Catching Up

After five weeks of houseguests including a most excellent March Camp, I've reached the point of social exhaustion. Answer email? I can't brain today. Or yesterday. Or the day before, either. Maybe tomorrow.

But an lj update is long overdue, and I have neep, plus a large bag of bits and pieces. We'll see if I can remember them all.

First, a moment for Japan, the news of which I woke to this morning. And one for Libya, also Egypt, Tunisia, and the rest of the Middle East. And a long one for Wisconsin and the rest of the states that have been targeted for assimilation into the land of Gilead. The Crazy Years, they are here.

Our enclave, here in the People's Republic of Baja Arizona, carries on. We do White Horse Yoga on the third Friday of every month, with occasional additional sessions for guests and Campers. And there are regular lessons. The two cross-fertilize and it's really lovely.

Which reminds me, the Camp schedule has an unexpected opening. If anybody's up for it on short notice, an April Camp is available for 1 or 2 people. Dates flexible. We also have an opening in early October. And possibly in summer, but it gets hot here. You'll need to be somewhat broilproof.

Anyway, April? Weather's beautiful. Trees and cacti in bloom. Ponies mostly shed out. Email capriole at that gmail thing if you'd like to take a few days in the desert with fat white ponies.

In May I will be in DC at the Nebulas--presenting a panel on making the best of one's backlist on the Saturday, with illustrious colleagues. I will also be in Sandy Eggo during World Fantasy weekend, but probably at the Barcon, since the con is sold out and, well, budget.

It's been A Winter. Alternating between record highs and record lows. 80sF, teens F, back and forth. The Great Freeze of early February took out all the green. So far very little of it has come back. The palm tree is reviving, and there are buds on the cottonwood. The pepper trees, not sure yet. The citrus will need to be cut back to the trunk, most likely; it got hit hard. The cacti seem to be recovering. Tough things, cacti. No flowers at all, but the rain and snow (yes, snow; 2.5 inches here) a week ago Sunday might have germinated something. We're being told to be patient; wait. Give it time.

And now it's pushing 90F and the horses are shedding like crazy--weeks earlier than usual. Which is a harbinger of a very hot year. Climate change: it's not just for liberals any more.

Good thing the horses like heat. Most of them. Capria could do without it. Pooka, of course, says the more the better.
I've been having ongoing crap with fibro, finally got fed up with it and decided to ride through it as much as possible. It's good to have an instructor who's also a massage therapist. If you or the horse are a little off, she's there to help. So we've been working on getting the Pookabutt connected to the neckbone and all of that, and doing a lot of connect-collect-and now lengthen, which being a collectamatic, he says is worrrrk. But he can do it.

Ephiny has been on hiatus. Getting her head back in the game now, so we can pick up the riding where we left off. And putting clothes on Tia, who is the world's greatest liberty horse, but if she wants the rest of it, she has to play by the regular rules.

I started riding Gabriella a few weeks ago. Got her a lovely ebay bridle with a pearl browband, discovered that Pandora's saddle fits her nicely, and tried the experiment one day while tcastleb was having a lesson. Not only was she all for it, she fit me perfectly. S lent a hand, and went nuts over her. She has a weakness for second (third, fourth)-career horses anyway, but this one, she says, is special. She has the Lipizzan hardwiring in a big way, and while she's very rusty and quite green, she had a good start in her younger days, has a lovely mouth, and naturally understands how to adapt her back to carrying a human.

So, we had a lesson the next time around, and started putting it all together on the gorund, then from the saddle. Fold of jaw to loosen the mandible and the atlas, base of neck/shoulder to unreel the neck and get the rest of the body into the mix, lift of the back through the barrel, and finally a little reminder that she has hindquarters and they are for other things as well as making babies. Booyah, says Gabriella. Yesterday after some wobbling around and tentative experiments in walking under me, she stopped to think (while the humans conferred), then made up her mind and strode on out like an experienced riding horse. Felt absolutely lovely.

Good mind on that mare. She did have to sass off Pooka in his last lesson--we were riding through our transitions with collection into lengthening, and she was at ringside. Turned deliberately and presented her ample and lovely behind. Working Now, I said to him as the rumbles started up from below. S sang out, "Look, Pooka! They're fighting over you!"

He has a rough life.
So that's the neep. We have other things going on. Here's a podcast. Shiny new story, even. I hope to have more of those as we go on. Sold another new story, too; details when I have them. Things are waking up, I think.