first ride since Tuesday (or Wed, I can't remember) and then it rained and rained and rained, plus there was Thanksgiving and 500 miles of driving and two parents and all Al's family including stair-stepped boy cousins and a brand new baby girl who let me hold her for ever so long and grinned and drooled on me in the best way. The boy cousins found Alice's willingness to romp with them fabulous, and she has a posse all her own whenever she shows up next.

I am looking for a place to put Bully with an indoor, so I can pursue my dream through the cold, rainy, windy nights - I found one closer to the Canadians, which would be amazingly much easier than life is right now, and I am still driving around talking to people and listening to stories and feeling out places. I don't think I'll find a perfect place, but something will work.

I don't know if I am tired or hungry or what but everything is still too much.

plus Rain! and major mud, and more Rain!!

in other news, the Boy, and his fish, which I made and am deeply proud of

The fish, not the Boy.

The Boy I am simply smitten with, as he is clearly the best and sweetest and smartest and funniest nephew I have ever had.

all I wanted

she says in a whiny voice

all I wanted was a horse to ride, which I got, but I also have all kinds of things I didn't want, like drama and doubt and haemorrhaging money and pissing people off right and left and did I mention money? serious quantities of money which is starting to weigh on me, because I only have him for a year - if I can borrow things, or even better if he comes equipped, then I can take better care of him, and do more interesting things with him and fuckety fuckety fuckety boo

sleep may improve this

work that paid might improve this

feeling less likely to be second guessed would definitely improve this

rode the Bully horse, and then went to the High School and started work on the sets.

I got there at 11:30 and I left for good at 7:00, about 2 minutes before the door opened.

The children are very polite - several complimented me on the set. I was startled, but pleased.

I was attempting to see what people saw in Facebook last night, and I almost get it. I found a bunch of people from my High School, including one guy I've wondered what happened to for mumble30oddmumble years.

aaaand I win! my kid is singing with joy over the people who have sequenced the woolly mammoth genome! go me. Go Alice too.

three horse day - all the Canadians for 1/2 hour each. For Ruby and Penny I rode bareback, because I was still cold from holding Bully for new shoes at the crack of dawn this morning. Ruby is having thinking issues, and it is frustrating her. Penny is just feeling tired, or lazy or something, and unwilling to move. Kaboose is in a great place, soft and forward and interested, and doing well.

Bully has new shoes, and my god are they expensive. Not winter shoes yet. I am betting on another 5 weeks of increasing cold but no snow or ice until the new year.

Circus tonight, and I am glad I went. Alice pled out on sore shoulder and Al is out of state until Friday, and Aerin is teching, but I went and Red Kate was there, and I flew! and Flew! and FLEW!!! I candlesticked, and airplaned, and feet-sat, and it was SUCH FUN!!! Thank you Kate. The flying definitely has a lot to do with strength, and confidence, and practice. I hadn't realized I was so unpracticed.... Also, in what might be a legendary first, I showed Caroline two exercises. Caroline is the queen of the specific exercises.

Practice. Practice everything, all the time. Even being human.

In other news, tiaras and ball gowns planned for Saturday.

Bully is:

a gingerbread horse (I can't catch him, and when I do I want to bite him)
an antique
velvet
aloof
a foolish old man
a charming old man
keeping me honest
teaching me things

one horse day, balanced by 5 hours in the scene shop working on tree parts for As You Like It

and there is sssssssssssssomething ssticky on the ssssssssssssskey and I have to ssssssscrape it off.

four horse day

also five stall day, and three barns

I'm beat.

I did manage to make Alice a 1/2 birthday cake. I didn't do the cool thing: cut the layers in half and pile them up four tall, with frosting to hold it all together, making a very tall half-a-cake. But I did make blueberry glorp to go in the middle, and marshmallow frosting for the top.

Also, I found a bunch of alternative swears and exclamations over here. No mention of bazzfazz or baggywrinkle which are ones my mom used to use. Before she started singing her "fuckety boo, fuckety boo, fuckety fuckety fuckety boo" song.

well that was... a bit much

Equine Affaire = all things (and I mean ALL things) horse related.

I always think I am part of a fairly small demographic, until I get into something like this. And it is overwhelmingly female too.

I brought my 16 year old friend Rachel, who rides Ruby. She was bug eyed but pleased. She liked the breed building the best, with real live (extraordinarily patient) ponies in it. (many of them did NOT look like examplars of the breed, just the most patient one they could get to stand for the noise and crowds and people poking at them) I managed to connect with Hannah briefly, which was fun. I bought a book, for Rachel, and a friend found me a sheepskin thing to make Bully's saddle fit better so all I had to do was watch clinics, and be amazed at all the stuff.

I am ashamed that I didn't/don't get more from listening to people have lessons. All my muscles fire in sympathy, and I can't sit still and I want to be on a horse trying things. For someone who gets a lot of life from books, I seem to be pretty unskilled at getting riding insights from them.

owie owie owie

Apparently the kettlebell class at the gym will strengthen all the muscles I use trotting. I can tell because riding today Hurt Like Hell.

nothing day

Veteran's Day, watched the parade and listened to speeches and clapped a long time

no riding, no horse except cleaning stalls
the pig is gone, but bully is still checking out the pen where it was, just in case it leaps out of the underbrush and attacks him

had to reschedule the farrier

circus tonight - we all flopped on the floor and moaned, pretty pathetic, really

I think both kids are getting sick - Alice is fevery, and scratchy throat, Aerin is fevery and her temp is going higher

Al has to get up at 4 o freaking clock tomorrow to go away for business, and I have to help him wake up

more sleep and things will be better

The Pig Panic continues, but he is at least eating supper and evening snack, if not breakfast.

He bit the baby barn owner. Not really a baby, just really young from where I am. And she got so mad at him, she left him inside and I had to go ride him and turn him out. The pig really has him profoundly agitated. He is, thank goodness,  to the point of drinking from the pasture water trough, although with his eyes bugged out and on full alert. If the pig moves, he bolts.

I am grateful I have had experience with toddlers who manage to support life while looking like they are eating nothing. In fact, as we know, they are living on crayons, dust, and six month old Easter candy found in the couch. And all the stealth food that you don't see them eat. They steal it off the counter. Like cats.

The saddle fitter is coming tomorrow. Once I had the correct number and stopped harassing an innocent undergrad the whole scheduling operation went much faster.

Feels like summer again. It is nice, but ends up with sweaty horses.

Bully is worried about very few things. One of them is pigs. Guess what moved into the pen next to the barn where the chickens used to live?

Yup.

It is a small pig, as pigs go, and mostly fuzzy white bristles, and black ears. He has the most lovely eyelashes. He talks to himself, grunting and snorting and squeaking and singing, rootling about in the pen.

Bully is appalled. Appalled to the point of disinterest in his feed, pacing his stall and having to have water carried out to him where he stomps at the far end of the field having discreet elderly fits. I hand grazed him so he had some food in him, and I think he probably grazed a tiny amount while he was turned out today.

I really, really hope he settles down enough to eat soon. I guess we can give him some of his feed separated from the mare in the back pasture.

foolish old man

hah! I finally beat every last piece of hardware and software into submission to bring you this!

thank you, thank you verra mush

Thank you, I voted. For Mayor, and a handful of town offices.

I rode the horse that makes me work hard for my lesson. It was like having brussel sprouts, but we had moments with butter sauce. But I was too tired to ride Bully, which was bad sad.

Plus I had to get home to make a thing which I cannnot show you because the camera and the ancient PC and the camera software on the mac conspire against me. It isn't quite done yet, but it pleases me.

And then go to Brattleboro, and talk to my friend Anne about doll construction. It is strange to go back into notes and construction techniques from 5 years ago.

three horses
three barns
8 stalls
only 5 waterbuckets

I am beat, still, and it is tomorrow already

also I seem to have accidentally gotten a job designing sets, and (gasp) it pays  (I am to transform the cafeteria into the Forest of Arden)
probably squat, but still, additional $$ means an additional show in the spring
also I got a hug from the deranged director of shakespeare at the high school (see RE paying job, above) from relief, I think, over being able to offload the design

Must Vote

this made me happy

plus? it is REALLy pretty

awesome hallooowweenn party - about 25 medium sized kids and an additional dozen substantially larger kids roaring about and having fun.

we had:

aaaand a happy birthday to my old Hobbit and standuponit  wherever they might be

many many happy returns