Today the People's Daily Online in China reports that—

The Xinjiang Wild Animal Protection Association and Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center launched a campaign for the adoption of Przewalski Horse, which marks the first of its kind in Xinjiang.

The Przewalski Horse, is even rarer than the giant panda. According to the article, the little horse "has become the subject of love and research for people inside the circle both at home and abroad. It is also liked more and more by the general public."

What the article doesn't say is that the Przewalski Horse has a stubborn temperament and cannot be trained for riding.

This sounds like a curmudgeonly pensioner pony I know who is at this very moment lolling in my barn eating a mountain of expensive hay. While he is, in my honest opinion, cuter than any giant panda, especially with that shaggy winter polka-dotted coat—at 25, Thor's only career aspiration now seems to be complete orneriness.

Last weekend I decided he needed some exercise and was ponying him down the trail from my little appaloosa mare. Now, as a backcountry rider, I've had pretty good luck teaching my horses to pony. And Thor knows exactly what to do. Mind you, this fellow's not just smart, he's a pony genius with years of experience to boot.

As my mare was trotting blissfully along and I was just enjoying the scenery, he planted his tiny hooves in the dirt and stopped dead in his tracks. An anchor with fur.

I don't believe I've ever fallen off backwards over a horse's tail before, not even during vaulting practice, and it's not an experience I'd care to repeat.

Cute-as-a-panda or not, all that glitters is not gold, as that cowboy song twangs on and on. If I win the lottery, I will not be cloning this old boy for posterity.

I wonder if I could talk the People into adopting him?

Sources:
People's Daily Online
Flickr Photo Sources: finlayerdridge; tarja

Posted by Kimberly at November 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I'm thawing out in the kitchen in my Carhartts and wool socks, eyes glued to the grumbling percolator completing its final gyrations before coffee's on, when my husband strolls in on his way out to work and asks me, grinning, "Hey, did you see the iron horse at dawn?"

He emphasizes the last four words, eyes full of expectation. He’s giving me that shifty co-conspirator look, the type that precedes a couple of good tickles in the ribs with an elbow to underscore the point.

And I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

I’m standing there like a lump of coal, empty coffee cup in hand. Is this some kind of trick question? I’m wondering. My brain cells are still frozen stiff from feeding horses and chopping the ice out of the water tank this morning in 14-degree weather. (Four out of the five horses do belong to me, after all.)

Perhaps Dennis is waxing poetic at 5:30 AM because he’s trying to help me with my blog site, which he’s pretty keen on, by the way. You know, gin up a little creativity to start the day. The coffee pot is winding down as the answer comes percolating out of my mouth. "No,” I’m telling him. “Toby was standing quietly down by the gate this morning."

I’m referring to our big, black Percheron horse.

Imagine if you will, an enthusiastically hungry draft horse making his way down from the top of the pasture for breakfast each morning in the absence of any light whatsoever. (Thank you, Daylight Savings Time.) Hooves pounding clop-clop-clop, clop-clop-clop, chewing up the distance between 1,350 pounds of equine and you. Flanks heaving chugga-chugga-chugga, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. You’re squinting in the dark hoping against hope to see the white crescent on his jet black forehead before he plows you over, and all of a sudden there he is, screeching to a halt three feet in front of you, big breath billowing out of his nostrils in big white clouds. Your very own, very happy, and very friendly mythical dragon creature right here in your own backyard. Three-year-old Toby delivers a bigger jolt every morning than any Venti Latte, Cappuchino Grande or Double Mocha whatchamacallit ever will.

Handing me the first cup of scalding hot java from the pot, Dennis looks at me, perplexed, and laughs. "No, silly," he says. "Not Toby." He pauses for emphasis, eyebrows raised. "The train."

His mischievous eyes cut to the window, way beyond the fence line towards the mesa where I’m supposed to look and get some kind of clue. He's enjoying this way too much. But this is one of the reasons I love the man the way I do.

Then it dawns on me. The old Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe . The railroad runs right behind our property. You can set the clock at my house by the freight trains and Amtraks.

This morning at the pasture gate, as I stood marveling at Toby’s unnaturally calm “good morning”, I barely noticed the freight train’s jarring the earth beneath my feet, lights crescendoing over the tops of the piñon and juniper as they always do, piercing the darkness like some primordial beast against which even the tenacious and venerable blue heeler Matilda has no power.

Oh, yeah. That iron horse at dawn!

Flickr Photo credits: cudmore; Luke S.

Posted by Kimberly at November 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A horsewoman rides during the opening ceremony of the International Horse Show in Seville November 23, 2005.

Our horse blogger enters with slightly less ceremony—

The cold burns in my throat and lungs as I head down to the barn, my blue heeler, Matilda, at my heels. At 5:15 AM, she’s all business. This is what she lives for—horse chores at dawn.

By the time we reach the gate, my pajamas are crumpling and bunching beneath my Carhartts. "Layering is not for the half awake", I tell the patchwork cattle dog, who draws her lips back in a smile. I pull my nine-year-old daughter’s hat down further over my ears and clap my hands together in my husband’s welding gloves.

The gate’s frozen shut, so I clamber over. Matilda squeezes underneath, haunches nearly sticking.

“Good morning, good morning, good morning,” I say to the five hungry horses crowding around me. I rub their shaggy necks. They are all bright eyes, twitching tails, and whiskery muzzles. A good 7,000 lbs of equines. I have to show my greedy Percheron, Toby, that I don’t have any goodies in my hands. Once he’s convinced I’m not holding out on him, I head into the barn.

Matilda bump bump bumps my legs with her nose as I’m hauling what suddenly seem like 200-lb bales of hay to the horse feeder. They are surprisingly heavier in the bitter cold. The heeler is reminding me that she's ready to protect me from the bear or lion that might slink off the mountain at any moment. Job security, she must think.

I’m sweating now under the Carhartts and curse the flannel PJs I have on underneath. I stop to catch my breath in the thin desert air as the sun peeks over the Pecos Mountains and turns the whole valley red. “Rojo,” I say to no one in particular, rolling the rrrrrrrrrr like the professionals do it. Enjoying the feel of the romance language on my tongue. My Andalusian mare, Caprichosa, looks up from her feed, unimpressed with my Spanish.

The entire world is covered in a fine snowy powder this morning, like God got out his giant flour sifter and went to town. From where I stand on my frozen piece of New Mexico earth, the pale crescent moon hangs from a black ceiling that suddenly lights up to cornflower blue. The stars fade with the exception of the one sparkling planet I can’t name for the life of me. It winks at me from its place above the mesa. And I know it is a planet, because it’s brighter than all of the other lights in the sky, and is the very last to be extinguished with each and every dawn.

I’ve just turned 44. I’m standing in a frozen field in Carhartts and pajamas.

My hungry horses are chomping their hay.

Matilda is on guard.

And, in Spain, the International Horse Show in Seville has just drawn to a close.

Photo and content sources: Photo 1; Photo 2

Posted by Kimberly at November 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)