Aqueous Humor

As some of you may know, on Thursday I worked from bed. Yes. Not just from home but literally from bed. I was not sufficiently motivated to get up and so I did not, and instead had a productive, fruitful and restful day working from bed, courtesy of Verizon Wireless. When I was done working, I went to…uh…bed.

By Friday I was exceedingly well-rested and totally sick of chez moi so I went to the farm for what ended up being a very soggy muddy and eventful weekend.

Friday

• My friend Rebecca and I ride out on Friday afternoon. I ride Burton and she rode Baxter for the first time. Baxter is red and oddly put together.
• We went out with two other people, one of whom is visiting from England and who looks at me as we get into the second hay field (she has no idea where she is going) and says, "can we Andale Andale?" I say, "You want to Andale Andale?" "Yes, I want to andale andale." "Burton! Andale Andale!" And we were off!
• During the andale, I look back to see how Rebecca is doing on Baxter. She is not having a good time. Baxter is carrying himself along like a camel, head straight up in the air, feet pawing forward.
• I take pity on he and we go in and leave the other two to andale some more. We put Baxter the Camel in the wash stall. We think about going up to Apt. B to have some wine. But the camel gets agitated when we move away from it. It bleats. Like a sheep. It swings and shuffles around in the wash stall. Head very high. "We can't leave the camel," I say. "True," Rebecca says. "True." Rebecca gets a phone call so leaves the barn to take it and the camel wails and moans. I go stand next to it. Looking up at his nostrils because his head, being a camel, is so high up in the air. The camel is comforted by the smell of my hair I guess, and slowly stops making noise and swinging around. By the time Rebecca comes back the camel's head is resting on top of my head. Nice camel.
• Then I decide to do the evening chores for Dale. Evening chores at the farm takes about two hours with two people helping. First thing was we had to drop hay from the hay loft onto the gator. That's fun. Dale goes up and throws hay bales out and I make sure they land properly in the gator. One gets covered in hay dust. We can get ten bales on the gator. Then I drove the gator away with all the hay with one arm out backwards to make sure the hay didn't fall off. It wobbled back and forth a lot but did not come off (I drive the gator a little too fast anyway so that doesn't help).
• Then we have to set the feed out in the stalls in which we have just put all the hay Then we have to go get all the horses who live in stalls in from the fields for their dinner. Then we have to feed the horses who live outside. It's a 200 acre farm so there's a lot of driving in the gator. Then we have to set feed for the next morning. This is all done in total silence. I don't know how to set feed so Dale did that while I drove the gator all around at top speed bringing horses in, putting horses out, and driving feed all over for the outside horses. The most fun was, of course, bringing in Kona. He was at the far end of his 50 acre paddock and came RUNNING all the way up the hill for his dinner and then was blowing so hard he stopped quickly and was run over by Manny who was right behind him. Ding a ling.
• Then Rebecca and Dale and I went up to Apt. B. and ate "round things," (fresh figs, cherry tomatoes, round water crackers, brie, wine).
  
  
  Saturday
• Saturday was pouring rain all day and so Dale insists that we go out and do interval training on our horses. The intervals were to be 5 minute trot, 3 minute walk, 5 minute gallop, 3 minute walk, 5 minute trot, etc.
• But it was truly pouring rain so it was like being on a shipwreck. I couldn't see anything, water dripped off my hat onto my hands so I kept dropping the reins, even with gloves on, I would shake my head to get the water off and it would spray all over me, my jeans were stuck to my body, rain dripped down under my collar, the mud from Dale's horse in front of me was everywhere. The rain would come in sheets and it was like getting hit by a truck when it came across the fields.
• But it was warm. So it was like doing intervals in a hurricane or something. Or in the Caribbean. Very strange.
• Burton got covered in foam from the work (interval training is hard) but when we were done we just took off the tack and left him in his field because there was not point in bathing him. He self-bathed.
  
  
  Sunday
• Hunting at Annapolis Rock. Bright sun. Wet woods. Deep mud.
• We had no men at all out so Mary Anne Ridgely, the Katharine Hepburn of Howard County, led the field with Carter behind her and me behind Carter. About 12 others were (supposed to be) behind us, including Rebecca. Temporarily, at least.
• It was so warm and wet that as we moved along through the woods our horses steamed. The hounds ahead of us steamed too. We could always find Barry our huntsman just by looking for his steam. The steam was billowing off of everybody, like smoke from a chimney on a cold day. Waves and waves of steam. We were like a traveling sauna. From afar we looked a little blurry from all the steam, as if someone took a photograph but overexposed the horses. The hounds were a little traveling steam sauna too. We had blue sky, wet dripping leaves, ripe smelling mud, and steaming animals.
• The corn is still standing so the usual fun of running at Annapolis Rock was hampered. We tried though -- around a cornfield of standing corn, which is, to be honest, pretty dangerous. You have to stay to the edge but the trees are low hanging on the edge so you have to run inside the first row of corn without letting the corn itself rip you from your horse and without veering too close to the trees or else you'll get decapitated.
• Running through corn is very hard on your knees. The corn gets between your horse and your stirrups so you have to let your legs go like jelly so you don't put up too much resistance. If you fight the corn, you're a goner. Instead, you let the corn lift your legs up around you so your feet are up practically on your horse's back and then you grab mane and pinch your knees and try not to lose your balance. Your knees hit the corncobs whack whack whack as you go. Your feet hit your horse which makes your horse go faster which makes you knees get whacked whacked whacked more and then you go down hill and around a corner and everything gets a little more desperate and extreme and you pray for your horse and you pray for yourself and you daren't raise your head too high because you might get whacked by a tree and then you stop suddenly BAM and you realize you are still on your horse and your knees are completely black from corn dust.
• When we were done knocking ourselves silly around the cornfield we realized everyone was gone. The only people left were me and Mary Anne and Carter, and the huntsman with the hounds. Carter says, "Mary Anne, I think you lost your field." Mary Anne: "What? Why?! (pronounced Whaaa?)." Carter: "I think they all came off back there." Mary Anne: "So who we got left, why it's just you and Kim!" And indeed it was. Just us three with our very black, bruised knees. We three looked like we had knee pads on but it was corn dust.
• The only adventure we had after that was there is part of the Patuxent we have to cross where there is a beaver dam. We call it The Beaver Dam. Duh. Anyway, you can't cross upstream of the beaver dam itself because the river is too deep and we didn't feel like going swimming. Downstream of the dam there is no way into the river at all. Just three foot banks sheer down into the water. Barry our Irish huntsman decides the only way is to leap of the bank across a little tributary onto an island made of rocks and then on across. He looks back at us three women with our black knees and says in his Irish brogue, "Well I did it just fine as you can see but I don't know how you all will manage." We ladies with black knees found this rude of our huntsman so we each promptly launched gracefully off the river bank, floated through the air with the greatest of ease, landed effortlessly and lightly on the rock island without hurting our horses at all, and hunted on, smiling. Barry was impressed.

And that was essentially the end of the weekend except the 12 who came off or whatever it was that happened to them behind us in the run around the corn got lost trying to find their way back to the trailers. We three who had hunted on were back at the trailers and loaded and back at the barn and all cleaned up before they ever got out of wherever they were -- easily two hours behind us. My poor friend Rebecca had been scraped off on a vine and then her horse ran away and wouldn't let her get back on and then when they did get back to the trailer he ran away again, down the road, and then Sara's horse ran off into the woods while Sara was trying to help Rebecca. Etc. Horses never run away from trailers. There's HAY in the trailers! Rebecca and Sara were not very happy with their beasts when they finally got home.

Nevertheless, everyone is hoping to go out again on Wednesday.

Abandon Ship

I spent four days at the farm last week/weekend and the time was marked by an unusual number of "emergency dismounts." This was a bummer as we are all trying to get back in foxhunting shape because opening cubbing is Labor Day Weekend. Out-of-shape riders the first day of hunting are a recipe for disaster.

First, Robbie took his horse Merlin to a jumping lesson off the property and came back with a bleeding horse and a large number of bruises on his Robbie body. What happened? Merlin gashed a hole in his upper leg taking out a pole over a jump. Robbie said it was "pick ups ticks and tinder flying everywhere, the stupid beast." That will teach him to pick his legs up when he jumps. As for Robbie, he managed to come of his horse three times in an hour. He was dazed and dusty and mystified.

Then, Dale and I decided in the middle of the night that the moon was bright enough to warrant a midnight bareback ride around the property. We pulled two horses out of the fields (Burton and Mac) and set off with no saddles, no bridles, and no hats. Excellent idea! We went down in the woods and walked up the river and out into the front hay fields. All was well. Then we decide to canter. Burton was okay with this except he preferred to trot -- there is nothing worse when you're bare back to have the horse do a fast, very bouncy trot instead of a canter. We call it "the tranter." Dale's horse came up next to me and bumped my leg with his fleshy haunches and that was it -- I bounced bounced bounced slowly sideways and ditched on to the hard ground of the hay field (no rain recently). WHACK! Proving why we are supposed to wear helmets. Burton stood there with the two lead lines that were attached to his halter lying on the ground, looking at me with a disappointed face. I trudged over to the nearest jump and got back on and then we cantered the rest of the way home.

Then we were sitting on our bareback horses near the barn relaxing, letting them eat grass, lying back on them with our heads on their haunches, looking at the moon. Dale started laughing about my "tranter" and then she laughed so hard she laughed herself right off her horse and WHACK she was on the ground too. Then I laughed at her -- much better to fall off at the tranter then to fall off at the halt.

So in one day that was five falls by supposedly skilled foxhunters.

Then yesterday, I go on a leisurely ride with Jonathan and Rebecca across the road into the park. Jonathan's horse was being bonkers so we just walked. Just walked. Down a path we have traversed a million times. Up on the steep hill that borders the Patuxent River. Our home territory, practically. I was in the lead and we came to a part of the trail with a stone in the middle and a fallen log on the side. I alert my friends, "There's a thing here, be careful." But I have confidence in my Irish horse so we start to pick our way through. The next thing I know Burton is down on his knees and then down on his side rolling down the hill towards the river. I instinctively step off of him and land on my feet and start pushing on him to keep him from rolling further. Miraculously, he rights himself and struggles back up on the trial. I stand there, part way down the hill looking at him. He stands up there looking at me. This all took about 3 seconds and the only noise was the huge sound of logs cracking under his weight. We all start to laugh. "Burton fell down!" He was completely calm about it. So I lead him a ways down the trail to a big fat rock and get back on. Only then do I realize that my right hand is in incredible pain. Even though I had never hit the ground with anything other than my feet, I had managed to break/fracture/bruise/sprain my hand.

My pinkie and palm had already swollen up so much I had a hard time getting my glove off.

Hopefully we'll all be in better shape once the season actually begins.

Loose Horse(s)

I spent the weekend at the farm. Some of you may recall my youthful friend Robbie. He and I decided to forgo the formal Hunt Club trail ride this morning and just ride leisurely around in the farm early in the morning to beat the heat.

Dale took advantage of this by leaving him and me in charge of bringing in the 6 horses that live in field 7, including my Kona, Sully the baby, the master's horse Agua, and various others. We decide it's too hot to fool around too long bringing horses in so in our wisdom we decide to bring them all in on the gator together. Six horses leading off one gator. "Ever done that many on one trip?" I ask Robbie. "There's a first time for everything," he said. I was responsible for Kona and the baby and an unidentified black horse. (Lots of new horses at the farm so this wasn't too surprising).

We set off in some chaos -- Agua had decided he didn't need to be led so we just let him follow the gator. Sully decided he didn't need to be led either but instead of following he charged off in front of the gator. He didn't get very far though because he kept stepping on his lead line and bringing himself temporarily to a complete stop with a look of shock on his baby horse face. Eventually he picked up speed and held his head high to keep the lead line out of his way and vamoosed off in a puff of smoke into a paddock that had its gate open.

Aha! I jump off the Gator and try to steer Kona and the other black horse after Sully to close him in the paddock. But Kona and the black horse really wanted their breakfast so they tried to drag me the other way. We had a three way tug of war contest with my little human arms as one point of a triangle with two big black horses on the other ends. They would both peered at me intently and then turn their humongous heads away from me and I'd fall flat on my face in the dust. (they're strong) I start to grunt and yell. I wonder where Robbie is. He was supposed to be RIGHT THERE ON THE GATOR. Pulling on the horses with my body at a 45 degree angle to the ground, I eventually inch them over close enough to the paddock to shut Sully in. Sully is running madly in lunatic circles. I figure that it the end of that.

I turn back to the barn just in time to see Agua disappear off into the sunset.... I assume Robbie will handle.

I go put Kona in his stall and I think something about his morning feed looks suspicious to me.

I go put the unidentified horse in the aisle and go into the feed room to look at the board and try to figure out who on earth the horse is.

And I notice on the board that Dale has moved Kona to a new stall which means he's in there happily eating someone else's breakfast. Which is no big deal except it means he's not eating HIS breakfast which means he's not eating the medicine he's supposed to get every morning for his underactive pituitary gland (big horse, no pituitary). THIS IS BAD.

So I race back to the other barn and drag Kona away from his full plate of food and put him where he now belongs with his little breakfast and his medicine.

Then I have to go get Sully out of the paddock that I had locked him in. In the few moments I'd been gone dealing with Kona, Sully had managed to remove his halter and lead line from his head entirely. So I tramped all over the paddock looking for it -- in the 90 degree sun -- as he galloped madly around me in giant circles. Little baby horses look so funny galloping. I eventually found it and he eventually galloped to the gate and because he's so little, I was able to literally put my arms around his little baby back and belly and hold on to him while he panted and sweated from running so much. I put his halter back on and give him a carrot. He's not coordinated enough yet to eat a carrot and walk (much less run) at the same time, so this worked pretty well.

As I'm leading the panting Sully back to his stall for his breakfast, I see Agua amble around the side of the barn, totally unattached to anything still and no Robbie in sight. Agua has apparently been going in and out of all the empty stalls eating everyone else's breakfast. And presumably a nice variety of medicine too. He sauntered out of the barn in a full, satisfied way.

Just then, I see Robbie tearing down the driveway in the Gator -- he had been off catching his own horse so that we could ride, the original plan, after all. He sees Aqua patrolling around and sings out, "Now that's funny! I totally forgot about him!"

So once we put Agua in his stall we turn our attention to the mysterious black horse in the aisle waiting to be identified. "Who's this anyway?" I say to Robbie. We look at the horse. "No idea," Robbie says. "Dale ever say anything about a new dark bay coming to the farm?" "Not to me," he says. "Could be anyone, really." We turn away. We look at the board. We come running back out in the aisle. "IT'S MANNY!" we say in unison. Manny -- the horse Robbie hunted for a year and steeplechased on and won the Founder's Cup on. MANNY! We know Manny! We have pictures up the ying yang of me and Dale and Robbie and Manny at various places! We didn't recognize him because he was so bleached out and skinny from being away in a field for the summer.

So all in all, it's a good thing Dale wasn't there. She would want to know why we decided to bring in all six at once, why we decided to let the master's horse wander freely around, why we chased the baby into a paddock and watched him race wildly, why we fed Kona someone else's breakfast, and why we didn't recognize one of our favorite race horses.

Instead, when she got back, all she had to say to us was, "Who left Agua's halter on?"

The Funny Farm

Saturday was another day on the farm. I had spent Friday night in Apartment B because we had a hunt club trail ride departing from the farm at 9 a.m. on Saturday. I woke at daybreak to the sound of some sort of family of laughing birds in the sycamore tree outside. Magpies? Laughing Starlings? Whatever they were, they were in hysterics over something. Which was an omen.

My first job was to go and get Mallow and Burton from their field which is now very far away and which means I took the Gator to get them (little motorized John Deere thing). Catching two horses is harder than catching one. You catch the first one and then have to drag it around after you while you try to catch the second one. Neither Mallow nor Burton are particularly easy to catch sometimes so they make sport out of the efforts of the human. I was not very coordinated and kept stepping on my own lead lines and getting tangled up and dropping the carrots and falling down and the horses looked at me with pity and thus, allowed themselves to be caught.

Once I caught them I had to drive them both back to the barn in the Gator. This means one horse on either side of the Gator (if all goes as planned) with me driving trying to hold on to two lead lines without running over them, or running into the horses, or running off the road, or getting pulled off the Gator when the horses decide to stop moving. Mallow was happy to trot along beside the Gator but Burton wouldn't move faster than a walk. Which make for jerky and inconsistent progress down the driveway and a lot of yelling. I dropped Burton at one point and had to stop the Gator and park it and go get Burton without dropping Mallow too etc. Very tiring.

Then Mary Anne and Don and Rebecca and everyone else showed up and the trail ride went off and we went across the road into the park and ran around in Goshen's territory jumping all the log jumps they have in their woods and got back to the lodge exactly 1.5 hours later (trail rides are strictly timed due to the heat).

Then I had to put Mallow and Burton back out in their field with the Gator. See points above. I did not drop Burton this time but I did drive over his lead line which was alarming to him and to me and then I leapt out of the Gator to rescue him but forgot to put the parking brake on so it rolled slowly forward and almost hit Mallow so I had to run back to the Gator to stop it from hitting Mallow which fortunately had the benefit of getting the Gator off Burton's lead line. Tiring.

Once I got to their field I had to park the Gator, of course, but I stupidly parked on a slight incline and the parking brake is not strong enough to actually hold the Gator on a hill. But Burton was immediately behind the Gator gazing at me adoringly and Mallow was immediately in front of the Gator gazing at me adoringly so I couldn't drive the Gator up the hill to a flat place or I'd hit Mallow nor could I get out of the Gator to move Mallow because then it would roll backwards into Burton. A dilemma. I ended up encouraging Burton in steps the size of a centipede's to come around the front of the Gator to Mallow without letting the Gator roll into him, without dropping him, without dropping Mallow, and without falling out of the Gator. This took a while. And because horses can't talk, the entire process took place in the bright sunshine in total silence.

Then I ate too much spicy soup at the breakfast and almost blew my head off.

Around 11 a.m. I got a case of the giggles that would end up lasting all day. I began to tell stories and couldn't finish them for giggles. I sat on my stool at the bar in the lodge and laughed so hard my face started to hurt. Everyone else started to laugh too. Mary Anne Ridgely, the Katharine Hepburn of Howard County, looked down her patrician nose at me and announced matter of factly, "Miss Kim, there's something wrong with your head." Yep.

Then Dale says to go ride Arizona. I do not care for Arizona and I do not believe that Arizona cares for me. Arizona did not know how to jump when he came to the farm and Dale forgot to tell me that one day last year and told me to take Arizona around the woods, which I assumed meant jumping jumps. That did not go particularly well. Then Arizona learned how to jump somehow and said to himself, "ah, this is excellent!" and tried to jump out of his paddock and instead lacerated his entire belly so badly things were falling out of it. We thought he was a goner but Roger came and wrapped him up in a big body bandage that went all the way around his entire body and he stood in a stall for six months oozing hideously bad smelling stuff out of his belly onto the straw and then it finally healed and now I have to ride him again.

Arizona is such an unfortunate creature that one day Don (the owner) walked by him and said, "who owns that one?" Jonathan said, "uh, you do." Don rolled his eyes and walked away.
Arizona and I get along so poorly that it makes me laugh. The horse does absolutely nothing that I ask him to and plenty of things I don't ask him to so I just sit up there and wonder what will happen next. I was behind my friend Jonathan and I laughed so hard the whole way around that I was doubled over on the back of Arizona and couldn't really ride and Jonathan started to laugh too and so did Rebecca who was with us and we just laughed and laughed and laughed. My face hurt some more.

Then, Jonathan and I sat around in the sun under an oak tree and laughed for a while and then decided to ride two more horses. He would ride his Belle and I would ride Annie, a plump little mare that needed exercise.

We fish Annie out of her field and she turns out to have a most disgusting suppurating puncture wound on her hind leg so all I can do is walk.

Annie and I walk down to the river and Belle runs circles around us warming up so that Jonathan can school her cross country while I watch aboard the plump, lame Annie. We conclude that perhaps Belle is lame, too. So Jonathan trots her back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in front of me in the woods as we try to decide if she's lame, lazy, or if the ground is just bumpy. The geniuses that we are, we decide to jump her to see if she falls down, which would suggest she might be lame. She jumps like a star. Not lame.

Nevertheless, I suggest to Jonathan that when we get back to the barn he should see if she has a stone in her foot. He decides to leap off Belle and do that right there in that very muddy spot right out there in the woods. He picks up a stick and picks up her hoof. He jabs at her hoof and his stick, which was rotten, disintegrates. He picks up another stick and tries the other hoof.
Belle decides this is boring. And in an instant -- poof! She runs away!. Jonathan and I stare after her as she disappears over the hill, stirrups and reins flapping. "Belle!" Nothing. Sunny silence once again. We start to laugh.

So Jonathan has to trudge all the way back to the barn on his people feet looking for Belle as I waddle behind him on lame Annie. He finds Belle grazing near her field on the other side of the fence from her friend Plum. Belle sees Jonathan and picks up and trots madly back to him. "Hi!" Strange.

The final installment of this doomed ride was Jonathan decides to jump Belle through the in-and-out that traverses the pasture that Plum lives in. Plum runs at a full gallop after him as he and Belle approach the first fence. Jonathan sees her running beside him and tries to stop Belle but Belle was locked on the jump and going so in they go into the pasture and then Plum T-bones them and I thought for sure there'd be a collision or that Belle would object to the interference but no, Belle jumps calmly over the second fence and out of the paddock and Plum looks like she's going to follow but slams on the breaks instead and decides to run the entire fence line to express her outrage -- easily a mile in length. She runs the whole thing, not slowing down for a single moment. Madly. Stupidly. Foolishly running. Belle looks at her in amazement. I sit on Annie laughing. Laughing laughing laughing.

The Belle-Annie ride was such a disaster that really all we could is laugh. We laughed and laughed until our stomachs hurt as well as our faces.

Then we did evening chores and went out to dinner and watched something hysterical called Most Outrageous Home Videos or something on the bar TV at the Olney Bar and Grille and that was the end of us and we just died laughing right there. Dead.

Stuck in the River

We went to the New Market - Middletown Valley hunter paces this weekend and almost got swept away by the Catoctin River or a very large branch thereof. I swear.

The place was beautiful -- Station Road off Route 17 almost on the Washington County border, west of Frederick, Maryland. The parking field is surrounded by an historic stone wall. There are wrought iron benches along the river so that you can look across the river at the horses coming to the finish line and the last 5 jumps or so. It was the prettiest site we've had all season.

Burton and Kona were once again team-mates for the flat course, this being Kona's third hunter pace now so he's an old hand. We mount and ask where the start is. We are told it is down by the river. Indeed -- the starter tells us "your time starts when you hit the water!" We look at the water. It's the Catoctin River itself (or a very large branch thereof) -- full from the recent rainstorms, rushing very fast and very deep across river pebbles. It is very clear water. And as soon as our horses step in it we realize it is also very cold water.

Burton dips his toes in and says, "No -- this is very cold and it's moving too fast and is tickling me. I will do bogs and muddy streams and snow and ice but not rushing mountain rivers that tickle me. No." Kona, who was otherwise quite willing to move into the refreshing current, says "Oh, well maybe I'm not supposed to go over there....?" He takes his cues from Burton and Burton will not move. We are about 10 feet from the starter with lots of teams behind us waiting to go. I kick and kick and kick and kick and kick and Burton goes three feet out into the river, at which point it is already up to his belly. Then he won't move anymore. He has become a Thelwell pony. Kona stands there mildly. Burton drifts downstream a little and smacks broadside into Kona, who has also waded three feet out into the river. Kona bobbles around but still rather mildly. He is taller than Burton so maybe he wasn't so cold or something. I am still kicking Burton but now we are so close to Kona that every time I kick Burton I also kick Kona. Jonathan meanwhile is also kicking Kona which means he is kicking Burton too. The horses drift further downstream packed tightly against each other -- downstream it is even deeper and colder. We are up on top of them flailing and kicking. Huge amounts of water sprays everywhere -- froth and foam and we are up on top screeching and wailing at our beasts. COME ON! COME ON! BURTON! etc. We are now wet through. The opposite bank is getting farther away because we are going downstream instead of across. We look like tiny children just learning to ride. We scream and kick and wail some more, all the while no more than ten feet from the starter. It was like that movie where the guy is lying on his back flailing around in three feet of water thinking he is drowning. SAVE US! OUR HORSES WON'T MOVE! WE'RE STUCK! HELP! HELP! AAAAGHHHHH!

Finally I take Jonathan's whip from him and crack a good one on Burton and he finally went across the river. SUCCESS! We could begin the course!

We were proud of ourselves until we turned around and saw Dale sitting on a horse on the river bank glaring at us.

La la la!

Turns out this mighty river was also the finish line. So when we came back through we ran flat out for the river so that the horses wouldn't have a chance to even thinking about stopping in it. A much better performance.

Roedown

Today my friend Rebecca and I went off to the Marlborough Hunt Races in Davidsonville. It was cold, windy, and raining. The parking lot at the race track was a sea of mud. Many little cars got stuck.

We foresaw this might happen so we took Rebecca's Ford Explorer, which we affectionately refer to as The Global Warmer. The Warmer outdid itself. Got us there, got us back (we lucked out with no trailering duties or horse chores). What more can you ask. We gave the Warmer a pat when we got back.

First -- the bottom line. We won the relay race which means Howard County is ahead of all the other hunt clubs in the relay standings. Hoo ya! Also, our group horse My Boy Kyle came in second in his race which is remarkable because the horse has only galloped twice since his last race, which was the first time he'd galloped in years. Our little horse must be fast if he can do well without being in shape. Heh heh heh.

Despite the actual racing, there was lots of down time to wander around in the mud. Our friend Mary Anne Ridgely was there and she carted us about in a protective manner. I have learned she is 59. She claims there is no hat in the world that fits her peanut head. So I put my waterproof hat with ribbons on her head and it fit and she practically passed out in shock. I too have a peanut head, you see. Also, every time we went from the tailgate to the rail to watch a race, she would make sure we passed by the tent with the lemon bars. "They might be gone next time, ladies! Better get 'em while they're still here!" She introduced us to a famous steeplechase jockey who we probably should have known but didn't. The nice part of that was she said to Mr. Famous Man, "here, these are two of the nicest people -- Rebecca and Kim!" That made me happy because Rebecca is surely the nicest person ever and Mary Anne is pretty up there on the niceness scale. I am not a nice person but no-one seems to have figured that out yet.

Mary Anne is also starting to get excited about next week's hunter paces at our farm. Occasional expostulations of "oh girls, we're going to have so much fun!" followed by a little jumping up and down and hand clapping. Recall that Mary Anne (Scout), Rebecca (Giggles) and I (Burton) are a hunter pace team. We also got a lecture about carpe diem and all that and she being 59 is "riding her heart out" while she can because who knows what will happen next year and how she never had so much foxhunting as she did with us this year etc. etc. She also thrilled us by repeating her mantra that, "Ladies! In foxhunting, it doesn't matter how you look. You're just riding to survive!" Now that I think of it, Mary Anne Ridgely is rather like Maggie Smith in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. "Come along, girls! Today we are going to have an adventure!"

The other interesting thing about these gloomy races was that our master Roger (who is also our veterinarian) was the announcer. So everywhere we went we heard the voice of our Master booming over everything, calling races. It was like the voice of God. He sounded slightly like a tobacco auctioneer. He was a very happy man. Especially when he was calling our relay victory and Kyle's race. "And it's Howard County in the lead....!"

The End of the Season

Last weekend was the Howard County-Iron Bridge Race Meet, held at our farm (Pleasant Prospect) in the rain and sleet. It was wonderful -- like a 19th century country festival in the mud. We had ten races, a big tent, and the relay race at the end between three of the mid-Maryland hunt clubs (Howard County, Greenspring, Elkridge-Harford).

I was the Clerk of Scales again which meant I got to weigh in all the jockeys to make sure they weighed enough to race in the steeplechase. In our races, they have to be more than a minimum weight, set for each race, and if they are too light they have to sit there and add iron to their saddles until their are heavy enough. So I get to sit there with tiny leprechaun-like Irish jockeys who weigh nothing and watch them pack their saddles up with lead all the while saying to me in Irish "madam Clerk, am I heavy enough yet?" "Nay I say, not heavy enough yet." One jockey, Tom Foley who races flat races at Charleston most of the time, was so far off weight I asked him, "How much do you actually weigh, you know, naked?" He said, "117 pounds but that's just this morning ma'am because I ate breakfast." He put 50 pounds of lead in his tack to make the minimum which was 165 (I actually let him in at only 164 but don't tell anyone).

I sponsor a race (the Waterford) and it was a two horse race this year but believe it or not, it was a photo finish. Amazing! Roger came running over to me with a big bear hug and said, "how much more exciting can you get for a two horse race!" Then there was another photo finish later in the day and then the relay race. Ah, the relay race. Three times around the race course handing off a hunt whip as the baton to a team-mate each time around. Robbie was the lead leg on Beckett -- he came in first and handed off to Amanda Reilly on Godiva but Beckett didn't realize he was done and went half way around the race course again side by side with Godiva until Robbie managed to pull him off. I have never seen Robbie have to pull back on a horse so hard -- Robbie is not a weakling. Amanda somehow managed to lose ground and handed off to Jonathan with the team in second place. Jonathan cruised gently around the course, 10 strides off the lead. We thought it was over -- that Greenspring would win. People started to walk away. And then, he came down over the causeway from Waterford and around the last barrel and OUT OF NOWHERE blew past the leader (who was already standing up in his stirrups thinking he was done) and Jonathan won the whole dang thing for HOWARD COUNTY! HOORAY! Nobody could believe it. Mayhem ensued. Screaming and jumping up and down and Roger running around everywhere hugging everyone and Marianne Ridgely (Madam Maryland Racing) practically beside herself. Jonathan later claimed that he was coming down the causeway and Robbie (who had only recently managed to get back near the start with Beckett the Horse Who Wouldn't Stop) was in the infield and said, in a voice as if from God, "Jonathan! Go to the Whip! Go to the Whip!" And that was that. And it was Jonathan's first race. Thrilling. Don and Dale and Jonathan and I sat in the lodge at the farm all night rejoicing and got sufficiently carried away with ourselves that we ended up agreeing to syndicate a race horse so now I guess I technically have three horses. Hmm.

Then today was our last day of hunting for the season. So sad. It was a small little group and we met two hours earlier than usual so that people could make it up to the Greenspring Hunt Races that were also today. It was chilly so we had good sport. Roger decided that his field had become sufficiently competent that he took us over two large jumps that we didn't even know were in our territory -- a brand new three foot or more railroad tie jump (made out of railroad ties, one on top of another, very solid, generally speaking scary) through a fenced in field and out over a coop at the top. Everybody managed. I got popped out of my tack by Mr. Burton over both jumps which was a little unexpected. One of us jumped a bigger jump than the other one did but I'm not sure who did what exactly. I was airborne over my steed for a few seconds but landed in the saddle at almost the same time that Burton landed on the ground, but not quite. My friend Rebecca behind me said, "hmm, I saw air." I kind of hurt my face because my face made contact with Burton's neck before the rest of me landed. Then we viewed the ragged brown fox across the soy bean field, we ran fiercely down a hill, and then called it quits until September. Yummy fried chicken in the clubhouse.

But we are not too sad because April is hunter pace month and tomorrow we are off to the Potomac Hunter Paces which is held at the Potomac kennels. There are two exciting things about this -- the first is that Jonathan is taking Kona which is a miracle because Kona, as some of you may recall, is terrified of nature. Kona's winter vacation ended a few weeks ago and now he is in full-time Pleasant Prospect school which is just such a wonderful thing because Dale can make any horse into a perfect beast and someone else does all the hard work and I just get back on him when he graduates. Dale plans to take Kona on the entire hunter pace circuit and seems to think he might even be jumping the low course by the end. I'm somewhat stunned that she thinks all this will actually happen. So I'm very excited because both my horses will be on the trailer tomorrow which is something I never thought would happen.

The second exciting thing is that the most impressive lady in our club (in my humble opinion), Marianne Ridgely, who is the grand dame of Maryland racing and sort of the Katharine Hepburn of Howard County, is going to be my team-mate over the high course. She is taking her spotted horse Scout and she asked me to be her lead over everything which is shocking honor (she respects Burton). Last season I was scared to death to ride anywhere near Marianne in the field because she's so perfect and has been hunting all her life, etc. She has beautiful gray hair and is skinny as a rail and long long legs and looks fabulous on pretty much any horse. She is always the first person behind the master. She raced at Foxhall a few weeks ago on her horse Wilson and jumped a 4.5 foot fence. That's higher than an Olympic level fence. It's very high. She came over to me at the clubhouse after hunting and said, "I would be delighted to be your team-mate! Come get some food and sit down with me over here and let's talk about the hunter paces! What fun we will have!"

So it's another early morning tomorrow but I'm sure it will be fun.

And the final bit of news is that due to all this activity in Howard County these days and the fact that I spend most of my time out there, Don is renting me the apartment in the lodge at the farm to be a weekend spot and hunt box during the season. Which will cut about 3 hours of driving time out each weekend and will improve my social life dramatically.

Recall that Carol cannot steer her horse. Recall also that she did not hunt on Saturday and apparently has not hunted since that slow day at the kennels when she annoyed us.

So she fails to steer her horse and it decides to go through two trees between which it really cannot fit. Carol is unable to avoid her predicament because, as mentioned, she cannot steer. Her fat horse scrapes her off between the two trees (on purpose perhaps?) and she ends up, in a most unsightly manner, essentially sitting on its kidneys. The horse then panics mildly there between the two trees and drops down and then gets back up again and so Carol bounced around on its kidneys for a stride. At which point the horse says hell no and flings her up in the sky like a rag doll getting shot out of a cannon.

Carol flies through the air totally limp, not a self-preservation instinct anywhere in sight, goes way up as if bounced off a trampoline and then plummets to the ground in a heap.

She did not move a single limb or anything for a good three minutes. When we got to her she was totally still and moaning softly.

Then a ridiculous number of people had to stay and help her (I'm not sure why) which left just me, Jonathan, Cheralynn and Don to hunt on. And then Cherlynn had to quit because Barney was too slow so it was just me, Don and Jonathan.

Eventually the others rejoined.

Robbie told us later that she was totally loopy the whole way back to safety. Like kept asking what happened etc.

We hadn't even been out half an hour when it happened.

Foxhunting at Wye Island

Four of us from Howard County-Iron Bridge journeyed across the Bay Bridge with the big rig today to go hunting on Wye Island. This was part of our Mid-Maryland Centennial Celebration. Recall this is the celebration of 100 years of something or other and no-one has ever told me what (there's been foxhunting in Maryland a lot longer than 100 years). Anyway, "the Centennial" whatever it is has been a great opportunity to hunt around all sorts of other places in Maryland, besides Howard County, and meet most of the foxhunters in the State. We have all enjoyed "the Centennial" so much this year we are planning to do it again next year!

As you can imagine, hunting the Wye Mills Plantation on Wye Island is very historic and also very beautiful considering it is the Eastern Shore and a State Park and all. This is where the Wye Oak (biggest oak tree in Maryland) used to live before it blew down in a storm a few years ago. George Washington did something here, and also the Duke of Norfolk who's ancestral home was Arundel Castle and I think Mark Twain went foxhunting with Wicomico, etc. Then there was that failed Middle East peace conference at Wye Mills. You get the idea. Today is was beautiful and sunny and warm. Which, by the way, is terrible foxhunting weather (no scent).

Some foxhunting items of note:

• The fearless leader of our barn, Dale, is on vacation in the Caribbean so we had no adult supervision. It was just me, Robbie, Crystal (secretary of our club) and Julia (all around nice person). For those of you who know these animals, we took Burton (me), Manny (Robbie), Becket (Crystal) and Wolfie (Julia). For those of you who know Robbie, he's the one who takes credit for teaching me to drive a two-horse trailer and who has driven me to screech out in the truck, "Serenity now!" (he's chatty in a mid-Maryland kind of way).
• The day started well with me pouring coffee all over my canary vest, getting boot polish on my knee, and getting my hair (which had expanded extraordinarily in the rainy dawn) stuck in a haynet on the trailer. Also, Burton fell off the trailer when we put him on at first and then understandably wasn't so interested in getting back on again. And then we tried to put Becket in a stall on the trailer that also had the mounting block in it. "Becket! Move Back Becket! Stupid Horse! MOVE! Oh. Sorry."
• We had to drive the big rig over the Bay Bridge. Robbie was driving, being the only boy and the youngest by easily 10 years. Also, the only one of us four who is actually checked out on the big rig by Dale. We old ladies were not very interested in the ride over the bridge. In fact, before we left the farm we had all stood around the back of the Dooley looking at the mechanism that locks the big rig onto the truck and wondering out loud whether it would stay on for the two hour drive. "Robbie, should we put the chains on just in case the lock comes loose?" "No." "Why not?" "I tell you what, Kim, if that thing comes loose on top of the bridge there's nothing I can do. And I also tell you what, no chain is going to hold that thing onto the Dooley. In fact, I tell you what, all we'd do is drag the Dooley over the bridge with the trailer. Dang." That made us all feel better.
• We set off to the East. I sang songs in the truck to keep people entertained. We sang "Oh my darling Clementine" because the "fell into the foaming brine" part seemed apt. We sang "I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain Is Gone," once the rain had finally gone. We sang the Mission Impossible theme song as we approached the bridge. We talked about the Iowa caucuses (Robbie did not participate). Then we were at the bridge.
• As most of you know, the bridge is only two lanes going east. We get on the bridge and everything seems fine and then Crystal starts talking to Robbie and Robbie turns to look at her to respond and Julia and I yell in unison "Keep your eyes on the road!" Not like we had been staring at the driver or the road or anything. This emboldened Robbie to then pretend to take his hands off the wheel, look around, point out scenic vistas down the bay, etc. Then he pointed out that Burton was looking out the window of the trailer at the water far below. We wondered what would happen if he tried to jump out of his stall (it's possible, the ties are breakaway in case of an accident). All this did not sit well with us girls. So we decided to look at other things in the truck instead of out the windows -- our blackberries, a magazine, Julia scrubbed madly at mud spots on coats, etc. We made it over safely.
• Wye Island is, obviously, flat as a pancake. Our horses were taken aback. This is not real exercise to them, running on flat ground. Our territory is hilly and rough so at "flatland" fixtures our horses don't even break a sweat (and visitors to our territory typically wipe out within an hour). Not only that, Wicomico and Marlborough hunt hounds that are slower than ours (Penn Marydels as opposed to American Foxhounds, for those of you who care). So even when we did run, which was not often due to poor scenting, it was very slow by our standards. Robbie, Crystal, Julia and I were all up front behind the masters because we had won the "drove farthest" award, and we had a hard time keeping our fit, fast horses in their proper place . Manny is a steeplechase racer, Becket is off the track, Burton is a 7/8th Irish thoroughbred, Wolfie is enormous.
• Our horses compensated by a) flinging themselves over every tiny obstacle that presented itself -- stands of beach grass, cornstalks, little ditches, banks to roads, etc. and b) playing bumper cars with each other. Robbie thought it was entertaining to run up next to me and Burton and sideswip us. Burton is not exactly the friendliest horse so he would react by turning to Wolfie who was next to us and biting him, a move logical only to a horse. Wolfie is a bit of a dumbo so he would look at us and say, "hey...wha?" and then a long time later due to Wolfie's generally slow reactions, he would bite Burton back. Burton would fling his head in an affronted manner. Meanwhile, Manny and Robbie are still gleefully bashing into us from the outside. Maybe we humans were a little under stimulated too.
• At one point we passed a very large holly tree. It was so large I turned to Julia and said, "I bet that is the biggest holly tree in Maryland. In fact, I bet it's the Wye Holly Tree!" And then, yay verily verily, moments later we pass a sign pointing back to the "Wye Holly Tree Trail." How 'bout that. Next time we're there I'm going to look for the Wye Bonsai Tree.
• We sang in the hunt field as well. I'm trying to bring more singing to foxhunting cuz I'm sick of hearing the "hey horse, why the long face?" joke. Burton's selection was "Walk like a man, talk like a man." Manny's was "mission impossible" again because he was REALLY trying hard to stay behind the masters. We all sang "where did he where did he go? My lovelies!" to inspire the hounds. We all did the "See my vest!" version of the Beauty and the Beast song (see my vest! see my vest! made from real, gorilla chest!) [full lyrics below] because that's what naturally comes to mind when you don your canary vest. Someone did the oompa loompa song. Julia remarked that I had a song for every occasion. I told her that was true. It is my Soundtrack for Living.
• The most amusing moment was we were running across a cornfield and we came to a little wash that ran down to the Wye River and had tall beach grass on the sides. The masters in front of us went through the grass but Burton was a little bored by the slow pace so he jumped over the beach grass -- which was pretty high, way higher than we normally jump. I was unprepared, shall we say. Robbie started to laugh but then Manny did exactly the same thing and so Robbie stopped laughing.
• Another funny moment was we emerged from a wooded area and went running to the left, right past a sign that said "All Horses Stay to the Right."
• We hunted for four hours and then put the horses back on the trailer in their sweat suits and had a fabulous breakfast in a cabin besides the river and watched the sun go down on the bay and then headed back to the bridge. It was dark by this time so we figured the drive over the bridge would be less alarming. And also, going west the bridge is three lanes so we figured we'd be in the middle lane. But no. Robbie refuses to get in the middle lane, on purpose I'm sure, and keeps to the far left lane -- the fast lane -- while we girls huddled in the back and cleaned mud off things and looked at phones and blackberries again. We keep looking quickly out to see if it's clear to get into the middle lane. "Robbie, I think it's clear now if you want to get in the middle lane." "Dang, I tell you what Kim, I'm not sure I want to be wiggling this thing around up here in the dark. I think I'll stay right where I am." Sigh.
  We sang all the way home as well. "One Night in Bangkok," that Tribe Called Quest song about "strictly collard greens and the occasional steak, goes on my plate!" That Cake song about the girl in the long jacket. "Electric Avenue." Etc. Crystal's contribution was "mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."
  

Later we found out that the dratted fox had been running back and forth along the beach the whole day, just beyond the tree line, out of sight of the horses and humans and out of reach of the hounds. The fox is probably out on his power boat in the Bay now, laughing.

Kim



See My Vest

Some men hunt for sport,
Others hunt for food,
The only thing I'm hunting for,
Is an outfit that looks good...

See my vest, see my vest,
Made from real gorilla chest,
Feel this sweater, there's no better,
Than authentic Irish setter.

See this hat, 'twas my cat,
My evening wear - vampire bat,
These white slippers are albino
African endangered rhino.

Grizzly bear underwear,
Turtles' necks, I've got my share,
Beret of poodle, on my noodle
It shall rest,

Try my red robin suit,
It comes one breast or two,
See my vest, see my vest,
See my vest.

Like my loafers? Former gophers -
It was that or skin my chauffeurs,
But a greyhound fur tuxedo
Would be best,

So let's prepare these dogs,

Mrs. Potts: Kill two for matching clogs,

Burns: See my vest, see my vest,
Oh please, won't you see my vest.