Goal Setting 2019

This is a difficult thing for me this year. I think, in part, because we came so far last year, and made huge strides forward in so many areas, that I am humbled by my horse’s huge heart. So, they may be more generic and very similar to last year, but here goes.

1). Ride at least four days a week and continue to take lessons

Again and again, I have seen our consistent practice pay off in our developed ability to do more and more of the advanced dressage work. We still have five months before our next show and I am beginning to think that it might be possible to show at the next level sometime before the end of the show season. I do know that I am waiting for him to tell me if he is ready. Sometimes I think he is and sometimes he flips me the bird in the form of a errant hind leg. 

The single most important thing I can do besides ride is continue to take regular lessons with Amanda to develop my skills and improve my communication with Ashke. It goes hand in hand with the need to work on our lesson homework during our practice rides. This should be a no brainer for the next year.

That said, I also know that life happens and if there is a reason to take a lay off for a week or two during the year, that too advances Ashke’s development. Sometimes having some “alone time” to contemplate one’s focus and let things settle in is a good thing. I already have several hiatus’ planned for the upcoming year.

He definitely marches to his own drum.

2). Spend more time with my son

I am in a special window of time, where he is an adult but I also have proximity and access to his life, to the extent that I can still spend time with him. That won’t always be the case. My request for a holiday gift this year was to ask him to go to a movie of my choice with me, one time a month (he doesn’t even have to pay - just make the time). In addition to our planned movie night, I plan on setting aside time and attention to help him find some success at college algebra. This will be the second time he takes this class and this time he is going to have to really buckle down and make some changes in his approach to this specific math. I plan on holding him accountable and double checking his homework (plus assigning extra problems if necessary) in order to support and encourage him to make a sea-change in his approach. So, partly fun goals and partly parent goal. FTW

3) Actually spend some time trail riding

I miss this a lot. I think Ashke misses the mental release of riding out on trail. I also have a saddle designed to attach saddlebags to, although the jury is still out on whether or not I can ride long distances in it. I need to make the time and find someone who wants to do long riding with me, who is not going at endurance race speeds. I missed riding Indian Creek this year, the East-West Regional trail, Vedauwoo and expanding into new territory. It will be hard to find the time while also making my show goals, but I think it is important to do.

4) Go Camping with the dogs

This needs to happen more than the two times it happened last year. And for longer than just overnight. The dogs have gotten so much better at listening and we now have 30’ long biothane leashes, that I feel confident that we can handle the trips. I know we will be attending a family reunion in August, which will be in the wilds of Idaho, so hopefully they will do well there.

5) Continue to work on my anxiety over showing

We have eight scheduled B-Rated shows over four weekends in 2019. I am planning on showing in all of them. I am also hopeful that Amanda and her sister will also join me in the WE community, although I think that will depend on her progress in Grand Prix. I am hoping that the new attire will convey a new feeling of attractive acceptance within myself (or maybe I could just stop fucking worrying about what every one else thinks). At least I know how to properly dress when riding in a western saddle. 

So there they are . . . They may not be the best goals or the most lofty, but they are mine

Tack and Attire

So, one of the things about Working Equitation is that it doesn’t matter what kind of horse you ride or what tradition you ride under, everything is okay provided your tack and attire match and you ride with the same tack and attire the entire show. I have seen people show in a myriad of traditions: from dressage to Heritage to roper to Portuguese or Spanish traditions. At the National Show in October, one of the women who was competing was riding in an Alta Escuela and was dressed traditionally. She looked very good. It was also very apparent to me that I was never going to pass with the clothing I was currently riding in. That recognition sent me frantically searching the interwebs for proper apparel, which strangely enough, you can only buy from Spain.

For lots and lots of money.

Like I could easily drop a thousand dollars and not be guaranteed that 1) everything would match and 2) it would fit. Let alone look good on me.

I decided that maybe it would be easier to find a fairly cheap western saddle and go about putting together an entirely new look for Ashke and I. So started a half-hearted attempt at finding the perfect saddle for my very hard to fit horse. My intention was to find said saddle used for not a lot of money, and only ride in it a couple of times right before the show. I loved the Alta and had no real desire to change. In my reluctant search, I saw a used Mexican saddle on consignment at a tack shop and decided to try it. 

At first I thought it was too narrow, and then when I tried it a second time ($330 is too good to pass up) I decided it was too wide. However, once I got a western saddle pad fitted to his back under it, the saddle fits very well. It came with a breast collar and back cinch and the tooling is phenomenal.

I hated the pad, however. He is so short back that the pad edges flared out and annoyed me.

The stirrups were never turned, so we are working on that.

The most interesting thing to me, however, is the fact that he moves in it better than he was moving in the Alta. It has taken me some time to get used to the saddle, especially since it does not lock my hips into place the way the Alta does and there is a lot more swing through my lower back. It has been pretty amazing to feel his improvement in the lateral work just from freeing up my lower back. I have also been very pleased with the press pattern of the saddle. It has gone from a “just ride in it right before a show” to my every day saddle. 

I ordered a new, short, rounded saddle pad for it, which I like the looks of very well.

I also got a new fleece girth to use, but intend to purchase a TSF western girth the next time I’m flush with money.

I also purchased a new headstall and reins, which match both the saddle and the bit. I had to move the earpiece to the left ear, since his right one has cartilage damage from someone twisting it in anger.

I decided to go to the one ear model in hopes of moving the side pieces of the headstall away from his eye. It has always been an annoyance that the Spanish bridle just never really fit him due to the narrowness of the browband (when I say I want it in 16.5” size, I do know what I am talking about.) 

I decided that since I was sticking with the saddle, I should probably clean it.

It was pretty dirty and the silver work on it was very tarnished.

It looks black but I’m pretty sure that it was originally a very dark brown with lighter reddish brown highlights.

I don’t think it’s been cleaned for years, although someone did replace all of the leather strapping, including the stirrup harness under the tooled stirrup leather. 

It took a couple of hours of scrubbing with a toothbrush to just get the embedded grime out.

The leather took the oil like sand in the desert.

Cleans up pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I also have new western style boots, with western spurs and spurs straps, which I wear with my breeches and half chaps. It’s a look. Don’t judge. I have a set of chinks coming and will need to get the vest back to its western look and perhaps add a bandana to the mix, but we are getting there. 

Best Moments of 2018

To start, I must say that this was the year of the canter. I know that has been our focus for the past couple of years, but this year it really developed. We started the beginning of the year trying to figure out the canter half-pass and by the end of the year, we are able to canter half-pass with a flying change at the end. That development of his canter and his ability to move laterally in any direction at my request was really started by my decision to get a second opinion after Dr D told me he needed 30 days of stall rest for his stifles. Dr Scott actually took x-rays and recommended joint injections for the right hock.

Prepping the site for injection

OMG! It made such a huge difference in his movement on his right hind leg. It also had the added benefit of allowing him to straighten how he carried that leg when moving. He is now able to step directly forward into his stride, without the twist in his hock. It had an amazing effect on his straightness as well.

The second thing I changed at the beginning of last year was in changing chiropractors. I started using Dr K after observing her in a session with another horse. She seemed very competent and had great hands. Plus, she worked more through the chiro part of the exam, actually manipulating joints and hitting trigger points, rather than relying on acupuncture  points to tell her what was going on.

Needles at the end to help his SI

For the first time, I was able to feel a huge difference in how he moved. Yes, part of that was the injections, but the other part was getting his right hip moving correctly. It had been locked up since he had twisted it in his run at SQA in 2015. Dr K actually got it moving in the socket, so he no longer had to try and move the hip from his SI area. I’m positive it helped him unlock his travel path. We’ve continued to use her throughout the year and I have continued to feel improvement.

With the hock injections, the chiro work and the weekly lessons with Amanda, I began to think about riding at one of the WE shows we were hosting this year. We once again decided to ride in the show at Expo. His dressage test was solid and we scored a 57%. It was our first time riding at that level and it felt like we had finally arrived. Amanda had believed that we would do better at a level where he was more upright and not expected to have a long, low frame, just because he was such an upright horse. We scratched the rest of the show, because Ashke had stood against the wall of his stall and banged his front left leg all night long. Amanda evaluated him and agreed that he was too unsound to continue. 

I had an epiphany at that moment, however. I went into his stall and told him that he no longer needed to hurt himself to give me an excuse to withdraw from the show. I told him that yes, I would be nervous, maybe enough to vomit, but that didn’t matter because I wanted to show anyway. I pointed out that he is a show horse and that if he would remain sound, I would step up to the plate and be brave enough to show. He has not been lame since that conversation.

Spring saw Tristan turn eighteen and finally find his passion. He decided to go to college rather than take a year off, in areospace engineering technology, and we scrambled to get his application in, his orientation done and all of the other things he needs to be a successful college student. He is attending at a commuter campus, so still living at home and working at the Subway he has been at for the past year.

 I did my first full show at Plane View Farm in May (schooling show) and Ashke did well. I finally felt like we were at a level we could be successful at and although my anxiety was godawful, my horse was amazing. The following weekend, we packed up Ashke and J’s bike and hauled east and north to Fort Robinson for our overnight camping trip. 

Loved the area. Hated Fort Robinson.

Red Cloud hates me.

I hated that Ashke was ten minutes away from our camper and that there was no easy way to check on him in the middle of the night. I hated the heat and the lack of really good maps. We almost lost J to heat stroke, although Ashke was awesome in standing tied to a tree without acting up as I helped J get her bike back to the main trail by pushing it up the very steep trail we found. We did not have enough water, enough Gatorade or enough snacks to keep us going, and zero water for Ashke. We left the next morning. One day was more than enough. I do want to note that J plucked  22+ ticks off of Ashke’s legs when we got back to the trailer. 

May also brought barn drama and the decision to move from Morelli’s to a barn further north. When I first moved into Morelli I couldn’t imagine a reason to move, but there were issues with the feed program being changed, the ongoing issues with our shavings and then they ejected Amanda from the barn. That was the final straw and I gave notice five minutes after I heard from Amanda that they had kicked her out. They lost 18 horses in June. Eleven horses and nine people moved together to Owen QH. The new place is awesome. The indoor is huge, the outdoor is huge and there is trail access if I ever find the desire to trail ride again.

One of the biggest benefits has been the quality of hay. Ashke is on a alfalfa grass mix, which is probably about 80% alfalfa. That is supplemented with Safe Choice grain and I added Purina’s Equine Senior for the winter (1# per.day) because it has the amplify nugget in it, which is a high fat additive. I added it because Ashke was looking just a.little peaked and the fat couldn’t hurt. He is off all of his smartpak supplements, since the hock injections have been so effective.

He looks very fine, if I say so myself

The other thing being at this barn has done is cleared up his WLD. In retrospect, he has been stalled on stall mats since I brought him home. Owen does not use stall mats. The ground is leveled and covered with about six inches of shavings. There is never any moisture in his stall. The barn guy cleans it twice a day, but more importantly, the urine soaks into the ground and disappears. Our last trim of the year showed that the WLD was completely gone. I am so relieved and happy about that.

June saw our first show at the L4 level, which resulted in qualifying scores for the National Championship. It was a relief to finally show well enough that the combined scores were over sixty. The ironic part was the fact that I had accepted the position of TD for the National Show, so showing was not on my plate for 2018. I was beginning to find technique to help me with the anxiety I struggle with at shows and Ashke felt focused and soft with me. It helped that there were no shows with high winds and the judges were nice. Each success built on the one before it.

In July, Tristan got his first tattoo - a half sleeve on his right arm. It was a design he picked out and had the tattoo artist draw for him. It took three sessions to complete and he seemed really happy with it when he was done. I was very impressed with his attitude and ability to breathe through the needles. 

Between the first and second session, Tristan saw a tattoo with the pixelated dots between two solid bands.

He incorporated the concept and it worked really well.

The front of his arm. He gets so many comments on the sleeve and a lot of requests for the tattoo artist’s contact information.

His plan and request for his birthday is to complete the top half of the sleeve. He has a great idea and I have sent his image to Saiph for her to design a Wolf Head for the centerpiece of his upper arm.

I had another pair of shows in July and my very first true DQ at EOH, when I cut the indoor pattern short by the gate obstacle and realized my mistake after crossing the start/finish line. 

We looked good, though.

Ashke once again stepped up to the plate and was an excellent partner.

August included a wonderful vacation with Tristan and J. We hit the beach, Bryce Canyon, Disneyland and Universal. I had a blast on the trip and my favorite moment was watching Tristan go into the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Ocean boy sporting blond hair. Such a southern Cali cliche.

Sun sick and Sun tired waiting for dinner.

HCWE added a show in August and it was pretty evident in the show that injecting just the right hock wasn’t going to cut it any more. Ashke was sore in the left,. We added the left hock in both the upper and the lower, which resolved the issues we were dealing with at the August show. We capped off the show season with the Fall Harvest show in McCook, NE. The dressage test was solid but Ashke was a mess in the EOH (although it didn’t look as bad as it felt). It did tell me that we need to work on working through our reaction to whatever new thing Ashke is exposed to. We need to understand obedience is a necessary thing for him to give me. Perhaps I need to talk to him about that. My scores were solid enough to get me qualified for Nationals in 2019, but once again, I will not be riding. I accepted the position of Show Manager for the National Championship which will be held in McCook. 

After the National Championship at Haras in Texas in October, where I was the TD for the show, I came home with a decision made in my mind about my tack and attire. There is no way I was going to look good in traditional show attire with my Alta (I was still thinking I was going to show in Nationals) so I started looking for a new saddle. The end ofOctober found me with a new saddle, a Pixem robotic camera and a horse learning to do flying changes. The clinic I did in December helped us improve our changes with a simple change in my body. 

All in all, we had a great year filled with some achievements I did not think we would ever attain. My horse has stayed sound (knock on wood) and seemed to enjoy the things we’ve done this year. Each ride moves us a little closer to something that needs polishing rather than teaching. I think we are making good progress despite my needing to learn changes while trying to teach Ashke changes. Once again, my saint of a horse is cutting me some slack and stepping up to meet me half way. 

3 

2018 Goals

This is the first time I’ve gone back and looked at the goals I set for this past year. I hit three of the four. 

1. Ride four days a week

Me, riding

We were very consistent in our riding this year. The schedule did get away from me a couple of times, mostly during event times (holidays, visitors), but overall I felt like this was a priority for me. Again, going forward, being consistent in my riding approach makes the biggest difference in Ashke’s improvement and his ability to learn and polish new things.

2. Trail ride more

Didn’t happen, due to a combination of events. J is no longer interested in being Butch Cassidy to my Sundance Kid on the trail, having gravitated to street biking in the past two years. It’s also difficult for me to set my interest in developing our dressage skills long enough to want to pack up, haul out and spend the majority of the day on my horse without a riding partner to go with me. 

If I could meet someone who wanted to trail ride all of the routes in the front range, plus explore new routes, maybe this next year will include more trail riding. 

3. Overnight Horse Camping at Fort Robinson

This actually happened. Didn’t go as we had planned, but it did happen.

4. Weekly lesson with Amanda

This. Every week but the two times I was in Germany and her one vacation of the year. 

Going to keep going with this. 

Mistake

So, Happy Soltice to all my readers. May the returning light bring happiness and your heart’s desire to you in the coming year.

Due to the holidays, my riding schedule has been hit or miss. I was able to ride Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we rode inside and Ashke was amazing. He was very good and tried hard through out all of our exercises. We are continuing to work on him changing when I ask and not when he thinks he should, like everytime we come around a corner. We did a lot of lateral work, flying changes and our canter half-pass with transitions through the walk, trying to change it up every ride so the anticipation is held at bay. All in all, it was a great ride.

Sunday was a bit different. We rode outside for starters, with weak sunshine and a fairly brisk wind. The combination of those two things turned my somewhat obedient horse into a spook monster. He was spooking at reflections on the ground, the horse trailer outside the arena, the lead rope left on the ground, a wheel barrel that was upside down outside the arena fence. If he could see it, he could spook at it. To add to the issue, there was a jump lesson going on in the arena, with questionable breaks and optional steering. Controlled chaos is the only term that comes to mind. I seriously thought about going inside, but then decided that given Ashke’s propensity to spook at all the things when we are in a show, that working through his distracted behavior would be beneficial.

He was doing pretty good and we had worked through most of the stuff I listed above, when we started working on changes. He was soft and bendy, giving me some really quiet and soft changes in both directions. I saw one of my barn mates and asked her if she would video me. She came out and took the following video.

As you can see in the video, we had a moment. When he bucked-kicked out at me he tossed me forward and I hooked the bottom of my coat over the horn, which tossed me forward and I couldn’t regain my position. He knew he shouldn’t have done that and braced. Between me being pulled off balance and him being a reactionary shithead, we managed to bonk his mouth. He also knew he was in trouble.

Then I made a mistake. I should have taken a deep breath, passed it off as if it didn’t happen, and continued to ride. Instead, I got a bit frustrated and angry at what I thought was a buck, which made him really tense. We did a few more changes, which were not nearly as good as the earlier ones, and then went on with other stuff. Ashke was able to relax enough to do square corners at the canter and all of his trot work. I tried to end on a good note.

Then he got to stew about it in his stall for three days because holiday. When I came out tonight to ride for my lesson, he was still stuck in that moment in the arena on Sunday. He was tense and reactionary. He was spooky and not really willing to settle. Amanda had me doing a bunch of lateral work, shoulder in, haunches in, half-pass and serpentines to get him to relax. Nothing was really working. I finally stopped and just talked to him: told him how important he was, how I was sorry we had the moment in the other arena, how his disobedience was hard for me, since it felt like he didn’t trust me. I finished up by telling him how important he was too me and that it didn’t matter what he did he was mine forever (not that I had thought about getting rid of him - that hasn’t happened for years now). 

Between the near constant verbal reassurance, Amanda reinforcing his opinion of himself with face rubs and not reacting to his reactions, he finally achieved relaxation. We got some really good changes on the serpentine, then across the diagonal, which was harder for me, then we worked on the canter half-pass, alternating the change at the end of crossing on the diagonal, and sometimes riding the circle forward and around in the direction of the bend. I think we will begin to introduce the concept of a counter canter next week in our lesson, so that I have that option in my toolbox for moments when he’s not listening or being a touch too diligent in his attempt to please. 

Sensitive horses are so much fun. Especially the really smart ones that remember everything. I need to cement in my thoughts that a little bit of forgiveness goes so much farther than a bit of anger and frustration. One of the lessons of this lifetime.

Lesson in Patience

For Ashke, that is . . .

We had a great lesson last night. Ashke is getting more and more in tune with my aids and is trying so hard to get the answer correct, that we have to continually go back and reinforce the lessons we've already mastered.

Last night we worked on shoulder in and shoulder out, haunches in and haunches out in both directions. I find it fascinating that the direction of travel around the arena makes a huge difference in his ease at doing the exercise. We are still working on stepping up underneath himself with his right hind. It's so much better than it was a year ago, but still an issue.

We worked on a lot of trot prior to the lesson, but then added trot leg yields and trot half-pass to the tasks. We finished up our extended warm up by doing canter half pass and serpentine work with simple changes.

For our lead changes, we put up two obstacles to give us a reference, but it did not take Ashke more than two changes to suddenly anticipate what was going to happen next. We went back to circles until he was relaxed and not throwing his haunches around, and then would randomly change our direction and the placement of the change.

There were a couple of times when we did a halt and I asked him to relax. It's not going to help if he is tense. There were also a couple of times when I had to apologize for not being clear in what I was asking for. Everytime we halted, he dropped his head and let the tension go, seeming to understand that there is no race to do this or learn this, we have plenty of time.

I finished the night with a change from left to right, five or six strides of straight, and then a change back to the left lead. That was on a straight line and he took both changes from my legs and seat. I was so proud and made a huge deal. He was very proud of himself.

We ended there.

As a note on the night, I ended up cleaning up the carcass of a dead pigeon someone had murdered in the tack room. It had to be a cat, but a fox would have eaten the egg that she was carrying as well.

Good cat. Bad place to leave it though.

Recap

December, for me, is one of the busiest times of the year at work and at home. So much going on and so little energy to deal with it. I have not been able to find time to write, primarily due to lack of energy, lack of time, lack of anything really interesting to talk about.

So . . . 

Lily still under the weather from her second start of winter bronchial crap.

The official diagnosis was kennel cough, but I think there must be something else going on with her, given this is the second year in a row, her sister never gets the crap, the antibiotics don’t seem to do anything other than upset her stomach, and she hasn’t been exposed to any other dogs.

She is improving, but it is slow.

Skittle modeling her new bandana, which she thinks makes her look very swelty, 

I am taking it off when we go to bed, since I don’t want it tangling around her neck while she sleeps, and it’s the first thing she asks for when I get up in the morning. 

Riding:

I am riding three or sometimes four days a week. The extra time off while trying to teach flying changes actually seems to help him adapt and learn. We have moved from figuring out what I am asking for, to working on only giving me a change when I ask for it. This means I sometimes ride several circles in the same direction for three or four circuits before asking for a change. He now knows what I want, it’s more a matter of me figuring out how to time my cue correctly, on the straight away, and then asking for new bend afterwards. We have also increased the difficulty by riding the change after a canter half-pass. I have also started working on the pieces for The L5 dressage test, if for no other reason than to expand the exercises we have to work on. Currently, I am struggling with a leg yield from D to E to a 10m half circle to X. It’s a change in propulsion that I just have not worked out yet. Something to address in lessons.

The changes have had their effect on Ashke. We did.a chiro appointment today and he was sore in place she expected him to be sore.

Ashke making time with Rain.

They have a hate-love-hate relationship

So, we had four horses on the docket for the chiropractor this morning. JJ had said she would be there about 8 to get some of her stuff done, turn Rain out, clean tack, etc before the appointment. When I got there at nine, they had already started on Rain. My goal was to hang out and see what was going on with JJ’s horses before having Ashke done. (I would have gone first, if JJ hadn’t volunteered.) Rain had a regular amount of things that needed to be addressed and then it was Sal’s turn.

Sal always scared me at Morelli, since he was so over the top in his reactions to everything going on around him. He is blind in his right eye, due to breaking his head in four places in a freak accident in his stall at Morelli. Because of the swelling that occurred, he because retinal blind due to pressure on the ocular nerve. Additionally, he’s a freaking big horse. I’m really more of a short horse type of girl. He has gotten much calmer and sweet at Owens, plus we were able to separate him from Rain, which has also helped his mental and emotional stability. JJ has been dealing with hocks (injected) and intermittent lameness. Since we ride together so much, I have watched him go, had some theories about what was happening in his body, and kind of talked JJ into trying my chiro. I was very curious as to whether I was correct in what I was seeing in his movement. 

Because Sal is blind, we had to be very careful when working with him. His hind end was a mess and he definitely needed to be adjusted. At one point, I was bracing his body so he would weight both hind feet while Dr K was working on him. He was sore in his lumbar, his hocks, his SI, his intertransial joint (something like that anyway), his hips, and his stifles. And that was just the hind end. She did work on his front end as well. While I was helping keep him still and steadying him, he would turn his head and snuffle my neck. He was being super sweet and cuddly. When we were finished with the tall drink of water, it was Ashke’s turn. 

He was pretty sore. Part of it I was expecting, since there was a contusion on his left shoulder from an impact that was solid enough he had broken skin even under his heavy winter blanket. I knew he was telling me things hurt, which was why I contacted the doc to come out. His left side was sore, not necessarily from skeletal reasons, but rather the muscles and fascia were sore. 

Ashke was also being an asshole. He was pissed and kicking or biting at both myself and Dr K. Dr K and I were both commenting on his behavior, because it wasn’t like him and neither of us believed it was being driven by pain, since the things Dr K was finding were not enough to warrant his over the top reaction to EVERYTHING. Dr K related it to a four year old tantrum, which made no sense. 

I finally asked him “what is going on with you? Why are you so angry?”

He sent a very clear image of me standing with Sal’s nose against my neck, he nuzzling me in a bizarre sort of horse erotica, laced through with bright green envy and raging anger. He was so jealous. I didn’t burst into laughter, since one should not laugh at open and honest communication. 

I said, “seriously? Are you really that jealous that I helped? Is that why you are being so angry?”

The wave of angry jealous energy that washed out of him could be felt by both of us.

“Oh my love. You have no reason to be jealous. They went first because JJ had plans later. I helped because Sal had never had chiro before and he is blind in one eye. There is no one else for me but you.”

Dr K added that Ashke was her favorite Arabian, ever.  We could feel the tension and anger just drain from him (which made adjusting him so much easier) like water from a broken bladder. He was back to his friendly, teasing behavior and was able to help Dr K get his right hip and back adjusted into place. SMH at my funny, green eyed boy. I need to remember to not share his apples or carrots with horses that are also allowed to snuggle me.

Home front:

T finished his first semester of school with two A’s, a B and an F. The F was a decision on our part to toss in the towel on the college algebra class the day after the deadline past to drop the class. He is signed up for the same class with a different instructor next semester and he will probably need some additional support from me to fully and completely learn algebra. If that means I need to review his homework and keep him on task for this particular topic, that’s what I am willing to do. He is also taking Intro to Space, which may be the best title of a class, ever!! We are proud of him for stepping up and doing so well his first semester.

We also had another cat dumped in our area in the past two weeks. The poor thing was thin and scared when I first saw it, so we put out crunchy food and water for him. We can’t bring him inside, but I saw a pretty cool vid on FB on an outside cat shelter, so J created one of those.

Outside Rubbermaid tub lined with insulation

Inside tub lined with warm fleece

Insulated lid for inside tub

Interior tub inside bigger container

Opening in both the inside and outside tub, to allow the cat to reach the fleece inside.

The shelter is from Alley Cat and was pretty inexpensive, since J found the tubs at Arc.

I guess that’s it for now. Will try to get some vid of the canter half-pass to flying change we are working on.