I woke up with weird calf cramps and I’m tired and I’m so happy it’s a three day weekend and I just want to go to baseball games and ride my pony so that’s what I’m going to do. Just gotta get through today first.
Coffee.
Terror Birds (family Phorusrhacidae)
Huge flightless terror birds were South America’s top predators for millions of years and at nearly three metres tall certainly lived up to their name. Their modern relatives, the seriemas, kill their prey by smashing it repeatedly against the ground, which may well have been the terror birds’ technique too. The terror birds lived between 27 million and 15,000 years ago and spread into North America when the two continents joined. One of these birds boasts the record for the largest bird skull ever found, measuring 71cm long with a wicked, curved 45cm beak.
(via: BBC Nature) (illustration by Jaime Chirinos)
Lightning slowed down at 10,000 frames per second.
That is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen
Domino has officially made the switch to stall board for the summer.
My wallet is sad. My horse is confused as fuck. I hate it but I won’t tempt fate. He kept getting his muzzles off (and being a jerk to catch anticipating being muzzled which was not very fun, either) and out in the field it just doesn’t get noticed soon enough. There’s only so many times I can take showing up to get my cresty, non-grained, founder-history pony and finding him without a muzzle on lush spring grass. At least in a stall, if he gets it off in turnout, he’ll be back inside and off the grass at some point. And it would (presumably, please fucking let this happen or I don’t know what I’ll do) trigger a phone call to me to deal with it before he goes out again.
He’s still getting a ton of turnout. They’re on night turnout, and he’s outside for 14-16 hours. He’s coped just fine on way, way, way less, even without routine and here there is a routine so he should settle in a few days. He’s in a stall with hay and a fan during the miserable heat of the day - which, around DC, is pretty fucking miserable and I think eventually he will enjoy. His new field is right across from my trainer’s mares’ field, and I know she’d tell me if anything was noticeably amiss.
All around, it’s a good decision. It needed to happen. And I feel like shit about doing it. Because I can’t make any decision without beating myself up about it. Because he liked his old field buddies a lot. Because he’s so happy on 24/7 turnout. Because I’m an anthropomorphic idiot.
But I can’t even begin to imagine going through another founder episode. Thus…
I am mean and I don’t like myself and I don’t think my pony likes me very much right now, either.
And then Ryan Mattheus broke his hand by punching a locker. This season is going super well.
So the thing about hitting rock bottom…
Donna Miller and ArdCeltic Art (x)
Chattahoochee Hills CIC*
Drooling over that barn.
