Saturday, July 26, 2008

Word of the Day

eulogy

noun
plural eulogies

1) a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, esp. a set oration in honor of a deceased person.
2) high praise or commendation.

[1585–95; eulogia and Middle Latin eulogium.]

Perhaps it isn't proper to eulogize a horse. I want to tell you about him, just the same.

Sunshine Kypchak, son of Walker's Prince T
breed - American Bashkir Curly
age - 25

Kippy was 5 years old when he came to live with us. I had cut my reading teeth on Walter Farley's Black Stallion series and had always wanted my own Big Black.

Kippy was no Big Black. Kippy barely reached 14 hands. He was a dark red roan overo pinto. In the summer when his coat was short and sleek he looked lavender out in the sunshine. He was heavily curled. In the winters he would be completely covered in poodle curls. Even in the summer his coat would wave across his shoulders. His main and tail were filled with ringlets.

Kippy had the sweetest disposition of any horse I've ever known. He enjoyed being petted. I could lead him around by hand with no rope or halter. I could crawl under his belly and pluck flies from his scrotum. He was never skittish and had no vices. He didn't appreciate being ridden but if you carried a crop he was a docile saddle horse, even around mares in heat.

For the last couple years Kippy has been failing. I've had to feed him warm mashes. No matter what I did, I couldn't keep weight on him. We feared we would loose him last winter.

July 18, when I went out to feed him, he didn't come to the gate. I hoped I was wrong, but my heart knew that he wouldn't be coming to the feed bucket any more. I went down to the barnyard to check on him and at first I thought he was already dead. Closer examination revealed he was still breathing. I covered him with a wet sheet to try and keep him cool then went and made necessary phone calls.

Within two hours of my finding him, it was all over.

If good horses go to heaven, Kippy is there, knee deep in clover with his own herd of mares.

Changes

I've decided to change my focus a bit. I find that right now my life isn't real conductive to writing humor though there is something going on that could produce lots of humor blogs but the party of the second part wouldn't be amused by the party of the first part reporting on public forum.

So I am going to make this primarily a writing related blog, at least for now. Word of the Day kind of stuff. Yeah, I'll still slip in snippets of my life (trying very hard never to mention the party of the second part). Might even be slightly funny at times. Hope y'all won't be too disappointed.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Death On the Farm

Today we are burying my old horse. There is no humor to be found in this but it is something that deserves to be noted somewhere.