Martine and Dressage - Training

Confused?

 I’m confused.  It seems the less I do, the better me & Flurry get.

For example, take my dressage lesson last week. 

It was three weeks since our last lesson.  Flurry and I had both had two and a half weeks off – this was while I was in Lanzarote first of all and then helping at the National Championships the second week. 

I got back late on the Sunday.

On the Monday, we did some loosening stuff in the arena.  Flurry was pretty good – responsive and ongoing, just a little stiffer to bend left, which is normal for him.  We just did circles, transitions and a little leg-yielding, and quit while the going was good after about 30 minutes.

On the Tuesday, we went for a road hack with Anne & Denis.  Nothing hectic, just a 40 minute ride, mostly walking on a loose rein.

Off I went for my lesson in Skevanish with Frank O’Sullivan on Wednesday.

“What have you been doing?” he asked. 

“Nothing much” was my answer, and I reminded him I’d been away and had only come home three days before.

So we started warming up, in a nice free walk, Flurry marching on determinedly. 

Into trot, working long and low, and much to my surprise he stayed long and low through trot/walk/trot transitions.

Picked up the contact, asked for a little more connection, he rounded up easily with no objections – it’s usually a struggle, and takes a minute or two before he relaxes his jaw and works into the contact.

Into canter – well, we had the usual issues in canter. He struggled to stay round in the transitions and on straight lines.  He was much better on a circle, but then he usually is, because his inside hind is more engaged, so he doesn’t fall on the forehand and run on.

Frank suggested we do a few direct walk/canter transitions, and we did.  Perfectly, every time, on the right rein.  Almost as good on the left rein (that’s his stiff side).  Downward transitions were amazingly good – usually he either falls out of canter or runs into trot, totally on the forehand – this time he felt balanced within a stride or two.

We worked on leg-yielding and shoulder-in to keep the inside hind working.  He got softer and softer in my hand and stayed round the whole time in walk and trot work.  We finished up with a bit of canter which was much more engaged.

Frank was… well… gobsmacked, really.  Highly complimentary about how much my riding had improved, and couldn’t believe how much good the break had done both of us.

So this week, we did almost no schooling between lessons, just one day.  I warmed Flurry up long & low, picked him up, did some leg-yielding (not great, going out through the shoulder), shoulder-in, (felt ok but its hard to know when you’re working on your own) and canter transitions, both walk/canter and trot/canter.  Forty minutes max.  And that was it.

Back for our lesson this week, and he was better again. 

The shoulder-in was the best I’ve ever ridden.  Ever.  Even back when I was fit and didn’t have a dodgey back.  I could give & retake the inside rein, and I didn’t have to “nag” him with my inside leg to stay in shoulder-in position.

I rode shoulder-in on a circle – I’ve never done that before!

The leg-yielding was improved because he accepted my half-halts to “capture” his outside shoulder when he started going out through it. 

His trot work throughout was super, it felt soft and bouncy and had a great “tick-tock” rhythm. 

We started worked on lengthened strides in trot and he really really tried.

I rode in sitting trot for nearly the whole lesson and it didn’t hurt!!

Being truthful, there was a downside, the canter is still not perfect.  It’s a work in progress.  Frank had me riding shoulder-fore in canter to try and keep working that inside hind, and it helped a bit.

Maybe if I leave it alone for another week it’ll be fixed.

Following that theory, maybe after three months of just trail-riding in France, we’ll be ready for Grand Prix next April!

I’d settle for not seeing “Needs to be rounder” on my sheet next time I ride a test.

Have to agree - needs to be rounder!

Repeat after me: Cats are Friends, not Food

Cookie learning how to cheer for the Irish Rugby team

Cookie has been with us for nearly three months now.   She’s told us a lot about her background.

She lived indoors – she’s fairly well house-trained, and knows all about cleaning up while someone’s cooking

She was a city girl – she’d never seen horses, cows or chickens before
She was beaten - raise a finger to her and she cowers pathetically

She was walked on a leash – she gets soooo excited when we pick up the leash, and has done since she arrived

She was never told how to behave on a leash – she thought that pulling, zig-zagging and playing tug-o-war with the leash are all acceptable behaviours.

She was allowed to jump on the furniture – ahum, she still is

She may have had the company of other dogs – she socializes fairly well with other dogs, especially youngsters like Roxy who will play with her

She did not grow up with cats.  This is a problem.

Unfortunately she thinks cats are her natural prey.

Skinny Cat (left) and
Fat Cat (right)

Our team of mouse and bird eradication experts, Fat Cat and Skinny Cat, were not at all impressed with this notion.  Initially, they avoided her at all costs, no doubt hoping she was a short term visitor.  However, when she’d been with us about a month, they seemed to accept the fact that she is here to stay, and they became actively involved in her rehabilitation.

Fat Cat teaching Cookie not to get
so excited when he appears at the door!

In the beginning, if either cat appeared at the back door, Cookie would go berserk, leaping at the glass panel on the door.  Our routine in the early days was to keep her in her crate while they were fed, so the cats would wait until she was locked in and then stroll in for their food, casting furtive glances in her direction, leap up onto the counter where we feed them, stuff their faces and then leave via the window.

On one occasion, Cookie was in the kitchen with me and the cats were in the counter top in the back kitchen, eating their breakfast.  I opened the door between the two rooms a bit too casually – Cookie shot past me and launched herself at the counter top, to the horror of the two cats who quickly leaped out the window.  Too late, I realized the window was wide enough to fit Cookie – like a flash, she was through it and happily pursuing Skinny Cat, who had taken to the trees at the back of the garden.  It took twenty minutes to catch her again.  She is impossible to catch in these circumstances – she’s in hunting mode and ignores all calls, whistles and treats – see “Poor Cookie needs her Freedom.  Yeah, right” for one such story!

We kept the window shut after that, but we had a couple of similar incidents when she burst past someone at one of the exterior doors and had a chance to go “catting."

So we have learned to be much more careful with doors, and we’ve also spent a lot of time teaching her to sit and wait when a door is opened, and to go through only when invited.  Progress has been made, but she needs to be reminded constantly to "wait" and we still keep her on a leash outside at all times.

The cats slowly became more confident with her, starting with Fat Cat.  She’d be rigid with tension, in an “I’m going to eat you” sort of stance, and he would stroll casually up to her, rub himself under her chin, and even lie down in front of her.  This behaviour absolutely flummoxed Cookie.  She’d end up turning her head away – avoidance?  I’m not sure.

When Skinny Cat saw his brother’s success with her, he got much braver too, and would also approach her when she was out on the lead, but with slightly less confidence.  

Skinny Cat approaching bravely

Cookie looking puzzled

However, things were still not great indoors – the cats were wary of her and she was constantly trying to break into the back kitchen where they were being fed. 

Our breakthrough came via something we’d seen on “The Dog Whisperer”.  In order to emphasise the structure of the pack, the pack leader takes the pack and sits them all together, on a rock, hilltop - whatever.  We saw Cesar Milan do this with a group of three dogs who lived together but did not get on well together.  He sat them all on a bench in the garden and made them stay there.  Their initial tension turned to relaxation and they lay down together comfortably after a few minutes.

Thanks to our very placid Fat Cat, we were able to do this with Cookie.  As usual, she was straining at the end of the leash to get up to the counter where the cats were.  Skinny Cat looked dubiously at her and made for the top of the cupboard, but Fat Cat stayed put.  We sat Cookie up on top of the washing machine and brought over Fatty, who settled down nonchalantly beside her.  Cookie’s expression says it all – she was utterly confused, but after a couple of minutes, she sniffed Fatty, looked up at Skinny, yawned and relaxed.

I’d love to be able to say this has solved all of her feline hang-ups, and it has surely helped enormously, but she still has issues.  She still gets hyper when the cats appear at the door or the window.  She fixates on them in the garden when she first sees them, but then they stroll up and wrap themselves around her, so she then fixates on any cat-shaped shadows under the bushes - just in case there's any other cats hanging around!

Skinny Cat likes to come for walks with us, which helps with the whole “pack” idea, but he usually doesn’t come the whole way.  He  waits in the trees by our drive to join us on the way home and pops out when we appear.  Unfortunately it’s his nature to dart everywhere, which is hard for Cookie to take, but she’s trying, and Cinnamon gives her really good example of how to accept cats as pack members, right down to ritual bum-sniffing every time she sees them! 

As we’ll be minding the two resident cats in Céreste, we hope that Cookie's rehabilitation continues, otherwise we may have to be creative in how we segregate the animals!

Friday Weather Watch

Can we go now?

Please?

We've had three days of this while the North and East of Ireland has been basking in an Indian summer.  I'm already fed up with it.

There's only one thing to do on a day like today:

On a positive note, I booked the ferry tickets yesterday!  Starting to get excited now!

MMMMMMMMushrooms and other Autumnal Stuff

Autumn is not my favourite time of year.  I'm a Spring person, I love the vibrancy, growth, new births, the horses relishing the first Spring grass, swallows and house martins arriving.....
I just don't "get it" when people say "I love the autumn" - well up to now anyway.  This year I am revelling in the wild harvest that Autumn is offering us, and I'm developing a new affection for this season!

I've been growing vegetables in a very old manure heap for a couple of years now, pretty successfully.
My Facebook page has been enhanced with various shots of me hiding behind giant vegetables.

There was the giant squash (dressed up like one of the kids from Southpark):

The giant broccoli :

The giant sunflower (I'm not tall enough to hide behind it) :

And now, Autumn 2011 brings us the giant mushroom :

These started appearing about a month ago, buried in the nettles at the back of the veggies.  They're called Shaggy Parasol Mushrooms (a friend of Anne's identified them for me) and they are very edible and very delicious.
I was a bit sad when the original four died back, but lo and behold, they have gone forth, increased and multiplied!  They're filling up a 15 foot stretch of the boundary at the rear of the veggies now.

The little white spot is a silvermint to give perspective!

When I got back from the National Dressage Championships this weekend (not riding, just helping) I was delighted to see there's even more of them springing up.  I picked these the day after I got home:

I stuffed the one on the right and "souped" the other two

Since August, we've had mushroom risotto, mushroom omelette, steak & mushrooms, big fry up with mushrooms, mushroom soup, mushrooms on toast and finally, today, a stuffed mushroom.  Stuffed with breadcrumbs, garlic, onions and herbs (all my own), cheese on top and served with carrots & new potatoes (also my own).

By the time I'd finished the carrots and the stuffed mushroom, I was a stuffed Martine with no room for potatoes.

There's also the odd field mushroom popping up in the paddock :

These are much more modest, and less shamelessly "mushroomy" in flavour.  If I find a few of these while I'm skipping out the paddock, I bring 'em in and fry them up for brekkie.  Yum.

Did I say I like mushrooms?

I mentioned spotting damsons before I went on holiday.  Sadly, I never got around to picking them until today, and I reckon I was about two weeks too late.  By dint of stretching enormously past my 5'3" limit, and using a forked stick to pull down branches so I could reach them, I collected about 2lbs of fruit, but a fair few of them were past their prime.

I went through the jam-making steps, noting that it smelled very alcoholic at the stewing stage, before I added the sugar.
Winemaking might have been a better idea, but I managed to make about 3lbs of fairly tart jam anyway.  I bet Denis likes it!

There are still plenty of blackberries - I've been scoffing them as I walk the dogs most days.  The dogs love them too, although Cookie had to be shown what they were.  Now herself & Cinny pick the low ones while I pick the higher ones.  Poor ol' Molly can't see them anymore, so I always pick a few just for her.

Friday Weather Watch

There's not much to say about this other than Cereste is starting to look better and better!

Half of the Wagons go to Lanzarote

The Long-Suffering Husband and I took a week long break and headed off to Lanzarote to try and remedy our chronic Vitamin D deficiency after this year's craptacular Irish Summer.
Why Lanzarote?  Ehhh, because we live ten minutes from Cork airport and we could get a direct flight from there to Lanzarote, of course.  And we seemed fairly certain to get good weather there.  So other than "sun" we arrived into Lanzarote with no expectations whatsoever, other than that I'd previously spent a week in the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura and was fairly unimpressed.

My favourite pic from the holiday!

Thankfully, our expectation were well exceeded, mostly thanks to a visionary artist/architect called Cesar Manrique.  Back in the 60s, he spotted Lanzarote's tourism potential, and managed to convince the powers-that-be on the island not to allow high rise development, such as has marred so much of the coast of Spain.  Many of the attractions on the island were also designed by him - Mirador del Rio, a beautiful viewing spot at the North of the island, the guest centre at the heart of the volcano park and his own residence, which is designed so the lower floor is made up of bubbles in an old lava tunnel, to name but a few.


Some of Manrique's works on the island:

Cactus Garden

 Ladies Bathroom

Gent's Bathroom

Jameos del Agua - an underground cave system, built into
lava tubes.  Based on an idea by Cesar Manrique

We unwound pretty well - ate way too much, drank way too much, watched Ireland annihilate Australia (woohoo!) in a lively bar at 9.30am, walked a bit, swam a bit and lolled around a bit.

We also rented a car and did some touring around.  There's loads to see, and even though it takes at most an hour to drive the length of the island, we found that after having the car for three days, there was still stuff we hadn't seen.

View at Mirador del Rio

I'm always interested in agriculture in different countries ('cos I'm a country girl, I guess) and boy do they face challenges on Lanzarote.  Wind, sun and lack of rain combine to make their lives difficult.  Everything they grow has to be given shelter from the elements, and they do this by building little individual windbreaks out of lava rock around their plants.

Ploughed fields, covered in moisture retaining lava gravel

Individual stone walls for plants.  And they think they have it rough
 on the Aran Islands!

Add into this the fact that the ground is covered in volcanic rock of some sort, and you'd wonder how can anything survive, yet they produce an award winning goats cheese, there's a large area with lettuce & other greenery and there's a thriving (& unique) wine-growing region.  This last one was what most grabbed my attention!

To protect the vines from the steady and desiccating winds, each vine is planted (by hand) in a conical "dimple" about one meter deep.  A teeny stone wall is built at the top of each dimple to further protect the vine from the prevailing North wind.  A thick layer of volcanic rock which has been broken down into gravel (picon) is then put on top - this helps trap moisture, and the conical shape helps the moisture run down to each vine.  It makes for some interesting landscapes:

Pruning and picking are are also done by hand and are made even more difficult in that the farmers have to slide down into each "dimple" to work on each plant, so Lanzarotean wine is not cheap, but I can personally testify that it's excellent.  Our favourite was the Malvasia Secco from the Stratvs vineyard - there's not much of this around, though, but there's plenty of El Grifo wine available, and it's pretty drinkable too.

They also seem to be growing corn.  I'm not sure how successful this is.  Maybe it's intended as fodder for the goats?

Lanzarote cornfield

Another highlight of the trip was watching Spaniards playing with volcanos.  If you take the bus trip around the volcanic park Timanfaya, you'll be treated to this experience at the end.  They have a couple a fumaroles just beside the car park.  They place a piece of dried brushwood over one, and WHOOMPH! it goes up in flames.  Then they chuck a bucket of water down another, stand back, and a couple of seconds later, WHOOSH! the volcano spews it back up in a geyser of steam.

Great fun, but Health & Safety would never let them away with it here!

The dining room at Stratvs Bodega

We ate out "posh" twice - once at the Stratvs Bodega restaurant which was excellent (interesting menu, great setting and service) and once at Oskar's restaurant in Costa Teguise which was very good (food was good but not so exciting, lovely outdoor patio and pleasant waitress).



We were getting reports from home that doggies, horses and cats were all fine, until I got a slightly worrying text from Denis on the last day, saying he was on his way back from a walk with Cookie and

"it may be a case of too little too late.  You will appreciate the import of the above when you see the state of your back kitchen...."

Gulp.  We weren't sure were we facing major toilet mishaps or what.  Thankfully it turned out to be "or what" :

The result of a leaving hyperactive young terrier
 alone for long periods

She had unpacked all of Tansy's horse-gear boxes and had cleared every shelf she could reach of every item.  Thankfully, she's a disorganiser, not a chewer, and no lasting damage was done.  I think she is aiming for Scampy's "Naughtiest Dog" title.  She could indeed be a contender!

Friday Weather Watch

Not so nicely formatted this time as I'm away from my laptop and don't have photoshop at my disposal :

Cork
Fri. Sun/showers H14 L9
Sat. Sun/showers H12 L8
Sun. Sun/cloud H14 L9
Mon. Rain H14 L8
Tues. Sun/cloud H12 L8
Weds. Sun/cloud H13 L9

Cereste
Fri. Sun H27 L14
Sat. Sun/cloud H28 L16
Sun. Rain H21 L10
Mon. Fog H21 L9
Tues. Sun H24 L9
Weds. Sun/cloud H24 L11

Post on the joys of Lanzarote coming soon!