It has been rainy and cold this week, so I haven’t been out to the barn except last weekend. I miss it. I can feel the withdrawl sinking in. I want to go riding so much. Pretty sad when you miss your horse and feel like you’ve lost your sanity? I also feel guilty about…
One of my favourite quotes is from Frank Herbert’s Dune: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye…
Wow. This was bad. This was bad beyond bad. It’s like Ed Wood tried to write a movie based upon TH White’s Sword in the Stone and instead ended up with the script for “Arthur: Men in Anachronous Armor.” It’s like the movie also borrowed heavily from the left over equipment of the recent movie…
Mom was in Paris for the Arabian World Championships at the Salon du Cheval during the second week in December. No horse at the show, she just went to watch. It’s something she has wanted to do for years. And you know what? She did it. (Go Mom!) When you’ve gone to enough horse shows,…
I took Stella and Kiesha to the vet this morning; shots and some blood work for Stella. More as a precautionary measure than anything else. She is old enough that a minor panel would help us keep an eye on what is going on with her. Over the past few months she has definitely started…
Whether you knew it or not, I used to write fiction and poetry. Avidly. Like several stories a year, worked on several novels (almost finished one). I’ve always loved writing — that’s why my degree is in writing (English with a writing emphasis, technically). Ever since I started working as a full time technical writer,…
On November 18, Mom called me in France and left a voicemail. Sabbath, the gorgeous bay mare that had bred to Sirdar (Isis’ sire), died. I’ve included Mom’s email below. Sabbath was by Ibn Amoura, a gorgeous stallion that I had wanted desperately to breed Isis too. I made the decision not to breed Isis…
I’m on a mailing list for owners of horses who are insulin resistant and/or have Cushings. These can be very serious conditions for horses if left untreated. These metabolic conditions can not be cured, only managed. Isis has insulin resistance and so far we’ve kept her well managed. We have been lucky. She had two…
In October, I wrote a comparison of the movie The Seeker to the book upon which it was allegedly based, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. My opinion? The movie sucked rocks and hurled chunks. I love the books and this movie was something abhorrent. Reading the comments on my earlier post made me…
I may start filling in what happened while I was in France by creating blog entries for the actual dates with brief details of what we did. It will mean that posts will be written one day but dated another. I can include a note on the post for the actual date it was written….
Never seems to fail. I come back from a trip and I get sick. On the flight back last weekend, the kid sitting in the row behind me coughed up a storm. I started losing my voice and getting a sore throat on Thursday last week. The coughing got worse over the weekend. I was…
Blogging in France did not go as expected. I didn’t have consistent internet access, unfortunately. At the cottage we had an internet connection that was set up using an extended wifi antenna. The router was connected to the antenna with a wire through the living room window. For the first few days at the cottage,…
In 10 minutes, I’m leaving work for a trip that I have been anticipating for months: I’m going to France on a research trip with my coauthor. We’re meeting in Paris and then will be staying at a house owned by an archaeology professor I know (awesome lady). This house is on an Epona find…
I’ve been looking for current publications on equine archaeology and history. You would be surprised what is out there! I found four books that covered proceedings from the International Council for Archaeozoology meeting in Durham, UK, 2002. It sounds like it would have been an awesome conference. Equids in time and space, edited by Marjan…
A friend of mine asked about book recommendations for Northern Gaul. I pulled together a brief bibliography and sent it to her. I’m also including it here in case other people find it useful. Cunliffe, B. W. (1988) Greeks, Romans, and barbarians : Spheres of interaction. New York, Methuen. ISBN 0416019919 Derks, Ton. (1998) Gods,…