Weekend Update
Apr. 4th, 2005 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziJust a few things from the weekend.
Finally! Don got the kids in his classes to give their opinions on the names that had been suggested. New Horse is now officially named Duncan. Someone quickly made up a sign and put it above his stall. Oddly, the kids apparently thought 'Duncan' was an Irish name. Owell, Ireland..Scotland...hey, they're both in close proximity to England and the inhabitants of both have accents which are easy to exaggerate. That's about as accurate as we Americans get when it comes to geography.
Don used Duncan in 3 classes on Saturday and some of the other instructors have used him, too. They all seem to agree that he's a very willing pony. He very much wants to do what you ask of him. He's inexperienced, though, so he's encountering a lot of new things. Turns out he tends to err on the side of caution and take unfamiliar things slowly, but he'll do 'em. Apparently, he's never jumped before, but Don tried him in a beginning jump class. The crossrails got a lot of looking at and he attentively watched the other horses going over 'em. When it was his turn, he came on up, then slowed. He didn't refuse, but eyeballed the jump, then hopped on over. On the other side, Don says, he perked up and looked all happy with himself, having figured out "hey! I can go over those things!" and went right on without hesitation after that. Looks like Don got another really good pony.
There's a little herd of deer that have hang around mostly in the woods near the barn. One doe in the group has a wonky left rear leg. The first time I saw her, I thought she'd lost her leg below the hock. Later sightings provided a better view and it's apparent that she does have an entire leg, it's just pretty malformed. It starts out okay at her hip. Somewhere just above the hock, though, it narrows quickly. The hock and lower leg are very tiny. There's even a little sorta hoof at the end. Perhaps she was born that way, or maybe she was injured when she was a fawn. It doesn't seem to slow her down any. She's too big to be a yearling so she's got to be at least 2. Obviously it's not hindering her survival. Being in a mostly predator-free area helps that too, I'm sure.
More specifically, the time Strother was on Saturday Night Live (way back when) and was in a skit where he was the leader of a French Camp for kids, spoofing the prison in Cool Hand Luke. Irina, who works full time as a hand at the barn, is Czech. She does a good job, but she's not the greatest speaker of English, which can lead to some confusion at times.
She also hates any deviation from the set routine she's developed over the years or when someone does something differently than she likes to do it. Yesterday was another example of the latter, when it was decided that none of the horses would be turned out overnight as they usually are after the Sunday trail rides. The torrential rain on Saturday had turned the pasture into a huge field of sloppy mud. The park service had parked a crane/shovel thingy at the barn last week so that they could dredge out the drainage pond, but they haven't done it yet. The pond is way past due, so all that rain didn't drain properly. Poking a stick down, the mud was close to 18" deep at one point near the pond.
Anyhoo, that meant that the stalls had to have fresh shavings put in. Not exactly rocket science. Ya shovel the shavings in and make sure things're covered well enough. Irina, though, believes that the shavings should all be piled around the edges of the stall. That way when someone forks manure and such out of the stall later, they can just move some in from the piles on the sides. Uh, well, that's convenient, but you kinda need some in the middle of the stall too. Horses do like to lay down sometimes and such. My shavings-shoveling technique was pointed out to be wrong a few times. Yeesh. I think she had another reason for the way she does it, but I couldn't make it out. Hence, the Strother Martin SNL skit reference:
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate....bilingually!"
I saw Ferian and Oryx on Saturday at a hamfest. WIth the heavy rain most of the tailgaters at the fest weren't out, but there were vendors and some indoor tailgaters. I successfully resisted, yet again, the urge to get an old oscilloscope. I gave in to temptation and did get an old Civil Defense radiation detection kit. No geiger counter, of course, but it does have a Victoreen radiation survey detector and a half dozen dosimeters and a charger for 'em. There's also the original manuals and usage guide, plus an additional manual added somewhere around the 80's on fallout shelter safety. All the equipment has the nifty ol CD logo on it.
I tried one of those bacon cheddar ranch chicken sandwiches from Burger King. Hey, I was hungry and it didn't sound bad, and it wasn't. I have to admit I rather liked it. I just wish there was some way I could conclusively prove that my desire to try it was NOT caused by the freaky, innuendo-laden, kinda sexist, and almost surreal disturbing commercial> that's been airing lately. (WARNING: There's some text language on that page, and there's sound from the commercial when it plays.) I do have to agree whole-heartedly with point #14 on the page.
There are still a few stalls empty at the barn and Don has been wanting to get a couple more horses for the school. We've got a ton of oldsters who're pushing retirement and need to get new horses in to eventually replace them. Recent events have put a halt to getting any more horses, though. There's been a little epidemic of Strangles in Maryland. Strangles is kind of like the mumps. It's a rather contageous disease that swells the glands in a horse's throat and makes their nose run like Niagara Falls, among other things. On the plus side, if a horse gets strangles and gets over it, he's immune. Back in the 'olden days' you'd hope your horse got it when it was young. Just like with Chicken Pox in humans, it can do some really terrible things to older horses that get it. Fortunately strangles isn't as tremendous a deal as it was in the past, but it's still a serious thing. When it shows up in a barn, the barn is quarantined.
Add to that a 'mystery virus' that's killed 3 horses up at the Columbia horse center. Nobody knows just what it is, but the two leading suspects are West Nile and Herpes. Two horses in their 20's and one 8 year old gelding died up there. They're not letting anyone in or out of the place and even asked the owners of horses privately owned there to not visit their ponies.
With all that going on, Don isn't going to risk bringing in a new horse and potentially infecting the whole barn here. I don't blame him. I'm just glad he got Duncan when he did.
I'm feeling rather exhausted today and I don't know why. I think maybe all the walking around on Saturday (and getting wet in windy weather), plus the lost hour of sleep Saturday night, plus the work in the strong chilly wind yesterday just sucked all the energy out of me. I'm kind of feelin blechhy, too. Kinda pondering going home early today and spending some time in bed.
Finally! Don got the kids in his classes to give their opinions on the names that had been suggested. New Horse is now officially named Duncan. Someone quickly made up a sign and put it above his stall. Oddly, the kids apparently thought 'Duncan' was an Irish name. Owell, Ireland..Scotland...hey, they're both in close proximity to England and the inhabitants of both have accents which are easy to exaggerate. That's about as accurate as we Americans get when it comes to geography.
Don used Duncan in 3 classes on Saturday and some of the other instructors have used him, too. They all seem to agree that he's a very willing pony. He very much wants to do what you ask of him. He's inexperienced, though, so he's encountering a lot of new things. Turns out he tends to err on the side of caution and take unfamiliar things slowly, but he'll do 'em. Apparently, he's never jumped before, but Don tried him in a beginning jump class. The crossrails got a lot of looking at and he attentively watched the other horses going over 'em. When it was his turn, he came on up, then slowed. He didn't refuse, but eyeballed the jump, then hopped on over. On the other side, Don says, he perked up and looked all happy with himself, having figured out "hey! I can go over those things!" and went right on without hesitation after that. Looks like Don got another really good pony.
There's a little herd of deer that have hang around mostly in the woods near the barn. One doe in the group has a wonky left rear leg. The first time I saw her, I thought she'd lost her leg below the hock. Later sightings provided a better view and it's apparent that she does have an entire leg, it's just pretty malformed. It starts out okay at her hip. Somewhere just above the hock, though, it narrows quickly. The hock and lower leg are very tiny. There's even a little sorta hoof at the end. Perhaps she was born that way, or maybe she was injured when she was a fawn. It doesn't seem to slow her down any. She's too big to be a yearling so she's got to be at least 2. Obviously it's not hindering her survival. Being in a mostly predator-free area helps that too, I'm sure.
More specifically, the time Strother was on Saturday Night Live (way back when) and was in a skit where he was the leader of a French Camp for kids, spoofing the prison in Cool Hand Luke. Irina, who works full time as a hand at the barn, is Czech. She does a good job, but she's not the greatest speaker of English, which can lead to some confusion at times.
She also hates any deviation from the set routine she's developed over the years or when someone does something differently than she likes to do it. Yesterday was another example of the latter, when it was decided that none of the horses would be turned out overnight as they usually are after the Sunday trail rides. The torrential rain on Saturday had turned the pasture into a huge field of sloppy mud. The park service had parked a crane/shovel thingy at the barn last week so that they could dredge out the drainage pond, but they haven't done it yet. The pond is way past due, so all that rain didn't drain properly. Poking a stick down, the mud was close to 18" deep at one point near the pond.
Anyhoo, that meant that the stalls had to have fresh shavings put in. Not exactly rocket science. Ya shovel the shavings in and make sure things're covered well enough. Irina, though, believes that the shavings should all be piled around the edges of the stall. That way when someone forks manure and such out of the stall later, they can just move some in from the piles on the sides. Uh, well, that's convenient, but you kinda need some in the middle of the stall too. Horses do like to lay down sometimes and such. My shavings-shoveling technique was pointed out to be wrong a few times. Yeesh. I think she had another reason for the way she does it, but I couldn't make it out. Hence, the Strother Martin SNL skit reference:
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate....bilingually!"
I saw Ferian and Oryx on Saturday at a hamfest. WIth the heavy rain most of the tailgaters at the fest weren't out, but there were vendors and some indoor tailgaters. I successfully resisted, yet again, the urge to get an old oscilloscope. I gave in to temptation and did get an old Civil Defense radiation detection kit. No geiger counter, of course, but it does have a Victoreen radiation survey detector and a half dozen dosimeters and a charger for 'em. There's also the original manuals and usage guide, plus an additional manual added somewhere around the 80's on fallout shelter safety. All the equipment has the nifty ol CD logo on it.
I tried one of those bacon cheddar ranch chicken sandwiches from Burger King. Hey, I was hungry and it didn't sound bad, and it wasn't. I have to admit I rather liked it. I just wish there was some way I could conclusively prove that my desire to try it was NOT caused by the freaky, innuendo-laden, kinda sexist, and almost surreal disturbing commercial> that's been airing lately. (WARNING: There's some text language on that page, and there's sound from the commercial when it plays.) I do have to agree whole-heartedly with point #14 on the page.
There are still a few stalls empty at the barn and Don has been wanting to get a couple more horses for the school. We've got a ton of oldsters who're pushing retirement and need to get new horses in to eventually replace them. Recent events have put a halt to getting any more horses, though. There's been a little epidemic of Strangles in Maryland. Strangles is kind of like the mumps. It's a rather contageous disease that swells the glands in a horse's throat and makes their nose run like Niagara Falls, among other things. On the plus side, if a horse gets strangles and gets over it, he's immune. Back in the 'olden days' you'd hope your horse got it when it was young. Just like with Chicken Pox in humans, it can do some really terrible things to older horses that get it. Fortunately strangles isn't as tremendous a deal as it was in the past, but it's still a serious thing. When it shows up in a barn, the barn is quarantined.
Add to that a 'mystery virus' that's killed 3 horses up at the Columbia horse center. Nobody knows just what it is, but the two leading suspects are West Nile and Herpes. Two horses in their 20's and one 8 year old gelding died up there. They're not letting anyone in or out of the place and even asked the owners of horses privately owned there to not visit their ponies.
With all that going on, Don isn't going to risk bringing in a new horse and potentially infecting the whole barn here. I don't blame him. I'm just glad he got Duncan when he did.
I'm feeling rather exhausted today and I don't know why. I think maybe all the walking around on Saturday (and getting wet in windy weather), plus the lost hour of sleep Saturday night, plus the work in the strong chilly wind yesterday just sucked all the energy out of me. I'm kind of feelin blechhy, too. Kinda pondering going home early today and spending some time in bed.