Tying troubles

The footing went bad this past Sunday. Everything froze. And we don't have an indoor. It's snowing now and hopefully the snow help re-establish some footing.

Back here I described some problems with L and cross ties. She likes to break them. She's a big strong girl and she learned she could break cross ties at will. Either quickly or slowly. Sometimes I could see her doing a slow lean and I knew within 30 seconds the cross ties were just going to pop. When she did that I had time to smack her in the butt and get her to knock it off. But other times she'd be fine and the next thing you know I had some broken cross ties.

So of course the obvious question here is what did I do about this?

I'm not a trainer. Smacking L in the butt was my trainer's advice and it worked but I wasn't always quick enough.

I learned about tying. Learn the quick release knot and practice it until you can tie it in your sleep. I didn't always use cross ties. Sometimes I'd use a rail or a post and of course sometimes I'd have to tie her off to a trailer. I wanted her to learn that she couldn't break loose so she had to be tied hard and fast. With a bull snap. But of course I didn't want anyone getting hurt either. If you've never seen a horse trying to break loose from a tie that won't break it's very scary. And of course you always want to have your wits about you when you're handling horses.

Now this actually worked. L's a smart girl. She learned she couldn't break a one inch cotton rope with a bull snap and she quit trying. But she still broke cross ties and...there's no reason I shouldn't be able to cross tie her.

Then along comes...

The Clip
Product Review!

The Clip from SmartTie Products. This Clip is designed to let a 1/2 or 5/8 inch nylon line to pay out with some resistance when it's pulled hard. It has some give. The rule of course is pulling your horse is just going to make your horse pull back. So this thing gives when the horse pulls and the horse stops pulling.

My trainer thought this was a good idea.

Like magic, in my case, this works like a charm. The only real challenge was finding ropes. You see, all that nylon lead rope that's 5/8 inch? It's really 3/4 inch. A 3/4 inch rope will not give through the Clip. It's the same as tied fast. And nobody has 1/2 inch nylon lead rope. Oh, I could have bought 5/8 nylon line from a yacht supply company but they all have $100 minimum orders.

Well. Web to the rescue! I found Debbie Hanson on the web and she'll make you anything you want from any kind of nylon rope you want. Something got screwed up and she did right by me - I have nothing but good things (supplier review here?) to say about her.

So I have 3 of these Clips and a spare. I keep two around the barn and I keep one in the trailer. Rigged up with 5/8 inch nylon rope. And L and I haven't had a tying problem in ... oh... 3 or 4 years now.

I've since found there are other such tying things out there but the Clip is the only one I've used and I'm very happy with the Clip.

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Here, make some seafood soup!

I made this one up, inspired by something I had for lunch in a local Chinese restaurant.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup finely chopped celery
  
• 1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion
  
• 1 tablespoon butter
  
• 1/3 cup carrots cut into match sticks
  
• 3/4 cup dry white wine (vermouth or dry sherry would be good too)
  
• 1/3 cup snow peas
  
• 1/2 pound fish cut into ..oh, 2 inch strips. Haddock or cod, I used haddock.
  
• 1 1/2 cup seafood or fish stock
  
• 4 oz. clams, whole or chopped, cooked, I used canned
  
• 4 oz. bay scallops
  
• 4 oz. lump crab (from a package, cooked)
  
• 4 or 5 medium shrimp, like 41/50
  
• 1 teaspoon corn starch dissolved in an ounce or so of water
  
• salt to taste
  
• cracked black pepper to taste
  
• chopped cilantro - as much as you like
  

Sweat the celery and onion in the tablespoon of butter in a large sauce pan with a pinch of salt and a generous pinch of fresh ground black pepper until they're soft and translucent. This might take 6 or 7 minutes over medium heat. Really cook them down. Then add the carrots and raise the heat to high. After a minute or two when things look like they're cooking add the wine and reduce it by almost half. This will just take another minute or two.

Add the seafood stock and bring to a boil. Add the corn starch and reduce the heat. Let the broth get a little silky. Reduce the heat to low and...

Add the fish. Let this cook for 3 or 4 minutes. Add the scallops and the shrimp. After another 3 or 4 minutes turn the heat off, add the clams and the crab and the snow peas. Taste the broth and add salt until you like it. Cover and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Add cilantro and serve. This was OMG good and makes enough for two.

The spirit of this recipe is to just load your favorite seafoods into a flavorful broth and heat them up. I think some green peas would be a good substitute for snow peas and I'll try that sometime. I think some clams in their shells, about a pound maybe, would be good instead of canned clams but I just didn't see any I liked when I was at the supermarket. Canned clams are actually pretty good. And I think some lobster would be really good in this soup too.

I had a chardonnay with my soup but I think a pinot grigio would have been a little better with it.