Lisa advanced to a higher team, with a taller horse.

With Fabián practices have a meaningful structure and it's a workout.

This journal is partially overlapping with the previous entry, which was solely devoted to goats. Here we go back from ergonomics of goat pens and psycho-dynamics of a chicken coop, to the human part of our family. Beginning with first of October, Lisa's vaulting season has officially started. This was traditionally preceded by an annual drama of dispatching vaulters into teams. Those perform in various categories, which are limited in regard to medal levels. Thus e.g. a vaulter at a bronze level cannot compete together with beginners in trot. Naturally, reality is such that everybody clamors to the better team; nobody pushes to go to the lower category. Six people in a team can compete on a horse (with maximum three of them being actually on the horse at any time). Thus a team needs at least six people — plus somebody as an alternate. Theoretically it would seem that the position of an alternate becomes a contention point causing trouble, but honestly, in two years of competitions I never experienced anyone "sitting out" a race — problems occur more in the other direction — a team drops out in the end, as fewer than six people show up due to school tests, illnesses, injuries and so forth.

And now picture a situation, where you have to distribute some twenty two teenagers into three teams — Trot, Canter C and Canter B (there's no level A in our club). That is, mostly female teenagers (although there is one boy vaulter in the club) — note, those are hormonally and emotionally unstable female teenagers. Besides pure performance and ranking in competitions, one has to consider that a team has to comprise of strong base, and light and small "flyers" — those would be truly in the air, on top of the human pyramid — all this on a running horse. I don't envy coaches at al, for it often must be a very difficult decision. And on top of that, Fabián began to work with the club only by August, making the choices more complicated (or perhaps less, for he was not part to many months and lengthy dramas?).

Lisa has finally joined girls of similar age in her team.

Wilder Ranch coastline.

Lisa had worried about advancing to a canter team. She spent two season in trot, of which the second did not rate much. On one hand she was the oldest vaulter there by far, thus she did not connect socially much with "little girls", on the other hand it was a truly miserable season. First they could not practice on account of (poor) air quality from wildfires, then the vaulting arena was being rebuilt, then practices kept being canceled for a variety of reasons and their coach had no inclination to schedule make-ups; Perch the horse got injured and the girls were horseless, riding competitions on borrowed animals and subsequently a rookie horse Cody. It did not matter as much that they were being ranked last, but they were last by many points, or got disqualified; that was simply wrong.

Bumming gull waits for something the otters might drop.

Sea lions having an afternoon nap.

A Horsey Detour: in the summer it started to be obvious that Perch would not be able to do vaulting; he is arthritic, which is incurable. The only option is to keep the pain under control and arrange for a less intensive work, where he would not have to run and hit his aching leg. But Perch would always from his pen sadly follow the bustle around vaulting saddle shack — he would even abandon hay to remind the girls that he, too, can do vaulting, and that he would very much take part in this fun. So imagine that in the end Perch has found a new home with Dreampower Horsmanship, where we had undergone very formative training with our children six years earlier, with a charismatic old wrangler Garry Stauber. Lisa's (and Perch's) original trainer, Ashley, had gone along to work on horse therapy programs. It would seem an ideal combination, and we're wishing much luck to everybody, hoping it would work out.

Tom and Sid hiked Quicksilver.

They had spotted a beautiful vulture there showing off on a pole.

Eventually Lisa got into the C team, and gained a few friends there as she had hoped. I think she is also comfortable with the demanding training — on Tuesdays and Thursdays they spend two hours on horses, with one hour of conditioning on Fridays. We, parents, like this schedule — finally Lisa's vaulting does not block our weekends. We are much less happy about how much all this fun costs, which I can't stress enough. But this year it's apparent from the start that the whole thing has a direction, the club and practices have an order and a structure, and a long term plan. Girls got rated on body posture, they received individual physical therapy exercises for home, to strengthen and correct various imperfections and irregularities. Practices are couched so that no one gets hurt, conditioning, stretching, and physical therapy are tailored specifically to vaulting and individual needs. So finally we have the impression that despite all the hassle with commuting Lisa to vaulting three times a week and paying crazy money, it makes sense.

Fabián does not let the girls slack off, they really have to work hard. This has brought a positive consequence in Lisa becoming hungry and being willing to eat. The negative consequence is, Lisa is overwhelmed by the end of the week and refuses to go with us on weekend trips. Although I reckon, the latter part might be also due to puberty. Fortunately Tom has outgrown this phase and is now willing to accompany us. During the fall, we managed a few trips in the vicinity, to the coast, but also to Calero Park, where I had previously been some two or three years ago with Ned.

This year's competition was organized by... space aliens.

MIB, agent F supervises little space alien warm-up.

Lisa's club regularly organizes competitions on last October weekend. With the exception of last year (see arena reconstruction), when Halloween consisted only of club party, other clubs and teams from the area gather together, so that vaulters can informally test out what their competition would be about. Results don't count in official rosters, but everything else is by the book, with dresses, costumes and proper hairstyles, with real judges, music and all the other circus. It also means that our club, being the organizing one, enters a state of extreme panic, and every able bodied associate must help. I ultimately find it all very useful — Tom has an opportunity to participate in the competition as a helper, thus he's with Lisa and part of her hobby, but he does not have to be there all the time, and nobody asks him to understand vaulting.

Lisa and I had set out early in the morning, for Lisa's team was performing as first at eight-fifteen o'clock, with compulsories on a horse. And for that, it is naturally necessary to prepare and warm-up not only the girls, but the horse as well, and we were arriving to the stables by seven. I had signed Tom up for help with buffet by merciful ten o'clock, and he could sleep in.

I hurried to catch a picture of Lisa riding the horse, I was almost late.

Girls had presented their team freestyle only on a barrel.

I just dropped Lisa off at the stables and drove down under the hill to park near the house of the chief coach Emma, to leave more parking space for guest teams and regular stable customers. It surprised me pleasantly, when people from a competing club in a minivan gave me a lift up the hill again. I had written a few times that vaulting fascinates me with its friendly atmosphere even among competing clubs — and here was another small thing that filled me with joy.

My shift started at eight o'clock in the morning — since I volunteered to be a gatekeeper at the barrel part of the competition. Somebody must make sure that vaulters perform as listed on the order of go, in their correct category; only that way the judges know whom they evaluate; and the right music gets to be played for the right number. It sounds trivial, but considering that another competition takes place simultaneously on horses, who have priority, sooner or later a time conflict happens, for inevitably one or the other venue gains falls behind in time, hence carefully planned breaks intended for crossing over cease to match. While taking care of these, I personally needed to step out to see Lisa's horse ride, and so I had to set up everything on my end and make sure that everybody knew their proper sequence. Even so I almost missed Lisa performance, on account of being delayed with meal tickets.

Calero

At least Tom comes along on our walks — and sometimes jumps into a ditch to let his mother feel taller than he is.

You see, it was me who kept proposing for quite a while that we should sell meal tickets for lunch menu, until I became the de-facto owner of the whole meal ticket affair. I certainly did not mind, for I really think that a system of separately selling burgers and hot-dogs, especially when people choose their own combination of sides, drinks, desserts or chips, is horribly chaotic and rigid, and the server (Tom) must continuously track money. As opposed to collecting a flat rate of ten dollars for a single item off the grill, one side (a small salad, chips, or a cookie) and one drink (coffee, water, soda), which speeds the whole process up and makes it simpler. As a bonus, tickets can be sold ahead of time, and our club thus collected money before the event. Now add that there are also meals for judges, parking attendants and medics — and it's way simple to just issue them a meal ticket, instead of claiming free food at the stand with a server who often has no idea who is who, and why should this person get something for free. For me, as a mother of one of the vaulters, it was very practical to hand Lisa and Tom each one ticket, knowing that they get their food — as opposed to handing them each ten dollars and letting them ponder whether it's enough for what they want, or thus giving them the choice of buying ten cookies instead of proper lunch. Similar motivation may have occurred to other parents, as meal tickets became a big hit in the whole club. But as it works in the world, I got rewarded for my brilliant idea by becoming responsible for it, thus I had to, between organizing rosters, also sell meal tickets! Fortunately, at ten o'clock Tom took them over, and I got it off my back.

Wintering Monarchs in Pacific Grove.

Crabs nibbling on something on the rocks — either algae, or perhaps water snails?

Speaking of confused attendants, who don't know who is who: I was just picking up my own lunch when some other team's coach approached the food stand, just regular girl in a team sweats, and tried to entice Tom (the attendant) to give her two water bottles, saying she had no money with her and that she would bring some later. Tom consented to this, only asked her for her name, to write it down. She said she was Haley, and so Tom wrote it down, and only after the girl left I realized she was The Haley. That is, Haley Smith, who rides pas de deux with Daniel Janes, and they're really great. This couple is special because Haley is rather tall, so their numbers aren't typical "strong man tossing around a petite girl", but they are real partners with equal roles. Consider for yourself 2018 World Equestrian Games. Now I felt like a chump — when I don't even recognize my favorite. But when Tom and I told Lisa, thinking it a funny story, Lisa was perplexed, and was crossed that we should have told her, that she wanted to see Haley — and I had to explain that she most likely met Haley many times during those all-day events, but just did not recognized her in those sweats, common for so many coaches.

Our club chose space aliens as their Halloween theme — one crafty mother ironed alien heads on girls' and parents' green t-shirt. Coaches were Men in Black (a sci-fi comedy of 1997). Lisa's team competed in two phases — compulsories on a horse, team freestyle only on a moving barrel. For this I was very glad — after mere four weeks of practice, with three rookies on the team, their collective figures on a cantering horse might not end well at all. Being presented with reachable goal, this fresh team rated OK — they ended up last, but only by fractions of points behind other teams, who have been competing with well practiced sets for several seasons.

Careless tourists at Lovers' Point feed squirrels — who are then this obese.

It finally started raining on Thanksgiving, with snow on surrounding hills.

We were lucky with this competition, including the weather — on the next day, smoke from obligatory fall wildfires rolled in. This year it was not as bad as the previous, one could step out, even practices continued, mostly. Raining started, naturally, by Thanksgiving, when we had reserved a hotel room in Lone Pine, seven hours drive away from home. Having seen the forecast, in the end we canceled it, and were glad we did for even in Southern California, there was snow, and highway 58 through Tehachapi, which we were bound to take, got closed.

Eventually we enjoyed a week of staying local. We made a short trip to Pacific Grove, where we were able to finally properly see wintering Monarchs (migrating large butterflies). On the very Thanksgiving Day we got invited to Regina, who said that turkey was dry in her opinion and asked if we would mind eating traditional Czech beef "candle" roast. As if. I cooked a bowl of quinoa so that I could skip bread dumplings which I can't eat, but all other celebrants frowned upon it and stuffed themselves with dumplings. Then we fit in a small hike up New Almaden with the family of Lisa's friend Lucy, and that rolled us into December.