffling of horses for turnout, and that the mare group ended up claiming the outdoor arena as their new turnout.  Where they still are, since the destroyed pastures have to be stayed off of until the grass (seeded in December, and then again in late March) that the drain commission planted there once the project was completed, regrows.  So outdoor riding hasn't really been an option, but as the ground has firmed up after the thaw, we can lightly ride on the 'lawn' around the front of the barn and between one side of the barn and the pastures near it.

So, anyway, after doing most of our daily ride in the indoor arena, Camaro and I moseyed around on the lawn for the 5-10 minutes of cooling out each day during that first part of the month.  Since then, however, there has either been crappy weather--wet and/or cold and/or windy--and the big door on the end of the indoor arena has been latched shut again, so we haven't been back outside to ride.

When I cantered Camaro early this month, I noticed that he got really tense when he felt me go from posting trot to sitting trot in preparation for giving him the canter aid.  And on the right side, he just wanted to fling himself on the forehand and run (ie trot faster and faster) into the canter.  On the left, he was tense, but not so inclined to totally lose his frame and just speed up.  Either way, I was left with some questions about his past.  

I all ready knew that he'd been started and shown as a youngster in Arabian Hunter Pleasure, and had a history of being ridden strongly in draw reins. I knew that the lady I had bought him from hadn't been a good match for him, her being an anxious kind of rider (and, I suspected, one that balanced on her reins and yanked them upward when frightened). I knew that when I first began riding him, having contact with his mouth made him throw his head and drop his back, and that he was rather timid under saddle.  We'd worked slowly through the contact and timidity issues.  He's gotten much bolder and less apt to shy and spook since I began working him again once his feet issues went away.  So, I suspected this falling apart when asked to canter was residual tenseness (flashbacks, if you will) to how he'd been ridden prior to me.

I asked my friend, who'd worked with him and his previous owner, about his history with the canter, and she pretty much confirmed my suspicions.  He'd always gotten tense about the canter transition, and rather discombobulated at the canter.  

This info led me to decide to drop, for now, the canter under saddle.  Instead, I have only cantered him on the longe line. And when asking for canter departs on the longe, I first make sure he's balanced in the trot before asking for the transition.  If he tries to run into the canter, we go back down into trot until he's balanced again.  The departs are getting a lot better.  A balanced depart has led to less scrambling once he's in the canter.  And less scrambling has enabled us to work on having balance in the canter with canter bounds that are both rhythmic and upward.  I'm very happy with that, and hoping that soon we'll try cantering under saddle again.

Meanwhile, in the saddle, there's been a focus on teaching him to remain relaxed if I'm sitting the trot instead of posting it.  We've spent lots of trotting time with me going from rising trot to sitting trot and back again.  I've also focused on transitions within the trot, asking for working trot, slightly collected trot, and slightly extended trot.  All while maintaining the connection with the bit, and staying balanced no matter if I'm rising or sitting.  No tensing, no rushing, no throwing his head up and dropping his back.  In a way, it feels like we've regressed, going back to all this work on connection and relaxation that we had no problems with at the beginning of the month. Yet, I know from past experience that this is actually going forward. Because every time you raise the bar, and move up in skill and difficulty in riding, a step or two backwards seems to immediately follow the first step in gaining prowess.  To get better, first we fall apart a little.  Sitting trot is our bar raise for now.

I'm looking forward to working on canter under saddle, and willing to spend this 'falling apart' time of rebuilding in order to have calm and instant canter transitions this summer.

Another cool thing this month, is that on Friday mornings, I get to ride in a pseudo dressage ring!  The barn owner has some students who are thinking of showing in Western Dressage classes this summer, and so once a week she sets up cones and letters in the indoor so they can practice test riding during their lesson.  For me, I'm in dressage queen heaven once a week, riding in the sandbox with the alphabet!  Camaro thinks that M stands for MONSTERS!!, and so every Friday we have to work through him being totally suspicious of that corner of the arena, but he's coming around and it's just so much fun for me to have my letters as guides again.  I hadn't realized how much I missed being in a dressage barn with a dressage arena until the first morning I led him into the arena for our session and I just got totally giddy when I spotted the cones and letters all set up.

Sewing Update, April

Time for a check in to talk about what I've been sewing in the past month. On the UFO challenge I'm participating in, March's number was 11.  On my project list, 11 was written as "Christmas quilt for couch".  A totally unstarted, unplanned, but several year wanted item.  I had a mish-mash group of Christmas-y fabrics in my stash, but nothing specifically coordinated and didn't even have a pattern in mind.

About the middle of the month, I happened upon a pattern I liked, that I thought I could easily adapt to the size I wanted a Christmas quilt for the couch to be, and that should work with my particular fabrics on hand.

Enter the four-square quilt!  I've never actually followed someone else's pattern before when making a quilt, let alone purchase a pattern, but this time I did!  For the most part, anyway.  It was quick and easy with the majority of the math all ready figured out for me, and I sewed most of the quilt top in just a week.  It just needs the borders cut and sewn on to be a completed flimsy.

I made mine 4 blocks by 4 blocks--couch sized once I add the borders.  Which maybe I'll get done yet this week, because the main hold-up on this project was that I took time out of doing my own sewing to teach DD2 how to make a quilt.

She has a good friend (and former college roommate) who is getting married this weekend, and she wanted to make a throw quilt for the bride and groom (who started dating back when she was a roommate of the bride).  DD2 has zero sewing experience.  But she was determined that she could learn, given an easy enough pattern.  

So we choose a giant log cabin block.  Literally, a quilt that is made of a single huge log cabin block.  She had some fat quarters that she'd been collecting for a while (the quilting bug might have been slow in coming,but she'd caught the fabric buying bug a few years ago, LOL).  Using some of those fat quarters for the shorter strips she'd need, plus going stash diving in my fabric hoard, she picked out each color of the quilt.  She did her own math on how long of each fabric she needed strips cut (and sometimes sewn together to be long enough), and I gave her a basic tutorial on pinning, using the sewing machine, and ironing.

I won't say that it was a totally lovely and joyful experience; there was weeping (on her part) and gnashing of teeth (on both our parts), but in the end, she has a nice, personal, handmade gift to give that hopefully will see many years of  love and use.

Pinning the outer strips on the floor when the quilt outgrew the table.

Finished front.

Finished back (you can't even tell where it was pieced to be wide enough).

She chose red for the center block to represent both love and the warmth of the hearth.  Greens are for plants and trees, blues are for the sky.  

Although she swears up and down, after getting this quilt finished, that she will never ever make another quilt in her life, I have the feeling there will be more in the future.  Afterall, she came home from craft-store shopping with a friend the other day and showed me a couple of fat quarters she couldn't resist buying.

Knitting Update, April

 This year is flying by.  I know we're only a little over three months in, but wow, it seems to be barreling along at high speed.  Hard to believe it's the first Wednesday of a new month all ready; time for a knitting update.

And. . . I haven't done a whole lot of knitting in the last month.  I'd thought I'd get to at least work on my Vertex socks for a little bit each afternoon while babysitting Faline.  In actuality, I took my knitting bag--with yarn, needles, and pattern for the socks--to her house daily, but never did any knitting there.  The only time I worked on them was quite recently, and it was all done at this little place here.  Faline is awake for about 2 hours at a time now during the day, with a preference for a nap of 30-45 minutes in between waking hours.  So we play alot, she sleeps a little, and I didn't touch my knitting any during the 3-4 hours a day I babysat.

I did, however, manage to finish the socks right before Easter.  Phew.  Felt good to get the second sock off my needles and put them both onto my feet.  Honestly, I loved knitting this pattern.  Like all the ones I've tried from this designer, it's simple and easy to follow, yet the finished product looks complicated.

Love the colors of the yarn on this one.

Not liking the yarn colors so much on this one.

Close up of design on leg.

I knit very, very little on Honorary Son's Christmas stocking.  I hit a roadblock with a big blank spot in the chart where the pattern designer didn't include instructions on how to make that part of the stocking look exactly like the one she'd made. I felt that part was integral to the overall harmony of the colors in the stocking and I wanted to duplicate it. It took me a while (and the inclination to dig out my old books of counted cross stitch patterns in order to find a pattern to make a similar 'picture' on this stocking) to draft a chart for the next part and actually work on it.  But, I'm rolling along again now and should soon be done with the leg portion of the stocking,  If I keep working on it in the evenings, I might actually finish his stocking this month!  Then I can start on the matching one for DD1.  My goal is to have three: one each for Honorary Son, DD1 and Faline, finished before Thanksgiving.

Of course, I also couldn't resist the siren's call of sock knitting, plus I've been wanting to make myself more shorty (ankle) socks now that the weather is warming.  So yesterday I cast on for a pair using the pattern Early Spring Shorty Socks although I won't being doing them Magic Loop, and I'm making them a solid green (green is my favorite color) rather than with contrasting cuffs, heels and toes.  No picture yet, as I'm just 4 rows into sock #1.

Reading:

I read two books, yay me!  For a person who used to devour books 60 pages per hour, sometimes I find it depressing at how long it now takes me to finish a book.  I still do read fast, just not quite that fast, and not nearly as often as I'd like.  Life just gets in the way, ya know?  Not to mention that I spend some of my free time knitting (and sewing), not just reading.

Another One Bites the Crust by Ellie Alexander, number seven in her Bakeshop Mystery series.  An enjoyable and easy reading mystery, as always.  So as to not blow through all the books in this series in a few months, I'm limiting myself to 3-4 of them per year.

What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand, the sequel to her Winter In Paradise, which I read last year.  It picks up right where the previous novel left off, moves quickly, and ends with yet another plot twist.  Which means I'll be looking for #3 in this series sometime late this year.

I'm still reading Dressage Riding a bit at a time when I have the mental power to digest the information in the book.  

For fun, my current fiction read is A Buzz in the Meadow: the Natural History of a French Farm by Dave Goulson.  I'm just a scant chapter in, and it seems like a book I will find both interesting and relaxing, like nature-watching with a friend.

Talkin' 'bout Camaro

 Camaro, the blog name I chose for my current horse, has not been talked about much on here, considering I've owned him for nearly a year and a half now.  Last year, I intended that I'd post about him pretty regularly, documenting our progress as a team and his career change from an English Pleasure horse (which he was 'too sensitive' for, one of the points that drew me to consider buying him) to a dressage horse.  

Ironically, the sensitivity that sealed the deal for me when purchasing him, was part of my main focus in our early months.  Not making him less sensitive to my leg and seat, no, I love that part of his sensitivity; but to getting him to accept contact with my hands/reins through the bit without freaking out about being touched in the mouth and immediately throwing his head up and dropping his back, very effectively inverting himself.  

Last Spring, just when I was achieving a nice steady contact with his mouth and he was learning to use his back instead of dropping it, we hit a major roadblock.  Laminitis.

I can't tell you the amount of metaphorical weeping and gnashing of teeth (all mine) that ensued over the next 6 months.  In the big picture of things, it was a relatively minor bout of laminitis as far as laminitis goes.  I mean, after weeks of stall rest, a low-sugar pelleted feed and grass hay (absolutely not one trace of alfalfa) diet change, and a set of fancy shoes with gel pads, he worked his way back up to being sound and on 8 hours of turnout (with a grazing muzzle) in only three months!

He did hate the muzzle.  But he learned how to eat through it, by late summer he'd become very adept at sucking up lunchtime hay like spaghetti.

So I got to gingerly get back in the saddle in late August.  Where we started at square one on the contact issue. *Sigh* For exactly five rides spaced out over 3 weeks when he started very obviously displaying signs of an abcess in his right front.  *Double sigh*

Another emergency vet call.  The abcess was located, cut out, and drained.  I got to practice my foot poulticing skills for about 10 days while it all drained out and healed over.  Yay.  Fun.  More weeks of not riding a lame horse.  

poulticed

This was followed up by a thrown shoe just as we were once again sound and resuming light riding.  And, same shoe, thrown again three weeks later. From there proceeded some farrier issues, the very tough decision to part ways with the farrier I'd used since 2007, and to trust my horse's foot care to the farrier that the barn owner used.

Can I say I haven't once, in the nearly six months since then, regretted that decision?  Camaro has been joyously sound.  I've been back in the saddle somewhat regularly--barring two weeks of heavy equipment ripping through the farm doing drain repair for the county, the holidays, bouts of frigid weather, and adjusting to becoming Faline's afternoon babysitter--and we are again making progress.

Am I afraid of a repeat laminitis episode this spring and the grass comes back to life and there's actually something to graze on outside during his hours of turnout?  You betcha!  But, he's lost about all the weight we wanted him to lose (his bloodwork last spring put him at borderline metabolic syndrome), we've kept the changed diet, and he again will be wearing a grazing muzzle all through his daily turnout as soon as the grass starts growing.

Happy horse, happy owner

Sewing Update, March

 All my sewing was done before the end of February.  So far in March, I haven't even touched fabric.  I will, as I still intend to participate in the UFO challenge I mentioned last month.  It's just that this month's number corresponds with a 'I want to make this, but haven't actually started yet or even have a specific design to use' entry on my list of UFO's to work from this year.

Combine that with a sudden and tragic death in the extended family (one of DH's nephews) at the end of February, and I've just kind of lost my enthusiasm temporarily.  I did do some fabric shopping in recent days, so hopefully that will kick start my sewing mojo back into gear.

For February, though, I feel like I accomplished a good thing: I finished my UFO for that month!  It's not just a bunch of blocks from an 8 year old swap anymore.  It's a totally completed quilt.  Yay, me!

I wanted to use those blocks to make a throw sized quilt that would be functional as a picnic blanket, beach blanket, play blanket for using with the grandkids.  I decided not to be super picky about color coordination, or evenness of the quilting.  For the quilting, I went totally freehand but kept a somewhat diamond design as that is what the very center of the quilt told me the quilting should be.  In the border, however, I just echoed the seamline at roughly 1" intervals. As a result of being freehand and me being fairly new at anything other than stitching in the ditch, the quilting isn't totally symmetrical, or even parallel, but that's okay.  This is a quilt to be used more than a quilt to be admired for it's craftsmanship.

Keeping in mind the contact with the ground that this quilt will definitely see during it's lifetime, I used a grunge style fabric for the backing. It looks like it all ready has dirt and grease stains on it.  Not at all my typical type of design, but it's what this quilt told me it needed.

photo op in the sun

grungy backing

this pic is more representative of the true greenish color of the backing

A few days after the quilt was finished, Faline ended up at this little place here during the day while her parents were at work.  Her other grandma (the morning babysitting shift) had come down with a cold and was unavailable to babysit.  Since DH is still working from home and had a couple gaps between scheduled teleconferences that were big enough for me to run off to work and get my own job done, Faline came to us so DH could do the tag-team babysitting with me around his meeting schedule instead of me going to her house to babysit in the afternoons.  

She got to be the first grandchild to use the new quilt, as both a playmat--she loved looking at all the colors--and as a sleep mat for naps.  It has now been officially broken in, baby spit-up and all.

Knitting Update, March

 Happy March!  So far, we're 3 for 3 on sunny days this month.  Almost all the snow melted last weekend, and things look a whole lot browner than they did in the pictures from my Feb. 25th blog post.

There's been a decent amount of knitting going on. Last month, I started taking care of Faline in the afternoons, sharing time with her other grandma now that both of her parents have exhausted their family leave time.  That has cut into my knitting time somewhat, although I do take my Vertex socks to work on while I'm with Faline. Sometimes I get a chance to knit a few rows while she's napping, sometimes I don't.

This is the current state of those:

One sock is completely done, the other is nearing the halfway point on the leg.

I have been spending alot of my at-home knitting time in the evenings on a new project.  Last Fall, I was asked to knit matching Christmas stockings for DD1, Honorary Son and Faline in time to be used for Christmas 2021.  After showing them a variety of patterns, DD1 chose one and I ordered yarn. Once the yarn came in, in early February, I got started on the first one.

Christmas stockings, some assembly required.

As of today, I am probably within a couple inches of dividing off for the heel. I am really liking the challenge of both all the Fair Isle knitting, and the having to draft my own charts for several sections of the pattern.   The general direction and provided charts come from the Trees and Candles pattern found on Ravelry.

I read three fiction books in the past month, and about half of the Dressage Riding book I talked about last month (which I'm still reading when I have thinking time).  The fiction books were

• Happiness For Beginners by Katherine Center, which I enjoyed much more than the previous novel I'd read by her.
• Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. This is a very gritty book, with tough life situations, yet I found it nearly impossible to put down.  I highly recommend it.
• Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood, is a children's novel that I read to see if K3 might enjoy the subject matter. While I think she would like the story, I don't think her reading level is quite up to chapter books without pictures.  Maybe in another six months or so.

Currently I am reading Down a Dark Road, another Kate Burkholder mystery by Linda Castillo.  Captivating!

February Doings

February has been a beautiful month, for the most part.  We've had more sunny blue sky days than I can count.  Some of them were below-zero cold, like the morning this picture was taken of the trees shrouded in hoar frost.  The last several, however, have been above the 40-degree mark and still sunny; which is pretty unusual for this time of year.  Warm days in February are typically cloudy ones.

The first Saturday, we had a full house.  DH, DS1, DS2 and Honorary Son made about 45 pounds of sausage--breakfast, chorizo and Italian--while all the grandkids played together.  During the couple hour break while the sausage meat soaked in its seasonings before grinding, the guys got out the snowmobiles and ran them around the field.  The grandkids got to go sledding behind the 4-Wheeler.  Even Faline bundled up and went for her first sled ride, securely held by K3!

My mudroom was full of boots, coats, and cold-weather gear.  Overwhelming, but also a good full-heart feeling.

Some of the Italian sausage was made into links.  About half was packaged in bulk, for using in spaghetti sauce and on pizza.

With all the sunlight, my chickens are cranking out the eggs.  They're averaging 8-9 a day, but I've had as many as 11 in one day this week.  They are keeping the whole family well supplied, and I think I'll even have enough to sell a few dozen a week this Spring and early Summer.

Over several weekends, DH and I pruned all the fruit trees in our little orchard, as well as the trees in the yard (any low-hanging branches that were nuisances while mowing the lawn), the bushes around the house, and a large majority of the wild apples and crabapples along the north fence line and where the field meets the woods.  

I found some grapevine growing in one of the lilac bushes near the house, and pulled it out. As I was winding it to better be able to throw it onto the brush pile, I had the thought to try to make a wreath out of it.  Twisting and turning the length of the vines around the original loop I made was incredibly easier than I'd thought it would be.  And just like that, I have a free grapevine wreath to decorate with!

On Wednesday this week, I went out and tapped some of the maples in our woods.  The extended forecast is for just right temperatures for the sap to begin running.  I hereby declare maple syrup season to be underway!

Next comes Mud Month (March), and you can tell that Mother Nature is getting ready to transition to Spring.  In the last week we've seen many robins and bluebirds, as well as flocks of starlings (DH's nemesis).  We've also, in the last two days, lost the majority of the nice snow that had finally built up to a useful (ie sledding, skiing, snowmobiling) amount.  Our driveway and all the plowed areas around this little place here are down to bare earth; bare muddy earth.  

Time for me to get my tender veggie and flower seeds started indoors!