Midtown Ranch

Kate had a one day conformation show in Palmer on Sunday. Raven Hall. New hall for her, large and echo-ey.  The better for barking, says Kate.  No ribbons, but as she has no undercoat and looks like a big eared weasel right now that was not unexpected.  She was wiggly, cute, and barky.

Snow fell on Sunday/Monday.  We’d just finished installing Kris’ chickens (we’re overwintering for her) so the timing there was good.  Chickens were kind of peeved.  Sunday they were out scratching leaves and catching bugs.  Monday they were confined to their run, no leaves, no bugs, and nasty cold stuff between their toes.

Chicken woe.

We unveiled the first ‘Buy a Bone’ plaque at ACT tonight.  Melanie had a great idea, and we did it as part of Anchorage’s monthly ‘First Friday Artwalk’. We had 6 artists, snacks, music, and beautiful bones.

I’m really proud of this project, and am delighted with how the first bones came out.  It was a tough project, there was so much to learn.  Kris Bliss did a fantastic job with the bones – no curves or cracks and nice looking glazes. Melanie and Chris framed the bones and got them hung – gorgeous.  I repainted the lobby so they have a really nice setting.

We had about 60 attendees, and I believe all of the artists had sales. We even sold another bone.

I’ll post new photos soon. In the meantime take a look at the beginnings of the project at www.buyabone.com

“For the training of horse and rider consists of numerous details which are closely related to each other. This is why, when trying to eradicate a fault or difficulty, it is hardly ever constructive to practice the exercise in question repeatedly. The teacher should return to the early stages of training, for it is the faults in the basic schooling that cause difficulties later on and make themselves felt in every exercise up to the airs of high school. Therefore I want to impress on the reader once again that the time devoted to the correct foundation of training is never wasted but helps to build a solid basis on which the more advanced exercises are accomplished with ease.”

In dog training this is often referred to as ‘going back to kindergarten’.  I’ve been reading a lot of Podhajsky lately to get a different perspective on training in general. He’s a fascinating individual and I highly recommend reading any of his many books if you enjoy training (of any kind, really), riding, or horses.

Alois Podhajsky. Director of the Spanish Riding School for many years, including during WWII. He convinced General Patton to save the Lipizzaneers, made into the Disney movie “Miracle of the White Stallions”

Quote above was from chapter 5  of “The Riding Teacher”, ISBN 0385025408, Published 1971

Our old webserver gave up the ghost some time ago. We thought we’d play with DotNetNuke this time instead of our old static HTML pages.  With a little luck we’ll find it easier to maintain the site and provide more current information (the old server hadn’t been updated for several years…)

Still working on recovering the data from the old server – wish me luck!