Picture Musings

A friend gave me this neat frame for Christmas, basically, it's four different shapes of frames arranged together in a sort of square shape, like this:



Except the pictures in the lower left and upper right are square and there's a bit of space in the middle and the frames sort of overlap each other. But you get the idea!

Anyway, they put a picture of me riding Kieran outdoors last winter in one frame, him playing with the horse soccer ball in another, us at the Howard county show in hand in the third, and him making a funny face for the camera in the fourth. It's really cute. I had it at home, but it was in a sort of out of the way spot, so I brought it to work. I don't even have to turn my head much to look at it and there's Kieran!

It's funny, but just looking at pictures of my horse makes me feel irrationally happy. :)

First...a rant

Okay, I'm going to get to talking about my weekend but first....

If you are the owner of a horse rescue, one presumes you understand the concept of, "if you, personally, do not have enough money to get the horse, you probably don't have enough money, personally, to KEEP the horse." It's a decent rule of thumb (though of course, doesn't hold so much when you start talking about, say....upper four figure and up horses). Heck, if you were to have a potential adopter that starts talking about, "well....I'm going to need to get a bunch of people to loan me some money so I can adopt the horse" I would HOPE you'd say, "uh...actually...no, you don't get a horse" or at least consider the possibility that maybe it isn't the right home.

That's not really my rant.

My rant is this: if you're the owner of a rescue and you want a horse for your own PERSONAL use....well, you need to use your own PERSONAL money to procure said horse.

What do you not need to do?

You need to not get your supporters to DONATE YOU THEIR MONEY so that you can get a horse for your own PERSONAL use!

My mind. It is blown.

No, I won't say who it is here. But I don't understand how someone could blithely talk about this and....NO ONE CALLED THIS PERSON OUT.

Does that seem right to you?

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And now, here, my weekend:

We went camping! It was cool! (except for the rain, and Christa's near-stomping-by-horse experience and Kieran being a bit of a PITA for the first part of the second ride.)

Here, have pictures!










Kieran would look SO CUTE right there if David wasn't in the way!

The Great Helmet Debate

Just something I was thinking about this morning.

Someone I know has said in the past, basically, that if a horse wasn't safe enough he could put his kids on it without helmets, he didn't want it.

Now, it's not quite so surprising to hear he's not interested in helmets when you think that they ride Western, basically, and wearing helmets really isn't at all part of Western riding culture. And if he doesn't want to wear a helmet, I sincerely hope he never needs to. But it does seem crazy to me, a bit, he's not encouraging his kids to wear helmets. I wonder if they ride bikes and whether he makes them wear helmets then.

And it's not really that. The horses he was referring to and their suitability as "safe" horses isn't in question. I mean, they're some of the safest, most "bombproof" horses I know. I should know, I was riding one of them when her bridle broke on a downhill, narrow slope, as the train was coming not yards away.

Hell, I trust my horse to let me do all kinds of things I wouldn't do with just any horse. He's safe, really safe. And I ride him wearing a helmet. I mean, I've been on him without a helmet, but those occasions are few and far between and generally for a specific purpose (like a photoshoot). I really trust him not to take advantage and he's so far shown himself worthy of that trust.

But that doesn't mean he won't have a bad day, that we won't find something that really will spook him into a panic (it could happen! Swarm of bees, anyone?). It doesn't mean that, out trail riding, he won't trip and go down. It doesn't mean I won't do something dumb and fall off (even the best riders do). There's a reason there's that folk wisdom that says you're not a "real" rider until you've fallen off a hundred times (I'm not nearly there yet).

And all of those things are things that could happen even with a safe, reliable, trustworthy horse with no spook.

It just seems ridiculous to me to suggest that you don't need a helmet to protect your head because the horse is safe.

It seems ridiculous to me to forgo a very simple precaution that could save your life and costs you very little in terms of time or money (my helmet cost less than $50). Yes, I wear my seatbelt in the car, too. I learned my lesson on that one.

I like my brainz. I'd like to keep them around a while.

Blargh

I haven't been up to see Kieran since last Wednesday. I could've gone on Friday but I had stuff I really needed to take care of at home. It's highly unlikely I'll get up there tonight. Maybe I'll be able to squeeze in time tomorrow between work and my class in the evening but I'm not holding my breath.

Which means I likely won't get up there again until Wednesday. Bah. I said I wasn't going to be one of those horse owners who only comes to see their horse once a week. I've just got way too much stuff going on right now, it seems like.

Of course, the renaissance festival will be over this weekend and after that I can get up there on weekends again, which will help. And I should be done with class in December so once all that is past, I'll have my weeknights free again.

Just. Bah.

It probably doesn't help that it's getting dark so early (and it's only going to continue doing so) and it just went from "oh maybe this is autumn" to "oh HAI THAR WINTER, IT BE COLD NOW". I've been sucking down the hot chocolate and soup and put the warming mattress pad thingy on my bed last night and at least when I do go up to the barn I'll have a new (to me) pair of winter Mountain Horse paddock boots to keep my toesies warm.

Anyway, I guess I need to figure out better time management methods for the, uh, time being.

It would probably be easier if he was boarded closer to me (my drive is nearly an hour, round trip) but what with takings lessons on him for the time being there and the barn having an indoor (hence why I wanted to board him there through the winter) and me liking the folks he's with...I don't plan on moving him before spring. Of course, the fact I like the folks he's with is a big part of my time suck when I go to the barn. We always end up talking. Or I'll be like, "hmm, stalls need doing, let me do that..." and suddenly my plan to drive up, bring the boy in, groom and ride and toss him back out turns into a much longer to-do than I'd planned on. Oops.

I should put up the nice pics I got of him in his new Rambo Newmarket cooler. He looks so handsome in it! (I may be biased).