(Aging myself with an old “Laugh-In” reference)
The NATRC group is trying real hard to recruit me - I must admit their judging experience is much less strenuous than an AERC event! But it was also sad in the sense that I only had 19 riders - I don’t see how they can keep things going with such low levels of participation. I believe all equine sports are suffering from diminishing levels of participation - let’s face it, it’s expensive and each are highly specialized pursuits in their own ways whether you’re doing trail riding, rodeo, or dressage. It takes a tremendous amount of work to have a finished trail horse - I am deeply impressed by some of these ladies** - “Be one with the horse!” is a true fact for them. I took Mr. Silas just for camping practice mostly, although we did get out for a short ride Saturday afternoon. I mentioned his checkered past to some of the riders, and one gave me what I consider to be a left-handed compliment: “Every time I see you, you’re with a different horse!” Fair point! Maybe my dad was right - I’ve got too many horses! but with aging and injuries and my own issues, things are always changing…
** there’s an old joke about AERC being “the sport of the middle-aged housewife” since it is predominantly women, a lot of them have gotten their kids raised up and now have the leisure time to devote to their horses. It seems to be much the same with NATRC - there was only one man amongst my 19 riders, but David scored very well with his big solid Appaloosa “Ali Gator”. In a lot of cases the women are riding while the men volunteer for the P & R crew…
One NATRC tradition which I do prefer is the fact that they usually have a big potluck dinner on Saturday night. I had made a cheeseburger casserole, but as it turned out Gayle splurged on a big catered spread from Chicken Express, and the riders brought various desserts. As a result, despite moderately high activity levels, I came home 2 pounds heavier! I’m blaming most of that on excess sodium; it should all balance out.
And the girls and I will finish off the cheeseburger casserole - that was our lunch yesterday and today.
Izzy likes new dog bed
Maybe the comment was just based on jealousy. I tend to think that people who love horses have as many as they can afford. Just like dogs and cats and chinchillas. When one needs a home and you can give them one then what's the problem? Unless they are terrorizing the neighborhood. Ill cared for? Stinking up the world? Biting everyone? Of course I'm in favor of more animals and less humans, which is a rather antisocial concept and I admit to that. I'm okay with 30 deer in my yard. Not okay with 30 humans.
ReplyDeleteThe potluck sounds awesome! And while the contest may appeal to those who are competitive there are those of us who would get more out of being with horses and a group of like-minded people.
Lucky girls regarding the cheeseburger casserole! And the Chicken Express! Yum!
Benny wants to be one of your dogs. He likes cheeseburger casserole and the new dog bed too. He is very cranky and eats like a horse. LOL.
You are correct in your presumption that ponies are like Lay's potato chips - you cannot have "just one"!!! & then most of us take it up to our pasture (and/or pocketbook's) full carrying capacity. But I do not think Cara meant it in a derogatory manner - I have been offered so many "free horses" over the years; there are limits to how many I can care for properly.
DeleteAnd yes, NATRC has AERC beat on the sociability concept of bringing all together for food & fellowship at a potluck dinner - a few AERC rides used to do that in the past (dear Roger brought in a family to cook for us during the week at Ft Stanton - those were the days!)
You can't find a better home for a needy pet of any kind than a Vet. So, being human, we all would like our pet we can't keep to go to the vet. I have never known a crummy vet. I'm always amazed at how caring and patient they are even with unruly animals. Our Blocker chinchilla could be a pistol. She would get mad and pee all over the vets. The vets would all laugh. Once at our local vet she threw a fit as she was peeved to be there and was biting the bars of her carrier and jerking the door closed when we would try to open it. I was embarrassed but the vet was laughing and said it was hilarious which it was. The techs were afraid of Blocker but the vet wasn't. Blocker was a lot of bark and no bite. She bit sometimes but not hard, just to put her teeth on you and let you know who was boss and she was always boss from day one. She did it from the time she was a baby. She would jump in our laps but did not want us petting her. The vets loved Blocker. She was sassy. We had 11 chinchillas and every one was different. Big personality. So if I had to find an adoptee for a pet I would be begging a local vet to take it. It's not totally up to you that you have a lot of animals. Surely Cara can see that.
DeleteRoger sounded awesome. You should have cloned him!
Nowadays I’m “enjoying” rat shenanigans as somehow I have made pets out of the last members of Z’s rat colony… I need to lay it all out in a blog post: the Rattus family tree! Mama rat Dora (aka “Dora the Explorer”) is a ninja-level escape artist, but luckily peanut butter is irresistible & I’ve been able to recapture her in my live traps. I bought ANOTHER cage which she has not managed to escape (yet), even though her daughters Stripe & Screech (who are just a little bit smaller than Mama Dora) did - Screech was bad at hide n’ seek, she was sitting in the office chair! but I had to set the live trap for Stripe. Now both of them are living in the plastic tub until I come up with another solution.
DeleteVal
I was shocked to find that rodents made such good pets as I had not had a rodent growing up. My mom would have never stood for it when I was young. Yet she is the one who got our son a rodent at her house. A Chinese dwarf hamster. So we got some at home and is always our luck they were male and female and we ended up with 13. It wasn't until years later that we got the chinchillas. They were awesome pets. Very smart.
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