I felt your breath
soft on my neck
myriad memories
tickling my mind like
whiskers
falling
from clippers

Luminous eyes
glazed with the day’s work
and the field is
dust
flicking through the stall
washed with bespeckled light
and the thrum of horse flies
and the stench of sweat
and the buzz of Osters
trimming, trimming…

The night is vacant now
scents of cedar and straw
drift through the barn into
my dreams–
twice-wet feet cross the stream
to another’s pasture

Your eyes–my eyes
stare through steel bars,
a stall door of my design
locked against my entry

I went to my first HorseMasters’ clinic on May 24th. It was a clinic designed to teach horses and riders about schooling over fences, from using ground poles to start a horse over fences to more advanced jumps and gymkhana. It was the exact level that Isis and I could have used. I missed my girl!

Because Isis is still in Tennessee, I volunteered to help — maybe six hours in all? I got to attend all of the sessions for free so long as I helped set up jumps and move things around as needed.

The people with HorseMasters are awesome. I have never met such a supportive bunch of people who smile and don’t glaze over when I tell “horse tales.” Maybe because we patiently listen to each other and enjoy hearing stories as much as telling them?

The first morning session was for starting young horses over trotting poles and then moving up to cross rails. Trotting poles are poles placed on the ground about 9 feet apart. Trotting the horse over the poles teaches the horse to pick up his/her feet and to be aware of his/her hooves. This translates into picking up their feet over a jump later on. They also used combinations of trotting poles and low cross rails. (The poles in the cross rails are crossed so the center of the jump is lower than either end.) The latter sessions progressed the trotting poles and cross rails sitting on the lowest hole up to 18 inches and then 24 inches.

The neatest thing about watching theses sessions are seeing the horses and riders progress from rushing to careful collection. My favorite moment was when one of the ladies rode her big draft over a fence and whooping in delight.

That’s what it’s all about.

I took tons of pictures. I’ll be posting them as soon as I download them from the camera.

What a great day!

Bad B-movies are a hobby. Every now and then you find something unique that has the potential to be bad. Not in a “I can’t watch this” rolling-eyes way, but in a “this is so bad I can’t stop watching” way. It’s got kitch, it’s got style, it’s got over-acting and Really Bad Writing.

A B-movie classic from 1989 called Vampire’s Kiss starring a very young Nicholas Cage. And boy is he over-the-top, running around screaming. Classic. Just classic.

Cage plays a chauvenistic literary agent who is dating one woman and starts sleeping with a vampire who gives him one royal working over. He is convinced that several love making sessions with her have turned him into a vampire. Along the way, murder, mayhem, ensue, all over acted and poorly written.

Great fun!