thedrafthorse

Blue Star Equiculture

2009-04-16T11:25:00.003-04:00

Once again, I must post and comment on how I haven't posted in a long while. Alas...

Fortunately, my reasons for not posting are most excellent.

They're named Bud, Mike, Jesse, Peggy, Huey, TLa, Dakota, Petey, Madison, Mooch and Cupcake. They live in Palmer, Massachusetts, and are residents under the care of Blue Star Equiculture.

What, you may ask, is Blue Star Equiculture?

Well, BSE is a non-profit draft horse sanctuary and organic farm founded in January by Pamela Rickenbach and Christina Hansen (that would be me).

You can check out our (still underconstruction) website here and our blog here.

We're drafting a better future for horses, humans and Mother Earth!

If you like what you see over at Equiculture, please sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop about our goings on.

(Next post, I'll return to carriage driving in Philadelphia, though Blue Star Equiculture is now the retirement home for two 76 Carriage Company carriage horses.)

Excuse me?

2009-03-03T07:49:00.004-05:00

I was working on Sunday, and a group of three women walked past. My coworker asked them if they wanted a ride. They said, "No, thanks."

I chimed in as they passed me, "Well, if you change your mind, tours start at $30 for all three of you."

That actually got them to stop. I continued to explain all the aspects of the carriage rides. Two of the women were like, "OK, we'll see... We're going to go in the visitor's center." Which is fine. We're all being polite here.

Then the third woman--the youngest--screws up her face and asks, "Are these horses well-taken care of? I mean, do they get all the proper care and food and stuff?"

I'm so tired of that. It's not like she said, "You can tell this horse is well-taken care of," or "What kind of care does this horse get that he looks so good?" Her question was laced with the whole carriage-horses-AREN'T-taken-care-of-properly smugness of an outsider who has only read the anti-carriage propaganda.

So I straightened myself up, looked her right in the eye and asked her, "What kind of person do you think I am? Do you honestly think I would do this job if the horses weren't being taken care of?"

"I don't know," she stammered, "I don't know you. I don't know what kind of person you are."

"Well, look at Tomahawk," I continued, "Does he look like he's well-fed?"

She nodded.

"Does he look like he's well-groomed?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, what about him would make you ask me if he was well taken care of?"

She struggled for an answer. "Um... He's wearing harness."

"So?"

She didn't have an answer for that.

Since when is wearing a harness a bad thing? It's no different from a saddle or a bridle or a bareback pad or a surcingle or an Indian wedding costume...

Blue Star Equiculture

2009-02-23T21:45:00.004-05:00

In January, signed up for nanowrimo's "Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together" but I had no idea things were going to be this Big, Fun (and Scary)!

My friend, Pam Rickenbach, who runs Stardust Organics and used to drive a carriage with me in Philadelphia (where she was Tom's Mom), recently met a wonderful benefactor named Sandy. Sandy is interested in organic gardening, which is how she met Pam's partner, Glenn. Glenn told her about Pam's work with draft horses (Pam also has the great and awesome Bud in his retirement).

Before we knew it, we had a plan for a draft horse rescue / sanctuary and organic farm on 150 acres in Palmer, Massachusetts.

I'm very thankful to Pam for including me in this.

Here's our mission statement:

Our Mission is to provide homeless working horses a sanctuary and the opportunity to be useful and positively improve their lives, while bringing education, equine awareness, skills and healing to the community.

Blue Star Equiculture is a vision born out of the hearts of like-minded individuals who feel the need to respond to the current, increasingly dire situation facing homeless horses, especially working draft horses.

To be honest, the Jethro Tull song, "Heavy Horses," posted below, is really the mission statement.

HUMAN HISTORY IS WRITTEN IN HOOFPRINTS.

Check back for more.

Our website (still under construction) is www.equiculture.org

Heavy Horses -- Jethro Tull

2009-01-29T10:54:00.006-05:00

In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
As the heavy horses thunder by
To wake the dying city
With the living horseman's cry

At once the old hands quicken ---
Bring pick and wisp and curry comb ---
Thrill to the sound of all
The heavy horses coming home.

I'm posting this song today for two reasons.

1.) My friend Pam of Stardust Organics is pursuing a project to promote draft horses and carriage horses as both living history and our living future.

2.) Up in New York, my carriage driving brethren have a hearing tomorrow on two bills in NYC City Council. One proposes to ban all horse carriages in NYC. The other would give the carriage horses and drivers a fare raise. You can read more about it at these blogs: centralparkcarriagehorses and thewhiffletreenyc

Heavy horses
By jethro tull

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
On October's day, towards evening
Sweat-embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest, seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day's toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.

The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
With the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk
To bed on a warm straw coating.

Heavy horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free
Now you're down to the few
And there's no work to do
The tractor's on its way.

Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed
To keep the old line going.
And we'll stand you abreast at the back of the woods
Behind the young trees growing
To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth,
Youre eighteen hands at the shoulder

And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry
And the nights are seen to draw colder
Theyll beg for your strength, your gentle power
Your noble grace and your bearing
And youll strain once again to the sound of the gulls
In the wake of the deep plough, sharing.

Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
Up into the cold wind facing
In stiff battle harness, chained to the world
Against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A heavy horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Bring a song for the evening
Clean brass to flash the dawn
Across these acres glistening
Like dew on a carpet lawn
In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
As the heavy horses thunder by
To wake the dying city
With the living horseman's cry

At once the old hands quicken ---
Bring pick and wisp and curry comb ---
Thrill to the sound of all
The heavy horses coming home.

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
On October's day, towards evening
Sweat-embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest, seasoning
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A heavy horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Heavy horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free
Now you're down to the few
And there's no work to do
The tractor's on its way.

Audio-visual equestrian puns

2009-01-27T18:04:00.003-05:00

Anybody else notice that Anky and Saliniero are piaffing to Piaf?

(For those not in the dressage know, the piaffe is where the horse trots in place. And Edith Piaf? Well she's French! The song used at the beginning and the end of this kur is "Je ne regrette rien.")

P.S. This video is from the 2006 World Equestrian Games. We can't wait until the 2010 World Equestrian Games come to Lexington! Whee!

L'hiver viendra, les gars, l'hiver viendra

2009-01-26T22:17:00.007-05:00

Le jument de Michao, elle s'en repentira...

Right now, Bubba the Round is on turnout. Jean-Leo over at Percheron-International recently published a post about Breton draft horses. I think they look an awful lot like Bubba. (Or, rather, Bubba looks a lot like a Breton draft horse, particularly the rounder specimens.)

You can be the judge of Bubba's parentage. I found this lovely video of Bretons on youtube (you will also note the large numbers of people wearing white shirts and black vests):

The music in the video is a traditional Breton song called "Le Jument de Michao."

Here are the lyrics:

Et dans dix ans je m'en irai
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter
Et dans dix ans je m'en irai
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter

J'entends le loup, le renard et la belette
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter
J'entends le loup, le renard et la belette
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter

Et dans dix ans je m'en irai
Et dans dix ans je m'en irai

La jument de Michao et son petit poulain
Sont passés dans le pré, ont mangé tout le foin
La jument de Michao et son petit poulain
Sont passés dans le pré, ont mangé tout le foin

L'hiver viendra les gars, l'hiver viendra
La jument de Michao, elle s'en repentira
L'hiver viendra les gars, l'hiver viendra
La jument de Michao, elle s'en repentira

Translation:

In ten years I'm going to leave
I hear the wolf and the fox singing
In ten years I'm going to leave
I hear the wolf and the fox singing.

I hear the wolf, the fox, and the weasel
I hear the wolf and the fox singing
I hear the wolf, the fox, and the weasel
I hear the wolf and the fox singing

In ten years I'm going to leave
In ten years I'm going to leave

The mare of Michao and her little foal
Passed through the pasture and ate up all the hay
The mare of Michao and her little foal
Passed through the pasture and ate up all the hay

Winter is coming, boys, winter is coming
The mare of Michao is going to be sorry for it
Winter is coming, boys, winter is coming
The mare of Michao is going to be sorry for it.

Bubba spends all of his waking hours attempting to eat all the hay wherever he is.

This is the time of year when bad weather forces the carriage horses to either go on turnout or to stay in the barn. And it's when metaphorically we regret all the hay we ate in the field and didn't leave for the winter. A snow storm is coming in the next couple of days, so it looks like it's going to be at least Thursday before anyone does any work.

(Meanwhile, Bubba is out in Lancaster County eating so much hay that, if it's anything like last year, he won't be able to fit in the shafts come spring. If there's anything Bubba will repent for, it will be for getting so fat he'll have to go on a diet.)

On a tangentially related note:

We heard our own "wolf" Rinnie the German Shepherd singing yesterday afternoon when Noodle locked him in one of the stalls outside. I think Noodle was tired of Rinnie chasing him all the time.

Rinnie last year.

Some pics of Bubba from this summer:

Arctic Exercize

2009-01-17T18:24:00.004-05:00

Tom trots 'round...

...and 'round...

...and 'round...

...and 'round...

It was 18 degrees yesterday in Philadelphia, so all of the carriage horses at 76 were tucked snugly in their nice, warm stalls inside the barn. It was so cold outside that there was ice on the insides of the wooden barn doors where the condensation from the horses' breath had frozen to it. And the horses put off enough heat that my glasses steamed up when I went in from the mid-teens temperatures after having free-longued Tom.

Regardless of the weather, though, the horses must get their exercize rather than being cooped up all the time, so I spent yesterday walking and longuing the 11 horses that aren't on turnout right now. It frigid enough, though, that even the most enthusiastic of yard-goers was ready to return to the warmth after only 10 to 15 minutes of exercize.

All this frozen tundra-cize must have worked up an appetite, though, because the boys were more than ready for their feed, supplemented by a nice warm bran mash. (Or maybe they're all just hungry as a, um, horse.)

Trump, Rex, Tom and Bill eagerly await their hot dinners.

This was the kind of happy day with the horses that reaffirms my belief that I have the coolest (and at times the coldest) job in the world.

Tomorrow we'll be back downtown, after being confined to the barn since Tuesday, because it shall be a balmy 35.

Random Philadelphia history

2009-01-14T22:30:00.002-05:00

"Wissahickon" means either "stream of yellowish color" or "catfish creek" in the Lenape language.

"Moyamensing" means "bird droppings."

Winter in Philadelphia and New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-14T10:45:00.003-05:00

This is the time of year
when we sustain ourselves on
fantasies of summer.

After the big holiday season and a week and a half vacation in ol' Kentucky, I'm back in Philadelphia with several days ahead with temperatures and windchills not rising out of the low to mid-20s, which means no carriages on the street.

Hopefully, therefore, I can spend some time cleaning and unpacking and otherwise working on my Big, Fun, Scary goals for 2009 (sponsored by nanowrimo.org.

Here's my list (at the moment):

LIVING MORE HEALTHFULLY
1. Cut the soda habit.
2. Take lunch to work instead of buying cheesesteaks downtown.
3. Cook dinner more at home, at least on the weekdays (with leftovers for my long weekend days). Try at least two new recipes per month.
4. Grow basil at home.
5. Eat fruit every day.
6. Stretch every day.

CONNECT WITH HORSE PEOPLE
7. Submit pictures of Philadelphia percherons to Jean-Leo's blog, percheron-international.blogspot.com.
8. Look into joining professional organizations like CONA or the CAA.
9. Reconnect with my vaulting group and / or find a place to take horseback riding lessons.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
10. Continue to be involved in the Association of Philadelphia Tourguides. Run for office, design a logo, build our website.
11. Design and order some rockin' business cards from Zazzle.com.
12. Learn one thing about Philadelphia everyday.
13. Go some place new in Philly or surroundings each week.
14. Look into getting a killer historic frock coat by summer season.

CREATIVITY
15. Clean off art table so I can actually use it. Create something at least once a week.
15a. In the process of creating something every week over the course of the year, do a portrait (any medium) of each of my equine friends. (That's 20 horses we currently own, plus one retired and three departed for 24 total.)
16. Try to finish either Nano2007 or Nano2008 by October.
17. Further work on my website, thedrafthorse.com and thedrafthorse blog. One breed entry per week on my draft horse breed reference, and three blog entries per week on drafthorse.blogspot.com.
18. Learn Macromedia Freehand to create more designs for my cafepress shop.
19. Limit TV to "bare minimum": sports, Mythbusters, the occasional PBS thingie.

LIFE AT HOME
20. Declutter. Once shelf or drawer per week (or more often).
21. Seriously sort through books again. Half.com and ebay are my friends.
22. Mindfully clean house once a week. Our apartment does not have to be perfect, but it deserves my respect as my home.
23. No filing for a tax extension this year (at least not until we see how much we owe!).
24. Sit down with husband and make a budget to repay some debt.

Welcome to Winter!

2008-11-22T06:58:00.004-05:00

It's only mid-November, and already we're getting snow and frigid temperatures. Looks like it could be a long winter here in Philly.

Photo 1: Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Pavillion, November 21, 2008
Photo 2: Tom is wondering where the 72 degree weather from a week ago went

Return Day in the First State

2008-11-11T19:28:00.008-05:00

Down in Delaware, they have this fantastic tradition called "Return Day" on the Thursday following the Tuesday election in Georgetown, the county seat of Sussex County. With its origins dating back to 1791, and including such rituals as the ceremonial "burying of the hatchet" by the county chairpeople of the Democratic and Republican parties (the hatchet arrives via horse-drawn hearse) and the horse-drawn parade of winning and losing candidates, Return Day is quite the civic festivity. You can get your fill of Return Day at its official website: www.returnday.org.

Lest anyone forget that Joe Biden was not only elected Vice President of the United States but also reelected to the United States Senate, we have this photographic evidence:

I cannot tell you how ***happy*** this photo makes my die-hard-Democratic, equine-loving, top-hat-wearing, carriage driver self. And look, the VP is going green already! Tee hee!

Photo 1 from returnday.org. Photo 2 from flickr by Wilmington University.

A poem for this election

2008-11-06T08:50:00.003-05:00

Walt Whitman (who hails from just across the river in Camden):

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:
This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating - America's choosing day...

(Editorial cartoon by Bob Gorrell)

What's black and white and red all over?

2008-10-20T10:31:00.003-04:00

This photo of BB at his morning toilette, that's what! Even the tourists dressed to match his spiffy red lead rope.

Because I haven't posted in a long, long time...

2008-09-19T14:07:00.002-04:00

Tomahawk from about a month or so ago, modeling his big boy haircut.

Tiger Stadium demolition begins on an Orwellian note..

2008-07-10T12:53:00.003-04:00

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH...

DEMOLITION MEANS PROGRESS???

From espn.com:

Outfield walls cleared by baseball legend Mickey Mantle as well as Detroit Tiger sluggers Norm Cash and Cecil Fielder began to come down as contractors intensified their efforts to bring down the venerable park.

Backhoes and excavators, sometimes hard to see through dust and spraying water, whizzed around the site, picking up debris and dumping it in oversized bins. During one flurry Wednesday morning, an excavator smashed through the exterior wall beyond left field, throwing support girders to the side.

The scene was tough to take for longtime Tigers fan Chas Matreal and his 23-year-old son, Ryan.

"All beautiful memories," Chas Matreal said. "It is something beautiful that we're destroying, and it's history."

The 49-year-old bricklayer from Milford said he attended 400 to 500 games at Tiger Stadium, many with his own father, starting in 1966.

"Demolition means progress," declared signs on a construction vehicle at the site. But Matreal disagreed, saying priceless memories are being lost.

"It's a natural museum of a hundred years that they're destroying," he said.

At least they are preserving the field, foul poles and flagpole.

You're invited to Ben and Betsy's wedding

2008-07-01T09:30:00.004-04:00

Yes, it's true: Betsy Ross is moving on to husband #4, none other than Ben Franklin.

Photo from nbc10.com

Ralph Archbold, who IS Ben Franklin in Philadelphia, is marrying Linda Wilde, who portrays Betsy Ross. Ben and Betsy are getting married July 3rd in front of Independence Hall in a public ceremony at 8 PM. You can read more here, here and here.

Mayor Michael Nutter will be officiating.

Peter Nero and the Philadelphia Pops will be providing the wedding music.

And 76 Carriage Company will be providing the horse-drawn carriage for transportation from the Omni hotel to the ceremony and then afterwards to the reception at the City Tavern.

I was telling my guests during a carriage ride recently about how "Ben" and "Betsy" were getting married. A cabbie with his window down must have only caught the "blah blab Ben Franklin [...] marrying Betsy Ross blah blah" part, because he stuck his whole upper body out of the window and practically shrieked in disbelief:

"Wait--Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross were MARRIED?!?!?!?!"

"No, they're GETTING married." I reassured him that his history was correct.

Only in Philadelphia, eh?

----------

This is not the first time, however, that 76 Carriage Company will have carted around Ben. Noodle and I took Ben Franklin, aka Ralph, on a ride to his 302nd birthday celebration back on January 17.

Photo from ushistory.org. It makes me cold just looking at it. (A good way to forget about the 90 degree weather.)

On a roll...

2008-07-01T09:12:00.003-04:00

Pete's end of the day ritual. (It kinda negates the bath, but, hey, if it makes him feel good, I can groom a little more in the morning.)

Now THERE's a bourgeois tour!

2008-06-29T23:24:00.005-04:00

Here's a fortuitous follow up to my recent post regarding whether or not horse and carriage tours were "bourgeois."

The answer is no.

This is the vehicle to take a bourgeois tour:

Photo 1: Chip is not bourgeois. The bus is.
Photo 2: Carriage 17 frames up the strange Canadian tour bus. Their tour bus name tops previous "silly tour bus name contenders" such as "Wombles," "Lamers" and "Kewl Tours."

The next great American Spotted Draft

2008-06-29T23:08:00.004-04:00

Spot has a protegé. His name is ~~Speck~~ Tomahawk.

Up past Merlin's bedtime

2008-06-28T01:12:00.003-04:00

Bubba the Round

2008-06-26T23:26:00.003-04:00

"Is it OK to work a horse when it's pregnant?"

"Well, up to a point, but HE's not pregnant."

"When's she due?"

"HE's not. HE is just really, really fat."

Bubba barely fits in the shafts. He's one half of the hypothetical good ol' boy team of Bubba and Jimbo. Bubba and Jim are about the same height. But they are NOT the same width.

You wanted a Proletarian carriage tour?

2008-06-24T21:18:00.006-04:00

(Pete is not advocating Marxist revolution.)

Recently, a mother and her two young children came up to me downtown wanting to pet my carriage horse, the amazingly cute and handsome Pete.

She said that they would love to take a carriage ride, but, unfortunately, her husband had vetoed that idea, claiming that carriage rides were "too bourgeois."

I shrugged, but I wanted to add that if anything we were "too aristocratic." After all, the vis-a-vis is the carriage of royalty.

Carriage rides might also be construed as rural or agrarian or even "developing world."

But "bourgeois"? Really? BOURGEOIS?

A tour by minivan is "bourgeois."

Pete thinks these are "bourgeois":

--------
Photo 1: (by thedrafthorse) Pete on the Street.
Photo 2: The Queen's Royal Carriage (Though I guess it's technically a Landau...but the passengers sit face-to-face: Vis-a-vis!)
Photo 3: This lovely horse in Georgia by Henning(i) is courtesy of flickr's Creative Commons.
Photo 4: (by thedrafthorse) Pete surveys the quack attack.

A Percheron a day, while Peter's away

2008-06-24T21:08:00.004-04:00

Per the request of the Italian Stallion, my beloved husband, Peter, and much in the spirit of Percheron-International, I am providing him with pictures of our equine friends while he is away in France.

There are no Percherons in today's pictures, but if you take half of Belle and half of Bo, you get a whole Percheron (the leftovers make a Quarab). Unfortunately, I also did not get pictures of Belle and Bo chasing Kaylee, the miniature horse filly, around the pasture.

Janni, Bo, and Belle in New Jersey.

Janyck enjoys a good roll.

That's what we've been tryin' to tell ya

2008-05-24T06:51:00.003-04:00

This isn't "news" to those who know, but it's a newsflash to everyone who stops by my carriage looking for Pat's and Geno's in search of an "authentic" Philly cheesesteak.

From today's philly.com:

CHEEZ WHIZ IS OVERRATED FOR CHEESESTEAKS

A recent Philly.com poll asked, "What cheese belongs on a cheesesteak?" and Whiz finished third. American edged out provolone after more than 5,700 votes were cast.

Even Geno's owner Joey Vento, 68, downplays Whiz. "To be honest with you, I've never eaten Cheez Whiz, and I'm the owner," he said. " . . . We always recommend the provolone. . . . That's the real cheese."

A representative from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation came to address our company at our annual meeting. She encouraged us, in our talking up our fine city, to encourage people to eat their cheesesteaks "the right way": "Whiz wit". This ridiculous suggestion was met with a chorus of boos from lifelong Philadelphians.

The cheesesteak was invented in 1932. Guess what? There was no Cheez Whiz. Not until the 1950s. Cheez Whiz cannot be historically correct on a cheesesteak, and truth be told, runs last among cheese preferences, except at those two famous institutions at 9th and Passyunk: Pat's and Geno's.

Originally, the Philly steak sandwich, invented by his Uncle Pat in the early 1930s, he said, had no cheese.

By and by, cheese was introduced. "Customers got tired of eating with or without onions, just like my Uncle Pat got tired of eating hot dogs," Frank Jr. said.

American or sharp provolone? was the original debate, he said.

In the mid 1950s - not long after Chttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifheez Whiz hit the market - his father, Frank Sr., began keeping some by the grill, and telling customers to try it.

"It worked well, it tasted good. . . . It caught on," Frank Jr. said.

Other places started "impostoring us," he said.

How's that for some history? (There's more in the full article.) And the fine folks at the GPTMC want tour guides to be licensed because supposedly WE don't know Philadelphia history.

So, to reiterate what I've been telling tourists who ask for a while. Don't let anyone bully you into ordering a cheesesteak "Whiz wit." Unless you like neon goo. Get your provolone or American if you prefer.

He's holding on to the horse, at least!

2008-05-12T20:31:00.001-04:00

He's holding on to the horse, at least!
Originally uploaded by amboo who?

I think the photographer's title says it all.

Carrot 2008 Campaign

2008-05-06T22:41:00.004-04:00

Take the Bush-McCain challenge, sponsored by MoveOn. Then continue to the McCain-Carrot challenge.

The carrot compares favorably on all issues except for "which candidate for president would best be able to protect us from Percherons?"

Hotel des Invalides, The Fifth of May, 2000

2008-05-05T14:31:00.003-04:00

HÔTEL DES INVALIDES, THE FIFTH OF MAY

Beneath the domed cage the Italian boy flutters
Crashing into me as he impatiently flaps
Trying to fly from this cold mausoleum

The man with the medals
From some lost colony
Looms overhead and commands the unwilling subordinate,
Young man, take off your hat,

Don’t you know you’re in a
Place where there is
Still a Napoleon?

And the Family flocks around
Beneath our feet
Laying wreaths at his feet
The man who would be minister is even there
High priest at the altar of bees and violets

His wife would like to leave
(She’s an agnostic, after all.)
But his gesture to bade her stay echoes,

Don’t you know
You’re in a place where
There is still a Napoleon?

And the trumpets echo their eternal refrain
And the drum rolls out its knell
And the echoes of the echoes
Repeat that War is Hell

For they know as they have known
As the centuries have passed
And funeral marches of tourists circling from their chariots
Cannot fathom the heroic mystery

Don’t they know they’re
In a place where there is still a
Napoleon?

And I smile through the Beethoven inside me
I am translating Shelley into French
Singing Mon nom est Ozymandias,

Roi des rois

Surveillez mes oeuvres, vous les puissants
Et désesperez-vous...

And the tourist-herd despairs me--
They do not know that this is also still a place
Where there is a Ferdinand Foch
Who, after the August guns had fallen silent
Four score ago, so trenchantly
Told him who loved War to

Rest
In
Peace

In
Æternum

For the world could do without that place
Where there has always been a Napoleon
Before which the Führer bowed
And still the leaders follow the Pied Piper’s fife and drum.

Outside
They wait in wheelchairs
For the Princess Napoleon
To annoint them with baubles legion

He would shake her hand
If he had one

In the last days of what was supposed to be the last war
He pulled the pin
But the innocents stayed his hand
And his humanity has mutilated him
He is far from the last in a long bleeding line
He is a coup de canon
That flattens me
And silences them all

Don’t you know
We’re in a world
Where there is still a Napoleon?

Maybe it was the big fancy truck...

2008-05-05T13:53:00.003-04:00

Teddy in his sleek gooseneck trailer.

What makes us so blind that we cannot see what is right in front of us? Why do we let our prejudices and our past color that which stands before us, bright as day, bright as a white horse whose ancestors carried knights and kings?

I know that I spend an awful lot of time on this blog complaining about stupid things people say about me and the carriage horses, but sometimes they're just so unbelievably, entertainingly stupid they deserve to be retold here.

A couple of weekends ago, 76 Carriage horse Mike, fellow driver Kelly, Uncle Bill and I had a wedding to do in extreme South Philly. The job was too far for Mike to walk with the carriage, so he walked downtown to work, did a nice half hour tour for a lovely woman from Australia, and then was loaded on the gooseneck trailer for a short ride down to Oregon Avenue. Anyone who has ever been to South Philly knows that finding a place to park is no easy task, and it is even more difficult with a 30-foot horse trailer. So, we finally found a place near 10th and Bigler, right near Citizen's Bank Park (the Phillies were in town that afternoon).

We had the rear doors and tailgate down once the carriage had been unloaded and were re-harnessing Mike inside.

A couple of guys from the neighborhood pull up in a pick-up truck and strike up a conversation with Uncle Bill.

"That's a beautiful horse," they say, pausing to appropriately admire Mike's 2000 pounds of Percheron perfection. "So beautiful. Gorgeous. Very well taken care of."

Uncle Bill agrees. "Oh, very well taken care of."

They continue. "Yeah, not like those carriage horses you see downtown."

Oh, the look on their faces when they were told that Mike, the consumate carriage horse, had just come from work at 5th and Chestnut. Disbelief. Shock. And then, embarrassment. Humility.

And then they hit the accelerator.

By the Arc de Triomphe

2008-04-04T09:34:00.002-04:00

by the arc de triomphe
Originally uploaded by span

Yet another carriage sighting in Paris by way of flickr. This time, we find ourselves in the middle of the Mother of All Traffic Circles--the Place d'Etoile. (One of the pluses of climbing to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, in a addition to the view, is watching the motorists below navigate the 8-lane, 12-street intersection below.)

Going around even the outside of Logan Circle with a single horse at a walk makes my lines a little clammy. I can only imagine taking the Place d'Etoile at the trot with a pair.

The photo raises a question, though. It shows the carriage and newlyweds on the innermost lane of the traffic circle. How many times did they have to go 'round before they got out? Did they end up braving the Champs Elysees?

Those beautiful black horses with their long team pole seem to be saying, "Attention, Monsieur SmartCar! Nous sommes les heritiers des palefreniers du Moyen Age. Nous vous percerons d'un coup de lance!" ("Look out, Mr. SmartCar! We are the descendants of medieval warhorses. We'll run you through with our lance!")

Happy circling!

Gentrification, then... Aristocratization?

2008-04-03T10:06:00.004-04:00

Our carriage company sits in an increasingly-dense forest of half-million dollar townhouses and condominiums. They're springing up like dandelions this spring. Already, we've been in a battle with the construction guys across the street over where they park their backhoe (Answer: NOT in my boss's parking space next to the yard the horses use for R&R).

Daily movements to and from work are a maze of blocked streets, cement mixers, backhoes, and a particularly aggressive construction-cantina-on-wheels driver. Getting hay in and manure out is a headache.

So, it was with great amusement that I read this article in that great fake news source, The Onion:

Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization

WASHINGTON—According to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, the recent influx of exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats into the nation's gentrified urban areas is pushing out young white professionals, some of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for as many as seven years.

[...]

"A three-block section of [Chicago neighborhood] Wicker Park that once accommodated eight families, two vintage clothing stores, a French cleaners, and a gourmet bakery has been completely razed to make way for a private livery stable and carriage house," Kennedy said. "The space is now entirely unusable for affordable upper-income condominium housing. No one can live there except for the odd stable boy or footman who gets permission to sleep in the hayloft."

Be sure and read the whole article.

Maybe aristocratization would help the horse and carriage business, after all.

This has been your bit of random sillyness for the day, brought to you by thedrafthorse.com.

The photo of Scott and Rex on Fourth Street is brought to you by b a r t on flickr.com.

Looking back at the Taco Liberty Bell

2008-04-01T18:41:00.004-04:00

Twelve years ago, Taco Bell ran the following full-page ad in The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and USA Today:

Taco Bell Buys The Liberty Bell
In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the ”Taco Liberty Bell” and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.

The sad thing is (or rather, sad things are):

1. Some people believed this.
2. Some of the people who did not believe this didn't find the humor in it and were gravely offended (even though Taco Bell gave $50,000 to the Park Service for the upkeep of the bell).

But, I guess that's what makes this the #4 all-time April Fool's Joke on the Museum of the Hoax's top 100 list.

You can read more about the Taco Liberty Bell April Fool's Day Joke here.

(By the way: 1.) You can't buy the Liberty Bell to pay off the national debt because the federal government does not own the bell or Independence hall... Philadelphia does. 2.) The city of Philadelphia tried to sell the Libery Bell already, in 1828, for scrap metal, but gave up--for good, it would seem--when they got no takers.)

Re-mark your calendars...

2008-03-10T18:48:00.002-04:00

OK, so according to the New Amsterdam fan site, apparently they switched around their episodes on us (or didn't include the pilot in their episode numbering, or added another episode). So, Teddy and Noodle and Trump will not be in tonight's episode (103), but rather in next week's episode (104) on Monday, March 17th.

Ah, well--the horses will all get their day in the spotlight... On Saint Patrick's Day!

A BRUTAL MURDER IS REMINISCENT OF
ONE FROM THE PAST ON "NEW AMSTERDAM"
MONDAY, MARCH 17, ON FOX

The brutal rape and murder of a nun and similar attack on a photographer’s assistant who escapes death leads Amsterdam (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to remember similar crimes he witnessed in the 1800s when he was a coachman for a wealthy landowner. Meanwhile, Amsterdam and Sara get better acquainted on the “Honor” episode of NEW AMSTERDAM airing Monday, March 17 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (NAM-104) (TV-14 D, L, S, V)

Happy 33rd, John Henry

2008-03-09T09:20:00.003-04:00

When Louis XIV died in 1715, most of the people he ruled over had known no other sovereign. He had been King of France for 72 years. His great-grandson inherited his throne and the magnificent palace the Sun King had built at Versailles.

When the great John Henry retired from racing at the age of 9, he'd acquired 39 wins, 15 places and 9 shows in 83 starts, with an earnings total of over $6.5 million. He was (and is) the oldest horse to win Horse of the Year--and assuredly it must have felt like John had been racing forever and would always be back for another campaign. Those who raced against him may well have had offspring who were racing when John still covered the turf with that mighty 18 ft. stride.

Then, John retired to the Horse Park in 1985. The Kentucky Horse Park had only opened in 1978, and was still struggling to find its identity. John Henry quickly became its heart.

I first went to the Horse Park when we moved to Lexington in 1986. It was a strange thing to go to the park in January of 2008 without being able to see the ol' Steel Drivin' Man. Just as there were those who had never knew a king other than Louis XIV, there were those of us who had never known a Hall of Champions without John Henry. It seemed like he would live forever. But John passed peacefully on October 8, 2007.

The Kentucky Horse Park will welcome the world's equestrian royalty when it hosts the FEI World Equestrian Games in September 2010. This will be the first time the games have been held outsides of Europe. The World Equestrian Games will be the largest equine event ever held in North America, and the largest sporting event ever held in the state of Kentucky.

Louis XIV converted a hunting lodge into Versailles.

The Kentucky Horse Park, the finest equestrian venue in the world and the only park exclusively dedicated the the horse, is the house that John built.

Happy Birthday, John Henry. Have a chocolate covered Krispy Kreme in horse heaven on us.

JOHN HENRY (Ol' Bob Bowers - Once Double by Double Jay): March 9, 1975 - October 8, 2007

Mark your calendars...

2008-03-05T17:37:00.004-05:00

Teddy and Noodle are going to be on TV. On FOX primetime, no less.

Yes, that's right. At long last, Teddy and Noodle (and Trump the Movie Star, of course) are going to make their debut in episode 103 of New Amsterdam on Monday night (March 10) at 9 PM. Keep an eye out for them, along with our restored Brougham carriage, carriage #8, and its stunt double, carriage #17.

I watched the pilot episode last night (101). The show's really not that bad. In fact, it's at least half good. It may even be very good. So maybe New Amsterdam will get renewed and Trump can have his hoped-for on-going appearances as a New York City carriage horse.

You can catch episode 102 on Thursday night at 9, too.

And, no, you don't need to write Fox and tell them that the scene with Teddy and Noodle is historically inaccurate, because it's set in 1816 or thereabouts, and Percherons weren't imported into this country until 1839. We did our best! Teddy and Noodle were the only ones for the job. (Buzz did not appreciate his understudy role to Trump in Manhattan.)

Is that a Clydesdale?

2008-02-25T06:59:00.002-05:00

Tom is not a Clydesdale.

I get asked a lot if the horse I'm driving is a Clydesdale. This usually happens when I'm out on the breaking cart with a big horse like Tom, and the size of the carriage and height of the belgian-block sidewalk doesn't distort the size of the horse and make him look smaller. I cheerfully reply that no, Tom is not a Clydesdale, he's a Belgian, or that Rex is not a Clydesdale, he's a Percheron.

I'm then met with, "So, he's not big enough to be a Clydesdale, eh?"

Not big enough?

Tom is pushing 19 hands tall. (That's nearly 6'4" at the withers.) And while he's all legs, and we haven't had him on a scale recently, I'd be willing to bet he weighs close to 2000 lbs. He wears a size 8 shoe.

Rex, one of our Percherons, is somewhere around 18.2hh or 18.3hh, and probably weighs in the neighborhood of 2200 lbs. Rex wears a 9.

I was driving Tom one day a couple of weeks ago, and a tourist walked past the carriage stand. Tom was pretty much the only horse there, and the tourist remarked, "You all don't use very big horses, do you?" This was not a sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek remark; it was made with all seriousness. I laughed and told the gentleman that Tom was "The Tallest Horse in Town" and gave him his measurements. The tourist mulled this over for a minute, then commented. "But he's not as big as a Clydesdale, right? The Clydesdales are much bigger."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's set the record straight: Clydesdales, like Belgians and Percherons are a breed, not type or color or size, of horse. They come in a wide range of sizes (just like people). But, since most people, when they say "Clydesdale" are refering to the Budweiser Clydesdales, let's talk about what it takes to be a (Budweiser) Clydesdale:

The Clydesdales must be geldings, 4 years of age or older, and be 18 hh (6 feet at the withers) and between 1800 and 2300 lbs. They must be bay with white stockings and a full white blaze. They must also be, uh, Clydesdales. (Sorry Donkey...)

Anyway, you can read more "Frequently Asked Questions" and see lots of "simply marvelous" photos of the Budweiser Clydesdales, over at Simply Marvelous - The Wonderful World of Horses.

It's also worth noting that while there are the Budweiser Clydesdales, there are also the Coors Belgians and the Pabst Blue Ribbon Percherons.

And I shall go to work, driving my draft horses that aren't Clydesdales, but are just as powerful and beautiful superstars in my book. Even if they haven't been in any commercials.

Yet.

Mmmmmm... Snow Day

2008-02-22T15:18:00.007-05:00

(Bill got a taste of the snow this morning.)

Philadelphia received about 3 inches of snow this morning, so naturally, the horses didn't go out to work--it was a snow day! I did go out to the barn this morning, and captured a few of the horses (Bill, Ben, Tom and Buzz) enjoying the snow. Actually, Tom was enjoying the snow so much, he repeatedly let Ben out of his stall to come join him (which is why Ben and Tom are in the small yard together).

Enjoy!

(Tom let Ben out of his stall to join in the snowy fun.)

(Trotting twosome.)

(Bill was eating when he got "scared" by a guy on skis out in the neighborhood.)

Bill and Ben visit across the fence.

(Buzz was disappointed he couldn't get Tom to run in circles with him, once Ben was back securely in his stall.)

There you have it, folks...

2008-02-22T12:31:00.002-05:00

IMG_1328
Originally uploaded by inaki_goni

A horse and carriage giving tours in Paris.

But wait, flickr reveals more...

2008-02-22T12:21:00.002-05:00

IMG_3207
Originally uploaded by oxfraudm

Here's another image of the horse and carriage on the Champs du Mars... Looks like a Shire... and it DOES like look they're giving tours.

My sympathies are with the driver dealing with the bleak midwinter. She's just got to make it a few months, and then it will be April in Paris. Mmmmmmm...

Just too cool.

Mais, OUI!

2008-02-22T12:11:00.002-05:00

Horse and carriage
Originally uploaded by FL370

I was surfing through pictures on flickr.com, and I did a double take just like the lady on the bench, here, but that carriage is absolutely. right. where. it. belongs.

I don't know who the people driving the carriage are, or what they're doing on the Champs de Mars, or whether this is one-time or regular thing, but I do hope it's a regular thing. It would be so nice to welcome more horses back into Paris. (And, it would be a positive thing to welcome carriages into the enlightened City of Light just as the PETA nuts are trying to ban them in NYC...)

I rather fondly remember studying abroad in Paris in 2000, and on the early mornings in the spring that I rode the 89 bus across town, getting stuck behind the ponies in the bus lane on the rue Vaugirard, on their way to work in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Eh, bon...

Un tour en caleche autour du tour Eiffel?

Come walk with me, fellow traveler

2008-02-21T18:26:00.004-05:00

Pete and Christina in the yard, August 2007

Henry Beston writes:

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mythical concept of animals... We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with the extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

Happy President's Day!

2008-02-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

From youtube:

(History is admittedly more fun with a sense of humor...)

Urban Cowboys

2008-02-13T11:19:00.002-05:00

Tyheed and Abdul (13 and 11) riding well-kept urban quarter horses provided by Al Lynch. They are wearing anti-gun violence T-shirts Photo by Sarah Nassauer of the Wall Street Journal.

I don't know if you've ever seen Google maps' street view feature, but check out this view captured of West Cambria St. and N. 17th.

The urban cowboys of Philadelphia are a long-standing, but increasingly threatened, tradition, here. You can read an interesting article about them that was published in the Wall Street Journal. The slide show is particularly interesting (I've borrowed the above image from it)--such lovely horses! One can only hope that the new mayoral adminstration will be friendly to the equines and their owners (and maybe even bring back the mounted police).

Horseback-riding and equine husbandry programs have long been used to remedy the plight of urban youth (one notable example is the Kentucky Horse Park's Mustang Troop), and therapeutic riding programs have demonstrated the healing and healthful effects of human-horse contact. So, why be in such a hurry to drive out these wonderful equine Philadelphians?

The road to the future is not a superhighway, or a cul-de-sac lined with tract mansions, or a new block of condominiums--it most likely is a bridle path.

All that surrounds us...

2008-02-12T09:19:00.001-05:00

View from the back of our barn in Northern Liberties, April 2007.

A couple of quotes today from everyone's favorite French emperor (that would be Napoleon):

The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.

We live and die in the midst of marvels.

It's a horse world, after all

2008-02-11T12:53:00.000-05:00

Yet another fantastic organization from our friends in France:

Equiterra

For those who don't read French (and the English-language version is done by Babelfish, and thus is largely unintelligible), suffice it to say that their gorgeous logo pretty much sums it up.

I'll have to translate their beautiful mission statement later. Or maybe I'll just have to email them and offer to translate their site for them.

A lovely photo of Bill the horse in Philadelphia traffic from katie.brothers on flickr.com.

Experience

2008-02-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

(thedrafthorse with Spot on Sixth Street, photo by trees are the answer on flickr.com.)

I try not to be too whiny about the ill-informed public that continuously comes up to my horse downtown and puts their hands all in his face (whether or not my horse likes it, and whether or not they ask permission or say anything at all to me), but I have to admit I've grown rather weary of total strangers approaching me and telling me how my horse feels, or what I should do for my horse, or whatever.

When I assure them that my horse is bored, not sad, or that his winter coat is sufficient for 40 degree weather, or that all horses have chestnuts on the insides of their legs, these strangers have the gall to tell me that I'm wrong, because they know horses.

And by "know horses" they usually mean that they have a friend who has horses, or they went to summer riding camp, or read Black Beauty.

Now, I will be the first to admit that by all counts, I'm still a relative neophyte to the world of horses: I grew up in Lexington, KY ("Horse Capital of the World"), I took three semesters of English riding in graduate school, and have worked full time as a carriage driver in Philadelphia for a year and a half. I'm a not an expert, compared to my coworkers who have spent their whole lives, or at least their entire adult lives, making a living from horses.

That being said, I did the math.

I've been a carriage driver for a year and a half. That's 75 weeks (accounting for a few weeks I was on vacation).

In a given week, let's say I work 40 hours with horses. (That's really a gross underestimate most of the time, but for the sake of argument and averages, let's leave it at that.) That means I've spent 3000 hours on the job with horses, doing all sorts of things with them, such asgrooming, tacking, driving, hanging out with, feeding treats, playing in the yard, bathing, loading on to trucks, cleaning harness, administering needles to, braiding tails, etc., etc., etc.

Now, let's suppose that random stranger takes weekly riding lessons. Most lessons are an hour a week for a group lesson. If they are conscientious riding students, let's say they show up half an hour early and stay half an hour late to groom and tack their horse. So, that's 2 hours a week. In order for said random stranger to spend as much time with horses as I have in my job at the carriage company, they would have to take weekly riding lessons for 30 years.

So, can we please agree on who knows best what my beloved coworker is feeling or needs? (For those who can't follow the mathematical argument, the answer would be me, the horse's driver.)

----------

But this bit of a rant about experience allows me to post one of my favorite excerpts from one of my favorite books. Below is an account by James Herriot, from All Creatures Great and Small:

I tried to think back over my life. Was there any time when I had felt this supreme faith in my own knowledge? And then I remembered.

I was back in Scotland, I was seventeen and I was walking under the arch of the Veterinary College into Montrose Street. I had been a student for three days but not until this afternoon had I felt the thrill of fulfilment. Messing about with botany and zoology was all right but this afternoon had been the real thing; I had had my first lecture in animal husbandry.

The subject had been the points of the horse. Professor Grant had hung up a life size picture of a horse and gone over it from nose to tail, indicating the withers, the stifle, the hock, the poll and all those other rich, equine terms. And the professor had been wise; to make his lecture more interesting he kept throwing in little practical points like "This is where we find curb," or "here is the site for windgalls." He talked of thoroughoins and sidebones, splints and quittor; things the students wouldn't learn about for another four years, but it brought it all to life.

The words were still spinning in my head as I walked slowly down the sloping street. This was what I had come for. I felt as though I had undergone an initiation and become a member of an exclusive club. I really knew about horses. And I was wearing a brand new riding mac with all sorts of extra straps and buckles which slapped against my legs as I turned the corner of the hill into busy Newton Road.

I could hardly believe my luck when I saw the horse. It was standing outside the library below Queen's Cross like something left over from another age. It drooped dispiritedly between the shafts of a coal cart which stood like an island in an eddying stream of cars and buses. Pedestrians hurried by, uncaring, but I had the feeling that fortune was smiling on me.

A horse. Not just a picture but a real, genuine horse. Stray wods from the lecture floated up into my mind; the pastern, cannon bone, coronet and all those markings--snip, blaze, white sock near hind. I stood on the pavement and examined the animal critically.

I thought it must be obvious to every passer-by that here was a true expert. Not just an inquisitive onlooker but a man who knew and understood all. I felt clothed in a visible aura of horsiness.

I took a few steps up and down, hands deep in the pockets of the new riding mac, eyes probing for possible shoeing faults or curbs or bog spavins. SO thorough was my inspection that I worked round to the off side of the horse and stood perilously among the racing traffic.

I glanced around at the people hurrying past. Nobody seemed to care, not even the horse. He was a large one, at least seventeen hands, and he gazed apathetically down the street, easing his hind legs alternately in a bored manner. I hated to leave him but I had completed my examination and it was time I was on my way. But I felt that I ought to make a gesture before I left; something to communicate to the horse that I understood his problems and that we belonged to the same brotherhood. I stepped briskly forward and patted him on the neck.

Quick as a striking snake, the horse whipped downwards and seized my shoulder in his great strong teeth. He laid back his ears, rolled his eyes wickedly and hoisted me up, almost off my feet. I hung there helplessly, suspended like a lopsided puppet. I wriggled and kicked but the teeth were clamped immovably in the material of my coat.

There was no doubt about the interest of the passers-by now. The grotesque sight of a man hanging from a horse's mouth brought them to a sudden halt and a crowd formed with people looking over each other's shoulders and others fighting at the back to see what was going on.

A horrified old lady was crying: "Oh, poor boy! Help him, somebody!" Some of the braver characters tried pulling at me but the horse whickered ominously and hung on tighter. Conflicting advice was shouted from all sides. With deep shame I saw two attractive girls in the fron row giggling helplessly.

Appalled at the absurdity of my position, I began to thrash about wildly; my shirt collar tightened round my throat; a stream of the horse's saliva trickled down the front of my mac. I could feel myself choking and was giving up hope when a man pushed his way through the crowd.

He was very small. Angry eyes glared froma face blackened by coal dust. two empty sacks were draped over an arm.

"Whit the hell's this?" he shouted. A dozen replies babbled in the air.

"Can ye no leave the bloody hoarse alone?" he yelled into my face. I made no reply, being pop-eyed, half throttled and in no mood for conversation.

The coal man turned his fury on the horse. "Drop him, ya big bastard! Go on , let go, drop him!"

Getting no response he dug the animal visciously in the belly with his thumb. The horse took the point at once and released me like an obedient dog dropping a bone. I fell on my knees and ruminated in the gutter for a while till I could breathe more easily. As from a great distance I could still hear the little man shouting at me.

After some time I stood up. The coalman was still shouting and the crowd was listening appreciatively. "Whit d'ye think you're playing at--keep yer hands off ma bloody hoarse--get the poliss tae ye."

I looked down at my new mac. The shoulder was chewed to a sodden mass. I felt I must escape and began to edge my way through the crowd. Some of the faces were concerned but most were grinning. Once clear I started to walk away rapidly and as I turned the corner the last faint cry from the coalman reached me.

"Dinna meddle wi'things ye ken {know} nuthin' aboot!"

From James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972), 109-111.

And yet, there is always more to say...

2008-02-08T11:19:00.000-05:00

(Belgian draft horse at the Kentucky Horse Park, January 2008, photo by Christina Hansen)

A couple of quotes for today:

"This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient, more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used."
(Henry David Thoreau, commencement address, Harvard University, 1837)

"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it." (James A. Baldwin)

(Spanish Norman at the Kentucky Horse Park, August 2004, photo by Christina Hansen)

An update, on many fronts...

2008-02-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I last updated my blog or my website (before Christmas! Egad!). In the interim, we were very busy at work with the holiday, then Peter and I headed home to Kentucky for a couple of weeks of R & R (and visiting our other equine friends at the Horsiest Place on Earth). Then, my laptop's hard-drive became terminally ill. So... Now I'm back (I still have to reload Dreamweaver on my computer...The hard-drive transplant wiped ALL of my programs and saved only my data).

Several months ago, I wrote about a fantastic blog by Jean-Leo Dugast, percheron-international.blogspot.com. More recently, I linked to an article about the use of urban horses in France. Percheron-International has a new post about Lasso-du-Jardin, a Breton cob gelding who collects recycling in Trouville-sur-Mer. You really must go to Percheron-International to see Jean-Leo's marvelous photos of Lasso in action.

For those who don't read French, here's a translation of the text from Percheron-International.

This title of "accrocheur" does not refer to Lasso-du-Jardin's age. At only nine years old and with two years of professional experience, one could say that Lasso is nothing but a neophyte.

If he "takes up the bottle," it is those bottles of the restaurants and cafes from the city of Trouville-sur-Mer in the Calvados. Seven years ago, the municipality put into place an empty-bottle collection service - Wednesdays for local residents and Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays for commercial establishments.

Lasso-du-Jardin is gradually replacing Festival-de-Mai (May Day), a 15-year-old Percheron gelding who inaugurated the service. Three people, Christelle, Pascal and Sebastien, supervise the four-legged municipal employees, and take turns on the recycling routes.

Trouville, like nearby Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, is one of the cities spearheading the effort to use draft horses in an urban setting. Today, there are 70 cities in France that use horses for maintaining green spaces, collecting garbage and providing surveillance. This number is growing rapidly.

After only having year after year of hopes without concrete realization, the urban horse is finally taking off. Urban drafts, forestry drafts, agricultural drafts--draft horses give us a message of hope: hope of a world where one can "work differently to live better."

Jean-Leo Dugast, percheron-international.blogspot.com

If only they could have taken the horse to the PMA steps...

2008-02-04T10:23:00.000-05:00

This was by far the best Super Bowl commercial:

I didn't get to see the game because I was at the barn here in Philly taking care of a sick horse (appropriately named Bud). Bud's got a work ethic like few other horses, and I hope the good folks out at New Bolton can figure out what's wrong with the grand old man.

4-hoof drive is better than 4-wheel drive

2007-12-17T15:36:00.001-05:00

One of the many wonderful things on YouTube (from poster ccalhoun1):

Brings literal meaning to the question (oft heard on SportsCenter, or refering to automobiles) "Do they have the horses?"

France seeks to use more horses for transportation.

2007-12-11T18:57:00.001-05:00

This can only be described as AWESOME.

"It's great for workers and the community to have contact with a living thing," Linot said.

"The civil servants are on strike now, but I tell you if they had their hands on a horse they'd be happier – I've never seen a driver kiss his truck."

Bring back the horse; go green; save the Earth.

As I tell small children who hold their noses and make faces walking past me and Chip in Philadelphia:

Horses smell better than diesel.

Happy Birthday!

2007-12-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to Mississippi (190th) and to my alma mater, Emory University (171st).

Odd Laws

2007-12-06T12:50:00.000-05:00

According to the History Channel, it is apparently illegal to stare at the mayor of Paris.

But you can relax. It has been legal to stare at this guy since he left that post in 1995.

What's New over at thedrafthorse.com

2007-12-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

Despite my being busy at work, I have added quite a bit to my website, thedrafthorse.com. I've added sections about my lighthouse photography and about my favorite draft horses, my coworkers.

Day 30: 18166 words

2007-12-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Even nanowrimo losers are winners, right?

I finished with only 18K. But that's 18K more than I had.

I forgot exactly how busy the end of November was for us at work... The week of Thanksgiving was busier monetarily than any other week I've been at the carriage company. So that's a small reward for my nanowrimo failure.

I do intend to continue with my novel, and will post updates here.

Day 19: 16946 words

2007-11-19T20:56:00.001-05:00

Plugging along, but if I write 3000 words a day, I'll still make it.

Here's something I wasted more time on:

Continuing to fight against the march of "progress"

2007-11-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

From today's Herald Leader, an article on the difficulties facing the draft horse industry.

Day 16: 13833 words

2007-11-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

I'm still way behind, but its another 3300 words or so. If I keep writing 3000 words a day, I'll make the finish line.

I made a lot of progress today by outlining (making outrageously lengthy chapter titles) through the rest of my (general) plot.

Speaking of outrageously lengthy titles, this would be the title of my novel if it appeared in the eighteenth century:

A True Account of the Romance Recently Entered Into At The Circus Located at Twelfth and High Streets, John Bill Ricketts, Esq., Proprietor, Wherein Our Heroine, A Miss Elizabeth C____, Finds Matrimonial Bliss With Mister Jean M'Gowan, After Enduring Arduous and Terrible Trials and a Series of Most Unfortunate Misunderstandings During The Great Yellow Fever Plague Lately Affecting Our Fair City, An Historic Accounting Of Which May Be Currently Found In The Several Booksellers Of Philada.

Day 15: 10550 words

2007-11-15T23:43:00.000-05:00

Oh, I'm seriously behind after not having written for the week straight I worked without a day off. I've got to figure out how to write on days I work. But I've passed 10K, and am rolling along now, I think.

I am reminded why NaNo is so much fun. Writing on the fly creates some wonderfully and sometimes weirdly beautiful things. For instance, I have one of my MCs nearly run over by a Conestoga wagon on the Penna Turnpike because he's on the "wrong" side of the road. And so I leave him there, standing on the wrong side of the road, which becomes a metaphor for his life. It needs refining, of course, but that's what December is for.

Favorite line of the day: “Dolly Todd is not a proper lady,” Anne snapped, crossing her arms. “She is from North Carolina.”

Day 7 - 7168 words

2007-11-07T23:58:00.000-05:00

Today was productive. I wrote 3294 words today, which is a fair clip. Now I'm only 4500 words behind! Ta ha! We'll see how it goes tomorrow when I actually have to work. But this is fun!

Day 6 - Still 3874 words

2007-11-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

So instead of writing today (shame on me!) I took Chubba Bubba out for a spin around the yard under saddle.

But Wednesday is my day off, so back to work on my novel!

Day 5 - 3874 words

2007-11-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

So I wrote 3500 words today, and the novel is off to a good start, though I'm still only on the first scene/chapter. Onwards!

Back on track...

2007-11-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

Things have slightly held me up at the beginning of this NaNo: The Italian Stallion and I held a party on Saturday night which required preparation on Friday, plus weekends are my busiest days work wise, so I didn't do any writing on Nov. 2-4. But now I'm back to work on my day off, and things are starting to chug along.

So, without further ado, here's my official excerpt (as seen on nanowrimo.org):

Hey, hey, hey, ho, Guin, ho! Ho, girl!”

Elizabeth felt a sudden sting across her cheek only a moment before she was knocked off her feet by a huge dark form, landing hard on the round cobbles. Spokes of a carriage wheel fluttered past, inches away from her legs, running whisper quiet over her skirts. Only then did she register the sharp ring of iron on stone, the unmistakable clip-clops of fine trotting horses.

In the dim glow from the street lamps, a mahogany bay horse wheeled around in the street she’d been crossing. The horse, harnessed to a light gig, was prancing and snorting, eye whites like crescent moons standing out against its dark head, breath in twin jets of steam from its nostrils. The sound of a second horse trotting disappeared down the street into the shadows, the even strikes of diagonal hooves fading away in the distance. The horse in the middle of Sassafras Street where Elizabeth lay clearly wanted to give chase to the other, but the driver in the seat talked incessantly in a low murmur. The horse’s ears flicked back and forth from the driver’s voice to the retreating hoofbeats.

“Easy, Guin, it’s alright.” The horse didn’t seemed convinced and let out a loud whinny, straining with pricked ears in the dark to hear a reply from the departed second horse. “Just relax. Ho. Ho.” The driver’s voice was male, deep, sonorous, soothing. Finally Guin the horse seemed to relax.

Elizabeth started to push herself off the cobblestones. Both horse and driver turned to look at her with concerned interest.

“Are you harmed, my lady? May I be of assistance?”

Elizabeth winced at the dull pain in her hip as she experimentally gathered her legs under her. “I think I’m uninjured, except for my pride.”

“Well, as they say...” the man in the gig trailed off as he set the long driving whip in the socket on the dashboard and in a fluid motion stepped off the cart, not bothering to climb down the wheel, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet. He strode towards her.

“As they say what?” Elizabeth asked apprehensively as he offered her a gloved hand.

“’Pride goeth before a fall.’” He smiled. “You said you were unharmed, but did not give a reply as to the assistance part.” Eyes twinkling in the moonlight, he nodded at his outstretched hand.

His smile reassured her, and she took his grasp.

Nano Day 1 - 369 words

2007-11-02T07:56:00.001-04:00

Well, I didn't exactly get off to a blazing start last night, but I've got the day off today, so we'll see if I can't get back on pace.

Does anyone want to adopt my Inner Editor for a month?

Haiku 7

2007-10-11T19:19:00.000-04:00

fat raindrops fall
and trickle down my neck
seeking shelter

Haiku 6

2007-10-10T17:49:00.000-04:00

breeze and grass
my horse pulls
at his halter

Racehorse names

2007-10-09T20:37:00.001-04:00

C'mon, now, Jockey Club!

How come you can't name a horse Nutzapper or Sally Hemmings, but you can name her Panty Raid?

Inquiring draft horses want to know.

Haiku 5

2007-10-09T20:36:00.001-04:00

October morning
a kite lies
in the gutter

Haiku 4

2007-10-09T20:34:00.000-04:00

ginko leaves
and sunshine
on a windshield

Haiku 3

2007-09-30T21:44:00.000-04:00

monarch butterfly
past national rent-a-fence
northern liberties

Haiku 2

2007-09-29T23:01:00.000-04:00

late summer breeze
goldenrod throngs
around a parking meter

May the horse be with you

2007-09-28T21:28:00.001-04:00

I've been on a posting-binge today, but that tends to happen when I'm doing lots of internautical house-keeping.

For the sake of old times, you can check out my ancient, dead blog here.

You scratch my back...

2007-09-28T17:17:00.000-04:00

I'll scratch Chip's...

Updates on goals (Big Fun Scary Things)

2007-09-28T16:54:00.000-04:00

Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy back in April, I posted my list of goals I'd put together in January as part of Chris Baty's Year of Doing Big Fun Scary Things Together. It's now almost October, so I figure it's time for an assessment of where I stand, what progress I've made, and what still needs to be done.

1. Finish Ambigu (Nano2005)? Nope, not so much. But I've been trying to get back into the swing of it before Nano2007 rolls around. So, while not nearly finished at all, I've made some progress.

2. I decided that taking ceramics classes on Thursday evenings didn't really fit into my work schedule. Instead, we invested in an art table so I could do art at home.

3. www.thedrafthorse.com has been up and running (if largely under construction) for quite a while now. The Italian Stallion has been going to town on his webspace.

4. Finances are always a work in progress, but by and large, I'm making improvements.

5. I bought a scale. And I lost 10 lbs without trying too hard. (I'm down to around 147 lbs and have been for a while.) But I still drink too much Coca-Cola-Sweet-Nectar-Of-Life.

6. I haven't written the article yet, but I did write one heck of an impassioned pro-carriage/urban horse argument on phillyblog.com.

7. Facebook is my friend.

8. We love our new apartment. It's perfect.

9. While cleaning out stuff led to more than a few arguments between thedrafthorse and the Italian Stallion, it's been done, and we're all happy.

10. I'm planning on it, and counting down the days to Nov. 1! I even have an inkling of an idea...

11. I haven't been to the library, but I did find my OLD research while performing #9.

12. I've got some pretty pictures of my coworkers. I still want to take some more, though.

13. I haven't done much here, but my solution to #2 is a start, and I even did some networking on a carriage ride the other day!

14. Yes, I cook some, but I do live in Foodadelphia.

So, to refocus my goals:

1. Write. This includes Ambigu, Nano2007, the daily Haiku, etc.

2. Do art.

3. Watch less TV and drink fewer Cokes.

4. Pay off debt.

5. Keep organized. (I just had to clean out 2000 emails in my inbox.)

Haiku 1

2007-09-28T15:20:00.000-04:00

the liberty bell
crowds rush to see
horses nap

Henceforth there shall be a Haiku of the Day

2007-09-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

I was reading a writing book yesterday in the bookstore, and it suggested trying to write one haiku a day for six months (at least). I thought that it sounded like a perfectly reasonable writing assignment, so I decided I'd give it a shot. Starting now.

Update: Silly sports names...

2007-09-26T06:52:00.000-04:00

Prince Fielder had to get in on the news action: He just became the youngest player in MLB history to hit 50 HRs in a season...

Funny sports names in the news

2007-09-25T18:31:00.000-04:00

OK, so Da Bears are talking about replacing QB Rex Grossman with Brian Griese (pronounced "greasy"). I think that the guys on ESPN talking about "Griese and Grossman" sound funny.

Also, Milton Bradley of the Padres has been in the news for having knocked himself out for the season by tearing his ACL whilst arguing with an umpire. Yeah, Mr. Bradley, "you can be a winner at the game of Life!"

Sadly, one of my FAVORITE football names is out for the season as well. New Orleans Saints RB Deuce MacAllister is done for the year.

My current favorite baseball name is Prince Fielder.

Well, duh...

2007-09-07T12:08:00.001-04:00

I took one of those quizzes about "which city should you live in" based on multiple-choice questions, such as, "What do you put on your rear end before leaving for a party?" and "How did you spend New Years eve?"

My result:

What City Should You Live In?
	You should live in Paris. The city of lights will appeal to your appreciation of beauty and romance. You are a lover and a poet by nature, and Paris' sensitive charms will be a perfect match for yours.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Well, duh. I've lived in Paris. For nearly a year, all told (nearly 6 months in 2000, plus two summers in 2001 and 2004).

But really, I should live in Philly right now. Which is quite fortuitous, given that I do!

Yesterday, I spent half an hour sitting in traffic at 6 AM trying to cross the George Washington Bridge into New York City, with 6000 pounds of horses behind us (I cannot tell you how *thrilled* those Percherons were...). Bleh.

This is all just a rambling, roundabout way of saying "Thank you, New York, for reminding me why I'm glad I live in Philadelphia!"

Horse Theme Songs...

2007-08-31T20:57:00.000-04:00

Chip, my lastest regular horse, has a theme song now. This is a good thing, adding to a long history of theme songs for horses I drive. That's when I know I've gotten really attached.

Chip-a-dee-doo-dah, Chip-a-dee-ay!
One cute horsie is a-walkin' your way.
When he sees other horses
He lets out a neigh.
Chip-a-dee-doo-dah, Chip-a-dee-ay!

Mister Nick-Nick on the corner,
It's the truth--Chip loves you!
And he wants to come nuzzle you...

Chip-a-dee-doo-dah, Chip-a-dee-ay!
Wonderful horsie, wonderful day!

Rescue by Carriage in Philadelphia

2007-08-27T22:07:00.000-04:00

Today, one of my coworkers found a stray chow on the way home from work. She had our supervisor hold her horse, ran down the street, scooped up the dog and carried the dog back to the barn in the back of her carriage. The chow had an imbedded rope in his/her neck and a serious infection. She called the SPCA, who came and took the dog back to their clinic.

Tonight, that dog (minus the being whisked away in an impromptu horse-drawn triage ambulance) made the local news. The SPCA isn't sure they can save the chow, but they're going to try. It'd be one heckuva happy ending story if they did (the dog seemed rather friendly... it'd be nice if s/he found a good home).

With our fingers and hooves crossed...

Ride 'em, Cowboy!

2007-08-24T21:29:00.001-04:00

I have always heard about the black cowboys in Philadelphia, but had never actually seen them...

I've heard stories about taking our horses out on the breaking cart into north Philly and surprising an unsuspecting normal sized horse tied to someone's front stoop, once in a blue moon--so I always figured if I saw some of Philly's urban horses, it would be in north Philly or in west Philly.

But today, I was coming down 19th towards Spring Garden when a dainty black pinto in Western wear clip-clopped from Spring Garden onto 19th and down towards Callowhill.

Cool.

Yay, urban horses!

This reminds me... One of my favorite things about interacting with the general public on the street (you know, the people who don't want to take a ride, but just want to pet my horse) is getting to talk to and educate people who have literally never ever seen a real live horse, let alone get close to one. Chip (or Pete or Trump or whoever) may be the ONLY horse they will ever encounter, and I get to facilitate that.

Also cool.

Today was a bad day in history...

2007-08-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

August 24th marks the anniversary of the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius. It also is St. Bartholomew's Day, which means it's the anniversary of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

Yay, August 24th!

On a happier note, it's my day off!

Happy Trails, Prince

2007-07-30T18:01:00.000-04:00

Until we meet again.

Prince
197? - 2007

Well, I finally did it...

2007-07-16T23:33:00.001-04:00

There's one of these stupid threads about the "poor carriage horses" on phillyblog.com, and instead of ignoring it, I responded. With a manifesto. Which I doubt anyone will actually read, except to make fun of me, but I had to get it out. I'm sorry, but the notion that we would EVER send our horses to slaughter is so ridiculous, I couldn't let it go.

You can read the posts leading up to my tirade, here:

http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=40172

Here's my post, in its entirety:

bloosum et al:

Do ANY of you have ANY proof to back up your dangerously slanderous statements about "cruel heartless carriage company owners" and "carriage horses going to slaughterhouses"? Does anyone here actually KNOW anyone in the carriage business? (Well you know someone now… now that I’m on this thread… haha)

I am sick and tired of people who have never actually talked to anyone who works with horses for a living going around telling everyone that "carriage horses are all abused," that it's "torture" for a horse to be in harness, and that people who make their living working with horses and operating a carriage business are "cruel" and "heartless," and are only interested in $$$.

I work for 76 Carriage Company, and I will tell you that we carriage drivers love and care for our horses, just as much as you care for your pets. That being said, our horses are NOT "pets": They are much, much, MUCH more than that... they are our co-workers, our partners, our students, our teachers, our livelihoods, and, most importantly, our friends. I spend nearly as much time with my Percheron/Morgan cross, Pete, as I do with my husband. The idea that we would EVER EVER repay the gifts and rewards our horses have given us through years of service and partnership with a one-way trip to a slaughterhouse is so incredibly repugnant that I can hardly type.

76 Carriage horses are not sent to slaughter. Period. They are not used to feed Europeans, dogs or zoo lions.

While I cannot speak to the specifics of the goings-on at other companies and can only speak for myself as an individual carriage driver, I can say that the idea that the carriage drivers working in this city DO NOT CARE about their horses and harm them for fun or profit is an OFFENSIVE, ERRONEOUS GENERALIZATION and a disservice to the commitment we make to our equine partners.

When 76 Carriage horses are ready to retire due to age, physical infirmity, or just because they just don't want to work in the city anymore, we find them good homes where we know that they will be well cared for. Three of our horses, Theo (aged 25), Scooby (23), and Commanche (20), were all retired in January 2006, after more than 15 years each of service to our company. They had to be retired together, because they’d been friends for most of their lives. They now live happily in New York, on a 155-acre farm, Three Amigos still. (There was an article to this effect in the Inquirer a year and a half ago, if you don’t believe me.) Another of our horses, Prince, was retired 4 or 5 years ago. He now putters around our barn and in the yard on Bodine Street, hanging out under the trees, mugging me for treats, hating to get bathed, grooming his horse friends, and receiving carrots from his many admirers in Northern Liberties. Another horse, Lancelot, recently told us that although he was perfectly fit, sound and healthy for riding and driving, he was through with SEPTA buses, Jersey drivers, and Duck boats, so he’s made a midlife career change to a farm (also in New York), where he does some light country driving and work under saddle.

Our horses are NOT sent to auction, where they could potentially be bought by "kill buyers" and they are NOT sent to the slaughterhouse. As a matter of fact, many of our horses, at some stage in their life history have passed through mixed sales, such as the infamous New Holland auction, where they could have been purchased by killer buyers, but fortunately ended up purchased by our company, private individuals, or one of the horse dealers we do business with.

When a horse has worked for us, they have earned the right to be certain that they will always have a good home, either with us, doing nothing but eating and having company money spent on them, or with a new family that can take care of them with the same sort of love and care they had here in Philadelphia.

Oh, I can hear the End-the-slavery!-Free-the-horses!-crowd now…”But there is no love and care for carriage horses. Carriage horses are machines used until they get broken and are thrown away. Carriage rides are abuse!” I will not deny that SOME carriage companies in SOME places at SOME times have, unfortunately and tragically, not held up their end of the deal in the human-equine partnership. But to make blanket unfounded statements about the nature of the industry without a shred of hard evidence-- in fact, with much evidence to the contrary-- is the same as saying “Some people abuse their children. Therefore, NO ONE should be a parent. In the 19th century, there were no child labor laws and infant mortality was high. Therefore, today, we should view child-rearing as a outdated relic of a bygone era and it should be eradicated by forward-thinking people.”

So, what love and care do our horses receive?

*Stalls cleaned twice a day.
*Fresh, quality wood shavings added daily.
*Pretty much all the hay anyone can eat (unless some of our more, um, portly friends are needing to trim down—if anything, our horses are pleasantly plump).
*An individualized grain feeding two or three times a day.
*Continuous access to fresh water in their stalls and yards and main barn.
*Custom shoes made and fitted by a qualified farrier.
*Pedicures no less often than every 5-6 weeks.
*Housecalls by a veterinarian who regularly sees our horses and gives them annual physicals.
*In emergencies, horsevan rides to New Bolton Center, where our horses have (thankfully infrequently) been treated by the same doctors that worked on the late, great Barbaro.
*Free time to run around, act silly, eat and roll in one of our three yards.
*Turn out time in Lancaster County several months a year.
*Well-cared for and properly fitted harness.
*Work schedules individually tailored to each horse’s physiology and divergent exercise needs.
*Regular grooming, bathing and haircuts.
*Cold showers on hot days.
*Warm blankets and a cozy barn on frigid nights.

That’s just the physical needs our horses have tended to (and is far from comprehensive—it cannot possibly account for all the little things done for them).

Our horses are tended to mentally and emotionally, too:

*They are given patient and proper training to learn how to do the things they are asked to do.
*They are paired with regular drivers who know, understand and truly appreciate all their individual idiosyncracies (Jim is fascinated by dogs and kids, Noodle hates hoses, Bud loves bananas, Turk loves his hind feet scratched, Nick is paranoid about having his hind feet touched, Tom has learned from Teddy how to open stall doors, Merlin and Teddy and Prince are BestFriendsForever, etc. etc. etc.).
*They are given meaningful, varied, and not-terribly-physically-difficult work to do. (And before anyone starts yelling about stabled draft horses not needing work to do, might I point you to what happens to a border collie who’s not given sheep to herd and is cooped up in someone’s suburban kitchen all day.)
*They are given contact with other horses and find their place within a whole social hierarchy full of friendships, rivalries, mutual grooming sessions, and whinnied, snorting conversations that we humans will never understand. Their daily routine actually more closely mimics the spatial routine of wild horses than many other equine management scenarios.

Plus, our 20 horses get the love and affection (and treats—carrots galore!) of the following: a couple dozen full- and part-time carriage drivers; our barn manager and a half-dozen stable hands who are on the job from 6:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night, seven days a week, 365 days a year; former carriage drivers who work with the Big Buses and Trolleys and who keep an eye out for us on the streets; office staff and managers; and the big boss man himself, The Carriage Company Owner, who—like the French and Belgian farmers who developed the majestic draft breeds we use today—lives under the same roof as his horses.

Our carriage horses are a family—they’re a herd, surrounded by a network of human herd-members.

Beyond the constant, daily attention of their people, our horses are public horses. They are equine ambassadors. They appear in movies, on TV, and in books. Many of the tourists they meet on the street have never been so close to a horse in their lives. Since they are public horses, they are in the view of the (sometimes ill-informed) general public, the City of Philadelphia, and Animal Control, all also looking after their well-being. On a broader note, 76 Carriage Company (see www.phillytour.com, FAQs) is a proud member of the Carriage Operators of North America (see www.cona.org), and is part of the larger family of the Animal Welfare Council and American Horse Council.

Because they are so well-cared for, our horses frequently live into their 30s (average full lifespan of a horse is 25-30 years old—but many horses are not so fortunate as ours are), after having spent most of their lives as “carriage horses.”

At work, these horses have virtually every bladder and bowel movement noticed, their water and food intake monitored, their respiration and perspiration observed, all in the interest in maintaining a high-quality of life (both at work and at play) for them for many, many years to come. Rest assured that it is not in ANYONE’s best interest for our horses to be over-stressed from heat or from work—or from lack of it.

I urge you to truly educate yourselves about what you claim to know so much about… when in fact, you know so little. One of the unspoken, unappreciated losses resulting from the rise of the automobile in the first part of the 20th century has been the loss of humanity’s connection to the horse. What was once an everyday experience has become a tourist attraction. (It’s too bad, because I’d rather hug my horse than my Toyota, and horses smell better than diesel fumes.) To quote an art instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where one of our horses models, “Civilization as we know it rests in the gap in a horse’s teeth.”

(Remark heard downtown: “Horses need to live in the country, on a farm. I can’t believe those horses can live in the city. How can these horses possibly live here in Philadelphia?”
Response: “The same way they’ve been living here since 1682.”)

I’m one of the lucky people who gets to experience, every single day I go to work, one of the great mysteries and beauties of our humanity: how it is that we can connect with another species, so absolutely alien to us, and learn from each other how to work together. Our history is commingled with the horse’s. It’s a minor miracle of the partnership between man and the domestic horse every morning when my horse chooses to do what I ask him to do. (He weighs 1600 lbs. I can’t make him, even if I wanted to.) And I’ve learned how to listen to my horse. It’s a special thing to groom a horse (as I did this morning) and he decides to groom you back.

Unfortunately, most people never get to experience that partnership. The closest they get is a brief glimpse walking down the sidewalk in front of the Liberty Bell. All that special knowledge, all that understanding that’s been established from centuries of cohabitation between horse and human, has been lost for most people, people who think that they “know” horses, because they read Black Beauty and played with My Little Ponies.

Yet I can’t tell you how many people have pointed at my horse, taking a nice nap in the carriage stand between rides, his hind leg cocked because he’s relaxed, and exclaimed, “Oh, look, his leg is hurt!” only to have Pete shift his weight from one hind foot to the the other. Oh, look. Now his other leg is “hurt.” Other people ask all the time about the chestnuts (dew claws) on the inside of EVERY horse’s legs, making accusations about the “scabs” or “sores” there. News for you: all horses have them; they’re vestigial thumbnails.

The same ignorance about basic equine physiology and behavior is demonstrated every time someone tells me that my horse is about to drop dead of heat exhaustion “because he’s sweating.” Of course he’s sweating! It’s summertime! I’m sweating, too. Thankfully, horses, like humans, have sweat to operate as an efficient cooling system (modern horses, like humans, originally evolved on the grassy, hot savannahs and plains). It’s really when a horse is blowing (panting/breathing hard), and can’t cool himself down through sweating, or when a horse is dehydrated, that is cause for concern. Horses are like people: some people handle the heat better than others (fit people better than fat people, young adults better than the very old or very young). The key is taking precautions (proper hydration, staying in the shade when possible, not overexerting oneself, building up physical cardiovascular fitness, respecting one’s individual limitations) and knowing the horse in question (which is a lot easier to do when one spends 40-50 hours a week with that horse, rather than 10 seconds driving past on 5th Street shouting PETA pablum out an SUV window).

Don’t hesitate to actually TALK to us carriage people. (We are individual people working for individual companies, just as our horses are individual horses, after all—blanket generalizations are not at all useful). I, for one, am happy to continue this discussion with anybody, so long as it is a DISCUSSION, not the previous slander based on the continued blind spouting of misinformation and politically charged rhetoric.

Ask questions. A nice one to start with is, “May I pet your horse?” or “What’s his name?”

Just please don’t ask me, “DOES your horse have a name?” (I actually get this a lot. In a holier-than-thou, accusatory tone, at that. My response: Does your cat have a name? Does your child?)

Of course he does.

My horse’s name is Pete. And yes, he knows it.

And the other horses have names, too. The horses of 76 Carriage Company (Bud, Teddy, Bill, Trump, Noodle, Turk, Jim, Bubba, Tom, Rex, Carter, Merlin, Spot, Buzz, Chip, BB, Nick, Ben, Pete, Mike, and Prince), Philadelphia Carriage Company (Obie, Omar, Dominic, Da Vinci, Napoleon, Murphy, Caesar, Vernon, Cartman, Louie, Little John, Madison, Hershey, Smoky, Mickey, and Blue), and Olde City Carriage (Willy, Woody, Suzie, Moe and Truman) appreciate that y’all love them (for how could you not love the horses?), and hope you’ll be better informed about them in the future.

Slower than molasses in January...

2007-06-12T17:32:00.000-04:00

Just how slow is Pete?

On Saturday, we got passed by a dachshund.

A Pun from Peter

2007-06-09T23:09:00.000-04:00

Which patron saint do horses pray to?

Saint Thomas Equinas.

(Ba dum bum ching!)

Thanks, Peter.

(The pic above is of the barn's very own Thomas, the tallest horse in Philadelphia. Tom is a 19hh Belgian gelding.)

Like a racehorse...

2007-06-08T17:59:00.001-04:00

In honor of tomorrow's Belmont Stakes, I found this column on Slate today. Apparently racehorses pee 1.5 to 2 gallons a day. And Clydesdales pee more. (I could have told y'all that, having seen some of the draft horses around the barn down a five gallon bucket of water, and then having sat through not one, but TWO cycles of a traffic light waiting for Bud to finish up.)

Trump's favorite place is in front of Signer Park.

Many of the carriage horses participate in the long history of public urination outside of the Powel House (Samuel Powel and his wife Elizabeth were famous for their parties there...).

See? I AM famous in Asia.

2007-06-01T23:53:00.000-04:00

Or at least in cyberspace on flickr. One of my fares mslalowe took this photo May 8. I'm on 4th St. driving Spot the Wonder Horse (who didn't make it into the picture).

It's a greenhorn extravaganza!

2007-05-31T21:52:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, I reported the content of a conversation I'd had at work to Peter. Basically, a coworker had complained about "all these greenhorns" we've got running around the company at the moment. Peter looked surprised--he'd never heard the term "greenhorn" before.

On Wednesday, Peter and I settled down to watch Mythbusters, and Jamie made some comment during their segment on Wild West Myths about "greenhorns." "See?" I said to Peter, "He used 'greenhorn'. Why, it's a veritable greenhorn extravaganza!"

Then I got to thinking, "Now there's a phrase: 'greenhorn extravaganza.' I bet that doesn't show up on Google any place."

For the record, "greenhorn extravaganza" returns no hits on Google. Until now.

{cackles maniacally}

Beautiful French Percherons

2007-04-19T16:23:00.000-04:00

I was working on my links page for thedrafthorse.com, and I came across this blog. It belongs to French photojournalist Jean-Leo DUGAST. He's got some AMAZING photos of French Percherons, and now I really want his new book, "Sur les traces du cheval percheron" (On the Trail of the Percheron Horse).

Which reminds me, all of the Percherons on Dugast's page, as well as my Philadelphia colleagues--Teddy, Noodle, Lance, Carter, Rex, Prince, Trump, et al.--are all kissing cousins. All Percherons are descended from Jean le Blanc, a Percheron stallion foaled in the Perche in 1823.

Another interesting fact about Percherons in America: They were first imported to this country in 1839 by Edward Harris, of Moorestown, New Jersey. That's right across the Delaware from us in Philadelphia. So my horsie friends listed above are carrying on a long, proud tradition of Percherons in this part of the world.

Photo: Teddy modeling his Percheron-ness. This is my Percheron photojournalism--someday I'd like to take as nice photos as Dugast does.

Ooooh, pretty!

2007-04-17T00:32:00.000-04:00

Having a record nor'easter interrupt my work schedule hasn't been all bad... I've gotten to spend most of my Monday inside playing on the web.

I am the master of my domain. And it is www.thedrafthorse.com.

There's hardly any content yet, but the bones are there, as is this blog.

Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?

2007-04-13T19:28:00.000-04:00

That was my random question in the Blogger profile.

Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?

No, I believe forks and spoons are both evolved from a common ancestor, a "proto-" or "ur-spork." Due to separate ecological niches (firm and soupy environments), forks and spoons have, through divergent evolution, become separate species. The fact that forks and spoons can mate to create sterile sporks reveals a common heritage. Sporks are the mules of cutlery.

Ah, to explain the speciation of knives! Or the speciation explosion that was the Victorian period! (Or are fish forks, pickle forks, butter forks, salad forks, desert forks, carving forks, etc. etc. just breeds of a single species, the fork?)

The Inaugural Post

2007-04-13T18:10:00.000-04:00

Well, I've set up a blog to go with my "new" website, www.thedrafthorse.com.

Back in January-ish, over on the National Novel Writing Month forums, Chris Baty started the Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together (YoDBFSTT). One of my goals for 2007 was to set up my own website. It's still under construction (i.e. not started other than having a nifty "Under Construction" page.

For the sake of introduction, though, here's my original posting over on the NaNo boards for my goals for 2007.

Well, it turned out that 2006 was my year of doing Big, Scary, Fun things...For instance, since November 1, 2005, I have:

1. Won NaNo 2005, though I didn't FINISH my novel, I just wrote 50K words. Nonetheless, participating in the amazing experience of writing a novel in 30 days changed my life. Becase after that, I decided to do other Big Fun Scary things, rather than putting them off for that proverbial "Someday." Hence, I:

2. Decided I did NOT want to be a history professor, so I dropped out of graduate school--3.5 years in to graduate school and close to being ABD, but who cares if it's not what you want to do! Major life change. Now what?

3. Moved to eastern France to be with my husband, who was doing research, for 3 1/2 months .

4. Walked between my city in France and the town two towns over (about 13.5 miles). Just because.

5. Lost about 40 lbs.

6. Returned to U.S. and took a hourly wage job developing photos so we could afford to have:

7. Moved to Philadelphia.\

8. Decided to follow a lifelong dream and work with horses. Consequently, I found THE MOST AWESOME JOB IN THE WORLD. I drive a horse and carriage in downtown Philly for a living now. Full time. Year round. And I give the best d**n history tour in town. But this is all kinda scary because A) I'm naturally a shy person who now has to approach total strangers all day and talk to them...I'm a performer now, and B) it's a commission job, so income is very variable and let's not even talk about taxes, and C) I've spent my entire life thinking I couldn't do physically demanding things. This winter I'm mucking stalls and am in the best shape I've been in my life.

So, what are my goals now? Where do I go from here?

drumroll

NAPOLEONDANCE's 2007 ADVENTURE LOG (In no particular order):

1. Actually finish that first draft of a novel I started for NaNo 2005. It's at 60K, but wants to be twice that long.

2. Spend more time not only taking my ceramics classes but spending time outside of class during open studio on them. I need to not be so afraid of people seeing my work.

3. Finally set up my own website with my own domain name for me and my DH.

4. Stop dreading financial things so much. That way I can be more proactive about paying off debt and building savings.

5. Cut back on the ol' calorated beverages. I'd like to lose 10-15 lbs more to be at my goal weight (probably closer to 10 lbs... I've gained a good bit of muscle...). Just because I burn so many calories grooming my 2000 lb. horsie that I can drink seemingly gallons of Coca Cola doesn't mean that I should. (OK, so I suppose that this means I have to put batteries in the digital scale we have...)

6. Write that article about urban horses that my friend has been suggesting I do, Figure out what to do with it then.

7. Keep in better touch with my friends from college and grad school. Generally try to be a little more social.

8. Find a 2 bedroom apartment that is in our budget and in Center City to move into. Though I HATE the thought of packing up everythign AGAIN and hauling it around, my DH deserves a nice place to do his work (and get all the books out of the general living space).

9. To avoid having to haul so much around again, finish sorting through my old papers and notes and GET RID OF STUFF. Do I really need notes from PE 101 from college 8 years ago? NO!

10. Although I was too busy finesse-ing the finer points of standing down SEPTA buses and Jersey drivers from atop a carriage to participate in NaNoWriMo 2006, participate in NaNoWriMo 2007.

11. Start on the research I've been meaning to do. That means going to the library.

12. Take more artistic photos.

13. Figure out how to make money from my artistic stuff and then make it.

14. I love to cook. My husband loves my cooking. So I should do it more.That's about it for now... Stay tuned for updates.

Yes. Stay tuned for updates. And more.

thedrafthorse

Blue Star Equiculture

Excuse me?

Blue Star Equiculture

Heavy Horses -- Jethro Tull

Audio-visual equestrian puns

L'hiver viendra, les gars, l'hiver viendra

Arctic Exercize

Random Philadelphia history

Winter in Philadelphia and New Year's Resolutions

Welcome to Winter!

Return Day in the First State

A poem for this election

What's black and white and red all over?

Because I haven't posted in a long, long time...

Tiger Stadium demolition begins on an Orwellian note..

You're invited to Ben and Betsy's wedding

On a roll...

Now THERE's a bourgeois tour!

The next great American Spotted Draft

Up past Merlin's bedtime

Bubba the Round

You wanted a Proletarian carriage tour?

A Percheron a day, while Peter's away

That's what we've been tryin' to tell ya

He's holding on to the horse, at least!

Carrot 2008 Campaign

Hotel des Invalides, The Fifth of May, 2000

Maybe it was the big fancy truck...

By the Arc de Triomphe

Gentrification, then... Aristocratization?

Looking back at the Taco Liberty Bell

Re-mark your calendars...

Happy 33rd, John Henry

Mark your calendars...

Is that a Clydesdale?

Mmmmmm... Snow Day

There you have it, folks...

But wait, flickr reveals more...

Mais, OUI!

Come walk with me, fellow traveler

Happy President's Day!

Urban Cowboys

All that surrounds us...

It's a horse world, after all

Experience

And yet, there is always more to say...

An update, on many fronts...

If only they could have taken the horse to the PMA steps...

4-hoof drive is better than 4-wheel drive

France seeks to use more horses for transportation.

Happy Birthday!

Odd Laws

What's New over at thedrafthorse.com

Day 30: 18166 words

Day 19: 16946 words

Continuing to fight against the march of "progress"

Day 16: 13833 words

Day 15: 10550 words

Day 7 - 7168 words

Day 6 - Still 3874 words

Day 5 - 3874 words

Back on track...

Nano Day 1 - 369 words

Haiku 7

Haiku 6

Racehorse names

Haiku 5

Haiku 4

Haiku 3

Haiku 2

May the horse be with you

You scratch my back...

Updates on goals (Big Fun Scary Things)

Haiku 1

Henceforth there shall be a Haiku of the Day

Update: Silly sports names...

Funny sports names in the news

Well, duh...

What City Should You Live In?