People who devote their weekends to fixing the car seem to spend less time driving than everyone else. It’s the same with horses, there’s more greasing and polishing than actual riding. The other day we had to walk my daughter’s Icelandic horse from the stable he lives in during winter to one of the pastures where he grazes in summer. I still don’t understand why he couldn’t be ridden there, but never mind.
This is the stable on our neighbour’s farm, it’s mostly for cows — a cowshed, in fact. I think it’s pretty. All Norwegian farm buildings are painted this red except for farmhouses, which are supposed to be white. The Norwegian cowshed works on a sort of gravity-feed system and they’re the same everywhere in the country. After it’s harvested, the hay is kept on the top floor in the wooden bit (the hay loft), accessed from a ramp.
Hay is tossed down every day through a hole in the floor to the animals, who live on the masonry ground floor (I suppose it’s warmer in winter). The manure drops through slats in the floor down to the basement, from which the farmer removes it once a year to spread on the fields.
It’s about a half-mile walk to where the horses are.
And on the way we saw an enormous hare sitting on a ridge. Alma saw it too:
Having just been washed, the first thing the horse did was roll on his back; it’s what they always do, apparently.
Then he got up and went about his business — eating, mostly.
A Bad Guide 
It must be my eyes – I see no hare, but I do see a huge carrot.
We saw a hare. It could have been a rabbit, but I’ve never seen rabbits up there only hares.
Wonderful! How clever of you both to see the hare.
Aha, I see it now. V Good!
Hare raising is legal in Norway? In Finland it can bring someone to prison.
Finland is a funny place, I didn’t know they had laws against hare raising. Hares are wild here.
I knew you could do it when you spotted that carrot early on.
Thanks. I’m hoping Alma wasn’t just humouring me. Like dearie, she didn’t see it immediately.
BTW, in these pix it certainly doesn’t look as if the horse has a bad leg. Maybe Alma’s cookies cured him instantly? He looks like a very happy fellow.
How good of you to think of him, mab. You can’t see the swelling any longer. We’re giving him medicine at 7 pm every day. He can’t be ridden for two weeks. The cookies: he spat two of them out, so the rest had to be given to us. They were too hard and not crunchy enough for a horse, Alma said.
I noticed that, too. I also noted that the alt text for the image says “rabbit”. Like AJP apparently, Hindi does not believe in splitting hares – it uses the same words for both.
I don’t know if you have ever read Arto Paasilinna. He wrote a book which has been translated as Le Lièvre de Vatanen. I liked it a lot.
At first I saw a rabbit, but then it looked like it had mouse ears and a frog’s hindquarters. Maybe it’s a Guinea pig.
Nijma – THANK YOU. Now icy.
I’m with Nijma on the Guinea pig too, or maybe a hamster.
Could be, though I’ve never seen a guinea pig with mouse ears & a frog’s hindquarters.
Okay, but it’s foreshortened.
When you see a hare, you know it’s not a rabbit. It’s as big a difference as between a horse and a mule, or donkey.
Sounds interesting. I’ll take a look.
“When you see a hare, you know it’s not a rabbit. ” I agree, and was surprised that my Hindi cousins don’t
Maybe one or the other doesn’t live in India?
Wow. I guess cooking treats for a horse is a subtle art.
Also BTW — the barn looks incredibly neat and clean and tidy. Is that typical? Russsian barns — and hell, upstate NY barns — are pig stys in comparison. Perhaps that is just a particularly anal farmer?
It’s neat. He’s a 24/7 type, with several helpers.
We don’t say “hare”, we say “rabbit”. Maybe it’s a carryover from when Hare Krishnas used to annoy people at the airports.
What about that carrot, though? I’m very impressed by the effect of the lengthened days on the growing habits of carrots there.
If the ears were sticking out to the sides, they wouldn’t appear to be very long and you could still call it a rabbit.
I’ve noticed that when rabbits look at people they know, their ears go back; when they are looking at something exciting, their ears go up; but if they are looking at food, sometimes their ears go all floppy.
Who’s ‘we’? And whatever happened to the Hare Hrishnas who used to annoy me at the airport?
World’s largest carrot, that is.
I don’t want to call it a rabbit, it’s a hare.
You’ve got an accent, don’t you. Well, spot on, jolly good then old chap, and carry on.
I’m tempted to say “security” did away with the Krishnas, but it was way before that. One day I went through O’Hare and there were signs all over saying there were persons there exercising their free speech rights, while the aforementioned persons were way in a corner with orange dresses and tambourines ( I think) then I didn’t fly for nine years, then all of a sudden they were gone. I suspect they annoyed a lawyer somewhere along the line.
As long as it’s knee high by the fourth of July. Or do you have one of those special calendar sticks for your particular valley.
Like the rabbit ears on a television. You notice they aren’t called “hare ears.”
It’s a Rorschach test.
Sorry, Nijma but this is a pavlovian reflex on my part – I see “Rorshach” and have to post this (couldn’t find the audio, sadly):
And I go over to the psychologist, and he says, “Emo, what does this inkblot look like to you?” I said, “Oh, it’s kind of embarrassing.” He said, “Emo, everyone sees something, so don’t be embarrassed. Tell me what the inkblot looks like to you.” I said, “Well, to me it looks like standard pattern #3 in the Rorschach series to test obsessive compulsiveness.” And he gets kind of depressed. I said, “Okay, it’s a butterfly.” And he cheers up. He said, “What does this inkblot look like?” I said, “It looks like a horrible ugly blob of pure evil that sucks the souls of man into a vortex of sin and degradation.” He said, “No, um, the inkblot’s over there. That’s a photo of my wife you’re looking at.” “Oh,” I said, “was I far off?” He said, “No. That’s the sad part.”
Then you’ll appreciate this.
Psychology: “the study of the obvious by the incompetent”
“Psychology: “the study of the obvious by the incompetent”
Great stuff. I shall send it to my sister and her husband. Since they’re both psych nurses, it will be a real affirmation of their worth.
I did the Ken Kesey thing myself once upon a time. If you’re going to be on a psych ward, it’s best to have the keys in your pocket.
I do have an accent, but I’m not Terry Thomas.
You two were discussing the tricks of digital photography not too long ago.
It’s more a trick of Photoshop than of digital photography, really.
The thought of Nij holding the keys to the ward makes me think that this could be pitched to Hollywood. I see Jack Nicholson as Nij, this time.
I was certainly never the Nurse Ratched type, although we had one of those too. It wasn’t that hard. Count the narcs, count the sharps, call in every hour so they know you aren’t sleeping (or worse), then settle in to watch reruns of The Prisoner. Every once in a while you have to stop a fight when someone confused wants to pee on someone deaf, or maybe bats get into the building (they used to hide in the belfrey–just kidding, it was an attic) and you have to catch them and get them out, or if someone dies you have to wrap them up (after they are pronounced, of course.) They did go on a field trip to see the local college production of “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and they liked it a lot. They don’t do lobotomies any more (Captain Thorazine and his sister Stella changed all of that) , but I have seen what the scar from that looks like, and I did see electro-convulsive therapy.
If you think Hollywood (or Bergenwood?) would be interested in this from a language standpoint, I can tell you there were a lot of Norwegian speaking people there. It seems that when people have memory loss it affects short term memory more than long term memory, so they forget English and go back to speaking their first language.
It’s called The Year of the Hare in English (Jäniksen vuosi in Finnish).
if someone dies you have to wrap them up
That reminds me, we have an ex-chicken in the basement who needs a decent burial.
My Finnish being a little rusty, I might try the English version. Everyone on the Amazon page thought it was really good, I’ll buy it if it’s not at the library.
Forgive my ignorance, but it all sounds the same to me.
Well, digital photography means that your pictures are stored on a computer chip rather than a piece of film.
Photoshop is a computer programme that allows you to alter photographs or drawings or any other two-dimensional image, and sometimes to create images from scratch.
They aren’t comparable. It’s as if you were to try and compare Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason with a Chevy Vega.
Wash it, tie a number on its toe, wrap it in a sheet, then call the morgue. That’s all I know.
If it doesn’t have a number you should be safe enough burying it in a shoebox. It’s always hard to find the right words for these ex-chicken, ex-cat, and ex-rabbit rituals. Do animals go to heaven? Would you want to go to a heaven where you couldn’t have your animals?
These are difficult theological questions that are in my opinion best avoided. My ex-boyfriend, who also worked on the psyche unit, used to say “happy landing.”
You probably don’t want to leave that ex-chicken down there for a long time.
try and compare Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason with a Chevy Vega.
I am afraid that is way beyond my philosophical and mechanical abilities. But thank you for the enlightenment. I thought “digital photography” encompassed the computer programs as well.
I was given a digital camera as a retirement present. I have now figured out how to transfer photos to the computer and even to email them, but that’s about the end of my accomplishments in that field thus far. I would have liked to take a course in photography (eg lighting, composition, etc) but nowadays the only courses offered where I am are about computer programs to fix photos after you take them, not get them right the first time.
I was fortunate enough to take one of those courses at the art department of my local state university as a student at large. It snowballed and I ended up finishing the bachelor’s degree I had started years earlier, although I was unhappy that they made me take an English composition test AND transfer my high school transcript before they would let me graduate.
Anyhow, we got cameras with internal light meter and absolutely NO automatic settings. Then we bought some special black and white film from a camera store that is now out of business and spent a lot of time in the dark room with some nice smelly chemicals, I loved it. Working with the black and white film makes you pay attention to light, and techie camera details like f-stops and depth of field. You also learn how to take pictures that will come out with both very light and very dark areas. I got very good at shooting in full sunlight with 100 speed film, but of course anyone can do that. Sort of. I got some very good photos in the middle east, but it’s hugely expensive compared to the ditigal camera, which only eats batteries (I have rechargable ones).
Hey, I’ve got a great idea. m-l can start a blog so she can teach herself how to UPLOAD HER PHOTOS TO A BLOG. :~) :~D ;-)
If you want to be amazed, John H. White is probably still teaching in Chicago.
m-l: I thought “digital photography” encompassed the computer programs as well.
There are lots of programmes for digital photography; many of them seem to give you different ways of filing the pictures for easier access from your computer.
There are some that allow you to adjust the brightness and the colour saturation, of which Photoshop is the best (and it does much more), but others are much cheaper.
Nij: You also learn how to take pictures that will come out with both very light and very dark areas. Photoshop lets you do this very easily.