One fine day, with Forklift

[dancinghorse]

I swear I'm working harder since I handed in the last book than I did while I was killing deadlines left and right.

Today was about Excavations--office and guestroom, hall closet (which was full of author copies), and storage shed.  Much much excavating happened.  And much much much hauling of book boxes, and labeling of book boxes, and shelving of book boxes.  Tomorrow is Street Fair day, but Sunday I'll finish the office and guestroom project, sort the boxes that are left and clean and get the office closet ready for the new shelving system.  Also, finish shoveling out the second half of the guestroom closet.  And clean the guestroom and get it ready for the winter onslaught. 

Very dramatic and adventurous, all of that--but it sure is nice to be able to find all the comp copies of my books.  They were buried in closets everywhere.  And I have an office floor.  And I know where all my old mss. are, ditto all the old photos.  Gratifyingly enough, all of this has resulted in much more space in the shed--there will be a big load for the trash guy this week.

Amid all this, Curt the Wonder Shoer appeared to shoe the boys and trim the Girlz.  Pook has a Foot Crisis which we've been aware of for a while--collapsing quarters  in front (too many hormones,  too much front end), which have led to infection of the white line.  This resulted in a very expensive excavation and rebuilding, which I had hoped I could avoid until I get paid for the book I handed in three months ago, but it was not to be.  Pooka now has very expensive new feet--and major changes in his stowage.  He is not to get his feet wet.  This, after last weekend's deluge, is not easy to accomplish.  It means confining him to his paddock and rearranging all the other horses, because in order to maintain a buffer zone and keep him out of the wet spots, plus make sure everybody gets to eat dinner separately and get individual shares of supplements, I've had to play a serious shell game.  IF Gaudia doesn't go through the last bit of tape fencing and visit dad, we should be OK.  She's where Capria usually is, Carrma and Ephiny are as usual, Camilla where Gaudia usually is, keed in the arena, and Capria in the stallion barn.  The crew can all go out in the arena at bedtime, though Pook may not be too happy about that.

I hope he settles down.  He's had a lot of changes in routine in the past couple of days. 

Curt did note that I'm very lucky.  Pook is the only one with any sort of problem feet.  His kids seem to have inherited the Camilla/Carrma spectrum of feet, i.e. Absolutely Perfect (Camilla's feet are Incredible, and Ephiny's are headed in that direction), and he was OK until he got hormones and grew The Neck.  Apparently Lipp stallions do need some help in the front-feet department for this reason--there was even a study in the early Nineties, examining the (very positive) effects of biotin on the Vienna stallions.  The description of their feet was very similar to what Pook has.  Curt's theory is that the mares develop the full hormone cocktail later and don't grow The Neck, and their feet have time to get big and round and perfect.  The boys are still in baby feet when the hormones hit and the muscle and bone start to load on.  (Next stallion, I'll talk to the vet about biotin supplementation before the hormones hit.)

The plan is to get his quarters sorted out, then he should be just fine.  He has great back feet and good hoof quality in general.

Meanwhile, he's in jail until the place dries out completely, which will make riding him in the arena interesting.  Lots of foot-cleaning and Kopertoxing is in our future.

Oh well.  The Girlz and Carrma don't even have shoes, they have Perfect Feet, and keed and Capria, who are shod, just keep on going, except for keed's occasional bouts of recreational shoe-pulling.

I think you could say I had a full day.  I even got in a longe with Capria, who was happy to get some work.  And did some thinking about odd things--like, McCaffrey's sexual politics. 

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

like, McCaffrey's sexual politics

Dying to hear your take on that topic. :)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

It's buried deep in matociquala's lj. Basically, there's a whole ongoing discussion of dragonriders and institutionalized rape, which happens to get into a quote from Annie Mac herself about how any anal penetration "makes a person homosexual" (so much for proctology) and, well, it's squicky.

Then we got off on a tangent about girls writing horse books, but if it's not excessively weird, we rationalize that it's OK.

Then there's the Star-bellied Sneetch, but we won't get into that.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

...a quote from Annie Mac herself about how any anal penetration "makes a person homosexual"

I wonder if I should warn my dad about this before his next prostate cancer follow-up.

Oh, the stupidity.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

It seems to follow from a certain age and upbringing--which perpetuates itself, apparently, witness all the freakouts about gay marriage.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Innnnteresting about the stallion feet. Is it something that may improve as his training goes on and he learns more about balancing back off the forehand? Or is he so balanced anyway that it's just going to be one of those things?

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

It's more that as he matures and stops adding weight and mass, he should stabilize. He has great feet otherwise, so if we can clean up those quarters, he should be OK.

*sigh*

[raithen.livejournal.com]

well, at least Lippizans haven't traditionally be subjected to soring and draconian shoeing methods like my beloved walkers. OUR kids are all flat shod (I won't go the strasser root, though my trainer has with his walkers), no weight, etc, etc, but the show side of the breed does some things that make my skin crawl. Friends of the Sound Horse is doing some great work counteracting this trend, but it is far from simple or easy. I know our 19 year old gelding was shod with padded shoes when he was in training as a four year old. Mercifully, his next owners used my farrier, and he was sensibly shod for most of his life, but he is terribly pacey, and I wonder to what degree messing with his angles when he was young has contributed to that....

Re: *sigh*

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

That is scary stuff. I've seen pictures of some of the shoes they use, and the structures designed to keep the horse on them. And I've seen what it takes to bring a horse down off the weighted shoes to normal feet.

Ironically, Lipps as a breed are born with the action these shoes are supposed to create in the three-gaited horses.

scary indeed

[raithen.livejournal.com]

the irony is, of course, that unshod or "flatshod" I prefer "sensibly shod" Walkers actually have much nicer action, in my opinion, than those with padded shoes and chains. I have seen video with a well schooled, sensibly shod horse at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration. This horse (owned and ridden by Jenny Johns(t)on) was the first and only flat shod horse allowed to compete in performance classes against padded horses at the Celebration. She didn't pace, but video of her horse side by side with the padded horses makes it clear how grotesque their action has become as a result of all the gimmicks (DON'T get me started on the tail butchery in the interests of a falsley high tail). And saddle seat equitation? it is just So. Imbalanced.

Lipps move beautifully, and with action, but it is NATURAL, supported by their bone and body structure, and it is NOT grotesque. Especially when the horse has been brought along slowly and given time to develop, and when the rider is sensitive and supports the action. This is the difference between enjoying a horse for what they are bred and designed to do, and using gimmicks to meet some idealized "standard" drawn from some fantasy and not the good kind.

Um, yes. I have strong opinions on this. Walkers are generally such kind and giving horses (if also independent, smart and, at times, challenging) that I hate the way they have been (and continue to be) routinely abused.

Re: scary indeed

[raithen.livejournal.com]

"she didn't PLACE" is what I meant to say. Clearly, time to turn off the computer and go to bed. I have a map for the morning's writing, anyway.

Re: scary indeed

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I hate any kind of unnaturalness in horse movement. I've heard people say dressage movements are "not natural," in which case will someone please explain this to my horses, who not only do all the movements for fun, they frequently do the Airs?

What's more, Lipps are usually left barefoot because they have, as a breed, Awesome feet. They're getting all that action and all that fancy stuff with nothing to "help" it.

Walkers on their own have a wonderful flowing movement and great minds. It's ugly what they've been turned into by humans with bizarre concepts of "ideal" look and movement.

But then there's the halter Arabian, the halter QH/Appy/Paint, the Western "Pleasure" aberration...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yea!! Closet cleaning!

Did that a few months ago, and moved all the mailing supplies, authors copies, and other stuff down to a set of shelves in the basement. Now I just need to get the office in shape, which is easier said than done. The desk is a V-shaped Stealth wing, essentially boards on boards, with no drawers. I have the file cabinet and a 2-drawer rolling file, but I could use more. I tell myself that it's better to purge when I hit the overflow point, but sometimes I wonder...

Have a vacation week over Christmas, at which point I will set up the new iMac and move files. Once that's done, I will be rid of an under-the-desk tower and a whackin' huge monitor. The reduction in wires alone will be tremendous. Things will look so much neater. Funny how I need that sense of being in control of my surroundings before I can sit and work in that room.

somewhat related noodling

[lynnesite.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new iMac. The silence alone will please you. WSJ's Mossberg calls it the best computer he's ever reviewed--that's saying something. Computer of the Year according to Fortune mag.

TWHs, I had them for 10 yrs, for 4 of those I boarded at a top show barn (in a huge pen), and taught handicapped riding on other TWHs there for 7 yrs. They start them padded by *2*. The horrible prominence of the "stepping pace" over the good square broken lateral pace came from the built-up world. They can't turn them out with the stacks on. I have not seen trouble bringing them back to flatshod, did it with donated show TWHs to our program for years. Agree that their temperament allows those bad things to happen--an Ayrab (or Lipp) would never permit that sort of treatment. Some of the show horses really like what they're doing.

Today I rode both of my Ayrabs bareback with a sidepull thing called a Lindell that LTJ gave me last spring. No warmup, just got on. Took Twix along for a wander. They have to stand for mounting next to the pickup's tailgate. Q hadn't been ridden in a few months, Em even longer and he isn't called the Rubberband for nothing. He was good, but I decided to dismount and play a la Cavalia and clicker training. He's so smart--we start endurance conditioning again on Monday. Em has her girlish figure back, she felt "just right" under my seat and legs. Twix left us alone to graze. Thankfully she has perfect little feet--yesterday she didn't want me to clean her back feet, just impatient--how I handle that (no restraint) is definitely different than it would have been with no Lipp in the mix.

It was horribly, delightfully warm here the last two days, so we went into organization-mode too. Setting up more of a tack room in the container. Cleaning out the horse trailer. Making riding a habit again like it had been since last Feb. Spring cleaning to go with the spring weather. Going to do a shoot for Peggy Cummings before the end of the month, and she'll start giving me private lessons which was a deal about the photos for the recently released Connected Groundwork booklet.

Drying out here quickly, sending drying vibes for da Pook's benefit. Laughing at his antics at the Neighbor's, especially the mounting block part.

Re: somewhat related noodling

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Ooo, riding again! Ember looks magnifique. Having a baby worked wonders for her whole body and mind. It was really lovely to see how happy and beautiful she is. And get Major Hugs from her. She's such a sweetheart. One of my favorite mares, oh yes.

When's Q's next endurance meet?

Heidi got some almost-decent photos of her Pooka/Morab yearling this week--he's a beauty. Looks exactly like his sisters, with a dash of Morgan for spice. Pook is stamping them out like a cookie cutter. (The breeder's Holy Grail: The near-perfect stallion who produces himself consistently on diverse mares.)

I think I'll keep him for another week.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Funny how I need that sense of being in control of my surroundings before I can sit and work in that room.

Exactly.

I don't actually work in the office--I work in the living room in front of the tv--but the office is useful for IRS purposes. It has the desktop computer that I use as a printer terminal, the printer, the fax, the filing cabinets, and, as of tomorrow I hope, a closet full of nicely organized office-type things.

Just being able to find the books and mss. I need when I need them will be a great pleasure.