This is an emergency, this is an actual emergency. If it were a test, you’d be laughing right now.
If I ever find out what I did to piss off the karma gods, I will let you all know so that you can make sure you never, ever do the same thing.
I think I broke my toe today. If I didn’t break it, I bruised it very badly.
As it turns out, riding boots, while offering more protection than, say, tennis shoes, do not offer sufficient protection to save your toe if you drop a utility shed on it.
Allow me to explain.
Like most horse people, I have a tack box. But since I can’t do anything normal, my tack box is not actually a tack box in the traditional sense. You may be thinking of, say, one of those very elegant wooden tack boxes that can only be moved with two people and a prayer to the hernia gods. I don’t own one of those. You may be thinking of those very popular and very versatile rolling Stanely tool boxes. I am not so practical.
No, my tack box is more like a mini garden shed. And by “more like,” I mean, “I bought it at Lowe’s, where they call it a mini outdoor utility shed.” It’s about 4’ tall, 5’ wide, and 2’ deep. It is a spacious thing of organizational beauty.
And this afternoon, as I looked at it sitting in my truck bed, I thought, “Hey, it’s made of plastic. It’s not all that heavy. Or fragile. I’ll just pull it off the bed and let it drop straight down. What’s the worst that can happen?”
My foot could be in the way, for one thing.
Unfortunately, dropping a utility shed on my foot was the least of my problems today.
I am going to skip the details for now, but the net effect was that I got a message yesterday and as a result of that message needed to get Ro off the property as soon as possible. Fortunately, I was able to get her back in the barn we were at all winter and she can stay there for a week or months, whatever I need.
But the stress of the past twenty four hours, plus brutal heat (over 100 again), plus a day spent driving around checking out multiple boarding barns, plus, ultimately, my relief to just have Ro out and someplace where I do not have to worry… all combined to set me up for a situation where I stared at my utiliy shed in my truck bed and thought that pulling it out all on my own was a great idea.
Yeah, not so much.
So, now we’ll see what happens next. My computer broke last week (my life, it’s like a bad country song) and I still have a lot to deal with with this whole situation, so I’m probably going to be absent for a couple weeks while I try to get my life back together, but such is life. It happens. Sometimes it’s all roses and butterflies, and sometimes it hits you on the foot like a falling utility shed. You learn, you go on. Hopping on one foot, perhaps, but you go on…
Big Plans Coming…
I understand there are people out there who are still shedding out their horses.
It must suck to be you.
Our lovely, springy spring has given way to a very sunny early summer. Long daylight hours, no bad weather—we’re set. Perfect get-back-in-shape weather.
And so we are. Getting back in shape, I mean.
Yesterday, Ro helped me exercise my core muscles by crow hopping a bit. Since I am riding stirrupless or with only one stirrup (yay, broken foot), I did have to sit up and use my seat a little. Just a little, to match her little crow hop. Neither one of us is interested in straining something, so we’re easing into fitness carefully.
To celebrate our return to work, we’re going trial riding on Saturday. Weather should be perfect, not too much heat or humidity—generally, conditions ought to be about perfect for our first outing in ages.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Why I Don’t Bet
I entered a Triple Crown fantasy game because it was a) free and b) easy.
All I have to do is pick three horses in each race. I don’t even have to rank them—points are distributed on some sort of sliding scale across the whole field.
So I did the obvious:
I picked Dialed In, as the favorite. Surely he’s the favorite for a reason, right? Right? When someone figures out that reason, let me know, because he seemed a whole lot more dialed out than dialed in during the race.
Then I picked Nehro, as a strong contender in a bad spot. Before you congratulate me on my awesome pick, know this: half an hour before our choices were locked in, I decided I liked Archarcharch better for my contender-in-a-bad-spot pick. Whoops. In my defense, I’m on a lot of pain meds. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
The I picked Pants on Fire, as a mid-pack contender with a sentimental story. But when I switched Nehro out for Archarcharch, I decided I’d also switch Pants on Fire out for Mucho Macho Man, because everyone was going on about how Rosie wanted to be the first female jockey to win the Derby, but no one was saying “and this is the horse to give her that win.” Besides, I liked MMM’s sentimental story better. This, at least, was a better pick, although not enough to make up for the Nerho/Archarcharch debacle.
So: observe. In a 19-field race, I picked, at one time or another, five horses I thought could win. A whole quarter of the field. Not one of them won.
And one of my picks broke his leg.
Of course, this raises concerns about the Preakness. And the Triple Crown race.
What if I pick the horse you want to bet on? I might as well have been the one who burned your money. What if Animal Kingdom enters and I pick him? There goes the Triple Crown dream for yet another year.
Obviously, it would be a public service for me to avoid picking Animal Kingdom. You can nudge my sense of public duty along by sending me chocolates, if you like. And if there is a horse you really, really want to bet… I accept checks and money orders. I’ll make sure I pick someone (anyone) else. That should increase your odds of winning considerably.
And for a very sizable donation, I’ll send you a list of the horses I’m not even considering, because Animal Kingdom didn’t even cross my radar when I was making selections.
It’s even better than insider knowledge: you’ll have access to the world’s worst betting instincts, in reverse.
Sponsor an Embryo
Ro wants to be pregnant. You can tell from the way she hussies up to everything that moves and some things that don’t when she comes into season.
The geldings are perplexed and would like someone to save them, pls thanks.
But I… am realistic about my budget.
Fortunately, a friend has helped me see a way around my budget issues, and so I introduce to you my brand new “Sponsor an Embryo” program.
Your charitable (in a non-501-c-3 way) donation will be used to grant Ro her hormone’s desire, save the poor perplexed geldings, and keep my cats and I off the street at the same time. Three awesome benefits for one low monthly donation!
But wait—there’s more!
Ro’s would-be Baby Daddy has been hand-picked to enhance her natural strengths while improving on her few, hardly-worth-mentioning flaws. In the interest of full disclosure, I’d like to point out that being chestnut is not a flaw, so sponsors may not complain when the foal pops out chestnut (and it will, oh yes). This carefully selected breeding will result in a red-headed stick of dynamite, also known as my future competition mount.
Your contribution to the Embryo Project will not only solve all our immediate problems and bring peace to our little corner of the world, it will also support the future of Dressage As I Know It.
But wait! There’s more!
We recognize that this economy is tough on everyone. Pennies are tight. Happiness is slim.
So this project has been specially designed to allow you to contribute at a rate that is comfortable for you, while boosting your happiness and, according to something we read on the interwebz somewhere, also lowering your cholesterol. We offer three sponsorship levels so you can balance your budget against your health and make the right choice for you:
Warm Fuzzy Feelings Level
For only $10/month, we will send you monthly fat-mare photos from conception to the birth of the foal. Share in the joys of a rapidly expanding belly and other udderly-fascinating photo ops. After the foal’s birth, we’ll send you weekly foal photos. Warm fuzzy cuteness!
Karma Builder Level
For only $25/month, we will send you weekly fat-mare photos and a monthly video so you can waddle along with us on this, our maiden journey. After the foal’s birth, you can discover a whole new world with us via weekly photos and monthly videos! Your good deeds will surely earn you karma points!
Salvation of a Nation Level
Are you itching to do good at a level that would credit small nations? For only $100/month, you will have access to weekly photos and videos before and after birth—you’ll be so overwhelmed in warm, fuzzy cuteness and karma points that you’ll be able to share the love freely, saving yourself and those around you from bleak despair.
And as if that weren’t enough—
Any sponsor who makes an additional one-time, $100 donation will buy earn the right to suggest a name for the foal.
An additional $500 donation will ensure your initials are added after the foal’s name, no matter what name is chosen. Just think—a lifetime of competition with your initials being called out over the loudspeaker each time I enter the ring! Or, you know, your enemy’s initials, if you are afraid I’ll bungle things. Whatever.
And, finally, for the discerning sponsor, a special additional $1,000 donation will give you all the benefits of the other one-time donations plus 24/7 access to an online foaling camera so you can watch and call me when she goes into labor so I can get my beauty rest and witness the miracle of birth.
Act now! The sooner you sign on as a sponsor, the sooner this can become a reality for all of us!
Carrot Sticks—They Really Are Magic
I try to live and let live as far as natural horsemanship is concerned.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that it’s just another discipline, at this point, and like most disciplines it has its valid points and it has its points that makes outsiders wonder WTF is wrong with the people who ride in it.
You can say WTF about the Horsenality Charts. You can say WTF about rolkur in dressage. You can say WTF about hunters and over lunging. Or the peanut rolling in western pleasure. And on and on and on. Every discipline has crazy lemmings. Every single one of them.
So I live and let live. I can’t even begrudge the big NH names their brand-name equipment, because Anky has a line of saddles, Pessoa has a line of everything, etc etc etc.
I do roll my eyes at the “carrot stick,” but hey… I’ve also seen hunter people arguing passionately about types of lunge lines and how they are very different. So what do I know, anyway?
Well, today Ro demonstrated the power of the carrot stick. I now believe in it thoroughly.
I’d turned her out on the grass to graze for a bit. It’s nice spring grass. She resents being brought in from the nice spring grass, so when she sees me coming, she’s started to walk away. I’ve been working on this; I walk out to her several times and just pat her, then let her go back to grazing.
Today, I happened to have carrots with me. Ro never gets carrots, because I am a mean owner who never remembers to bring them from home, assuming I even have them in the house.
So when I had to go out to my truck to get something, I grabbed a carrot. I’d feed it to her and let her go back to grazing. People approaching = good things happening. Maybe I’d be able to catch her later.
She walked away half-heartedly, but I caught up and gave her the carrot. It was a big carrot.
Then I walked over to my truck. She followed me.
I grabbed what I needed and walked into the barn.
She followed me.
I stopped by her stall, where I had the other carrots stashed. She walked in her stall, turned around, and pricked her ears at me.
I showed her a carrot and headed out to her paddock.
She followed me.
They were all awfully big carrots. Not those baby carrots, but real carrots. Stick-like carrots, you could say.
And their magic is such that a pony will leave spring grass and follow me around the barn, just in case I have more on me.
I will never doubt the power of carrot sticks again.