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

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:

Return Day in the First State

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.

Tiger Stadium demolition begins on an Orwellian note..

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

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.)

Hotel des Invalides, The Fifth of May, 2000

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?

Looking back at the Taco Liberty Bell

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.)

Happy 33rd, John Henry

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

Happy President's Day!

From youtube:




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

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

(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)

Happy Birthday!

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

May the horse be with you

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.

Today was a bad day in history...

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!

Like a racehorse...

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.

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).

Beautiful French Percherons

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.