Hazmat Suit, Check. Shovel, Check. Housecleaning in 3, 2, 1…
These past couple months have been… well…
Around Christmas, I walked into my apartment and stared at a big white box. My first thought was to wonder who sent me a present. My second thought was to wonder how it ended up in my apartment, since I didn’t put it there. A couple minutes later, I looked at it again and realized it wasn’t a box or a present at all. It was the package of toilet paper I’d bought the night before and hadn’t put away yet.
That is what the past few months have been like for me.
So today, since I had a bit of a breather from things, I decided to put away all the things I hadn’t put away yet.
First the toilet paper. Then the brand new box of kitty litter that was hiding behind it. Then the stack of saddle pads one of the guys at the barn gave me—they finally made it over to the washing machine. Then I put away another brand-new box of kitty litter. Then I piled up the pile of papers I need to go through sometime, since they had fallen off the table. Then there was another brand-new box of kitty litter.
This explains one thing, at least: I’d thought I’d been going through the kitty litter awfully quickly. It turns out I just kept forgetting where I put the boxes after I bought them.
On the plus side, I found almost $100. People who know me know I never carry cash, so that’s a small miracle in and of itself.
I also found my stall guard. I’m kind of glad and a little annoyed—I just ordered a new one, since this one was AWOL. Turns out in my last cleaning spree, I got clever and put it in my bridle bag. Who puts stall guards in bridle bags, anyway? This is why I hate cleaning. You can never find anything later.
As long as I was being productive, I brought in my old saddle rack from the truck, where it has been sitting for the last week or so. With my extra saddles sitting on that, I now have a tub I can use for other stuff—good timing, since I have saddle pads coming out my ears and need someplace to put them.
And so on and so forth, all day long, much to the cats’ amusement. I found all their toys, too, and they decided this was a game: drag the toys out so I could put them back again.
But I think I am just about done. There are a couple loads of laundry to finish up, and next weekend I need to do a thorough spring cleaning, but at least my apartment no longer looks like a small and very localized tornado struck it. I even waved a dust rag around and shamed some books back into their dust jackets.
My life may just be getting back to something approaching normal. Finally.
And I won’t have to buy kitty litter for months.
Goodbye and Good Riddance, 2011
2011 went out with a bang.
With fireworks, to be precise. A whole week of them.
And thanks to the neighbors and their exuberant pyrotechnics, it also went out with two colic episodes.
Fortunately both were pretty mild and, given her history with fireworks (not good), I was at the barn keeping an eye on her anyway. So I caught them very early, and sedatives and Banamine resolved them both pretty quickly. She bounced back like nothing happened, but this only confirms (as if I needed confirmation) how much I hate fireworks.
Now on to the good news.
Over the Black Friday sales, I picked up a mid-range H/J saddle for a steal. The price was good enough that I knew I could resell for a profit if needed, but it’s a surprisingly good fit for a leap of faith buy. Ro likes it well enough; I’m trying to figure out if *I* like it, but I think it’ll do just fine to get us going.
The only real problem with the saddle is that my tack box had no room to keep two saddles in it. The saddle rack I was using took up half the box and was so tall I could only fit one saddle on it before hitting the roof of the box.
Enter one of the awesome ropers—we talked for a few minutes, he made some measurements (using baling twine, natch), and the next day showed up with a fabulous new stand for me. It’s welded pipe, very simple—V-shaped base, post at the back, two arms. It’s actually smaller than my other stand but will let me keep both saddles in my box. I just need to cap the pipe ends so I don’t accidentally scratch my saddles on them.
This also solves my other saddle problem—I have two saddles at home that Ro outgrew (narrow and medium trees). They’ve been sitting on the floor of my closet, so now I can bring my old rack home and store them on that. I ought to sell those saddles, but you know what they say—as soon as you sell a saddle, you buy a horse that it would have fit.
And, finally, I’m starting to leg Ro up in earnest. We are both horribly out of shape after two months with no real work (walking around behind the steers doesn’t count), but I am thrilled to say we did not backslide as much as I expected. In particular, Ro came right back into work with a horse trot. We’re both suffering from a lack of strength and we both need to relax and unlock our bodies again, but we haven’t gone all the way back to pony trot territory, so I’m very happy about that.
So on to 2012 we go. No resolutions—trying to plan for the future was a total failure last year, so we’re just going to take things a day at a time and see where we go.
Ok, one resolution: I’ve been a lazy slug the past couple months, and I need to fix that. After I eat this last bag of M&Ms.
Merry Pastamas! I got you… mud?
December has turned into the greenest month of the year, with several much-needed rains. Best of all, they were slow, soaking rains spread out over several weeks, with totals measured in inches.
I’ve never been so happy to throw on wellies and push the wheelbarrow through mud, mud, mud to get to the muddy, muddy manure pile. Or through mud, mud, mud to get to the shavings pile.
The mud and I, we are like this.
The mud and Ro, they are… well…
Ro doesn’t do mud, you know?
Her paddock is currently standing water, so I’ve been giving myself enough time in the evenings to let her out on the property for an hour or two. It gets her out and lets her stretch a bit. More than anything, it gives her a mental break—something new to check out.
For the first few days, she was all about that, since she got to nibble on grass.
But when I kicked her out last night, she was back in the barn in five minutes, giving me a disgusted look. It was wet out there. Like standing water wet. Her feet were getting wet and the grass was wet and did I not understand? WET.
I kicked her back out of the barn.
I kicked her back out of the barn again.
I kicked her back out of the barn. She moped by the big paddock, trotting up hopefully to me every time she saw me: “Hey, you have a full wheelbarrow? So my stall is clean? I can go back in?” “The wheelbarrow has shavings in it? You’ll have my stall done in five minutes? I can go back in?” “You’re putting everything back? Everything’s done? I can… Oh, f-you, anyway. I’m calling Animal Control.”
She was entirely unamused.
I’ve had to hang buckets in her stall because her water trough is out in her run. I know she was going out there sometimes, since her feet are muddy every time I show up, but she was not going out and drinking enough, since she was showing signs of slight dehydration. So… now she has her own personal hay washing machines again, which she uses gleefully. (Actually, she only dunks hay in one bucket. She drinks out of the other one. She is that much of a princess.)
Still, like I said: I’ve never been so happy to pull on some wellies and deal with the mud and all the inconvenience. We need this rain so badly, and I think our local area may even have dropped from the Exceptional to Severe drought categories. The Flying Spaghetti Monster could not have sent a better holiday gift.
I hope your holidays are as happy and squelchy as ours!
How We Beat the Favourite
by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1869)
“Aye, squire,” said Stevens, “they back him at evens;
The race is all over, bar shouting, they say;
The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is sweeter
Than ever—he swears he can win all the way.
“A gentleman rider—well, I’m an outsider,
But if he’s a gent who the mischief’s a jock?
You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the plunder,
He rides, too, like thunder—he sits like a rock.
“He calls ‘hunted fairly’ a horse that has barely
Been stripp’d for a trot within sight of the hounds,
A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and Yorick,
And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds.
“They say we have no test to warrant a protest;
Dick rides for a lord and stands in with a steward;
The light of their faces they show him—his case is
Prejudged and his verdict already secured.
“But none can outlast her, and few travel faster,
She strides in her work clean away from The Drag;
You hold her and sit her, she couldn’t be fitter,
Whenever you hit her she’ll spring like a stag.
“And p’rhaps the green jacket, at odds though they back it,
May fall, or there’s no knowing what may turn up;
The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady,
Keep cool; and I think you may just win the Cup.”
Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for the tussle,
Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb,
A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry,
A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb.
Some parting injunction, bestowed with great unction,
I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce,
When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White Surrey,
Came down in a hurry to start us at once.
“Keep back in the yellow! Come up on Othello!
Hold hard on the chestnut! Turn round on The Drag!
Keep back there on Spartan! Back you, sir, in tartan!
So, steady there, easy!” and down went the flag.
We started, and Kerr made strong running on Mermaid,
Through furrows that led to the first stake-and-bound,
The crack, half extended, look’d bloodlike and splendid,
Held wide on the right where the headland was sound.
I pulled hard to baffle her rush with the snaffle,
Before her two-thirds of the field got away;
All through the wet pasture where floods of the last year
Still loitered, they clotted my crimson with clay.
The fourth fence, a wattle, floor’d Monk and Bluebottle;
The Drag came to grief at the blackthorn and ditch,
The rails toppled over Redoubt and Red Rover,
The lane stopped Lycurgus and Leicestershire Witch.
She passed like an arrow Kildare and Cock Sparrow,
And Mantrap and Mermaid refused the stone wall;
And Giles on The Greyling came down at the paling,
And I was left sailing in front of them all.
I took them a burster, nor eased her nor nursed her
Until the Black Bullfinch led into the plough,
And through the strong bramble we bored with a scramble—
My cap was knock’d off by the hazel-tree bough.
Where furrows looked lighter I drew the rein tighter—
Her dark chest all dappled with flakes of white foam,
Her flanks mud-bespattered, a weak rail she shattered—
We landed on turf with our heads turn’d for home.
Then crash’d a low binder, and then close behind her
The sward to the strokes of the favourite shook;
His rush roused her mettle, yet ever so little
She shortened her stride as we raced at the brook.
She rose when I hit her. I saw the stream glitter,
A wide scarlet nostril flashed close to my knee,
Between sky and water The Clown came and caught her,
The space that he cleared was a caution to see.
And forcing the running, discarding all cunning,
A length to the front went the rider in green;
A long strip of stubble, and then the big double,
Two stiff flights of rails with a quickset between.
She raced at the rasper, I felt my knees grasp her,
I found my hands give to her strain on the bit;
She rose when The Clown did—our silks as we bounded
Brush’d lightly, our stirrups clash’d loud as we lit.
A rise steeply sloping, a fence with stone coping—
The last—we diverged round the base of the hill;
His path was the nearer, his leap was the clearer,
I flogg’d up the straight, and he led sitting still.
She came to his quarter, and on still I brought her,
And up to his girth, to his breastplate she drew;
A short prayer from Neville just reach’d me, “The Devil!”
He muttered—lock’d level the hurdles we flew.
A hum of hoarse cheering, a dense crowd careering,
All sights seen obscurely, all shouts vaguely heard;
“The green wins!” “The crimson!” The multitude swims on,
And figures are blended and features are blurr’d.
“The horse is her master!” “The green forges past her!”
“The Clown will outlast her!” “The Clown wins!” “The Clown!”
The white railing races with all the white faces,
The chestnut outpaces, outstretches the brown.
On still past the gateway she strains in the straightway,
Still struggles, “The Clown by a short neck at most,”
He swerves, the green scourges, the stand rocks and surges,
And flashes, and verges, and flits the white post.
Aye! so ends the tussle,—I knew the tan muzzle
Was first, though the ring-men were yelling “Dead heat!”
A nose I could swear by, but Clarke said, “The mare by
A short head.” And that’s how the favourite was beat.
——————————————————-
I realize this is a very well-known poem, but I thought a break from mediocrity would be nice.
Gordon was born and raised in England and acquainted with some of the best steeplechase riders of his day. He was taught to ride by Tom Oliver and knew George Stevens, who would go on to win the Grand National five times. Gordon raced himself, most notably on a black mare named Lallah Rookh. He was something of a wild child, and, notoriously, once stole Lallah Rookh out of her stable in order to race her against her owner’s wishes. But gambling got the best of him, and his father decided to ship him off to Australia to straighten him out—or at least remove him from the growing trouble he was in in England.
Before leaving England, he approached a young woman he had admired from a distance and said he wold remain in England if she only asked him to. Unsurprisingly, given that they had no real connection and he was not the most reputable fellow around, she demurred.
Gordon went off to Australia where he worked first as a horsebreaker and later in any number of jobs around the country. He also began writing poetry and quickly became one of Australia’s greatest poets. “How We Beat the Favourite” is one of his best-known poems.
Like many of its poems, it appears to have some basis in fact and some poetic license. The actual race he describes is likely the 1847 Cheltenham Steeplechase. This was the first—and only—year the Steeplechase was held at the Prestbury racecourse. Officials determined the course was simply too difficult, but that one running appears to have made an impression on Gordon, who watched it—but did not ride in it. The course described in this poem closely matches the course taken in the Cheltenham Steeplechase, down to the type of jumps, their order, and the geography.
Some of the events in the race are captured as well. The lines about Gordon losing his cap to a tree branch is almost certainly a reference to the death of The Tramp in the 1847 race. The horse got hung up in the orchard and tragically ran headlong into a tree, killing himself in the process.
But it was not only the recollection of watching a very memorable race that helped Gordon write such a vivid poem. The bay mare Iseult in the poem is almost certainly Lallah Rookh, whom Gordon, as mentioned, jockeyed in other steeplechases. He knew firsthand the thrill, dangers, and strategies of such a race and could easily write himself into the poem.
One of the strangest twists of fate about this poem is that George Stevens would later name a horse The Clown after the one in this poem. He was riding this horse one day when it spooked and he fell; he never recovered from that fall and died soon after. The first six stanzas of Gordon’s poem were inscribed on Stevens’ monument.
Gordon himself never knew about this unfortunate turn in the story of the poem. He had died a year before.
He left behind a considerable legacy in his poetry, however, and many of his greatest poems are either about steeplechasing and foxhunting (in England or Australia) or about life in the Australian bush. He is the only Australian poet who is commemorated in Poet’s Corner in England’s Westminster Abbey.
Report from the Chute
Ro here.
Someone, please, knock some sense into the humans.
First they brought the Smelly Things into my vicinity. That was pretty uncool, but I managed to rise above the indignity.
Then they let the Things hang out by my arena. Although, come to think of it… who wouldn’t want to hang out by the arena and watch me?
But then… I don’t know. The humans can’t figure out how to keep the Smelly Things in the pen, which just makes no sense to me. They keep me away from the grass. How hard can it be to lock up the Things?
But they keep escaping from their pen and the humans chase them across the arena. Sometimes they even catch one, and then they are so surprised they let the rope go loose and the Things escape again.
I just couldn’t stand the stupidity any more, so I tailed along behind one of the smarter horses and he showed me how to herd the Things around. It’s not very hard, really. They are almost as dumb as the humans.
I let the other horses know I had it, and I waited. And, sure enough, the Things got loose again.
Well, I showed them what’s what. After the humans let the ropes loose…again… I got those Things back in the chute, and I marched them back down to the pen, double time. Once they were back where they belonged, the humans rightly showered me with praise. As they should. There I was, fixing their mistake, putting the world right again.
And oh. my. god. They let the Things get loose. Again.
I lose count of how many times I put them back. At least the Things were trainable. I told them where to go, and they went.
Teaching the humans to close the effing gate… that’s a whole ‘other problem.