Horse Expo 2015

Friday, Saturday and Sunday.   We (Cindy and I) rented a room near the Los Angeles Fairplex at a very low rate (thank you sister Lula, who is a reservations agent with Marriott!)  Not having to deal with going home to San Diego is what made this trip possible.  It is about one hundred miles from our home to the fairplex...which is actually in Pomona, but is called the L.A. County Fair.

The Horse Expo is a coming together of vendors who sell horsie product, farm stuff, cowgirl and cowboy things.  A very nice selection - at mostly lower prices than in the store.  We saw tractors, horse trailers, clothing, hats, horse and dog health items, feeds, All in all - a great selection of things to buy.  I bought a new hat - with a 4 inch brim!, and Cindy bought a pretty red dress and a small purse - which really isn't a purse - it is leather and it clips to the belt and it is about five inches square.  Very cute stuff.  Oh!  And we got lots of samples.  Shampoo, fly wipe,   I also bought a product to make my dog stop scratching herself.  It seems to have worked!

There is food and drink available inside the park - or you can leave the event and dine elsewhere.  We did both.  Inside the expo we ate fish tacos and drank lemonade...and Cindy tried some shots of an apple liqueur.

Many exhibitors were there, clinicians too.  I chose to watch the cowboys Chris Cox and Craig Cameron as they taught us about the importance of the outside rein, some of the details of advanced riders.  We enjoyed a cutting demonstration.  It looks like fun to single out one cow from a herd and keep him away from the herd for 45 seconds.  The horses were eye to  eye with the cows.  Wonderfully trained animals.  There was also the Super Horse Challenge - 10 cowboys/girls and their horses competed in an obstacle course challenge.  Three different times  - with one  being the last one where the winner is announced.  Our favorite was Peter, but Don won.  I have to say that I've never seen a person sit in a saddle as good as Don does.  No air ever.  No bouncing - he was perfect. Some of the obstacles were jumps, walk through water, put horses feet on a barrel and turn, walk backwards, walk backwards and push a big ball into the goal, walk through a bunch of "trash", walk through a "carwash" and shoot a gun.

Another event I enjoyed was done by The Wild Horse and Donkey Federation.  America has many many wild horses and donkeys.  They have no predator and the population is out of balance.  So - each year many of these wild mustangs and donkeys are rounded up and placed in different institutions to be gentled and trained.  It is one of the wonderful prison programs available.  At one year old the animals are put up for adoption.  There were two yearlings that were very precious looking - they had curly hair!  And, apparently they are hypoallergenic!  I did not bring one home.  But we wished we could have.  What fun to play with a baby horse - to train him and her to be grown ups.  Mustangs seem to have builds that I like.  They are sturdy looking horses.  Compact and strong and hardy.  Strong and fast and they have endurance.  The mustang is the American horse.

Saturday evening we ate dinner at a betting facility.  It was very big and very noisy.  We did not realize there was a pay per view fight that night - so we had to hurry and skedaddle or be charged $10 extra for taking up space there.  Interesting group of drunk people there.

Saturday was a lovely time to share with our friend Julie.  She met many people there that she knew...so I think she had a good time too.  Julie has two horses.  One is named Ronan and he is a Gypsy Vanner - a beautiful boy.  The other is a very tall horse - Hudson is 18 hands!

On the drive home on Sunday we stopped at a bar in San Juan Capistrano, where the Super Bowl was on.  It was the 4th quarter and the score was Patriots - 14 and Seahawks - 24.  By the time we'd eaten - I thought that the Seahawks would win.  I was surprised this morning.  Must have been an exciting last quarter.

I learned a  lot at the horse expo.  It keeps getting smaller.  That is sad - because it means the economy is worse and people can't afford horses anymore.

Poop Makes the World Go Round

We have quite a bit of poop in our yard.  And most of it is re-usable.  Yay!

Later I will be collecting different varieties and re-homing it in the various sections of my garden, where it will cook in bacteria until it is planting time.  Then the nutrients from the poop will help all the veggies grow and produce wonderful foods.



Is everyone fascinated by feces?  After we use the toilet, do we look at the little logs swirl down the waterways; evaluating our health based on its color and texture and aroma?  Well, color me weird, but I do.  I think I always have.

 Animals examine their own poo.  I've watched the horses, llama, dogs and cats do it.  It is a sort of communication sometimes.  I've seen them eat it too.  The dogs and coyotes and chickens love to eat the horse poop.  Actually, I think the chickens are eating the bugs in and around it.  Dogs used to get more greens in their diets, but with commercial dog foods, they sometimes feel they need more, so they chow down on it.  I've seen the llama eat his own stuff.  Yeah.  

chicken poo

horse poo aka "road apples"

ooh...gross!!

Birds use their poop to help build their nests...and we can use horse poop, clay and straw...shape it into a brick and build our own human nests.




There are many very well built building made with this adobe.

You can use cow poop to help start a fire.

break it into smaller pieces and light your kindling

are you serious?

i will eat your wooden house, furniture, boat...

termite poop

You can tell if your house has termites if you see their poop under your window sills.  It is so tiny that it looks like dust.

Worms leave poop that we call "castings".  People grow worms just to get the castings and sell it as fertilizer.  Great stuff!  And, of course, we've all heard about bat guano - and its wondrous properties via Jim Carrey and Ace Ventura.

We recycle a lot here at the ranch.  I feed my food scraps to chickens. They eat them and it turns into chicken poop.  I pick it up and put in the garden area where I let it "cook" until it doesn't look like poop anymore.  It looks like dirt.  I use the horse and llama poop in the garden also.  I plant tomatoes and bell peppers and strawberries and other things that we eat...and the animals eat the leftovers - and the whole thing starts over again.  It is a pretty cool deal!

Some people use the gas from cows (and probably other animals as well) to make energy to run motors.  I don't think I'd want my car to smell like cow farts though.

Anyway - poop is a great thing!  It makes the world go round.

Thanks for listening/reading