Received From A Friend

That's my kind of family, all right.

Bacon As Public Art

Gotta love Nebraska.

Well, Whaddaya Know?

There really IS a pony under all that hair.

Note the Labrador Retriever behind him for a full appreciation of Milton The EvilPony's™ size -- or lack thereof.

That's Erin, the oh-so-patient hoofcare professional trimming the little monster's feet, getting down to his level rather than ruining her back.

Believe it or not, Milton has actually lost some weight since his 24x7 corn-vacuuming adventure last winter.

Well Insulated

Too well, actually.

Milton The EvilPony™ is officially on a diet.

Absolutely Hilarious

Courtesy of Fugly Horse Of The Day, we have the Shetland Pony Grand National:

I could so see Milton The EvilPony™ doing this.

Buy A Truck, Get A Gun

Classic Chevrolet in Omaha is running a promotion where you get a free rifle or shotgun when you buy a truck. Cool, and oh so delightfully politically incorrect!

UPDATE: Heard the commercial again this morning, and it's the Classic Chevrolet dealership in Council Bluffs, not Omaha. The free gun offer is with any vehicle purchase, Chevrolets or Cadillacs.

Everybody's Good At Something

Despite all of his natural obnoxiousness, Milton The EvilPony™ is a trailer-loading champ.

Yes, he uses cute as a weapon.

Must Have Been The Witchcraft

Courtesy of Breda.

You are 1% hippie.

Ok, you conservative soul. Do you even believe in global warming? Loosen that necktie a little, and try some organic food. It actually does taste better. And go to a farmer's market--they're fun.

Are you a hippie?
Take More Quizzes

Your Very Own Zombie

Gnomes are lame. Your very own Garden Zombie, though, now that's cool.

ThinkGeek does it again.

Guilty Pleasures

Why should Jay G and LabRat have all the fun? Here's a list of my guilty pleasures:

• DVD NCIS-a-thons, best on nasty-weather weekends. Between the 5-disc changer, the DVD-VCR combo, and the high-def player, I can watch a whole season and then some without having to hoist my butt off the couch.
• The old Roberta Williams-Sierra Online "King's Quest" game series, especially "King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride." Virtualization using VMware vCenter Converter and VMware Player (both free downloads) lets me run obsolete software in its true native OS as guests of a current operating system.
• Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake and Merry Gentry books. I have 'em all, in both dead-tree and electronic formats. Now, between eReader and Kindle for Android, I can take the whole collection with me wherever I go.
• Eating this cold, right out of the package. 'Nuff said.

I'm so ashamed.

I Write Like . . .

Now this is probably the last result I would have expected.

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Trauma-Free Trailer Training

Judge's ear melanoma has gone weird, so the vet wants to remove it and send it in for histopathology. As long as he's taking that one, he's going to remove the other melanoma on Judge's tail as well. That necessitates trailering Judge to the vet clinic about 30-odd miles away.

Judge has only been trailered once, when he was moved to where he's living now from the place where he was born. That was several years ago. Since I like to stack the deck for success whenever possible, we spent the day today doing Trailer Loading 101.

We pulled my trailer into a safely-fenced area so I could use free-shaping to get Judge calmly loading himself. I brought some of my other horses in as well, since loading like ladies and gentlemen is an essential skill. Milton The EvilPony™ is a trailer loading champ and could come in handy to give an uncertain horse a lead. Funny how even the worst little snot around has something he does really well.

By clicking and rewarding the slightest effort made in a positive direction, Judge was soon loading himself with no physical coercion at all. No halter, no lead rope, no drama.

It really helps to have a trailer that's big and airy enough for the horses to feel comfortable. Judge is a solid 16 hands, and in my 7'8" tall, extra wide trailer he has plenty of room.

Sarge was especially fun to work with. In about ten minutes, he would load himself when I told him, "Load up." He would stand in his proper spot, then turn around when asked, walk to the top of the ramp, wait until I told him it was okay, then walk down the ramp and stop at the bottom. Then I had to put him back out with the other horses because he kept loading and unloading himself and getting in the way.

Hopefully Judge will have smooth, stress-free trips to and from the vet, with Milton along for company. Once he gets there, well, I don't expect that part to be so pleasant.

Maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy playing with my horses, seeing how each one learns and the different activities they like over others, and learning how their minds work far more than riding them.

Jury Duty!

Just got a letter informing me I am summoned for federal court jury duty for the entire month of August. Fortunately, they don't make jurors sit in a room twiddling their thumbs every single day any more, but have them be on call. Still, they say I need to inform them of any prior committments so they can adjust my availability schedule accordingly.

I do, in fact, have two prior committments on my calendar for August: the annual Machhine Gun Shoot in Kearney, and a four-day training class taught by Massad Ayoob.

If I have to tell them why I need exemptions for those dates, it could be amusing . . .

Yet Another Reason Why I Like Linux

From an actual Linux distro man page:

5. Use step 4 and if the problem persists and is not secondary to a rogue program/daemon, get a 3.5 ft (approx. 1 meter) length of sucker rod* and have a chat with the user in question.

. . .

* Sucker rod def. - 3/4, 7/8 or 1in. hardened steel rod, male threaded on each end. Primary use in the oil industry in Western North Dakota and other locations to pump 'suck' oil from oil wells. Secondary uses are for the construction of cattle feed lots and for dealing with the occasional recalcitrant or belligerent individual.

For the non-geeks in the audience, a man page is a form of online help (i.e. a "manual page") that comes with Linux/UNIX operating systems. Snicker.

How To Catch A Horse

Trainers get lots of calls from people who can't catch their horses. I thought I'd post a short video to show how it's done.

Dramamine Warning: This is my very first attempt at video recording. It was made on my phone (Motorola Droid) while walking over rough ground in a high wind. No way to mount a tripod.

Sarge recently skinned up his scar but good, and I have to treat it every day again. That's pretty much all I'm doing with him right now, so he knows perfectly well what's coming when I show up. Even though he's not crazy about being treated, the quality of our relationship is such that he still comes willingly when I call him.

That's the key. If you have a foundation of mutual respect and understanding, everything else just works.

And You Thought My Range Bag Was Bad

When I went through my range bag for this meme, I couldn't help wondering if some laws of physics weren't being violated when I packed everything back in. Unfortunately, that's not my only overstuffed crap carrier.

I have horses, and horses require grooming. Grooming requires assorted currycombs, brushes, and other implements. Lots of them.

Behold the horror that is the contents of my brush box:

Believe it or not, I really use all of that on my herd. No two items fill the exact same purpose. All the brushes are natural fibers only, from rice root and union fiber to pig bristle and goat hair. Synthetic brushes don't remove the dirt, they only push it around.

There's a lot of crossover between dog and horse grooming, hence the rakes, English Greyhound-style, and flea combs. Nothing like a flea comb to get the last little crud crumbs out of a horse's ears or armpits.

Just like my ridiculous range bag, everything actually does fit:

There's even room left for the couple of items that escaped and are currently AWOL somewhere inside my car.

"My name is Hecate, and I'm addicted to horse brushes."

"Hello, Hecate."

Oh Yeah, It's Spring All Right

The hair, the hair is everywhere.

That's what I got with one swipe of the rubber curry.

Take THAT, PEG*heads!

* PEG*heads = Protest Easy Guns

It's a beautiful day (finally!) and I'm sitting here at Starbucks, blogging on my netbook over their Wi-Fi, with a 1911 in Condition 1 on my hip.

And it's not jumping out of the holster all by itself and shooting up the place. Funny, that.

Irish Appreciation Day

My genetic heritage is pure Slavic, but over the years I've had many Greyhounds with Irish bloodlines. Ireland has so far resisted the demonization of all hunting, and the persistence of coursing is reflected in the quality of their hounds.

Irish Thoroughbreds are also legendary, and two of my current horses have Irish ancestors.

So in honor of Judge and Sarge, and in loving memory of Dubh, Jessie, Duke, Jolie, and all the others from great Irish breeding in the past, tonight we're having Irish stew made with Guinness. May Brigid forgive me.

BAG Day 2010

Jay G reminds us that Buy A Gun Day is a little over a month away.

Makes me wonder if these will be on the shelves by then.