The first post

of the New Year is a bit tardy. But would you expect anything less? I like to live life belatedly afterall :)

The new year has been moving right along--school is good if a bit absent lately (holiday plus snow day equals forgetting my day job!). I've switched back to my old farrier for Caesar's feet, and he seems to be going pretty well. I am hopeful that this will be a more sound year than last. We did a gymnastics clinic in early January, but since then we've been lying low, working mostly on flat work. I feel a bit stuck, but 2 good lessons in the past week are adding some insight. This is as we know the season of feeling stuck. I think Caesar just wants to take a good walk outside. I know I do! We finally got around to clipping him (thanks to Shannon for the use of her clippers!), and it looks decent for the first try! I admit to being the handler; Mike was far more trustworthy with the clippers!

MICA class started last night. It's officially titled Perfecting Basic Skills, but the syllabus looks to be more about perfecting some skills and learning some new ones (hello, etching and bezel stone setting, I have been waiting for you!). I am excited for our first project--forming spiculums and anticlastic shapes. What's that you say? Yea, I just learned what they are too :) Think sheet metal curved inward, outward, in all directions within the same piece. Should be cool! I am thinking I might do a series of bird beaks or play with a foxhunting theme. hmmm...

That's all the writing for now, but I'll include some fun pics:



A shot of the jumps the boarders created for our trainer. They look great and ride well!



A close up of the artistry :)


Caesar's new clip and new bareback pad (both compliments of my awesome husband!)


I am certain Caesar has always wanted to be a dressage queen so I caved and bought him boots!

#51 (or, Lots of Cool Photos!)

Apparently this is my 51st blog post so I thought I would go all Dave Matthews and title it as such. Just can't resist the subtitle though; had to pull you in somehow! I have several bits and pieces to write about, but most can be expressed best through pictures, so here goes!

I finally finally finally finished my final jewelry project--a hollow form barn. The piece ended up taking somewhere between 35 and 40 hours, but it was worth it. I love the piece! Absolutely love it! And I don't usually feel that way about my pieces. There were several big hurdles toward the end (ahem, my adorable little rooster weather vane broke off in the eleventh hour!), but I pulled it all together by the time the studio closed Sunday evening. Here are some photos:







The back has a selection from a poem I love by Marge Piercy (To Be of Use); it says "The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident." Very fitting for both the piece and how I feel about my life and work :)

I was able to squeeze in two Christmas gifts-earrings for my sister (sorry, forgot to photograph them before sending off the package) and a mustache necklace for my sister-in-law. I did a brush finish on the front and printed the back with a floral pattern. I then used liver of sulfur to give it an oxidized finish. It's a fun piece that I hope she'll enjoy:


My dear friend, Linn, commissioned me to create four pieces for Christmas gifts. She is meeting three of her best buds for a concert on New Year's Eve and wanted a music-inspired piece to commemorate the event (they are avid concert goers). I came up with a small guitar cut-out that I made in the "window style" I perfected this summer. Each one is a bit different, and I patterned the metal. The backs are all stamped with the date of New Year's. Here they are:


She was pleased with them (yea!), and she got me the most amazing gift-- a portrait of Caesar and Topo! I teared up when I opened it! This is definitely one of the most special gifts I have ever received! Linn is very supportive of my "new ventures" in life (i.e. working less and riding and making jewelry more), and it means a lot to me that she respects and even admires my choices so the painting was all the more meaningful. The artist is a friend of hers and has painted horses for years; she asked her to put Topo into the painting, and I think it's just awesome! Thanks, Linn!



In farm news, the boarders at my barn got together to build jumps as a gift to our barn owner/trainer. It's been a pretty tough year for her with both of her horses having significant (career ending) injuries; she's been horse shopping for months, and just this week found "the one", a Holsteiner/TB eventer that she brought home today. We presented her with the jumps this evening, and she was so happy! I am glad she has a horse with which to jump them! Good things! April, Shannon, Megan and I set up a course with them and did some jumping. I was bareback so I didn't do as much, but we did jump our first skinny panel! Caesar stopped twice (mostly my fault), but I stayed pretty solid in my seat despite being bareback which I was pleased with. We went on to jump it pretty well; lots to work on but a good start!

Here's a photo of the jumps in progress (Shannon and Mike are quite the artists!): Photos of all of them to come soon.



Tomorrow will be dedicated to wrapping presents and cleaning house (hopefully with a hack on Caesar thrown in). I can't believe it's already Christmas (you too?), but it always comes so soon. We'll be spending the day with Mike's family and surely enjoying some really great food. Next week, we are off to Shenandoah, VA, with our good friends, Attia and Phil; just two nights, but two nights that are much needed and deserved :)

Happy Holidays to you and yours!


Mike and a newly outfitted (and slightly indignant) Topo say "Merry Christmas"

What's a Christmas-gram?

In the words of Buddy the elf: "I WANT ONE!" I do realize that this is the second time I have mentioned a Will Ferrell movie in my little blog, and while I would not consider myself a huge fan, I do like many of his movies. And Elf, well, I enjoy Elf very much! This is likely due to the fact that in my first two years of teaching, my two mentors/best buds, Kate and Beth, made it a ritual to watch and quote the film several times during the holiday season. It helped me appreciate the movie all the more.

Tonight Mike and I are addressing holiday cards and wrapping gifts so some time with Buddy the elf seemed perfectly appropriate. I'm sort of ambivalent about the holidays. I love celebrating for the usual reasons--cookies, gift-giving (and, ahem, receiving), Christmas music, sparkling lights... But it also causes me a bit of anxiety. I tend to start thinking/worrying about what gifts to give around mid-November, but wait until, oh, Decemeber 10, to actually begin any shopping. Then I spend the week leading up to Christmas procrastinating the gift wrapping (I loathe wrapping). Enter Mike, who is quite a good gift wrapper :) This year is no different, but I might be a day ahead which isn't so bad!

Today was my last day in the jewelry studio, and it was quite productive. My final project is FINALLY done. I had a few melt-downs this week and ended up having to put an additional 8 or so hours into the piece in order to complete it. Alas, it is really awesome, if I do say so myself :) I finished four pieces that a friend commissioned and was able to sneak in two gifts for family members (though I had hoped to do a few more, I am glad I got these in). Photos are in order, but the photo-storing computer is on the fritz at the moment, so that will have to wait till another day.

Riding has been pretty low key lately due to the freakishly frigid temperatures. I am one who will ride outside in almost any conditions but there have been several days lately where the ground was too frozen and the wind was too wicked to do any sort of hacking. Alas, bareback in the indoor is as good as it gets, but we are still having fun! The boarders at my barn got together to make several jumps as a gift to our barn owner/trainer. They look fabulous (I can't take credit for much!), and those deserve photos too!

Happy holidays to anyone who might be reading, and I promise photos soon!

Bareback bliss

December has descended and with it came a severe drop in temperature. Around mid-day Wednesday, the temp in the the Baltimore area dropped from 62 to, oh, about 40 (which means the temperature at the farm, also known as the Carrollmuda Triangle dropped to 35). YIKES! The ponies fared well, but it's definitely time for those heavy weight blankets to be pulled out. Caesar is still sporting his au naturel blanket as I haven't made a move to purchase clippers or hire someone to do it. That probably served him well this week, but he needs to get some of that fur removed! For a Thoroughbred who spent several years racing and then several more as a stall boarded horse, he has fully acclimated to winter outside 24/7 (or at least his coat has)! Seriously, he is so fuzzy that when I look down at his neck while riding, he seems like a different horse (a not so narrow horse, ahem :)

This week was very busy and loooong, and it was made longer by the fact that I only rode on Wednesday and Friday. I hate it when that happens. Alas, those rides were quite good. I had initially planned for last week to be week 2 of a relaxed two-week schedule (read: bareback and hacking only), but then I had the opportunity to work with my friend Cherie (awesomeness once again!) and to do a clinic with Sally Cousins (fun and confidence building!). So on Saturday and Sunday, I just did some walking and bareback dressage. Caesar was a champ. My rides this week were not only few and far between but they were brief: 35 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes tonight. But...they...were...awesome :) And I have a few theories for why.
-Riding bareback really helps me achieve a better position and better control/use of my seat and leg aides
-I spent about 10 minutes just letting Caesar walk at a slow pace on a long rein, asking only that he stay straight and focused. With the weather so cold, any horse can benefit from slow walking to warm up.
-Then I gathered up the reins a bit to achieve some light contact and asked for a forward, in front of my leg walk (which we have been working on a lot in the past two weeks).
-After 5 minutes of this, I asked for some suppleness and even more connection and, bam, I got it. He was moving around all nice and forward and round like a dressage pony. A bit more walking like this and then onto the trot. While there were still ugly moments (um, my down transition from the canter bareback is still a bit bumpy which leads to loss of connection to say the least), the ride(s) was fantastic!
-I focused on relaxing my overactive right leg and engaging my lazy left leg more (thanks for the tip, Cherie) which seemed to help achieve more symmetry in both the walk and trot. I also focused on using my core to elongate my legs and stretch through my heels (a visual image that worked well). Each time I did this, I really felt Caesar's back stretch up.

While I don't prefer to ride for such a short time and I really don't prefer to ride in the indoor (though I am SO grateful to have access to one), these two rides this week were phenomenal! A year ago at this time, my riding was an absolute disaster. I am not exaggerating. I could barely get Caesar to walk around the indoor straight and forward. And the trot was a continual banking in or falling out. It was terrible. From November to January I lived in rider anguish thinking there was no hope. ICK! So of course when fall hit, I got a bit nervous. Even though I have made so much progress this year, I still feared (and, honestly, still do) that we would be sucked into the vacuum of bad riding this winter. The streak of bad riding probably had little to do with it being winter, but being stuck in the indoor from November to March surely did not help. Flash forward to tonight when I would have been happy with straight and forward (leaps beyond last year), and what do I get? Caesar was forward, straight, balanced, rhythmic and supple for most of the ride. And that felt like a million bucks :)

So, check plus for good rides this week! I have a jump lesson on Sunday so I'll actually pull out a saddle for tomorrow's ride. But the days of bareback riding will continue. In fact, I've put this Thinline bareback pad on my Christmas list:



I've been borrowing a friend's bareback pad for over a year, and I feel both Caesar and I deserve an upgrade :)

In jewelry news, my final project, a hollow form barn, is in the works. Hope to get some pictures up soon. I am hoping to get some Christmas gifts fashioned soon as well as a few commissioned pieces completed for my dear friend, Linn. It will be a busy few weeks in the studio!

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

November notes

November is very nearly over, how did that happen? No, really, where did it go? I swear it was just November 1. We’ve been fortunate to have some really nice weather over the past few weeks in central Maryland. That means more time riding and less time working inside (I’ve been neglecting the jewelry work a bit). At this point in the year, I seriously covet my outdoor riding time. With sunset around 4:45, opportunities to ride on the trails, galloping paths, fields, and outdoor ring are quickly waning. So you can bet I’ve been maximizing that outdoor time. Caesar and I have put in a few bareback trail rides (fun and confidence building!) and a good bit of conditioning work.

We went to our first clinic last Sunday with event rider/trainer Mogie Bearden Muller. I was a wee bit worried that I might not be ready for a clinic, but since it was billed for riders at 2’3” and up, I thought “Why not?” The day was quite a success for Caesar and me. We worked on some single fences as well as a bank down into water. Mogie worked with me on my position, especially that wandering, wimpy left leg and on maintaining Caesar’s pace into fences. When he gets quick 5 strides before an xc fence, I tend to either pull an extreme half halt (read: fierce halt) or just let him go. She helped me first establish a better consistency of canter in the approach (use those half halts then!) and think about using other means to help him maintain his pace into the line—shoulders back, using more leg and knees, hands up, etc.

We had our last event of the season on Sunday, the short course at Loch Moy (where we had a much improved ride compared to our outing in September). Megan and Wyatt also had a great day, and we celebrated with a bottle of wine (a great idea at the time, though we were a bit tipsy when unloading the horses back home)!




I have not been much of an avid jeweler this past week (show prep and work overflow, oh my!), but I was able to put in a few good hours today. That’s a good thing, considering my break put me a good bit behind! My wire project is due on Tuesday (eek!), and while I’ll have to put in the equivalent of an all-nighter this weekend, I’m more excited about the piece than I was before ( I had lost some interest which is inevitable when forging and soldering, blech). The piece will be a barn of sorts with little farm animals. Here’s a sneak peak of some of the components:





And finally, here are a few photos of my mid-term piece that I finished at the end of October; it’s medal of honor dedicated to my grandmother, the consummate gardener:





I used a colored pencils (with a base of gesso) to "paint" the copper veggies!


The quote says "Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart"; I used embroidery thread to stitch around the perimeter of the flower.

Two posts a month isn't so bad...

But it's not good either. And I am just barely getting the second in before the deadline! Life has been busy the past few weeks, very busy, but a good busy, the kind that makes you eager for the next week (even if you are a little tired from the previous).

In early October, my students created mini greenhouses for micro greens, and last week, we harvested them. It's a really easy task--plant seeds in recycled plastic containers (with holes, like those for berries) and after two weeks, the sprouts are ready to be harvested. Trendy sprouts (a staple for fancy farm to table restaurants this year) are oft referred to as micro greens, but they are one in the same. We planted radish, carrot, lettuce, sugar snap peas, turnips, and beets, and we used ours as a garnish for a tomato mozzarella salad. It was a great experience for the kids, and they enjoyed the flavor of the raw greens; there's something to be said about growing your own food! It makes it all the more delectable.



The micro green harvest coincided with a visit from a writer and researcher from Johns Hopkins Public Health School Magazine. They wanted to feature our cooking program in a slide show to promote a piece on the obesity landscape. I'm eager to see the final product--photographing and interviewing first and second grade "chefs" proved comical and chaotic at times. But then, that's all teaching :) My dear friend and first roomie in Baltimore, Attia (who is a PhD student in nutrition at JHSPH) came to take part as well; it was wonderful to have her company and support, especially since we started this teaching journey together as hopeful TFA corps members back in 2004. I don't think either of us knew exactly where we would be career-wise six years later, but I am so glad we are still in Baltimore together :)

Last Sunday, Megan and I took the ponies to Loch Moy to school their amazing competition course. It really is a treat both to compete and school at the facility, and the weather was perfect! Both Wyatt and Caesar were very well behaved and obedient on course. Caesar was controllable and correct to the fences, and I think a lot of that had to do with my improved position; when I am correct, he's so much easier to ride. The week prior I had spent some dedicated time working on my two point at the trot on the galloping path as well as working on pace. Clearly, it paid off! That means I must continue that work and get my legs stronger!

Here are a few photos (I'll post a short video clip soon, no luck with that application today???)








That's all for now, but I have jewelry updates and photos to share soon--there's not enough time in the day!

What's that smell?

Last week was a stinker. Between boiling vinegar for pickling, riding more than once in the pouring rain (fun while it lasts, terrible on the drive home), and over using paste wax in the jewelry studio, it was quite the smelly week. In cooking class, we made our first foray into the world of canning; we kept it simple (and avoided any threat of botulism) by making pickles. I was quite impressed with the results, and the kids were perhaps even more pleased. Success! It's so funny what they like--who would think the smell of simmering vinegar would be appetizing to children?


Quavel shows off the pickles!

Caesar and I had a few great dressage workouts last week but a dousy of a jump session on Wednesday (creeping left leg strikes again). I made some important corrections on Friday, and today I improved on that a bit more to have a much better lesson. Basically, I have to use those legs and ride the jumps, not just assume he'll do the work (yep, still working on that). We'll be schooling at An Otherwise Perfect Farm on Saturday to prepare for a horse trial next week, our first since June! I am trying to get excited, but in all honesty, I am feeling more than a little nervous. Eesh!

Jewelry class is kicking my butt; I love love love it, but the assignments are quite challenging and the work is even more time-consuming than I had imagined. The design element of the course is perhaps my weak point. I have no problem generating ideas, it's the act of honing those ideas into sketches that are feasible. I'm getting better with practice, but I expect this will always be a challenge for me. On the upswing, my skills are improving, and I am learning how to perfect basic techniques. Our first piece had pretty tight parameters: make a pierced (read: sawed) piece out of one piece of sheet metal (no layering, too bad!) that expresses an element of your identity. An identity assignment! Cringe, I always hate those! But it gave me a chance to work on something horsey; here's the final result:



I included a little hound and deer in the lower left hand corner as an homage to Caesar (ahem, Hound Deer); the piece is a bit big for me, but it actually looks decent on. A conversation starter at least!

I am working on lots of tiny cut-outs for a garden themed piece at the moment. I have decided that what I really love is creating tiny vestiges of domesticity. I have a slew of ideas for simple pendants and earrings; time will tell if I have the capacity (well, the time really) to complete a handful of them along with my big assignments. In any case, I am really loving the studio time; I would have never fancied myself a metal smith, but I couldn't be more pleased with this new hobby! Hopefully there will be more photos to come soon :)