Checking in after being on vacation with a road trip for most of the past week. Our itinerary included Horse Progress Days in Arcola, IL, which was awesome. Something like 3 football fields' worth of Amish buggies parked wheel to wheel, buggy horses tied to a field-long hitching post, and several acres of cars and trucks from people like me. Besides all the vendors, there were demonstrations of horse-drawn equipment used for Amish farming, organic produce farming, and much more. I got some interesting video of horses pulling a haybine and big round baler; it was really amazing some of the equipment that they have invented to place and remove/roll up long black mulch plastic on the produce farm rows. I had never realized how much work that would be to do it by hand; these inventions loosen the edges, and pull it up and roll it on a spool (either motorized - 2 horses to pull, or ground-driven - 1 horse to pull) and shake off the dirt while doing all that so that it makes a nice, clean, tidy, reusable roll.
Also saw a demonstration of a six-horse team of Percherons being ridden Roman style, and got some video of that. If I can figure out how to post it, I'll do so. It was really amazing. The guy is here:
Home Page One of the 'wheel horses' that he rides is 18.2 hands - DH took pics of me standing next to this big fella, and the top of my head was about halfway up his shoulder. I am a sucker for Percherons....and Shires.... and Black Clydesdales....and now also a sucker for miniature Haflingers after seeing some in Illinois (didn't even know there were such a thing!).
Critter, glad you got things squared away with BO. Might want to put that in writing and sign and date it; better yet, have her sign it, too!
Farmchic, your barn is lovely. You've done a great job!
Stan, you're hopefully on your trek already, and having a fun by the time I am writing this. We're all anxious for you to have a great adventure, just enough of a thrill but not too much of a thrill. I hope Bugs works out well for you, with all that he has the potential to be.
Alex, I hear you about football. What is it about football? If we made our kids run into each other in any other setting and concuss their growing brains and wrench their muscles and ligaments and tendons it would be child abuse. But since it's football, it's okay. I hope Kid 1 proves to be able to outrun all the other guys.... or is the QB. At the very least, if he gets hurt you can pull the mom card and make him sit out until you and his doctor are satisfied he's ready to play again. I don't trust coaches and trainers to protect our kids, especially in the case of concussions. Just sayin', I have personal experience from soccer when my son had a concussion and they put him back in the game as if it was nothing.
Celeste, we aren't having mud but we have dry, dry ground and they're stamping flies...so I have one shoe lost as well. Such a pain. I know I'd be aggravated with mud but right now I'd gladly put up with sucked-off shoes; it looks like we're in for another drought-y summer. Farmers have one cutting of hay, some of which got rained on because there just weren't 3 days without rain until this past weekend. Most don't think they'll get a second cutting and folks from Colorado are already reaching out to Kansas and western MO farmers for hay to buy and transport.
Country Woman, it's good to see you back online more often. We missed you and it's good to hear your encouraging comments!