Box rest fall out

Three weeks or so on box rest seemed to have left Ali and I with a flaky Mr Merlyn last week. I went up for my Monday ride on a lovely sunny morning and was pleased to find him in a nice mood while we groomed, so well behaved apart from snatching one foot back early a couple of times.

Then came tacking up when he took a fit of the grumps with me. The sun vanished, it started raining and things started to look a little less idyllic than ten minutes earlier. It took me fully five minutes to do up his bridle and flash while he threatened to bite, and although he didn't follow through I was as narked as him by the time we were done.

I got on for our little walk up the lane - he hadn't been out a while so we were breaking him in gently - and by now the weather was dry again but very windy. He can get spooky in the wind so I wasn't entirely surprised when he got a bit nappy with me....we had both lost our sunny dispositions, though, there was no fooling yourself by now try as you might. I pushed him on with a feigned sack of potatoes 'I ain't worried by your carry on' seat.

What I didn't bank on was him spooking, bolting and bucking just ten minutes up the road.

We stayed put, it was over fast and I got him back together and made him go on a bit further past the things he was taking issue with - and there were a few - before turning back for home. A horse of his size bucking on a road is no laughing matter, even if they were little ones, I had no desire to see his more forceful versions, but I knew we had to go on further, he couldn't get away with it.

He had mellowed a bit by the time we got back down the road, and I was in half a mind to turn him back and take him out again....sometimes I have to check myself. I love riding and I know it involves pushing past fear at times, but as Mum I also have to weigh up the risks.

Ali took him out he next day and had just about concluded that I must have been a bit wound up when out of the blue he did exactly the same to her. Happens to the best of us, it seems!

So, we are 'on a break'  Merlyn and I, while he works through his little issue in the hands of his much braver owner. I have don't have the bottle to take him out on the roads while he is being quite so daft but  I am sure if she can get him back to his cross country and run off some energy, he will mellow again.

Anyhow, I am not letting up on my riding I have been at Hazelden and having some great fun lessons on Dennis, Monty and Rocky, any of whom I would quite happily keep in a moment...

Horse Riding in all Seasons in Scotland

It has been a bit of a month for me behind the scenes here, and life has thrown me an interesting 'opportunity' and with it everything that seemed part of my normal life has been temporarily sucked up into a vortex of application forms, legals and business admin. None of this has anything to do with horses of course, or art, which is quite my point. It's just not the sort of stuff that I think any of you tune in for, so I went uncharacteristically 'quiet'. Me, the out and out blether I am........not a peep. SShhhhh!So, this is my backfill with photos post....

.....hello Merlyn! My last ride on Merlyn was weeks ago, he has had a cut leg ever since, but we will see each other again tomorrow. Such a sweet face when he is in a nice mood. I only ever take a photo after we ride, he is much less grumpy then....

....and it was, your absolutely typical Scottish miserable driech day.....tell me how are you supposed to find a horse in a field that you can't even see to the other side of?

......we could hardly see 20 feet infront of ourselves, frankly a little bit daft as we had no high vis gear on at all. I have mentioned before he is so black it is like a cloak of invisibilty.....big wet black ears and a mane blowing in the wild wind. And to think Ali called me a fair weather rider....

.....here is the view from Merlyn's stable. Yes, I know, he is a lucky horse to live in bonny Scotland with a view like that. You are thinking "It even looks beautiful in the rain"....look out at it every day and your perception will start to change....

...aaah, now this is more like it, may you all have weather like this when you visit Scotland. Fantastic day.....a three hour hack at Craigengellan in glorious September sunshine the whole way....

 

....three hours is a long time....we go over the hills and far away

 

....gate locked......ah, which way now?

  



....if we could just bottle up the sunshine....is this even on the same planet as my earlier photo?

.....idyllic..... looking out over the water....

....on the road back home, all happy and tired....

 

.....last photo opportunities ...



......and home, big stretch Trio!

What a hack, but guess what, you guys are going to freak.......I never took a photo of the Minature Shetland mare and foal! Ooops. 



Evolution of a Horse Painting: Part 2

Merlyn ( in progress painting) a.m.cairns 2011
www.equineartportraits.com

I am at the easel this morning working working on my Merlyn painting, in light of some very high, gusty winds having made their way across the pond to our shores. It is a mostly puffed out version of one of the hurricanes that have been wreaking havoc in North America, but so far the only impact for me is no riding Merlyn today, as I am far too much of a fearty to get on board in wild and wet weather. We will probably have a few trees down later in the day, I would think.

So I am back at the house, listening to music and the howling wind and making good progress. It is coming together quicker than my previous paintings, so either I am getting more confident or is it just much easier when you know the horse well. You can kind of see his expression and very inch that you have groomed and groomed almost without of it without looking too hard at the photo....it frees me up a bit, very relaxing too.

I went along to the Braeface jumping yesterday, but Alison had opted out of taking part on Merlyn. She had around a million other things to do and knew too well that the round of jumping plus the prep and waiting around wipe out most of the day and leave her much too exhausted to tackle pressing non horsey matters.

All the same she and I popped along for a look to watch the some jumping. Super cute ponies (and kids) and extremely confident little riders, some as young as six getting ditched at a jump and bravely getting back on (with a bit of parental coercion, it must be said!). The event was vary laid back and fun rather than the seriously competitive with an audience of just the riders and families mostly. I was surprised to see that 'grown up' jumping started at just forty centimetres or sixteen inches to my American friends. You know that's not very high, I have started to think I would like to give it a go sometime.

I have never jumped a course or take part in any horsey events and I had some serious doubt about my ability to remember a jump course, but Ali assured me its not so hard,  that the jumps are set up so that he next jump is usually the easiest to get to. We walked the kids course so that I could see how it worked - you know I have a lousy memory for names, sequences and the like but my sense of direction and visual memory is not so bad and I think I could cope with eight jumps, maybe a few more.  The next event is in a couple of months so if I can get a in few jumping lessons on him, I might just be up for giving it a go.

Ali says the best thing about jumping Merlyn is he is dead honest.....I think I might call my painting that.

You can see it in his face, I hope.

Evolution of Horse Painting: Merlyn

I am working on a painting of Merlyn, who anyone who follows me will know is a horse I have been lucky enough to be getting to know over the last few months.  Here he is, in acrylic on a big-ish canvass

Working back the way, starting at this evening, this is how he looks.... 

Merlyn, In Progress, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/


Here he is this morning, when I realised I had overloaded the black and just about vanished his features...


Merlyn, In Progress on the Mantlepiece, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

And here he is on Wednesday Morning, when he was feeling a little blue....

Merlyn, In Progress on the Mantelpiece, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

You saw him in the wet back on Tuesday, which I'll have vanished! I tend to stick up posts of work in progress and then balk at them a few days later when the it is starting to come together, but I really must stop photographing wet work in bad late night light.

He is jumping tomorrow a local competition, so I am going to try to get along and cheer him on....he is normally a Cross Country eventer so it will be interesting to see how he gets on in a tighter space!

Let's see what you've got Mr Merlyn

This was a first for me. What not having a horse of my own, merely having the privilege of being in Merlyn's world lately, I earned the job of 'horse sitting' during a vet's visit this week.

He has a gash on his leg which looked like healing and then had become infected again, so I was his 'familiar face' while the vet attended to treat. I think I have ridden him about 6 or 7 times, so he should recognise me, yes, but we are still very new, so it was a bit of a test.

Now, the fact that I turned of with my two kids on tow might have set us off on the wrong foot, unfamiliar noisy little excitable things that they were.

'Wow, he is the biggest, blackest horse we have ever seen!' They gasped. I have to agree, he is astonishingly black, not even a hint of anything else. We agreed he would make an excellent (if a little stereotypical ) evil knights horse in a movie...'Ha right until the good nights shadow popped out and said 'Boo' to him' I laughed.

I took them round the back to meet Ali's dog thinking best kept out the way, but when I returned to the stable I inadvertently sneaked up on Merlyn and spooked him  right out of his skin....'I rest my case' I think and apologise to him. Great start before the vet arrives, yes? 

By the time I opened the stable door he was a little on edge, to say the least, and was definitely in full audition for the role. 'I'm a big scary horse (actually I'm a big fearty)' he acts out, pawing and looking down his nose at me, doing he best to look a menacing and live up to his on screen potential.

I have to say Merlyn still seems huge to me, somehow bigger than Monty who is also 16'3, but I guess like humans its all in the way you carry yourself. I don't know if the Actimel advert is just a UK thing, but I often feel  when I stand beside him like the little girl  in the advert who says 'Lets see what you've got, Mr Muffin!'

Anyhow I led him out, doing me best not to be trampled along  the way - new steel toe boots doing a grand job - and played vets assistant with some extra pointers on how vet to steady him. Mr Muffin (Merlyn) kept his on edge demeanor for rest of the visit and needed an extra bit of hold with the rope across the nose band and extra grip the neck to steady him for all that prodding, washing, clipping and bandaging.

At the end I say 'You were a brave boy'...'Indeed he wasn't!' comments the Vet. I sense that having previously undergone a lot of vet treatment for a broken foot, he may be as fond as I am of the densist after a root canal treatment.

Now that I am a veteran of the Vet visit I do hope he has forgotten it all before our next encounter!

Like watching masking fluid dry

I am indulging in a short post, pictures and minimal accopmanying wordage, while I wait for the masking fluid to dry on my painting....

I have don't have an abundance of patience for such things, so find it best to send myself away, far away, while its dries, in case I start work again while it is still tacky. I am working towards finishing a mare and foal painting this week and this one is going to be the finished piece. I paint now a little bit more slowly, a little bit more carefully than usual.

So the masking fluid drying time post is Merlyn, form our Monday catch up.

After riding, Merlyn kidding on he is tired, when the truth is my fitness failed before his.

I booked the riding school for an hour on Monday and found out exactly how unfit I am right now , I managed just short of the hour, but was reaching the point of severe deterioration in riding technique.



Riding Merlyn, finally brave enough to take the phone out of my pocket!

I literally panted my whole way back up the lane at the end of hour...


Handsome horse with hay in his hair....



On the way home I downed two cans of our national diet Irn Bru to recover and decided I am going to have to take up running to get fitter for riding.

Masking fluid is definitely dry.

Back to the art now.

Brain (re)training

Here is Merlyn in his field after we rode today, him enjoying the sun, me (out of shot) all sweaty from a forty minute lesson with Carolyn which involved some serious brain re-training. The more I learn the less I know, I am finding and also the more I want to try to understand.

There is a rather impolite expression which would articulate what today's lesson did to my head, which I will spare you, but in co-ordination terms it felt as unnatural as patting your head and rubbing your tummy does the first time you ever attempt it.

Here was the source of my confusion. I was taught to apply the leg aids in completely the opposite way from I have understood pretty much my whole, albeit intermittent, riding life.

While circling and turning Merlyn I was asked to apply outside leg on the girth, inside leg behind the girth. Every time we went up the centre line to hear 'circle left' or 'circle right' I had to fight every learned riding instinct in my body to make the switch. I would just about get it straight in my head, when she would flip it around and shout 'circle right' and I would have to mentally have a whole conversation  with myself saying 'okay, I am going right, inside leg to outside rein,  put your left (outside) on the girth and now move that right (inside) leg back a bit.....'

Now I have to be completely honest and say I lack any of the horsemanship to understand why one method is right and the other wrong, but I can tell you it really did mess with my head. I suspect this was a tailored piece of advice to correct something in most likely me (or perhaps horse) rather than a general piece of advice, but I have to quiz her further on this.

Now and then when I feel a little demoralised at my lack of flair or my complete confusion at right-from-left-hands-higher-hands-lower-bring-your-knees-in-get-off-your-knees-bottom-back-bottom-forward-inside-leg-on-the-girth-behind-girth type of advice, I have to check myself and think "what would I tell my child" and answer "you can get better at anything with practise". And then to remember to make sure I am setting the bar at a level that I have a chance of some success.

Carolyn says "I don't expect you to ride at my level, but I do want you to ride at your level well" That would be a start, I think.

Love that shiny bottom ....I think we are bonding, he and I.