miscellaneous


First off, let me apologize for missing the last three days here on the blog. With severe thunderstorms and tornadoes bearing down on Lexington, we high-tailed it out of the office just after midday on Friday. Because we have no Internet connection at home, I usually prepare my weekend posts on Fridays, along with that day’s post. But when I left the office so abrubtly (after we’d turned off and unplugged all our computer equipment), I left the blog undone.

Thankfully, we here in Lexington didn’t have any significant damage from the massive storms (although we did spend a fair amount of time that afternoon and evening in our basements), but other parts of Kentucky and the region weren’t so fortunate. Just now, as I type this post, I’m hearing on the radio news that the tornado that ripped through (and, sadly, destroyed most of) West Liberty, Kentucky, was on the ground for sixty continuous miles!

After all that, the weekend was fairly calm, if a bit cooler than it had been on freaky-weather Friday.

But we woke up this morning to our first real snowfall of the season! Before coming in to work this morning, I drove through portions of the Kentucky Horse Park and took these photos:

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How about these nine Percherons? They’re doing some plowing at the Northern Minnesota Draft Horse Association’s Fall Field Day. I think this is from 2010, but I’m not certain.

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If the embedded video won’t work on your computer, click here to go directly to it on YouTube.

Here’s a short video clip of a pair (team) of mules providing the horsepower for raking hay in Tennessee last spring …

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If the embedded video won’t work, click here to go directly to YouTube.

After reading the post about Thom Mezick and Linda Freeman’s visit to Death Valley, Randy Solle sent some photos from the borax mine in Boron, California. Having already seen photos of the old mule-drawn vehicles, let’s take a look at the mine itself, shall we?

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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This modern mine produces more than 12,000 tons of borax each day.

From 1883 to 1888, each twenty-mule team (pulling two loaded wagons and a water tank) took ten days (round trip) to travel from the Death Valley mine to the nearest railroad junction in Mojave. Each team carried about twenty tons of borax per trip, and the teams delivered more than 10,000 tons of borax during their years of operation.

This set of two wagons and water tank are on display at the mine:

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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(photo by Randy Solle)

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… on Facebook, that is?

You can find the Carriage Association in three separate locations on the Internet.

First, the CAA has a rather ancient website, which we’re in the process of revamping. Later this  year, it will sport a new look and some new and improved functionality. It will still have all the same useful information that’s there now, plus more. 

And, of course, we have this blog, which I (try to) update every day … with carriage- and driving-related things, most of the time.

But did you know that we’re on Facebook as well? You can find our FB page here. Earlier today, I posted on our page a bunch of fabulous old photos that my FB friend Albert Arnhem (in Holland) had shared. If you haven’t already found us on Facebook, we hope you’ll “like” us and join in the fun. And enjoy Albert’s photos!

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