Quail Parade

[dancinghorse]

This morning while I was messing around getting ready to feed horses, a pair of quail were out in the arena with a pair of doves and whole bunch of leeeetle teeeny baby quail. They were only a few days old--about an inch long, whirring around like windup toys. I love Quail Parades.

Second draft of Attack Project, chunk number one, is done. Chunk number two is up next, but I'm taking a break before I plunge headfirst into that. I love Attack Projects, when I have to force myself not to write rather than to write. Pesky things like food and sleep just get in the way.

During one enforced break, The Last Samurai was on Pay-Per-View and I had a free coupon, so I grabbed that on the PVR. Didn't watch all of it, but what I did catch seemed pretty good. I love a good costume drama.

Capria ride tonight. The Girlz were spazzed--Ephiny was doing courbettes. Capria was in Humiliate the Human mode, so I had a spate of "I can't ride for crap and I never could and I never will." Capria is good at inducing that kind of thing. But I remembered various mantras (Steady Hands, Follow the Back Down, and DON'T LET HER MAKE YOU TENSE!). The last one was the hardest, but we managed to get through it, more or less, and managed to finish with quiet trot work. Believe me, rides have not always done this. They used to end up getting worse and worse and worse. Recently they've gotten better instead, which I call progress.

I did need to be reminded that Pook is actually a whole lot easier to ride than Capria--he's just a lot greener so he gets a little more shall we say reactive when I make a mistake. Capria blows right through reactive into "You always do this I expect you to do this so I'm going to freak out now." Then I have to convince her I'm not going to do it. Pook doesn't need to be convinced.

I really don't have a horse that is what you'd call easy.

It was really brought home to me that my saddle doesn't fit Capria anything like as well as the one we tried on Friday. OH dear. Er, Mother Ship...?

Comments

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I love baby quail. Coming home from the grocery the other day, I spotted what I thought was a scattering of leaves being blown across the drive. Turned out to be a covey of teeny baby quail trying to scurry across the road, bitty wings all a-flutter. They couldn't get more than an inch or two above the road, they were so tiny. I just put the car in park and waited until they, and the pair of adult quail in the rear, made it to the safety of the cholla on the other side of the drive before continuing on.