
Welcome to
~ Midlife Madness – Setting Up Horsekeeping ~
The hilarious tale
of one woman’s attempts to cope with equine challenges.
Warning! Do NOT buy a horse until
you read this book!
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Horsekeeping
could lead you to lower your standard of living….
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Or to
participate in bizarre rituals.
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Horses demand a
lot of care.
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You may lose
your partner’s attention…
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And discover that
you can’t have just one.
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The
first sign….
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Let
me tell you, these clever ponies waste no time. They seize control of your life
and before you know it, you find yourself chatting at cocktail parties about
the quality of frozen stallion semen and the proper uses of equine artificial
vaginas….
Here are some excerpts
from “Midlife Madness”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time….”
“Many
people lead orderly, well-planned lives. These persons of enviable control
don’t have impulses to turn their lives upside down, or, if they do, they
stifle the rascals. Should folks like this trip over an impulse lying in wait,
they wrestle it to the ground, hog tie it, and stuff it in the back of the
closet, under the gym clothes. I prefer to give impulses the benefit of the
doubt, a little more rein, as it were. This approach can be a mixed blessing.
You never know what that impulse has in mind.”
See
what can happen?

“More than you want to know about breeding….”
“To
get herself in the family way, a mare must to be in the mood – they call it
receptive. Read, “Just show me that
hot stud, baby, and I’ll blow his horny little mind!” Here’s the catch; while this horse hussy
loves to advertise her receptiveness to the stallion in question, when it comes
to letting you know, that information is classified. So how do you know when to
send her off to her eager groom for the wedding? You measure the follicle. How
do you do that? You do it by palpation. Which leads to Mr. Vet, up to his arm
pit in my mare Silka, smiling brightly and telling us, “You’ve got a window of
36 hours for conception.” “Fine,” I
think to myself. “What does he care? He doesn’t have to trailer this horse over
on a ferry. On a holiday. AND drive 600 miles with a trainer named Tinkerbell.
In the dark. To a foreign country!”
Well, OK,
photo coming soon
“Riding lesson – The Canter Depart….”
“.…so, this sweet mare canters a few strides and then
announces, “Silka is stopping now!” At this point, her body language downshifts
from “fast” to “stop,” totally skipping “slow.” Unfortunately, I can’t quite
manage, “Peg is stopping now too.” Had I
been better prepared, I would have yelled something more like, “Peg is flying
over Silka’s head now and landing all over the place!” My trainer, Tinkerbell, is
alarmed. She rushes over, crying, “Silka, are you all right?”
Caution
– do not try this at home!
The
culprit. Looks innocent, doesn’t she? Let that be a lesson….

And
finally….
“Breaking
the Ice – Midlife Madness Below Zero”
“Peg’s
step by step guide to wintry watering:
1] Do not consider covering outside faucets to
keep them from freezing. That’s for
sissies.
2] Even with a sloping driveway, making draining
hoses an easy task,
let that idea slip your mind,
leave hoses nicely coiled.
3]
Discover four inches of ice in horse troughs. Pound on ice with stout garden
stake.
Fracture stake. Seek heftier
bludgeon to break ice. Open cherry-pit sized hole.
4] Search for plastic bucket used last in July;
finally discover it under pile of
rugs in garage.
5] Fill bucket ½ full [water is heavy] with hot
water, grab handle, drag across snow,
gravel, and down steps, making certain to
slosh much of water on self and on path to troughs, so paths immediately
freeze, ensuring thrilling future trips.
6] Attempt to lift bucket over 5 ½ -foot fence
and pour cleanly into trough below,
emulating servers at fancy restaurants, who
pour hot coffee into tiny cups from heights of five or six feet.
7] Realize you should have gone to server
school, as most of water hits
edge of trough while stallion tries to
drink it as you pour. [It was so cute
when we taught him to drink from the hose….]
8] Repeat with Mama and filly. This is easier, you don’t have to try to pour
from on high.
Instead you get to drag tub
across frozen manure to trough.…
9] Meanwhile, attempt to keep
his entire head into the bucket you are
dragging, causing water to spill down your legs into your shoes, instead of
into the trough.
10]
Repeat three times for each trough, until kitchen floor can’t be
distinguished from paddocks.
11]
Knock ice off self while removing clothing in mud room, dash upstairs
in birthday suit
Decide nudity is fine, since you appear to be wearing blue long-johns…. Change
into dry garments.
12]
Hear equine snickering from behind your back. Grind teeth. Consider making rude
gesture.
13]
Hoping to improve on above technique, wash much smaller blue
plastic bucket
lacking handles. Fill 3/4 full in house
and carry it in your arms to high fence, attempting to minimize amount splashed
down your front.
14]
Lift and balance blue bucket on top rail of high fence.
15]
Loose grip on container and drop it into trough, shattering bottom of
bucket.
16]
Curse.
17]
Find another reasonably clean bucket with good handle, scrub it and
try all of the above, discovering that
handles make bucket easier to catch when it slips off fence. Pay no attention
to bruises.
18]
Wish you were 20 years younger.
19]
Wonder whether you were out of your mind when you bought a horse.
20]
Notice sweet filly nuzzling your ear, decide perhaps you were sane, after all.
21]
Resolve that next barn will feature hot and cold running water.
“Midlife Madness – Setting up Horsekeeping” will not appear on
the shelves for a while. Be on the lookout. Be one of the first to get tears in
your ears from lying in bed laughing hysterically while reading this book. [Try
not to shake the bed - you could wake your spouse, who will already be grumpy because
you snatched it up first.] Midlife Madness takes the reader on a madcap journey
of equine adventures and surprises. Join me and learn how to train a stallion
to make love to a telephone pole. No, seriously.
This
web site is a work in progress. Visit often for more good laughs. For an inside
look at the actual venue, visit www.fairpoint.net/~kffjord/ .
Thanks
for visiting,
Peg
Blackstone
[AKA
Peg Knutsen]
Knutsen
Fjord Farm