Aspen

Here is a photo of my newest horse, Aspen. She is 3/4 Percheron
and 1/4 Tobiano (a kind of Paint -- obvious). Unfortunately, I
have not had a chance to Photoshop myself out of the picture,
but at least it gives you some scale.

Aspen is only 2 (a baby for a horse) and we assume from esoteric
horsey "rules of thumb" that she will probably grow another 4
inches. Hope she comes equipped with stairs :-)

KennyG, aka the Dogfather, is teasing me about being called
The Horse Father or The Pony Papa. I don't own ponies, but
it *is* alliterative :-) The other name evokes a certain scene
from the movie the Godfather. Yikes! I'll stick with riding them,
thanks.

Been Awhile :-)

Since me last, I bought, detoxed and sold an off the track thoroughbred horse named Zamaroo. When I got him, he was still on on steroids, knowing nada but running (very fast). He left sweet, trained and happy. He was sold him to a 12-year old girl who will pamper and love him. I will miss Zami, he taught me a lot. He particularly like me trimming his feets.

Ok, ok, Mr. Dogfather, the great KennyG of urban legend, has requested a baby picture of Malley, the baby pirate horse. Here she is at 1 year old:

I also have a new horse, a 3/4 Percheron, 1/4 Tobiano named Aspen. She is HYOOGE, mostly black with a couple of small white patches, white feet and tail and blue eyes. She is also a baby at 2 1/2 years old. She has some learning todo, but is a nice ride. I will try to get some pictures soon (I know, what are the chances - hahaha ).

Gracious

Folk have been asking to see the horse (mare) and baby horse. This is easier than schlepping them all out to the farm. Alas, no baby pix yet. These were taken Saturday, March 10, 2007 by my daughter. The mare is 16.3 hands at the withers (the bump behind her neck -- figure about 5'7") and is a 7 year old Hanoverian. Enjoy.

Midwinter stretch

I like the new layout. Hope my occasional blog pals like it too.

Have you seen http://postsecret.blogspot.com ? It is funny, poignant, sick -- all at the same time. Just thought I'd mention it as it is one of the best escape-but-I-am-not-alone sites I have seen.

Life continues in progress. Finally dug my daughter's car out of the ice at GMU yesterday. It had been encased for about a week. Temperatures have been low and it was easier, in the end, to use my old rock hammer and a prybar :-) It took about and hour and a half with the help of my strapping teenaged son (6'2", eyes o' blue).

The horses have been "trapped" in the barn for a week. We let them out into the indoor arena and they go wild. Exercise and just freedom to run rampant - for a few minutes. Then we feed them up and put them back in the stalls. They will be glad to be back in the pasture, eating grass and playing horsey games soon. My wifey and I drove down to Powhatan VA to get a saddle. We took 522, kind of like a back road (ok, not really, but smaller and slower than 29 to Lynchburg, more like Rt 1). It was all quite nice. Good to get out of town for awhile. May consider retiring to there....maybe, or somewhere like there anyway.

Work drones on. No dominoes, no lunches out. Some of this is because we have deadlines looming, but a lot is because the soul and energy seems to have left the place. I will have to try harder to make some new friends there but my heart is not currently in it. I wonder if I am having winter blues. Guess we'll see when Spring gets here and I don't have any excuses anymore. Could be a good time to get on with doing stuff I enjoy more. I mean, 6 weeks of vacation??!! So, what am I talking about? I'll have plenty of time to play - woohoo!!

See Mr. Harris, no grumpy stuff, no blog o' scorn.... :-)

Nothing much to say, just updating

It's so easy to not post :-) Hope everyone had a good Imbolc, Candlemas, Groundhog Day, whatever your celebration of mid-winter return of light, new beginnings and anticipation of Spring....

Ok, updates for those who give a .... care:

Sold the gelding to a woman near Richmond. If she cannot get him healthy for riding, she will give him to her neighbor who has agreed to "retire" him on her 100 acres of grass (with 4 other horses). Good karma there :-) Good bye, Baywatch - you will be missed. We are keeping the other 2, Gracie and Malley, who are much healthier and full of pep since it got cold -- no bugs!

Daughter made the Dean's List at college in her first semester. She has been invited to join an academic fraternity/sorority. Seems like what they exist for is scholarships...woohoo!!!

My good friend Kenny G, has returned to his ancestral working home at Argon ST, Inc. We will miss him and wish him luck. We also hope to see him occasionally at lunch :-)

Speaking of work, I have been invited to play at some higher level stuff with one of our customers (hint for KGG - he was a guest with DICE). Could be interesting. The shake ups at work continue and with chaos comes opportunity. I will wait and watch.

Everything else continues in its merry way. Later for now.