Something, nothing, everything. Mostly horses.
What is your horse thinking? How does fear work in horses’ brains and why do they spook seemingly at random? This article goes in-depth with equine fear: What is your horse thinking?
Note: I disagree with the article on one count: The leader principle where you establish yourself as the horse’s leader and make it move out of your space. I’d rather have the horse accept me as a wiser member of the herd and want to be in my space. But apart from that, this is a really interesting article.
So, they took off the sling yesterday and replaced it with a hard plastic harness that’s to keep the two halves of my upper arm bone in place until they grow back together. It’s awkward, it rather hurts, and I feel like I’m wearing an imperial stormtrooper’s pauldron. I am also bored as heck, and this is why I dug out another ten random horse funnies that were sitting around in my archives. Don’t worry, I have quite a few left.
1: Anatomy of the horse
Sounds about right to me. Might add ‘mud collectors’ for feathered hooves like those of my Friesian, though.
2: By the weekend
Well, maybe by New Years in my case. With a bit of luck anyway!
3: Deliberate mistakes
I’ve certainly had this teacher. And on a side note, who does not love Thelwell ponies? Not loving this artist is sacrilege unto Poneh!
4: Don’t pee on the fence!
This picture was probably snapped just as the pony turned around. That’s one amazing mane, though!
5: Duckface is too mainstream
Yes, yes, it is. Duck faces belong on ducks. And on horses who have learned the “smile” trick.
6: Hello?
I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it sure seems interesting!
7: That angle…
We’ve all been there. First you fly off and do a faceplant in the mud, then you look up to a pair of concerned brown eyes asking what the heck you’re doing down there.
8: So very true!
This is no more true than this time of year when the paddocks are wet and deep and the horses always seem to find the wettest, deepest holes to roll in.
9: This one’s just bizarre.
Tumblr is a very strange place.
10: Horse gonna horse
And to finish this installment of What The Drawer Hid, let’s have another gorgeous Frisian.
Like last time, these are images people have sent to me in email and on Facebook over time. If you are the owner, or know who is the proper owner, of one of the images, please let me know so I can give proper links and credits.
Two weeks with a broken arm and I am going nuts with boredom and looking through my digital archives for entertainment. Now proudly presenting ten funny horse pictures that have somehow ended up on my hard drive.
1: Is My Horse OK?
Dina Hjort sent me this one after I broke my arm in the fall. She ain’t all wrong, I think I was more worried about Pilar than about myself.
2: Reality check
You’ve seen this one before but it doesn’t get more true than this. Every horse owner knows this.
3: Bitch, I’m fabulous!
It’s a Friesian with flowing mane and tail doing a leap. I ain’t arguing.
4: For Fast Riders…
This one makes the round on the net every month. I still laugh every time.
5: Halloween
Yes, yes. It was just Halloween and besides, we don’t even officially celebrate this holiday in Denmark (though commercial interests are working hard to change that). I just love that horse’s face.
6: Bordering on cruelty
A friend sent me this one. I made him swear not to tell Pilar about it. She loves to dress up for attention and get, well, attention and a metric buttload of treats. She will want one of these in pink and she will never let me take it off.
7: Yikes!
The caption reads: “This is an extremely cheap way to castrate a stallion…” to which the lady replies, “You could probably switch the carrot for a beer and the stallion with…”
8: Argh.
Everyone who ever took care of a grey or other light coloured horse knows this one. Too well.
9: Yeah, I noticed…
I sort of felt like that when I went flying. Only, you know, this sign is somewhere in the US and not on our paddock. But if it had been, I woulda. Yes.
10: Has Talent…
Nobody’s perfect.
Credit where credit is due: If you are the owner of one of the used images, please contact me for proper credits.
Alvin managed to snap a pretty great still of Louise and Pilar tonight! They were practising cordeo riding for the first time — Pilar’s not accustomed to being ridden bareback and certainly not without head tack. However, barring this little incident, it went absolutely fantastic.
Counting the days until I get the sling off my arm which, by the by, resembles the Swedish flag. The novelty of one-handedness is wearing off pretty fast, but it is absolutely awesome to have so many people willing to help out with the poneh.
Thank the gods for helpful friends, small blessings, and little grey pills. Those were pretty much the thoughts on my mind when the figurative dust settled and I was alone in the dark in my hospital bed. Nothing’s so bad it couldn’t be a whole lot worse.
My otherwise very cool headed horse spooked and bolted, bucking. I found myself testing gravity which turned out to be working as intended. As I hit the ground my first thought was, at least it’s dry; landing in mud isn’t all that pleasant, particularly not in winter. No, actually, that was my second thought. My first went something like, OH PINEAPPLING CRANBERRY, this is going to HURT!
It did. For about thirty seconds everything in creation revolved around trying to breathe in spite of my lungs trying to escape through my abdomen.
I managed to roll onto my back and noticed out of the corner of my eye that my arm didn’t roll along. Dislocated shoulder, fantastic. I was immediately reminded of stories about how much it hurts to have a shoulder pushed back in place. Then I realized that I could not move my arm and mentally added broken arm to the list.
My recollection of the next minutes are a little hazy. Somebody caught my horse and returned her to pasture. Somebody called an ambulance. The ambulance guys poked me everywhere to check for spinal damage and waved fingers in my face to test for concussions. A lot of bad jokes were made because laughter sure is preferable to crying. The ambulance guy gave me a shot of morphine before loading me onto the stretcher, and another before we drove off on the dirt road, the oh so bumpy dirt road. Somewhere in the middle of this my shoulder snapped back in place, but thank you, sweet morphine, I didn’t notice. I got a third shot before x-rays so that I didn’t try to kill the radiology nurses for moving my arm around.
Now I sit typing with my left hand only and thank the powers that be for helpful friends. Everything is difficult in my drugged state, and people have stepped up all over to offer assistance. At times like this one remembers how important it is to have a solid network of friends, how important it is to be part of a community where helping each other out is the natural choice.