Preparing for Lysts 2012 -- Jousting Practice January 22

On Sunday, January 22, SH hosted the third jousting practice aimed at preparing for "Lysts on the Lake 2012". My husband Foxfire attended and brought both of our horses. My husband's horse Ziggy is getting old, so Foxfire has started training my horse Shadowfax to joust. Shadowfax did well at the first jousting practice two weeks ago, but then he came up dead lame with abscesses in both front hooves. A small easy to treat abscess in his front right, but a nasty deep abscess in his front left.

We had the farrier out to check on the abscesses and we'd been soaking his hooves with epsom salts, treating the abscesses with ichthammol and keeping his feet clean and wrapped as best we could. He rapidly improved, but was no where near ready to be ridden by the time of the second practice for Lysts down in Katy, Texas, so Foxfire helped SH train DA's horse Moose instead. By the day of the third practice, Shadowfax looked sound walking around in the pasture, so we decided to take him to DASH's and see if he was sound in the arena. We brought Ziggy along in case Shadow wasn't quite ready to be ridden yet.

Sure enough when we trotted Shadowfax around in hand, you could tell he was still a little off, not much, but enough that you wouldn't want him to do any work. So poor Shadowfax got to stay in the arena's paddock throughout the practice. He was not happy about this.

He certainly didn't seem lame the way he was acting up!

He really wanted to be out "playing" with all the other horses.

Hey Buddy! Think you can break a fellow out of here?

Since Foxfire ended up working with Ziggy, he mainly worked on rating Ziggy during the canter and getting him to stop cleanly at the end of the list.

Foxfire on Ziggy, SH on Lucky, and Gideon on Saga practicing riding their horses up and down the list in various pieces of armor and chain, with and without lances.

Gideon's horse Saga, although an experienced jumping horse, is still very inexperienced when it comes to jousting. Gideon seemed to mainly work on desensitizing Saga to the sounds that the armor and chain maille make when worn by the person in the saddle. He also managed to get a little practice in against the quintain.

Gideon on Saga makes a pass against the quintain.

After working with his horse, Lucky, for a while, SH switched to his other horse Tinkerbell. SH rode Tinkerbell for the Joust a'Plaisance portion of Lysts 2011, but according to SH, she can still be a little spooky about the noises armor and maille make. However, she seemed pretty blase' about all the noises associated with jousting on that particular day. During practice, SH, among other things, rode her against the quintain a few times. The following two pictures demonstrate why it is very important to keep going once you hit the shield portion of the quintain.

SH on Tinkerbell strikes the quintain...

...and the quintain tries to strike SH back.

NJ, who is still a very new jouster, seemed to spend most of the practice learning how to carry and control a lance on horseback. It's harder than it looks. Lances may vary a bit, but the ones we use are 11' long and weigh about 6 pounds, so carrying one really changes your center of balance. NJ doesn't have a horse of his own, so Gideon was nice enough to loan him Red, a very experienced jousting horse, to practice with.

Practicing carrying a lance while on horseback.

There were a number of people out to watch the others practice and to act as ground crew. Having ground crew is vitally important to jousting. It simply couldn't be done without the support of those on the ground.

The people on the horses depend on the people on the ground for all sorts of help.

And of course, SH's dog Archie supervised everyone to make sure they were doing it right.

From my gimpy perspective (I am currently trying to heal from a broken kneecap and some soft tissue damage in my leg), it seemed like a successful practice. Everything didn't go perfectly, but progress was made and everyone seemed satisfied.

You can see more pictures from the practice on my "A Jouster's Wife" Photobucket account in the album "Lysts Practice Jan 23 2012" (I know I got the date wrong, but I'm not going to change it now.)

Riding Red in a Jousting Saddle

This past Sunday, there was another jousting practice at DASH's arena. DA was kind enough to trailer Ziggy over so that Foxfire could could get some work in on him. (We really need to get a truck of our own.) I went along to watch and be social. However, I ended up helping train SH's new jousting horse, Tinkerbell, by standing at the end of the jousting lane and giving her baby carrots when she would come to me and stop instead of continuing to run around the arena. Tinkerbell is a huge Frisian/Percheron cross, and I have to admit, it was a little scary to see her coming at me. But she always stopped, or at least slowed down enough so that all I had to do was take one step to the side and she would end up beside me instead of in front of me. She was trying to stop, she just mis-judged her distance a little.

I also got up on Red and rode around the arena a little at a walk. Red was wearing his jousting saddle which I had never ridden in before and I hope to never ride in again. The saddle seams are in exactly the wrong place for me and really dug into my inner thighs. Ouch. Also, the stirrup leathers which were sized for SG were way too long for me, so I had to ride without stirrups. Not really a big deal, since all I was going to do was walk. But it was really nice for JJ (and SG who is actually the one who rides Red for jousting) to let me ride him, so I shouldn't complain. I'm not sure exactly how long I rode. Maybe 20 minutes? The saddle was hurting my thighs and, I have to admit, it really is rather boring to just walk around an arena. But I need to get more time in the saddle at a walk before I'll be able to do anything else. Sadly, my tailbone still hurts when I put pressure on it, so I'm a little leery of trying to trot yet, even on as sweet a horse as Red.

Ah well, one step at a time.

Lunging Shadowfax

Well, I finally felt well enough (and brave enough) to try and lunge Shadowfax. Not that he's bad to lunge. When he is lunged consistently, he does just fine. But he hasn't been lunged consistently since we bought him. (I know that's bad, but first there was knee deep mud and then I was injured and Foxfire doesn't really know how to lunge since his horse was never trained to do it.) I don't know why I decided to lunge Shadowfax today. Foxfire was actually out of town with SH doing SCA equestrian stuff. And you would think that I would want to do it when he was around. If for nothing else than the fact that he could take pictures. (I still don't have any pictures of me with my horse. Sigh.) But for some reason, I felt like doing it for the first time this afternoon, and so I did.

Now, I don't exactly have much experience lunging horses. Back when Cash was still sound, JJ showed me how to lunge him a couple of times. But that was well over a year ago, and Cash was extremely well trained. All I really had to do was hold the lunge line and speak the cues and Cash did what I said with absolutely no fuss. A few months ago, at the jousting clinic, JJ had demonstrated lunging Shadowfax to me, though, because of my injuries, I couldn't actually lunge him myself. Shadowfax is not quite as well-trained or willing as Cash. With some consistent work, he probably could be, but he's not there right now. Even with JJ lunging him, there were quite a few fireworks. So, I knew there were probably going to be some problems when I started lunging him. And there were. But they weren't that bad. And by the end of the relatively short session, he was actually doing pretty well. So here's a brief summary of how things went.

Now, since I had treats in my pocket, the minute I walked out into the pasture, Shadowfax came up to me. How he knows I have treats in my pockets, I don't know. I only have treats about one in ten times I go into the pasture, but, I swear, the horse is psychic, because he always seems to know when I have treats. When I don't have treats, he'll look up at me, but he doesn't come over unless I call to him. If I have treats, I don't have to call, he just comes. Smart horse. I haltered him and led him to the trailer which is where we keep the lunging equipment.

The flies were bothering him, so I decided to spray him, which I knew he wouldn't like, but he needs to get used to it. I pulled out the fly spray and when he saw the bottle, he stepped back just a little and looked nervous. I held the fly spray in the same hand the I held the lead rope in, and with my other hand, I pulled out a carrot stick. I held the carrot stick up next to the fly spray where he could see it. After a moment he stepped forward and reached for the carrot. I made sure that he had to rub his nose against the side of the bottle in order to get the carrot. Then as he was munching the carrot, I slowly sprayed his front legs. He sidled away a little bit in a semi-circle on the lead rope, and I followed him until he was against the side of the trailer and couldn't sidle any more. I again sprayed his front legs and he sort of shifted a bit, but couldn't really go anywhere. I sprayed his leg again and he finally just stood there, so I gave him another carrot stick. As he was munching the carrot stick, I moved to his side to spray his side, back and belly. He moved forward and got away from the trailer, so I moved him around in a circle again, until he was against the trailer again. I rustled the pocket with the treats in it and then sprayed his side again. He twitched a little, but basically stood still, so he got another carrot stick. Then I sprayed his back leg. We went in a circle again and he ended up back against the trailer. Etc... We repeated the pattern several times until I had gotten him to stand still while I sprayed him all over. Then I held up the bottle in front of him again and when he sniffed it, gave him another carrot stick. (The carrot sticks are pretty small, so I can feed him a lot of them.) I put the fly spray away and got out the lunge line and whip, and led him over to a clear flat area.

Now when I started all of this the donkeys and Ziggy were way on the other side of the pasture, but when I started to walk Shadowfax in a circle, they ALL had to come over and see what I was doing. Ziggy actually stayed far enough away not to be a problem, but Kanny and Tessla managed to actually get between Shadowfax and me just ahead of the lunge line, they kept walking and I actually let them lunge with us for about half a circle because it was really sort of cute. But after half a circle, I stopped because I figured sooner or later someone was going to get out of sync and cause problems and I truly did not want that. I locked the donkeys in the goat pen and started Shadowfax walking in circles again. He actually did really well walking at the end of the lunge and after about 5 or so circles, I asked him to trot. He didn't trot right away and I had to ask more forcefully and flip the whip a little bit to actually get him to trot, but he trotted eventually. When I asked him to go back to walk, he did so promptly. When I asked for trot again, he did a little better and he was always willing to slow to walk.

However, when I asked him to canter, there were some fireworks. He wouldn't go from just the voice cue, so I had to flick the whip at him several times. I finally actually touched his rump with the whip, not forcefully, just enough for him to feel it and he bucked and kicked out. I yelled, "NO!!" and he immediately went into a hell bent for leather canter. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was a canter and he wasn't pulling on the lunge line or anything. I let him run around about five times, then tried to slow him to a trot. At first, he just kept running. I tried different things to slow him and finally figured out that speaking extreeeeeemmmmmmmllllllyyyy slowly and letting my voice drop in pitch and volume was the way to get him to slow down. He gradually slowed down and finally dropped into a trot. I trotted him two circles, then asked for a walk, and he slowed to a walk. And then I asked him to stop.

Sadly, he doesn't seem to understand "Ho" at all. The only way to get him to stop is to pull the lunge line shorter and shorter and he'll eventually stop. It's a bit frustrating, but I suppose there are worse things. I'll ask JJ what I can do to teach him to stop when I say "Ho".

I switched which side the lunge line was attached to and started him walking in the opposite direction. This time when I asked for trot, I got it a bit more easily, I still had to make tsk, tsk noises at him, but I didn't have to flip the whip. I walked, trotted, walked several times, then I asked for canter. Again there were fireworks, but a loud "NO!!" was all it took to make him canter instead of buck and kick out. (He only did one buck and one kick before he went into the canter on each side and I sort of wonder if he would have gone into the canter after expressing his displeasure even I hadn't yelled. Who knows.) Anyway, he did hell bent for leather canter again and I let him go for several circles then I started slowing him down. I asked for a slower canter, by saying "canter" in a slow drawn out way on a descending scale, and he actually slowed into a nice controlled canter. After a couple of more circles, I asked for a trot and got it immediately. I asked for walk and got it fairly quickly and then I had to pull him in to get him to stop.

I switched directions again and asked for walk, trot, walk, trot, canter, trot, walk, and got everything I asked for reasonably quickly and with NO fireworks. I tried asking for stop again, and again had to pull him in closer to finally get him to stop, but he did stop a bit more easily than before. I decided that that was a really good positive note to end on and didn't lunge him in the other direction again. Maybe the lunging was a bit uneven in numbers of circles in each direction, but I wanted to stop on a positive note and wasn't sure it would go as well in the other direction. I gave him a carrot stick and told him that he'd been a very good boy.

I led him back to the trailer, switched the lunge line for the lead line and held the fly spray bottle out to him again. At first he pulled his head back, but then seemed to remember the carrots and nosed the bottle. I gave him another carrot stick. I closed everything back up in the trailer, led him over to the gate to the backyard, took his halter off, gave him another carrot stick and petted him a few times. I let the donkeys out of the goat pen, petted them, petted Shadowfax again and came inside.

It wasn't a very long lunging session, and it certainly wasn't perfect, but I am very happy that it went as well as it did. And even though my arms and shoulders are a little tired, my ribs and tailbone don't hurt any more than usual, so obviously it didn't strain my injuries. Now that I know that I can lunge Shadowfax, I will try to do so several times a week. Hopefully, he and I will both improve our lunging abilities, and it will strengthen our relationship.

Purple Fingertips and Running Water

Texas has been unusually cold the past few days. Very unusually cold. Usually, we MAY get one or two days where the temp drops below freezing each winter, well we've now had over a week of temperatures below freezing including several days in a row where the temp never got ABOVE freezing. This is NOT something that we're used to. To begin with all the hose pipes that we use to water our critters froze solid and didn't even thaw out enough during the afternoon to let us fill up the water trough and buckets, so Foxfire and I would have to haul buckets full of water from the master bathroom out to the water trough and watering buckets. It certainly gave me a new appreciation of how people lived before electric pump houses and water on demand from a tap.

Okay, so we'd sort of gotten used to hauling water outside. We didn't like it, but we'd adjusted to doing it. But this morning we discovered that that was no longer an option. The pipes in our pump house had frozen and cracked and once things thawed out a bit, we had water running out of our pump house into our tank. Not the ideal way to fill your tank. And, of course, things finished thawing and cracking wide open right after I'd gotten into the shower and completely wetted down my hair prior to shampooing it. Fortunately, I hadn't actually put any shampoo in yet. I felt the water pressure suddenly drop then taper off to nothing and yelled for Foxfire to check and see what was wrong. He came back in yelling that there was water pouring out of our pump house. He ran out to try and turn the water off. I dried off somewhat, threw on some clothes and a hat (since my hair was wet and I didn't want it to freeze to my head) and went out to help him. Foxfire, not having grown up with a pump house, didn't know that you had to flip the breaker switches to turn the pump off and was frantically turning various faucet heads to try and stop the water. I reached over and, somewhat nervously, since I was standing in water, flipped the breakers. The pump shut down and finally the water stopped coming out.

We looked at the remains of our pipes. One elbow joint was completely broken into two pieces and a length of pipe next to it was badly cracked. We were both a bit stunned and tried to decide what to do. Obviously we could call a plumber and pay a lot of money and he would fix it. It would be very expensive and we didn't know how long it would take a plumber to get to us. I thought, looking at the pipes and thinking about SH who has talked about fixing his own broken pipes before, that maybe it was a simple enough repair that I could do it myself. Unfortunately, Foxfire could not stay and help because he had to go to the memorial service for the very close friend of his that had passed on a few days ago. Fortunately, he had showered before me and somehow the pipes had held together long enough for him to get clean. Apparently, the fates knew that he had to attend the service and arranged that he could make it. I suppose it wasn't as important to the universe at large that I attend. And I admit that I wasn't as close to this person, but I had wanted to be there for Foxfire. Ah well...

So... anyway, I called SH and asked about fixing broken pipes. He asked if they were metal or PVC and sounded relieved when I said PVC. He told me that PVC was easy to fix and gave me detailed instructions on what I needed to do. I thanked him for his advice and went to work. First I used a little hacksaw to cut off the broken pieces, then I brought the broken pieces to Home Depot to make sure I got the right sizes. I bought the stuff I needed and then went home. Unfortunately, the very first thing I tried to do didn't quite work. One of the pieces that needed to be replaced was actually screwed into a metal pipe and there was a specific PVC adapter piece that screwed in on one side and attached to the PVC on the other side. Well, the piece I had wouldn't screw in properly. I thought maybe there are different types of screw threads and I bought one with the wrong type of threads. So I went back to Home Depot. No, there are NOT different types of screw threads, they are all the same. Okay, maybe I simply had a defective piece. Since that particular piece was only about $0.35, I bought two more (just in case there was another defective one) and went back home. Well, guess what... neither of these pieces worked any better. I thought maybe something was gunking up the the threads in the metal pipe, so I used my fingers and a paper towel to clean it out as best I could. I also screwed the broken piece back in and out a few times to make sure nothing was blocking the threads. But, nope, the replacement piece still wouldn't screw in properly. Finally I just wrapped a major amount of silicone tape (the stuff you use to make sure stuff that screws together doesn't leak) around the screw threads and forced it in there. It was sort of crooked, but it seemed like it would work.

I then proceeded to prime, cement and connect the various replacement pipe bits. I got it all together, waited a few minutes while I sort of cleaned up and put away the various tools that I used, then turned the pump back on. The good news is that the pieces that I'd fixed didn't leak. The bad news is that a piece next to the pieces that I had fixed apparently had a hairline crack along its bottom for almost its entire length. I turned the water back off. Looked at what I would have to do to fix that section, sighed a big sigh, cut off the elbow joint that I had just fixed and the entire length of the cracked pipe with the elbow joint at the other end, and went back to Home Depot... again. I brought the cracked piece with me for reference, and the nice man working the plumbing section cut a piece of PVC the exact length that I would need. I'd asked if he would cut it for two reasons. One, it would make it easier to fit in the van, and two, even with the handy dandy PVC cutting tool that the nice man had recommended I buy the first time I went in(much faster than using a hacksaw, especially in confined spaces, and it leaves a cleaner edge), cutting PVC is hard, and it hurt my hand to have to exert so much pressure. I also grabbed a couple of more elbow joints and went home, hoping that this would be my last visit to Home Depot for the day.

I primed, cemented and connected the PVC much faster this time, having by now gotten the hang of it. I waited a bit for things to dry and seal and crossing my fingers and my toes, turned the pump back on. I watched... closely ... to see if any water leaked out anywhere. It was sort of hard to be absolutely sure since the area was soaked and new water wouldn't be immediately obvious, but as far as I could tell nothing was leaking. I kept watching... just to be sure. After a few minutes, I finally relaxed and decided that I had done it right and everything was holding together. I put the new insulation that I bought around the pipes that I fixed, and went inside and turned on the kitchen faucet. Yay!!! Water on demand!!! My fingertips were purple from the PVC primer, but I had running water.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve started out very nicely. SH offered to trailer our horses over to their arena so that he and Foxfire could practice their jousting and I could ride Shadowfax around. Unfortunately, it was very windy. VERY WINDY! A front was coming through and all the horses were a little antsy. I had to ask for Foxfire's help in bridling Shadowfax. I think part of the problem is simply that the bit is longer than my hand and parts of it dangle over the edges so I have trouble holding it properly to put it in Shadowfax's mouth. I'll have to work on that. However, he stood still while I was mounting, and once I was in the saddle he did very well. Even with the intense wind. DA wasn't there because she had to work, so I had a little more room to ride around without running into anyone. I did a bit more trotting than I did previously, but I still didn't canter him simply because it was so windy and even though he was behaving well, he was still just a little antsy.

I did however, practice on the "heads course" that is set up semi-permanently in part of DASH's arena. It's sort of like Western pole-bending in that you have to weave in and out of the poles. But when you run the heads course you have a "sword"(not a real sword) in your hand and there are "heads"(not real heads, of course) on the poles that you try to whack with your sword as you go past. I didn't have a sword (and didn't want one at this point) so I just practiced weaving in and out of the poles at a walk. I would only go down the course once or twice then go back to riding around doing other things because I didn't want Shadowfax to figure the course out and do it automatically. Why not? Because guiding him through it was good practice for me to learn how to give more subtle and accurate direction cues. However, even without doing it a number of times in a row, Shadowfax still seemed to get the idea of what we were trying to do and I eventually had to do a lot less work to steer him through the course at a walk. Of course, maybe my steering was improving as well. That would be nice.

Eventually, after I had done some trotting around in the dressage area of the arena, I decided to try trotting the heads course. The first time I tried it, I missed a turn and went around two poles in a row instead of weaving between each one. I went back to riding around the arena, did a little more trotting around the dressage area, then gave it another go. That time I did it properly! I made every turn even at the trot. It wasn't a very fast trot and I had to push Shadowfax to keep him in a trot for the last pole, but I did it! I did a little more general riding. Watched Foxfire and SH practicing some different jousting stuff, then tried it again. I did it again! It wasn't just a fluke. And this time, I didn't have to push Shadowfax to keep him in a trot. Unfortunately, the boys were focusing on their own stuff and didn't see me either time. Oh well. I know that I did it.

Sadly, after bringing the horses home, the rest of the evening didn't go so well. It wasn't the fireworks. When people near our house starting shooting off fireworks, we went outside to check on the horses and they didn't even seem to notice the bangs. They would occasionally twitch their ears, but that was it. So that was good. However, later in the evening, while Foxfire and I were having our own little private party, we heard a crash from the pasture area. By the time Foxfire had gotten his clothes on and run outside, all he saw were some drunk idiots climbing back over the back fence into the woods by the creek while the horses and donkeys were running around frantically. I made it out shortly after him and heard the idiots thrashing around in the brush, but didn't see them. I ran back inside and grabbed a pocketful of treats then came back out and called the horses and donkeys over and gave them treats. They calmed down pretty well. At least they weren't running frantically around anymore, but they were still very nervous and kept looking toward the creek where we would still hear the occasional noise of drunk idiots trying to get through the brush. A couple of them made it back to the fence and tried to climb back over into the pasture. I ran toward them and yelled that they had better stay out of the pasture or they would get hurt. They stopped trying to climb the fence and Foxfire yelled at them to get off of our property. Some idiot yelled that they weren't on our property since they were outside the fence and Foxfire yelled back that our property extends to the middle of the creek. They shut up and we could hear them making their way back through the brush towards our neighbors' house.

The neighbors were, of course, having a huge out of control party. Our neighbors are actually very nice and in a way, it wasn't them having the party. They were out of town, but their older daughter who does not live with them was house-sitting or something and had decided to throw a wild party. I stayed with the critters while Foxfire walked around the perimeter of the fence to check for damage. It was good thing he did, because he discovered that someone had obviously scared one of our horses badly enough to make him crash through the front gate into the front yard. The chain holding the gate closed was broken and that gate itself was bent badly out of shape and would no longer close properly. Fortunately, whichever horse had crashed through had obviously come back into the pasture. And even when looking over them closely by flashlight, neither Foxfire nor I could find any scrapes or cuts to indicate which horse did it. Neither horse seemed to be in any pain, and since there were no longer people thrashing around in the brush near the fence, they were considerably calmer. We left them in the area near the barn and Foxfire and I managed to force the gate sort of back into position. We had some chain and a double snap in the garage and I made a temporary fix to hold the gate closed.

After we had things as secure as we could make them. I went inside and tried to call our neighbor to complain and hopefully persuade them to calm the party down and make sure none of their guests invaded our property and scared our horses anymore. I thought about calling the police, but they had been very good neighbors up until this point, so I wanted to try talking to them first. However, their phone was apparently disconnected, so I walked over to their front door instead. As I was walking toward their house, the cops started showing up, and I admit, I was VERY GLAD that someone had called them. At the front door, they originally refused to open the door because they had seen the cops flashing lights, but when I banged on the door and yelled that I was their neighbor and needed to talk to them, the daughter finally opened the door. She admitted that her parents weren't there and about then, the cops stepped up and asked me to move so that they could take care of things. I left it in their hands and went back to stand with Foxfire in the freezing cold to help keep the critters calm and guard them from any other drunks.

Very slowly, the cops managed to get rid of most of the people from the party. Anytime anyone even came close to our fence, I would shine the flashlight at them and tell them to keep back. Most people were actually pretty nice about it and apologized and wished us a happy new year. The few jerks who yelled obscenities at us were approached by the police and taken away. Yay police!!! I had earlier told the police about the horses being freaked out and asked them to avoid using their sirens if possible and they actually didn't for the most part. I suppose they had to every once in a while to get rid of the real trouble-makers. Anyway, Foxfire and I stayed out most of the night guarding the critters. Once in a while one of us would go inside to warm up, but we didn't go to bed until almost all the cars that had been parked along the road (and in our yard) were gone. The ones that were left probably belonged to those who had been arrested or were too drunk to drive and had gotten rides with others. Finally about 5 AM, we felt comfortable enough to go inside. We left all of the outside lights on.

The next day while I was in the yard communing with the horses, the neighbors' daughter and her boyfriend came over to the fence and apologized. I believe it was sincere. But I will definitely be talking to her parents when they are back in town, and if we can't fix the gate, I will be asking her (or more likely her parents) to pay to replace it.

But all the critters seem to be fine. Even in the daylight, we couldn't find any cuts, scrapes or signs of injury. One of the horses is probably bruised, but there is no way to tell which one. No one seems to be in any pain and everyone is calm. So everything worked out okay, but needless to say, Foxfire and I were VERY UPSET. What a horrible way to begin the new year.

Riding in the GA Memorial arena

Yesterday, our friend SH kindly offered to trailer Ziggy and Shadowfax over to his and DA's place (DA and SH are married and I've decided to refer to them jointly as DASH) so that we could ride in their arena. SH and Foxfire practiced tilting at the quintain while DA practiced some dressage and I just rode around getting used to my new horse.

A picture of the GA Memorial Arena from the day of its dedication. It's sort of an "L" shaped arena with a full length dressage arena on the long leg of the "L" and a short dressage arena on the short leg of the "L". It usually also has various SCA stuff set up in it.

Shadowfax was pretty mellow about the whole experience. When we first got there, I led him around to let him meet the other horses and most importantly the llama. Some horses have totally freaked about the llama. Shadowfax just sort of did a horsey version of a double take then wandered over to sniff noses with the other horses who were much friendlier than Ziggy was when they first met, and apparently much more interesting than the llama. Then SH let his dog, Archie out. Archie went zipping past Shadowfax and Shadowfax didn't even seem to notice. When Archie started chasing the guineas around and they started making a fuss, Shadowfax looked over to see what the fuss was about then went back to grazing. However, at one point when I was hand-grazing him while waiting for a spot to tie up so I could groom and tack Shadowfax, something in the grass spooked him. He just suddenly jumped and sort of twisted sideways, then stared at a spot in the grass for a second. I quickly led him away from that area, although he had already calmed down and started looking for more grass. I have no idea what spooked him. I certainly didn't see anything. But even as he spooked, he sort of twisted sideways so that he didn't run into me, so that was good.

Once Foxfire had finished grooming and tacking up Ziggy, I took his spot at the trailer. Here Shadowfax sort of disappointed me. He simply wouldn't stand still while I was grooming him. He didn't try to run off, he just kept shifting from side to side and looking around and stuff. I suppose I can't blame him too much. He was in a new place with lots of new horses and other animals running around. But it was a bit frustrating. He was, however, a perfect gentleman when it came time to pick out his hooves. For that, he stood still. Yay!!!

Once I got him tacked up and led him out to the arena, we had one bad moment when he started walking off when I was only halfway into the saddle. I managed to pull myself the rest of the way into the saddle as he was walking and then made him stop for a moment as I settled myself in. Again, I blame it on the excitement of all the other horses already running around and doing stuff in the arena, but it is something that we need to work on. Simply giving him more experience will probably help. Once I was in the saddle, he did really well. When I asked for a walk, I got a walk, when I asked for more energetic walk, I got a more energetic walk. When I asked for trot, I got trot. When I asked for stop, he stopped. And he went where I asked him to go. I didn't ask him to canter for a couple of reasons. First, the footing was a lot deeper than he was used to and I could sort of feel him struggling just a little bit with it. (He is rather out of shape. As am I.) And second, there were a couple of guys cantering around with really long lances, hitting this shield thing that would make a loud bang then spin around with this bag of sand swinging out on the other end.

An illustration of a quintain.

Shadowfax barely even noticed it, as far as I could tell. The main problem was just staying out of the other riders's ways when they began their runs at the quintain. I was also trying to stay out of DA's way who was actually working on some dressage stuff, since I wasn't actually trying to do any "real" riding. Mainly, I was just working on bonding with my new horse, letting each of us get used to each others signals and responses, exposing Shadowfax to some new experiences, and just spending some time in the saddle. When the guys were taking a break from running at the quintain, I led Shadowfax up to it. He just looked at it for a second then tried to lick the sand bag. He likes to lick things. He licks the sides of his stall after he's done eating. Every once in a while he'll chew on the wood, but mainly he just licks it. He also licks the donkeys. Well, he licks Tessla, the other two tend to move away, but Tessla will just stand there letting Shadowfax lick him. Strange.

After we were done riding, Shadowfax was much calmer while I was untacking him. However, when I was almost done, he starting backing away from the trailer and standing at the very end of the lead. I'd urge him forward and he'd take a few steps forward, then he'd back up again. I couldn't figure it out at the time, but in retrospect, it was when Foxfire had led Ziggy into the area. I think Shadowfax was worried about being trapped against the trailer if Ziggy went after him. I wish I'd figured it out at the time and spared my poor horse the anxiety, but I'll know better next time. BTW, Ziggy is gradually becoming more tolerant of Shadowfax, but they are still a long way away from being buddies.

I also figured out, too late,(or rather DA figured it out,) that we were loading Shadowfax in DASH's slant load trailer in a way he wasn't used to. When the previous owner had kindly trailered him to my house, she used a straight load trailer with an escape door. So I'd led Shadowfax in and gone out the escape door. I thought that was the only way he knew how to to trailer. So when we went to load Shadowfax in DASH's trailer I tried to lead him in through the rather narrow entrance of the slant load, and he wouldn't go in. Someone had to give just a tiny push to his rear to get him to follow me in. After we loaded him the second time to bring him back to our house, we finally guessed that he was probably used to the "point and shoot" method of being loaded into a slant load. That me standing in the doorway, trying to lead him in just confused him. Next time we trailer with DASH, I'll stand to the side, toss the lead over his neck, pat him on his rump and see if he goes in on his own. I'm betting he will.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day, and I really appreciate DASH inviting us over and trailering our horses for us.

A very happy birthday to me!

I've been a very bad girl and haven't been keeping up this blog, but somehow despite that the universe rewarded me with a very happy birthday weekend. My birthday was Saturday and at noon I met with the costume designer that I'll be assisting for the next few weeks doing costumes for Austin Shakespeare Festival's production of Measure for Measure. I'd been a bit nervous about meeting her because, frankly I don't always get along with people, but she and I seemed to hit it off. I liked her designs and she seemed to appreciate the comments that I made. So that made for a nice birthday experience.

After I got home, as part of his birthday gift to me, my husband took me to half price books so I could add yet more books to my overflowing collection. I am an absolute bookaholic who has been having to do without, due to tightening up our budget in order to have enough money to buy and maintain a horse for me. So finally having free rein (pun intended) to buy some new (okay used, but new to me) books, was very nice indeed. After buying me some books, Foxfire took me out to Johnny Carino's and we had a very nice dinner out. Another thing that we haven't done in quite a while as part of saving money. I had my favorite dish, chicken scallopini minus the tomatos and mushrooms with capers added, and a pomegranate granita which is just the most delicious drink that I've ever had.

On Sunday, Foxfire and I got up early, joined our friends, SH and DA, and we all went down to Schlitterbahn for the day. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and it wasn't raining which it did last year for my birthday trip. It wasn't very crowded and for some rides there wasn't even a wait at all. We made it through all three sections of the park and hit almost all the red diamond rides, some of them several times. It was an absolutely fabulous day! After we left the park, we stopped at Oma's Haus German Restaurant and had a nice dinner.

The only bad parts of the day were at the very end. As we were driving back to Austin, my stomach started feeling bad and we had to stop at a Whataburger so that I could use their facilities. I think the lunch that I had at the park didn't agree with me. Either that or I accidentally swallowed some water on one of the rides and some nasty protozoa or another was making it's presence known. Also, once we were home and putting things away, I stepped on a scorpion which stung me to express its displeasure or its general scorpion-ness, since I know that simply stepping on a scorpion barefoot isn't going to hurt it that much. (I really should write a post about my unique way of dealing with the scorpions that I find in my house(or more usually that my cats find and point out to me).

Anyway, all in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and I'm already looking forward to doing it all again next year.