The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Lil'freeper]

Good idea. I just checked all of my FR mail back to 2000 (I kept it all, she admitted sheepishly) and I've never corresponded with him. Maybe it was a mistake.

[Corin Stormhands]

The clouds here are very bright. Does that still count?

I dunno. The dark clouds are movin' here again...

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Sounds like you are doing everything I would do. I would probably go ahead and bute him before you ride. My son had a horse that he would bute like that. He never had stomach problems from doing it like that. I have not heard of doing it directly into the joint.

Every horse we have now is pretty young, but we have had some older ones before. They do require some speical care. Have you had this horse for a long time. I am hoping Rusty is the last horse I have to ever start. I hate starting a new one. He is 5 now, and I'm 49. Should work barring any disasters.

I gave my brood mare a shot to get her in season Mon. so I will be breeding her Thrus. and Sat. then she can go back to the pasture, and I will be down to two horses to feed, Yeah!!!.

Becky

[Lil'freeper]

Well, I got a reply and he assures me it wasn't a mistake and it wasn't spam. Perhaps I reacted hastily. My spam detectors are on an ultra-impatient hair-trigger due to the deluge of crap I get in my inbox everyday at work. Oh well. False alarm, I guess

[RMDupree]

Well, it sure sounded spammy to me!

Any unsolicited e-mail from someone who you normally do not correspond with is spam.

[HairOfTheDog]

I have only had Bay 3 years, but I have known him for ten years. A friend had him for awhile (the same friend that came to watch him yesterday) and I loved him. Bay has a neat story of how we found him. But he was too green and "Arab like" for my QH-lovin' friend to love to ride on trail. When he sold him I was not in a position to buy a horse, and he was sold to the endurance racer lady... I looked in on him and kept track. He was sold again to another aquiantance who had him a few more years, but sold him at 19 because he would probably not be able to continue carrying him on tough multi-day mountain rides like he does. He was soring in his back because the guy's big western saddle bridged him. Bay's back was showing his age and the guy and his saddle were too big.

I was not living where I could have Bay, but I couldn't see him sold again at 19 where I might lose track of him, so I agreed to buy him sight unseen over the phone. I hoped he was still sound but I didn't care if he wasn't. He is a gem of a spirit that I have loved since I met him ten years ago, and I wanted to ensure that he got the retirement that a heart like his (all horses really) deserves. When he retires, he stays with me till the end of his days.

The last two years have been worth all of it, for the lifestyle change he forced on me, and the lovely trail rides he has taken me on. He is the champ on trail, the one who leads always any group he is in, the one that, until this year, could outwalk a lot of gaited horses and could, if asked, set off in his robot trot that he learned racing, and go all day. This year he is older than last year. I worry too much, because he is still more horse than many, but I don't want him to hurt, and I don't want him to stumble and fall again because he hurts. I was scared last autumn that his riding days were over after that fall (he stumbled and went down hard onto both knees, splitting them and causing them to swell into mellons) and that fear holds on, though his knees seem to have healed without particular stiffness, but I will be afraid for him until I can see him moving with the confidence he had before.

[RMDupree]

Bay is so lucky to have you!

I know you will argue that you are the lucky one, but I must disagree on the basis that there are far more bad owners than there are bad horses!

[HairOfTheDog]

He is lucky to have me.... I know that.

But I am lucky to have him too, you are right!

[RMDupree]

Alright everyone! It's time for me to swim home!

See you tomorrow!

[RMDupree]

g'nite Hair!

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Wow how cool that you kept up with him and actually got him in the end.

I had a friend who had a horse that I coveted. When her and her husband divorced she decided to sale him, as she was never that much of a horse person anyway. I heard thru the grapevine that the horse was for sale, and mentioned to my husband that he was for sale and I sure liked him. My husband immediatly said we had enough, which we did but....:) Anyway I helped find a buyer for him, he got a very good home. I came home and told my husband "sigh,, I guess he will never be mine." Mack said "you didn't really want him did you?" I said well yeah, he said I thought you were just talking, you should have gotten him then. I wanted to cry. But it has really worked out well. I have Rusty who is a great horse, especially if he sweats, But I do know where there horse is so maybe someday.....:)

Becky

[Corin Stormhands]

Nite Ruthy. Headin' out myself.

Still not sure what we're doin' this evening...

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah - you may get another chance to have him! I kept track of Bay all those years without a specific motive... I would just drive by his pasture on my way home and make sure he still looked good. (even if it wasn't on my way home ;~D) Sometimes I would stop in and pet him, he would always come up.

I have something of a pet peeve where old horses are concerned... I had nightmares not knowing where my first horse, the ugly mustang Chico, ended up, and I made some decisions not to let them go again.

Bay is lucky because there are many reasonably good folks, his former owners included, who would see these signs and sell him while he could still be sold as 'sound' and let someone else deal with it. But eventually they end up somewhere where the meat buyers are the top bidders. I went to those sales looking for my old Chico every time, and those old horses haunt me. The young ones too, but especially the old ones. They taught many young people to ride in their lives I bet, and they don't deserve the indignity of that end.... call me an animal rights nut if you want! I will wear that badge where our working friends are concerned. ;~D

Horses put in a lifetime of service to many people in their years... working much harder than most pets, but they don't often enough get a pet's retirement. I think I owe Bay that, someone owes Bay that, and probably this rank little pony of mine too. I can't sell her either because I haven't found anyone yet who will invest in training and take her seriously. They will trust her too much because she is small, she will hurt some kid and end up being sold to the nearest meat buyer with cash. If I don't find the right kid to train her, she will probably die with me too, never broken, victorious.

[Wneighbor]

Greetings all. No job yet. Looking. Since I'm getting the ugly end of the deal on my pay for my real job this summer I decided that the least they can do is allow me to use the school lawnmower. After all, I was planning to buy one with the pay I should be making. So, I got the yard mowed so it will look better for the company here for Myranda's graduation!

[Wneighbor]

They even have adult ones!!

YES they do! And you can depend on it!

[Wneighbor]

I could quote the scene from memory, but that would be excessively geeky of me, wouldn't it?

YOU! never.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Hmm, well ok then.

Did I mention that Rose and I went looking through our disordered comic book collection last night and found the copies of the X-Men comics from the 70s/80s that I had brought down from Michigan? We're thinking of taking them to our friendly comic-book dealer to get them professionally graded, so we know what they're worth....

[Wneighbor]

"I'm a Conservative, Catholic, Christian, Republican, Canadian-American and proud of it! So deal with it!!!!! "

[Wneighbor]

We're thinking of taking them to our friendly comic-book dealer to get them professionally graded, so we know what they're worth....

want me to put them on ebay for you?

[Wneighbor]

mustn't spam