An update, on many fronts...

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...

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

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.

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!

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

Odd Laws

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

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

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

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"

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