The skinny opalescent grey foal is now a handsome almost four-year-old. He is so small, he is always taken for a yearling. --And for a yearling, he is truly impressive. His beautiful mama died of colic earlier this year. She was such a wonderful horse.
So here it is, for people who don't think prayers are answered. The key is patience. Once there was a 7-year-old girl who prayed very hard for a pony. And every night, just for good measure, wished on the evening star. And only 60 years later, here she is with a beautiful paso fino pony. A little girl with her first horse.
Since I'm getting perilously close to the end of the course, I hope to be reincarnated somewhere in very good health and where there are lots of horses.
Horses are so different from dogs and cats. They have such a different communication and social context. It is best to be truly 'in the moment' and self-aware when in the company of a horse. They pick up on everything, and are ready for action based on their acute observations. One does not want to be in the way when someone weighing 1200 pounds or so decides to take an action you didn't see coming.
This weekend, there is a show of Andalusian horses on Saturday, and a show of Paso Fino horses on Sunday. Not sure how I'm getting over there. I'm going to start the praying now.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Thursday, November 8, 2012
some horses later
I couldn't bear to write the end of Black Beauty's story. It seems that dying horses will continue to walk and graze until they drop, and the next day of beet pulp and regular horse food never came for her. I heard she died near the malecon. So sad for such a beautiful horse.
Then the next year there was Filiberto a small unhandsome but cheerful fellow who happened into my yard. He had all the disfiguring signs of one who had been ridden too young. He was covered in ticks and needed grooming, but had shoes--an indicator that he belonged somewhere. A young man with fiery dark eyes came to claim him. "El caballo is mio!", but it turned out he was not the owner but the thief. He stole him first, fair and square.
Then there was Serenity and her yearling filly Zandi, just a gorgeous pair. Serenity was a big paso fino brown and Zandi a big beautiful bay. This became another sad story. They were stolen away from my yard. In her new home, Zandi gorged herself on sweet feed and died of colic. Serenity returned to the wild and I heard she had another bay foal at her side.
Now there is Isis, a small perfect, gentle, dark brown paso fino of mature years, smart, lovely and cagey. She came two years ago with a swollen belly--not worms. After a few months she appeared with a skinny little foal at her side, a luminescent pearly gray and tan with black and white tail and black mane. Isis' colt is named Horus and now a yearling bigger than his mom. They are both gentle and doing well, although they recently went walkabout for a couple of days.
I left the gates wide open for their return. I was worried that Isis would come back alone, but they arrived one night late togther with a friend, a big palomino stallion. In the morning, Isis and Horus were tired and dirty. Horus was all beaten up and scratched from his adventure. He is not wise in the ways of the wild horse. He has lived every day of his life up to now here being doted on by his mom and me, brushed and fed and loved. The big palomino I thought quite handsome. He clearly is enamored of Isis. It took me all day to get him out of the yard. He comes every day to gaze at Isis through the fence.
Who knows what happened in their absence? There may be another foal in a year.
Then the next year there was Filiberto a small unhandsome but cheerful fellow who happened into my yard. He had all the disfiguring signs of one who had been ridden too young. He was covered in ticks and needed grooming, but had shoes--an indicator that he belonged somewhere. A young man with fiery dark eyes came to claim him. "El caballo is mio!", but it turned out he was not the owner but the thief. He stole him first, fair and square.
Then there was Serenity and her yearling filly Zandi, just a gorgeous pair. Serenity was a big paso fino brown and Zandi a big beautiful bay. This became another sad story. They were stolen away from my yard. In her new home, Zandi gorged herself on sweet feed and died of colic. Serenity returned to the wild and I heard she had another bay foal at her side.
Now there is Isis, a small perfect, gentle, dark brown paso fino of mature years, smart, lovely and cagey. She came two years ago with a swollen belly--not worms. After a few months she appeared with a skinny little foal at her side, a luminescent pearly gray and tan with black and white tail and black mane. Isis' colt is named Horus and now a yearling bigger than his mom. They are both gentle and doing well, although they recently went walkabout for a couple of days.
I left the gates wide open for their return. I was worried that Isis would come back alone, but they arrived one night late togther with a friend, a big palomino stallion. In the morning, Isis and Horus were tired and dirty. Horus was all beaten up and scratched from his adventure. He is not wise in the ways of the wild horse. He has lived every day of his life up to now here being doted on by his mom and me, brushed and fed and loved. The big palomino I thought quite handsome. He clearly is enamored of Isis. It took me all day to get him out of the yard. He comes every day to gaze at Isis through the fence.
Who knows what happened in their absence? There may be another foal in a year.
Monday, October 13, 2008
the weather
So, the rainy season is upon us. I think we've gotten more than 10 inches of rain today. I am so glad this not snow! The avacados are ready on the trees now. Bananas and plantain are getting fat. The key limes are abundant. And cool weather means less than 80 degrees.
Ho, ho.
Ho, ho.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
walking for water
I used to see this when I was a kid, and I knew just when they would come. You know, the little pale yellow butterflies that flit about in the garden. Today the air was full of them in a unsymetrical flock, yet quite purposeful in their common direction. They were headed roughly northeast just above the rooftops.
It is such a joy to see them again, and I wonder why they don't come anymore to my home in the north.
Other than that, it is the third day with no water. I don't need a lot of water, so I can easily walk with five liter bottles and one empty bleach bottle. That is enough for very basic washing, drinking and cooking for me and one or two other folks that tend to turn up.
Easily, the butterflies are worth the walking for water.
It is such a joy to see them again, and I wonder why they don't come anymore to my home in the north.
Other than that, it is the third day with no water. I don't need a lot of water, so I can easily walk with five liter bottles and one empty bleach bottle. That is enough for very basic washing, drinking and cooking for me and one or two other folks that tend to turn up.
Easily, the butterflies are worth the walking for water.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
I have a horse
Well--not exactly. I have made the new acquaintance of a nice horse who looks like she is not long for the world. She is very very thin, and has a long wound on one side, as if someone slashed her with a machete, or something fell on her.
I have never seen such a thin horse, and obviously no one is caring for her. Her tail and mane are unkempt and unclipped. She is very dirty and moves slowly. She is in the barrio, grazing along the sides of the street where there is plenty of grass. She is, at least eating.
When I see her come by, I make a big bowl of oatmeal for her with water, and she drinks it right up. I tried a little molasses and cooking oil in it yesterday, which she did not seem to like as much as plain oatmeal.
She is a good gentle girl. I don't know why she has been abandoned. I suppose someone turned her out as a lost cause. I don't know what is the matter with her, outside of being so skinny and wounded. She is not lame.
When Monday comes, I'm going to look for beet pulp and regular horse food.
I have never seen such a thin horse, and obviously no one is caring for her. Her tail and mane are unkempt and unclipped. She is very dirty and moves slowly. She is in the barrio, grazing along the sides of the street where there is plenty of grass. She is, at least eating.
When I see her come by, I make a big bowl of oatmeal for her with water, and she drinks it right up. I tried a little molasses and cooking oil in it yesterday, which she did not seem to like as much as plain oatmeal.
She is a good gentle girl. I don't know why she has been abandoned. I suppose someone turned her out as a lost cause. I don't know what is the matter with her, outside of being so skinny and wounded. She is not lame.
When Monday comes, I'm going to look for beet pulp and regular horse food.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Feeling Marginalized this Morning
So, why not bail everybody out?
Reading about the proposed 700 billion financial bailout, and wondering how I might also get a bailout. I don't need 700 billion. Heck, I don't even need 1 billion, or any number even close to that. How many people are in similar situations that could be fixed for relatively small change?
I knew I shouldn't have taken that job. I knew it was headed for the outsourcer's pocket, but I needed it, and it paid well, and I was good at it. And I was over 40. It had an office with a window, and congenial workmates. And things were okay until the outsourcing happened.
Then we were competing directly with our third-world counterparts. ("Oh, you still have a job--but you have to work cheaper than the Indians.") The only problem there was that I didn't live in the third world, and my cost of living was vastly higher. As a "contractor" my income fell to 30% of what it had been, and my overhead was soaring. IT issues suddenly became my cost burden, leaving me working for as little as $1.00/hr at times.
When heating oil got to $2.00/gal, I turned off the heat and bundled up. It was February. Of course, we're a lot further down the road now. Now, $2.00/gal looks good.
I don't know what the cost of heating oil per gallon is these days because I got the brainy idea to move to a place where I would be able to live on what I was now making. I was by this time working on VPN from home, on my own equipment, with my own (ka-ching) internet connection, utilities, etc., struggling with providing my own IT support.
I visited my youngest now-grown son, living on an island in the Caribbean and saw what I thought was a way to make lemonade out of lemons. I bought a laptop on eBay and set up an office there, attempting to use the microwave internet connection then newly available. There was a latency issue, but it seemed there was some wiggle room. I had just spent a decade or more devising work-arounds for buggy poorly advised technology purchases by employers. I was really good at it.
I didn't have enough money saved to retire--ever--but I did have enough to move.
Further, I really didn't want to move to India, and this seemed a good alternative. I had family here, and it definitely wasn't cold. All I needed was a good internet connection. So, it seemed.
The bottom line was that there are known latency issues with VPN that would make it damn near impossible to work--as opposed to practically impossible up north. I say "known latency issues", but these were never acknowledged by my employer who kept insisting "it's on your end."
I have come to know that "it's on your end," is standard IT talk for "we don't intend to deal with it."
My particular line of work tends to produce nerve damage after a while, and coupled with a fall in December, I was laid up with a bruised foraminal nerve. This is spectacularly painful--and now there was no such thing as sick days, disability leave, or even medical care. My employer decided I wasn't "producing enough" to justify their VPN license expense. Nevermind I had spent ten times that amount trying to accommodate their system from "my end."
I got the sayanora email--not even a phone call--on a day when I literally had to crawl to the computer in excruciating pain. It was actually a relief to receive, because I was definitely going to try to work in that condition.
And you know what--except for the money thing--I don't miss that job. The job outlook is not bright here. There are not many, and what jobs there are go to local folk first. The average income here is $9000/yr.
So, if they're bailing out folks, I could use an infusion of cash here too.
Reading about the proposed 700 billion financial bailout, and wondering how I might also get a bailout. I don't need 700 billion. Heck, I don't even need 1 billion, or any number even close to that. How many people are in similar situations that could be fixed for relatively small change?
I knew I shouldn't have taken that job. I knew it was headed for the outsourcer's pocket, but I needed it, and it paid well, and I was good at it. And I was over 40. It had an office with a window, and congenial workmates. And things were okay until the outsourcing happened.
Then we were competing directly with our third-world counterparts. ("Oh, you still have a job--but you have to work cheaper than the Indians.") The only problem there was that I didn't live in the third world, and my cost of living was vastly higher. As a "contractor" my income fell to 30% of what it had been, and my overhead was soaring. IT issues suddenly became my cost burden, leaving me working for as little as $1.00/hr at times.
When heating oil got to $2.00/gal, I turned off the heat and bundled up. It was February. Of course, we're a lot further down the road now. Now, $2.00/gal looks good.
I don't know what the cost of heating oil per gallon is these days because I got the brainy idea to move to a place where I would be able to live on what I was now making. I was by this time working on VPN from home, on my own equipment, with my own (ka-ching) internet connection, utilities, etc., struggling with providing my own IT support.
I visited my youngest now-grown son, living on an island in the Caribbean and saw what I thought was a way to make lemonade out of lemons. I bought a laptop on eBay and set up an office there, attempting to use the microwave internet connection then newly available. There was a latency issue, but it seemed there was some wiggle room. I had just spent a decade or more devising work-arounds for buggy poorly advised technology purchases by employers. I was really good at it.
I didn't have enough money saved to retire--ever--but I did have enough to move.
Further, I really didn't want to move to India, and this seemed a good alternative. I had family here, and it definitely wasn't cold. All I needed was a good internet connection. So, it seemed.
The bottom line was that there are known latency issues with VPN that would make it damn near impossible to work--as opposed to practically impossible up north. I say "known latency issues", but these were never acknowledged by my employer who kept insisting "it's on your end."
I have come to know that "it's on your end," is standard IT talk for "we don't intend to deal with it."
My particular line of work tends to produce nerve damage after a while, and coupled with a fall in December, I was laid up with a bruised foraminal nerve. This is spectacularly painful--and now there was no such thing as sick days, disability leave, or even medical care. My employer decided I wasn't "producing enough" to justify their VPN license expense. Nevermind I had spent ten times that amount trying to accommodate their system from "my end."
I got the sayanora email--not even a phone call--on a day when I literally had to crawl to the computer in excruciating pain. It was actually a relief to receive, because I was definitely going to try to work in that condition.
And you know what--except for the money thing--I don't miss that job. The job outlook is not bright here. There are not many, and what jobs there are go to local folk first. The average income here is $9000/yr.
So, if they're bailing out folks, I could use an infusion of cash here too.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hello?
I was just pitching to my friend that she should start blogging. I don't know if she will take my advice, but since my advice is usually pretty good, I decided to take it myself.
My pitch to my friend was based on my observation that a first-person voice from her quarter is absent on the web, and so she should start.
I am not exactly sure what "my quarter" is, but I'm very passionate about a variety of issues that do not appear on the regular radar, if at all, in a way that I think is properly presented.
So--here goes!
My pitch to my friend was based on my observation that a first-person voice from her quarter is absent on the web, and so she should start.
I am not exactly sure what "my quarter" is, but I'm very passionate about a variety of issues that do not appear on the regular radar, if at all, in a way that I think is properly presented.
So--here goes!
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