It snowed a little last night just west of here and was quite cold when I got up. I rode my bicycle to the library today. It's around 30 miles one way. The ride getting here is easy. Except for one large climb across a mountain ridge, it's almost all down hill and fairly fast.
During my bike rides, I've been listening to old recordings of Alan Watts lectures on my mp3 player. Alan Watts was a writer and public speaker known for popularizing Eastern philosophy in the United States during the 1960s. He began his career as an Episcopal priest but left the Christian church when he became interested in Zen among other things. Some of the lectures are definitely interesting and worth listening to. But like anything, some aren't so good. Some s are repetitive and watered-down.
So I've made arrangements to live on an old homestead just off the former Oregon Trail. Rent is free, but instead I'll be responsible for doing a few chores: 1) I've got to feed a pair of horses. The chore is easy. All I have to do is make sure they have 1 scoop of grain and 1 bale of hay every day. I don't even have to buy the food. Sacks of grain and 180 70# bales of hay are already on the site covered by a tarp. I'm going to move them to the barn tomorrow where they'll be protected from the rain. Rainy season has started very early this year, in mid September in fact, and the hay will mold and rot if left out, even under a tarp.
A veterinarian was out here to look at them, and he declared that they are too old and decrepit for anyone to ride. I was surprised to learn that the horses are unridable and wonder why anybody would want to maintain them. Most people here, unless the horses have sentimental value to the owner, for example if he rode them every day for 20 years or something and had become fond of them, would have sent them to a glue factory or some similar fate after they'd outlived their usefulness. But that is not the case. Not even their current owner has ridden them; he only wants to feed them. That's fine with me. It's a very easy chore. They were "rescue horses" rescued from some degenerate who let them starve one winter.
If anyone is familiar with the daily newspaper "The Oregonian," articles about horse abuse are published throughout the winter. Briefly, grazing animals eat grass in pastures during the spring and summer when grass is plentiful, but grass goes dormant and doesn't grow by late Summer or Fall. When the grass runs out, livestock need to be fed hay or grain or something. Throughout the state, especially east of the Cascades where the winters can be harsh, some horse owners will invariably choose to keep but not feed their horses. They leave them in their pasture to subsist on grass that's been chewed down to the roots. By mid-winter, these animals are skin and bones. Their ribs and spine show through their hides. If the animals are lucky, some state animal welfare agency will find out about it. It's not too hard to spot a starving horse if it's visible from a road. A neighbor or passersby can call the agency and report the problem. Hopefully, then, the state comes in and investigates. If they're in really horrible condition, the owner might be arrested and fined and the animals confiscated. So that's the story behind these horses.
2) I will also be responsible for some maintenance of the property. That includes mending fences and repairing the barns and cabin as needed. I don't have to buy any tools or supplies for that either. That's about all.
There's a mentally disabled teenage boy here at the library. He's walking around in circles making loud airplane noises. Now he's making that goofy sound where he sort of blows a raspberry through his loosely closed lips and runs his finger across them as he blows out. He's been at it for 20 minutes now. Every now and then he makes a farting sound through his lips, and then he giggles. The librarian won't do anything about him. Whenever she says anything to him, Jerome apparently is his name, he starts bawling. She just threatened to call his mother. And he's crying. What happened to the rule about being quiet in the library? I can't hear myself think. Time to go.
During my bike rides, I've been listening to old recordings of Alan Watts lectures on my mp3 player. Alan Watts was a writer and public speaker known for popularizing Eastern philosophy in the United States during the 1960s. He began his career as an Episcopal priest but left the Christian church when he became interested in Zen among other things. Some of the lectures are definitely interesting and worth listening to. But like anything, some aren't so good. Some s are repetitive and watered-down.
So I've made arrangements to live on an old homestead just off the former Oregon Trail. Rent is free, but instead I'll be responsible for doing a few chores: 1) I've got to feed a pair of horses. The chore is easy. All I have to do is make sure they have 1 scoop of grain and 1 bale of hay every day. I don't even have to buy the food. Sacks of grain and 180 70# bales of hay are already on the site covered by a tarp. I'm going to move them to the barn tomorrow where they'll be protected from the rain. Rainy season has started very early this year, in mid September in fact, and the hay will mold and rot if left out, even under a tarp.
A veterinarian was out here to look at them, and he declared that they are too old and decrepit for anyone to ride. I was surprised to learn that the horses are unridable and wonder why anybody would want to maintain them. Most people here, unless the horses have sentimental value to the owner, for example if he rode them every day for 20 years or something and had become fond of them, would have sent them to a glue factory or some similar fate after they'd outlived their usefulness. But that is not the case. Not even their current owner has ridden them; he only wants to feed them. That's fine with me. It's a very easy chore. They were "rescue horses" rescued from some degenerate who let them starve one winter.
If anyone is familiar with the daily newspaper "The Oregonian," articles about horse abuse are published throughout the winter. Briefly, grazing animals eat grass in pastures during the spring and summer when grass is plentiful, but grass goes dormant and doesn't grow by late Summer or Fall. When the grass runs out, livestock need to be fed hay or grain or something. Throughout the state, especially east of the Cascades where the winters can be harsh, some horse owners will invariably choose to keep but not feed their horses. They leave them in their pasture to subsist on grass that's been chewed down to the roots. By mid-winter, these animals are skin and bones. Their ribs and spine show through their hides. If the animals are lucky, some state animal welfare agency will find out about it. It's not too hard to spot a starving horse if it's visible from a road. A neighbor or passersby can call the agency and report the problem. Hopefully, then, the state comes in and investigates. If they're in really horrible condition, the owner might be arrested and fined and the animals confiscated. So that's the story behind these horses.
2) I will also be responsible for some maintenance of the property. That includes mending fences and repairing the barns and cabin as needed. I don't have to buy any tools or supplies for that either. That's about all.
There's a mentally disabled teenage boy here at the library. He's walking around in circles making loud airplane noises. Now he's making that goofy sound where he sort of blows a raspberry through his loosely closed lips and runs his finger across them as he blows out. He's been at it for 20 minutes now. Every now and then he makes a farting sound through his lips, and then he giggles. The librarian won't do anything about him. Whenever she says anything to him, Jerome apparently is his name, he starts bawling. She just threatened to call his mother. And he's crying. What happened to the rule about being quiet in the library? I can't hear myself think. Time to go.