Weekend, Flown By

We’re going to go and talk to the owners of this barn this afternoon, in preparation for possibly moving Lizzie there. It’s the local large show venue, and I’ve shown Lizzie there twice. It’s quite expensive, but not as much as I’d thought when I compare all of the hay and shavings that I buy separately…and I’ll be able to switch to full care when Top Sekrit Projekt reaches go-live stage, as I won’t be able to feed and muck and also work the long hours that are inevitably required. The drawback to this place is the cold; this is the coldest damn place I’ve ever been, even in summer. I have videos that I’ve done for friends there that were basically unusable because of how severely I was shaking, and the rush of the arctic wind. But, for a summer, it would be perfect. They have extensive treatment facilities (chiropractic, equissage, solarium, hydrotherapy, etc.) onsite, so I’ll have a hope of keeping Lizzie sound while we try our best to make it to the Area Festival finals.

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had her usual thought-provoking post on recent events. I’ve wondered, as well, if we are seeing the start of the next world war. Interesting (read: terrifying) times, indeed.

In the meantime, the BNP dickwads get off scott-free, and there seems to be a proliferation of people getting slapped on the wrist for baby raping/killing old people/etc., and I just wondering where the hell we’re going?

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In a secondhand bookstore I found Monty Roberts’ autobiography (The Man Who Listens to Horses) and I’ve been reading it in total fascination. The parts about his relationship with his father are heartbreaking, especially the story about the robbery. His father, a cold, cruel and dismissive man, was in the police force, in the late 1930s, I think. He got a call about an armed robbery when he was driving home with young Monty in the car, and took the call, even though he realised that he didn’t have his weapon with him. He told the boy to stay hidden on the floor of the car, and went in to face the robber, who had a knife; he fought him barehanded, managed to take the weapon from him, and bring him down…for a few minutes, a hero and a brave man to his young son. Then, he jumped in the air and landed on his knees on the man’s chest, then dragged him out to the car, smashing his head on the steps on the way down. The man died in jail that night. He told the boy that the man had died of pneumonia, but he had actually died of untreated punctured lungs and a cracked skull, a black man killed intentionally by a smalltown white cop who drug him into the police station like a trophy kill. Horrible story.

I suppose I can relate to that in some small part because of a family story from years ago. My father entered the sherriffs department as a second career, and there was an incident where he was trying to apprehend a huge, young, drunk Indian youth; he finally won the fight and managed to handcuff the boy by kicking out his knee. I remember my sisters being horrified and upset by the knowledge that my father had done it…and even though it had nothing to do with racial hatred, I can understand, to a very small degree, how it would feel to watch your father hurt someone.