Thursday, July 4, 2013
Chocolate
Tried something a bit unusual today: a filled chocolate Ghirardelli bar from Walgreens. Damn it was good! The caramel just perfect inside. Salty and sweet all at the same time!
Sameness
Been having to eat out a lot lately since we are moving soon and finding food tends to taste the same. Not sure why this is...
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, April 24, 2011
On food and horses
I have been riding dressage for a long time, the 80's. Rode Saddlebreds before that in New Orleans. And since I was a kid I've been cooking as it was always so magical. Just the idea of taking raw ingredients and making something whole has always fascinated me. Babette's Feast (movie) is something that I find so instructive and I see it occur all the time whenever folks get around good food. They become something else...better...more cohesive...calmer. So, I try to recreate that in my own way.
About seven years ago I decided to buy a "lifetime" horse...a horse designed for dressage. I had remembered the late Hubert Rohrer clinicing in our city and speaking most highly about a stallion named Aslan as being the best in North America...a Danish Oldenburg. That comment stayed with me and twenty years later, a woman nearby stood Aslan for several years. I bought one of the babies in utero. It was a bumpy road at first. He liked to buck. Bucking is his answer to things. He gets scared--he bucks. He feels uncomfortable--he bucks. Anyway, I learned many ways to deal with this after ensuring his bucking was not due to pain (such as from the saddle or his back hurting or anything like that). I get his teeth done regularly and his trimming is every five weeks.
So, now he's just turned six (April 11th) and we've had a pretty solid run of things. I've taken him several places. He's been largely respectful. He is smart and can be a brute but I've gotten much better about making sure he respects boundaries and limits. It was fascinating today, for instance, that as I led him from his outdoor pasture to the barn to tack up to ride...a time during which I make sure he walks in a special zone right beside me, but not "in my space," I was very much "on top of him" and making sure he did not lag or pull ahead. Usually he lags a bit going up to the barn and he loves to stop and visit with the stalled horses. I did not allow him to do this on purpose. The ride went well and I worked on relaxation and lateral stuff. We used the outdoor arena for the majority of the ride and it has slightly softer sand. I noticed he started pawing towards the end of the ride and I know it was because he was tired.
Yesterday he spooked badly (wind noises against the large doors of the big barn plus the flap of the dumpster) but I stayed on and we carried about on with our work. Two days before that, he harked out a major bucking episode and I stayed on...and I know why he did this...I had changed up his routine and for the first time ever rode him down to his outdoor pasture to drop him off when I was done working him rather than untacking first. The wind here is incredible this spring (plus no rain) and the flapping tarps on several round bales is what he took offense at. But it made me depressed to think I would be dealing with this from now on...I've been warned that his bucking will always be an issue lurking beneath the surface. He is short backed and very powerful.
However, the athletic ability of the horse is par none. I am humbled by it and realize I need to rise up to meet the challenge. Praised the heck out of him today. He was like butter in my hands...stretchy and soft. I warm him up gently and consistently. Read up on several cowboy websites about bucking/spooking knowledge and one thing (courtesy of John Lyons' son, Josh) stuck in my mind: ride the forward but be thinking about the backing up and vice versa). He is talking about responsiveness here and keeping the horse nimble and in unstable balance...exactly the same thing Jeff Moore speaks about. Also, I was reminded about making his hindquarters extremely responsive to requests for lateral shifts. I worked on all that and he got softer and softer in my hands.
Tomorrow is another day. I will ride again. My husband reminds me we are not getting any younger so I better enjoy my time and make more time to play. So, I'm at the barn more these days.
About seven years ago I decided to buy a "lifetime" horse...a horse designed for dressage. I had remembered the late Hubert Rohrer clinicing in our city and speaking most highly about a stallion named Aslan as being the best in North America...a Danish Oldenburg. That comment stayed with me and twenty years later, a woman nearby stood Aslan for several years. I bought one of the babies in utero. It was a bumpy road at first. He liked to buck. Bucking is his answer to things. He gets scared--he bucks. He feels uncomfortable--he bucks. Anyway, I learned many ways to deal with this after ensuring his bucking was not due to pain (such as from the saddle or his back hurting or anything like that). I get his teeth done regularly and his trimming is every five weeks.
So, now he's just turned six (April 11th) and we've had a pretty solid run of things. I've taken him several places. He's been largely respectful. He is smart and can be a brute but I've gotten much better about making sure he respects boundaries and limits. It was fascinating today, for instance, that as I led him from his outdoor pasture to the barn to tack up to ride...a time during which I make sure he walks in a special zone right beside me, but not "in my space," I was very much "on top of him" and making sure he did not lag or pull ahead. Usually he lags a bit going up to the barn and he loves to stop and visit with the stalled horses. I did not allow him to do this on purpose. The ride went well and I worked on relaxation and lateral stuff. We used the outdoor arena for the majority of the ride and it has slightly softer sand. I noticed he started pawing towards the end of the ride and I know it was because he was tired.
Yesterday he spooked badly (wind noises against the large doors of the big barn plus the flap of the dumpster) but I stayed on and we carried about on with our work. Two days before that, he harked out a major bucking episode and I stayed on...and I know why he did this...I had changed up his routine and for the first time ever rode him down to his outdoor pasture to drop him off when I was done working him rather than untacking first. The wind here is incredible this spring (plus no rain) and the flapping tarps on several round bales is what he took offense at. But it made me depressed to think I would be dealing with this from now on...I've been warned that his bucking will always be an issue lurking beneath the surface. He is short backed and very powerful.
However, the athletic ability of the horse is par none. I am humbled by it and realize I need to rise up to meet the challenge. Praised the heck out of him today. He was like butter in my hands...stretchy and soft. I warm him up gently and consistently. Read up on several cowboy websites about bucking/spooking knowledge and one thing (courtesy of John Lyons' son, Josh) stuck in my mind: ride the forward but be thinking about the backing up and vice versa). He is talking about responsiveness here and keeping the horse nimble and in unstable balance...exactly the same thing Jeff Moore speaks about. Also, I was reminded about making his hindquarters extremely responsive to requests for lateral shifts. I worked on all that and he got softer and softer in my hands.
Tomorrow is another day. I will ride again. My husband reminds me we are not getting any younger so I better enjoy my time and make more time to play. So, I'm at the barn more these days.
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