Life Among the Lipizzans

I've always likened riding Pooka to flying a Starfury with warp engines engaged. Apparently this is visible to others, because Evil Gelding's rider observed this morning that "He looks like a bomb about to go off."

He is making distinct progress, and improving in significant increments. After a ride when he yanked my entire chain, locked his neck on the left and did his best to fly into the fence, and generally played some very old and very irritating tapes--my arm ached after that ride, and my fingers had actual tendinitis--I decided to Take Steps, which included a neck massage before rather than after the ride, and no more letting him make like a bulldozer. Thanks to Ephiny, who is quite a bit larger and quite a bit more dangerous, pound for pound (and slam for slam), I've learned to get my weight into my feet, breathe, and not fight back. Fighting back is not a good idea with a horse who has the full testerone-powered neck, either. No way I'll win.

So next ride he got the massage till his neck was squidgy and his eyes were melty, then to the ride, and we still had the pull and the drag, but less so. And less again the next time. And so on.

And today we had walkies Out, then a short ride Out, though he became jiggy on the way home (another old tape: lock his back and sproing me up off it). And so into the arena to calm down, with bendy bits and not fighting back. And lo and behold, no more bulldozer.

Now we can work on the rest of him, including the sproingy-back trick and the locky-shoulders trick. And then we'll have a horse we can work with, rather than a Starfury with its controls locked in Warp Factor Ten Zillion.

I thank Ephiny for this. She actually allowed me on her back on Wednesday, having determined that I had sufficient Zen to be granted the privilege. There were still many moments of more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, but she was content at the end.

I've concluded that Ephiny is an Enlightened Master. Since we are on no schedule with her, and since she's outright dangerous if we impose our human agenda, both S and I have been letting her do the teaching. We spent months, and I am not exaggerating, tacking up, prepping for rides, and spending the entire session, every session, on the ground, in hand, breathing, grounding, and modulating our aids to the merest whisper of a nearly silent whisper. Asking, "May I mount?" Being told No. Usually by spinning fiercely off the block, or just not approaching it at all.

It was extremely frustrating until I got Gabriella and Pooka going. No way I was riding until I had learned the lessons she was bound and determined to teach.

Those lessons were:

Breathe. Don't hold your breath.

Get your center of balance out from between your ears. Pour it into your feet.

Forget the task-orientation. My biggest flaw as a rider: Get task in mind, go stiff, stop listening to horse. Get in horse's way. Perform task badly or not at all.

Spine in a Line. See above re. Breathing and Balance. Crooked spine means horse off balance means horse leaning on human means horse gets flipping means horse freaks out. Straight spine, no freakout. A little bend goes a long way.

And oh my, does all that translate to riding. Does It Ever.

The import from Livejournal so far seems to have gone without noticeable issues, and all my posts appear to be here. I am relieved. And happy to see so many familiar icons and handles. Hello, hello! Hi, everybody!

I am also thinking I would like to post more regularly again. It's new-toy syndrome, but also a factor of this year in general, in which I've been both going back to roots and discovering new shoots and branches. Grounding myself, so I can fly higher. And writing personal blog entries (as opposed to public essays) seems like a thing I should get back to doing.

People have missed the horse neep, for one thing. And there are ruminations on life and politics and such that really do need more scope than a twitter feed, even if one has mastered the art of the megathread.

We'll see how it goes. But I like the feel of this. It's a way forward, grounded in a useful part of the past. I like that, too.

I'm continuing the editing and Horse Camp sale, and the Patreon page for new fiction is ongoing--many thanks to those who have joined the adventure so far.

Those who know me well know that when I break down and offer a sale, it's because I've run out of options. The past few years have been increasingly difficult, and last year was brutal. This year has been, emotionally, much less awful--and I have my writing mojo back. But in all other ways it's been worse than any year before it.

Right now I do not know how I'm going to feed the horses for the rest of the month. I have managed to scrape out enough to pay for the last load of hay (if that late check finally gets here), but once it's eaten, which it will be in about ten days, I don't know what I'm going to do. The farm will be gone by midsummer unless I find a steady source of sufficient income. I've been hustling like a hustling thing but so far with minimal results.

The market does not want either me or the horses. The horses are all old and therefore retired and unsalable, or else would require thousands of dollars' worth of training and show fees to have any sale value. No one can take them. The market is saturated with unwanted horses and the rescues are overloaded. I am over 60, hearing impaired (ergo, unable to use the phone), and with chronic fatigue syndrome which makes office or minimum-wage work difficult to impossible. And minimum wage would not support the animals, let alone me. All my income streams from backlist books, editing, writing, etc. have shrunk to a trickle or dried up. No one has booked a Camp in over a year.

I have had a few small things come through, but as with everything else, they've fallen short or failed to produce. I continue to push, and with the fiction writing regaining its old fluidity, I may manage to make something happen there. I've been urged to try an Indiegogo for a short novel, and I am closing in on that. (Indiegogo, unlike Kickstarter, offers an option that pays even if the goal is not met. The goal would be enough to cover mortgage, horses, and utilities for a month.) Since for the first time in my life I'm able to write more than one project at a time, that means I can continue to meet my obligation to backers of last November's Kickstarter for a science-fiction novel, and also write the novella (and short stories, too).

A friend suggested that I offer sponsorships for the horses. I feel weird about that, but they need to eat. What I would give in return is a little writeup about the horse being sponsored, with a digital album of pictures and a monthly update. And short fiction as it happens, if you are a reader with an interest.

Here's what the monthly "full ride" would be:

$200 Feeds and waters one horse for a month

$300 Feeds and waters the horse and contributes toward the farm (portion of mortgage and utilities)

$750 buys one load of hay, which lasts a little over three weeks

$100 buys a week's worth of grain and supplements

Email me at capriole at gmail dot com for details. Partial sponsorships are most welcome.

I welcome referrals for editing clients, bookings for horse camp, and writing gigs of various sorts including game dialogue and scripts. I do story commissions, too. Email for rates and details.

If you've read my books, there's one thing you can do that won't cost you anything: Post an honest review online, especially at Amazon. The more reviews a book gets, the likelier it is to trigger the algorithm that gets the book on recommendation and "If you liked this" lists, which means more chance of improving sales. Mentioning the books at conferences, recommending a favorite to friends, blogging about it--all these things help. I can tell when people are talking about my work; I see the spike in sales. And that's more feed money and bill money and money to pay the mortgage.

Please feel free to link and signal-boost at will. Last week's signal went everywhere and I was tremendously grateful, but the response has been in line with the rest of this year's efforts. I can only keep trying. And keep writing. And keep putting it out there.

We're about seven hours to closing the Kickstarter for the new space opera. If you've been wanting to come aboard, the doors are still open, but the passengers have mostly boarded and they're rolling up the ramp.

Update 13 (my lucky number) has an excerpt from the book. Backers are getting at least one bonus story, and maybe two. The backer who puts us up and over the next stretch goal gets to be a villain in the book. Come and see.

Look! I'm doing another SPAAAAAACE Opera Kickstarter!

More space whales this time. And more pirates. And more adventures.

Still breathing. Still in HouseMageddon Hell (89% done, says Mr. Boss Contractor Man). Dog's eye still a problem dogdammit--he was perfectly fine until the day before his allegedly final vet visit, when he injured it all over again and went all the way back to square one, and we're all the way back to meds four times a day and vet every two weeks.

Am getting basically a new house. They're (vinyl) tiling all but the library and guest rooms. Kitchen, laundry room getting new subfloors as well as new (vinyl) tile. That's this week. Allegedly. If insurance coughs up the rest of the money. Master bath nearly done, I'm told. My living space gets smaller and smaller as I condense everything into the parts that will keep their carpeting. When (if)(no, WHEN!) it's done, I shall explode outward like a supernova of books, furniture, clothing, animals...

My best guess is that it will be done by Labor Day. Then Camp Lipizzan opens for the winter. Anybody who comes will find all kinds of shiny newness and Extreme Pretty (and an Epic China Cabinet that just begs for a disco ball). We're taking reservations. Email or we can talk in comments.

Meanwhile, a question for the hive mind. Patreon: threat or menace? It's been suggested I try it to help with the dog's bills, which are back to considerable, between the meds and the vet's across-the-board price increases. I'd need to figure out what people would like by way of perks, and whether it would be worthwhile to jump on a bandwagon already extensively jumped on. Then again, I support a few myself, for a tiny amount each, and they do add up--and the perks are lovely. So: would this be something I could venture into?

I'm in a sine wave of I Can't Even/I Shall Go On, as HouseMageddon and DogsEyePocalypse spin on and on and forever on. From fetal curl under the bed to Warrior One, back and forth. It's an adventure.

(Thanks for that, Joss.)

Oh, we are having so much fun here. It kills us how much fun we are having.

So the bathroom floor went squoosh, and part of the bedroom floor. So I knew there was a water leak. Then the propane tank emptied untimely. As I discovered last Monday after the company offices had closed for the day.

Tuesday the propane man came, checked all attachments, and noted that it was all shipshape and Bristol-fashion.

Except the water heater. Which was leaking propane, and which was sitting on a rather heroically rotted floor.

Heater was red-tagged and disconnected. Goodbye, hot water.

The plumber came on Wednesday, and decreed that the faulty propane valve was not fixable and the heater was a goner. This triggered a call to the reclamation company, which came and looked and went OY! And that triggered a call to the homeowners' insurance. And lo, there were adjusters, and there were inspectors, and there were oys and good god!s and yowches. But! my great fear, that none of it was covered, appeared to be assuaged. They would/will rebuild the gutted quadrant, including closet for the heater.

So Thursday the brawny young men came and started ripping. And sawing. And tearing. Bathroom, half of bedroom, most of dining room. Down to the studs.

I moved into the other end of the house. Which was its own drama. Guest toilet had overflowed last yoga day, and I had shut it off. Plumber decreed it dead. But! he was able to take the much newer unit from the gutted master bath and pop it into the guest bath. And that gave me a functional facility.

Friday the new water heater arrived--approved by the appliance insurance. Much bigger and nicer than the old one. But in order to install it to code, I had to pay a hefty chunk of nonexistent cash, because codes are stricter than they were ca. 1980, or even ca. 2000. Much.

Having had his palm crossed with promises, the plumber rigged the heater outside with an adorable vent for a hat, where it blinks to itself and provides Water Hot Such A Noble Thing while the renovations go on. I resist the urge to paint it blue and silver and call it "R2."

And the brawny young men ascertained meanwhile that my other paralyzing fear, of mold and rot (not covered), was also Not A Problem. Once the pulped flooring and soaked insulation were out and the walls and fixtures dismembered and sent flying out the window, all was clean, and the only rot was in the heater closet, where we had all seen it. Yog Bless our desert climate.

They had installed dehumidifiers on Thursday. Friday and Saturday, fans went in. And it was all contained in plastic, which at night would...breathe. Much fun while watching "When Ghosts Attack" because seriously, braindead.

Yesterday being Saturday, the last of the debris was cleared and the fans continued. And I was slowly starting to find a rhythm in it all. Sort of.

And then when I went to turn the lights on at horse-feeding time, no lights. Also no lights in the guest room. No power to most of the north half of the house, except, weirdly, for the library, where Camp workshops happen.

The other half of the house--where the one working cooler (the lines are part of the heater closet, so plumber could only hook up one) and all the major appliances were, was still suitably electrified. I ran extension cords for the couple of small things I needed (lights, tv) and decided to crawl into bed and forget it till morning.

Especially the part where the DSL modem, despite being on a surge protector in the powered half of the house, managed to fry itself. It powers up, connects, shuts off. Lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing from the help pages applies to this situation, and support does not do weekends.

Lucky for me one of my must-haves when I upped the ante to a real smartphone last year was the ability to serve as a hotspot. This morning I paid my $5 and got my month of service. So I'm OK till we get the router sorted out. I dare to hope the insurance will replace it.

This morning the nice young man came back to check the equipment. Now we are waiting for his superior to talk to the adjuster to get an electrician out to figure out why part of the house has no power. NYM checked all he could check, and was baffled. Ancient wiring is ancient. And idiosyncratic.

Meanwhile he rigged a power box for all the fans and such, which is its own triple-warded spell of protection. And I am without a clothes dryer because that's the industrial-strength outlet, but it's temporary and I don't need it for a few days.

I have not mentioned, have I, that there's a smallish hole in the kitchen floor? Where one of the brawny young men put a foot through? And another, entirely separate water leak that must be dealt with? Leak fixage is covered. Damage is not. Since I am well past Stress Max and into What The Ever-Living HELL, I am la-la-la-ing that one for the time being.

The aminals are handling it much better than I am. Some confusion, but mostly keeping chill.

I am trying to focus on the bright side. Ancient, barely functional bathroom with broken faucets and hole where the toilet installation did not go well last time around is gone. I get a new bathroom, and part of a new bedroom, and part of a new dining room. Electrical wiring will get at least inspected, and one hopes fixed. Forced renovations: just lie back and think of walk-in showers.

But oh, I am tired. So very tired.

There are pictures here; scroll down a bit:

https://www.facebook.com/dancinghorse

I've set them public so everyone can see them.

Today was Ro's followup with Dr. EyeVet. His cornea has cleared up considerably and his eye looks like an eye again, which indicates that the meds are working. Vet still saw some inflammation in the iris, so we're medicating for another two weeks on a slow taper-off from the original aggressive dose, then she'll see him again. He has a dilated pupil, which may be permanent, but vet said this isn't uncommon in dogs; with a blue eye, you can see it all the more easily. Though I don't think he had it before. I suspect it may resolve when the inflammation goes away.

Both she and the tech noted that his behavior was completely different: he had much more energy. He's learned to sit still for a treat, so that his eyedrops are now a happy occasion (which is a real boon when it's four times a day); the tech was having a great time trying out his roster of tricks. Then he tried to go out back where the vets live, though he was glad enough to come with me out the front and charm the socks off the people there.

The trip home was adventurous. He was Perfect in Petco, trotting nicely beside the cart, and patient at the feed store, where we waited for them to unload two semis full of hay, ten bales of which came home with us. Then he watched me unload it. Watching is important, you know. Shepherding and all that.

(Semis unload via forklift, 30 100lb bales at a time; takes five minutes to do a full load, so ten minutes all together.)

Now he's sound asleep. It was a long day for a Working Dog(tm).

At any rate it looks as if we won't need that indiegogo; he seems to have cleared up without surgery. The next two weeks should see him back to normal.

I'll fall over early tonight, I think. It has been A Week. Monday morning ushered itself in with Bread Knife 1, Judy's Hand 0.  Got it taped back together, but typing has been a challenge. Better now, still a bit interesting.

Then the cooler guy showed up with the wrong parts to fix the wrong system, despite my repeated instructions to the dispatcher. Ascertained that the blown-out cooler needed a new pump, and the one with the cracked line needed new bearings, but he couldn't switch out the pump because they're two different sizes. And he'd been told he was fixing an A/C that needed refrigerant. I have never had an A/C in this house. He had no cooler parts with him. So no cooling during record heat (mid-90sF). The next opening was during Ro's vet appointment, so no. Allegedly there will be fixed coolers tomorrow morning. We shall see, she said darkly.

There's been such a run on cooler parts this week that getting them is a significant challenge. I hope I have enough tubing; I couldn't get any. All gone. ($30 at the hardware store; $200 if they supply it, grr.)

At least Ephiny had a good lesson yesterday. She was a demo pony for a planned rebuttal to the FEI on the rules change: poll to be no longer the highest point (neep alert, and shame on you, Carl Hester). She literally cannot go forward if her poll drops. Since she's mostly built like a modern dressage horse, but has the Lipizzan mind and drive train, this makes her a useful example.

There's more, but my hand just said it's had enough. So there we are.

And now we are back from the vet, and hay is unloaded and horses are fed, and so are we. And tomorrow morning we do it all over again (minus the hay-hauling).

Ro saw his regular vet today. She couldn't find a scratch, but the whole cornea is inflamed. Could be valley fever in the eye, for which she did the test. I don't think so; it's clearly trauma. But it is a possibility. May also be a tiny cactus spine that needs more advanced equipment than she has. She could not find a corneal ulcer. The whole cornea has turned blue. The eye is light-sensitive so there's still sight in it.

The eye specialist down in Tucson can see him tomorrow morning. I'll have time to get the horses fed, then off we go. Turn and burn, as the truckers say.

As I said before, the ability to just calmly hand over the check card for whatever he needs is beyond price. If he needs surgery I will have to put up an indiegogo, but we'll bridge that troll when we get to it. For now, we're hoping it's something that can be treated with meds.

Ro and I are both pooped tonight. He's a wet noodle on his couch. I'm close to it, though there are still house things and dog and cat things and animal things left to do.

In other news, I believe I have found a farmsitter. She is not cheap, but she's barely half the price of Overpriced Only Other Option, and is extremely professional and has a horse-crazy teenaged daughter. Good things may come of this.

But first, we take care of the Ro-Pup. Who was a Star everywhere he went today. Vet and techs both praised his behavior highly, and kept saying how good he was. "And he's so pretty!" Only problem we had was his desire to curl up in Auntie Vet's lap when she was trying to get a look at his eye.

Now go thud. Tomorrow will be a long day.

We are having a...difficult year here. And now there will be Vet Bills, because Ro-Pup appears to have destroyed his right eye.

Happened Monday when he took off (in friendly but headstrong fashion) after passing dog-walker. He came back with one eye pinched shut. I applied eyedrops, eye seemed to be improving, but when I was able to get a good look, it was not good. Pupil dilated. Cornea cloudy. There may be more going on: he's been low, and today he's acting lethargic and floppy. That may be his usual warm-afternoon sleepiness, but I don't like the subdued way he's been acting.

There are no funds for vet. At all. I just cleaned out the piggy bank to feed the horses for another four days.

So! It's virtual yard-sale time! Let's spread the tables out under the Party Tree, slap the price tags on, and open for business.

Ebooks: 1 for $5, 2 for $9, 3 for $12.50

Any ebooks sold on major sites this month will not pay out until the end of May, which is way too long for Ro to wait; it's not just the eye that worries me by this point, it's his whole demeanor.

But! I have Paypal, at capriole at that gmail thing, and I have ebooks, and they are DRM-free, which means you can load them on any device, and give them as gifts. If you buy multiple copies of one book, let me know in the notes on your Paypal payment; also let me know the email address to which I should send them, and the format desired (Kindle takes mobi; everything else will take epub).

Here's the list. Detailed blurbs and samples can be found on my Author Page at Book View Cafe. Books within series are in order of internal chronology.( Boooookses! )

Mentoring and Editing Services

There's a summary of what I do here, along with the regular rate. Paypal as above, capriole at the gmail. For this sale, I'm offering two options:

1. The Quick Crit: $75

I will review 5-10 pages of your work. Can be anything--synopsis, plot musings, opening pages, query letter and pages, short section on which you're stuck. I can also answer your questions about how to write horses, up to 90 minutes (may add on to this as needed, at regular rate).

2. The Writing Mentor Is In: $250 (a $300 value)

Five hours of online teaching and mentoring, editing, copyediting, proofreading, plot R&D, even a very short class if so desired. Open to previous as well as new clients; for larger projects, the first five hours will be billed at the sale rate. I've had this shingle out since 2006; lots of repeat clients, and even a Nebula nominee.

Camp Lipizzan

A longtime favorite--Horse Camp for Writers. Now booking from October through March. May consider April through August (September is booked), but be prepared for Southern Arizona heat and, in July and August, monsoon. We're game if you are; just want to be sure you know what you're in for. The most popular option is four nights/five days, $500 includes room, board, and Lipizzans; riding or groundwork lessons additional.

So that's what's on the table. Anything else you think you'd like to see, just let me know. Ro-Pup and I both say Thankyouverymuch.