Okay, and the second book I'd published in The Pegasus Enchantment series is revised, updated with new pen name, and I have books three and four hopefully to do before the end of the month.
This is the prequel series to my young adult work, and I am loving getting this back out there and going.
Slowly ☕️ starting the weekend after an intense week, and my iPad is featuring a memory from Iceland in October 2019 (it gave the photo, I share the video).
I love the happy surprises while driving in Iceland. 😊
I am a bit scared of horses, but they are sooo impressive. 🤎🐴
Can the French #wine industry adapt fast enough to #climate change?
“We’re going back to ancient ways.” To deal with erratic frosts, he has begun pruning his vines later in the year, which postpones bud emergence. To cope with drought & high temps, he’s created higher canopies of leaves that provide more shade to the grapes. He works the land with #horses, rather than tractors, to preserve the health of the soil, & 6 years ago he started to plant annual vegetation around the vines to retain winter & spring water into the summer. In the summer, he cuts the annuals back to create “a sponge of #organic matter” that continues to hold water & cool the soil.
More & more French wine-makers are following a similar path. “The more climate-resilient or smart the vineyard is, the better able to adapt to climate change." They’re seeing the importance of regenerative farming that focuses on natural resources & the need to mitigate their impacts." #permaculturehttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02974-y
Before they got here these 2 fancy galoots were stabled in solitary their whole lives. Horses are super social, so this was not ideal. Since arriving here at Dreadful Acres and being on 24/7 turnout together, they have formed an unbreakable bond. Their burgeoning big burly bromance (the BBBB) has been fascinating and heartwarming to behold. They play together all day, happily share their hay, and can often be seen with their necks entwined, delicately nibbling each others withers. I love it. #horses
I was going through my catalog and noticed the light on these three feral horses and thought it looked pretty nice. These ponies were south of Fernley, Nevada. (Note: These ponies are not Carter Reservoir Spanish mustangs that I usually post. Photo: 5/7/2017.)
This is not my great-grandfather David. My great-grandfather David died in 1958. I was told stories by my grandfather and my aunts and uncles about grandpa David.
He was a successful farmer and when cars gained popularity he decided to buy one. He was born in 1875 and spent his whole life using a horse and buggy except for a couple of weeks in about 1926.
My grandfather was 14 years old and riding with grandpa David in a new car.
As they were passing a farmhouse, a lady sat on her porch with her legs open wide enough to see up her dress. Of course they both looked at her and grandpa David wasn't looking in front of him at the road. The car veered off the road toward a swamp. He pulled back hard on the steering wheel and yelled "WHOA! WHOA!" That is what he had done his whole life in an emergency to control his vehicle. The car ended up in the swamp. He gave up cars that day. He spent the rest of his life driving his horse and buggy. A horse would never have veered off the road just because he looked at something else.
My grandfather got a horse and pulled the car from the swamp and spent a year fixing it. He studied everything he could find about cars to learn about how the car worked and how to reverse the damage from the swamp accident. He became a master mechanic and the youngest guy in the county with his own car. Edit: I forgot to mention, he was in a collision in his mid 30s in which he lost one of his eyes. The woman driving the other car had written a suicide note before going out on the road and hitting my grandfather's car head-on.
Years later one of my uncles who I never got to meet, was killed by a speeding motorist in front of my grandfather's house. He was 10 years old.
My friend Dewy was also killed on the same road, 300 yards from where my uncle was killed, by an asshole in a fucking car. He was 10 years old at the time. I was also 10 at the time. We had known each other since before we could talk.
My friend Trevor who lived two houses down from my grandfather was killed in a head-on collision at the age of 17. I was 16 at the time. We grew up together. Just like Dewy, we had known each other since before we could talk.
My friend Quincy went to prison for 20 years after the car he was a passenger in struck an Amish buggy and killed everyone in it. A whole family wiped out in the blink of an eye and a young man's life ruined. He and the driver had been drinking. Under state law they were both equally guilty.
I knew two other young men who were paralyzed for life from car collisions.
If all these drivers had been using horse drawn buggies like grandpa David, the horses would have tried to stop. A horse will try to avoid stepping on or knocking down other creatures. A driver being drunk wouldn't have prevented the horses from wanting to avoid injury. These kids and families would be alive. Two young men wouldn't have wasted their lives in prison.
All of this carnage doesn't even address the pollution caused by cars.
Cars are too fast, too heavy, and too dangerous. Humans are too weak, too stupid and our reflexes are too slow to use them.
I have never seen snowshoes for horses. Pretty coo! U.S. Forest Service near McCall, #Idaho, 1925. Photo courtesy of the Payette National Forest Heritage Program Historic Photo Archive. #history#horses
A rider goes through flames during the annual "Luminarias" celebration on the eve of Saint Anthony's day, Spain's patron saint of animals, in the village of San Bartolome de Pinares, northwest of Madrid, Spain. REUTERS/Juan Medina