March 18, 2009

Amongst the horses.

There's the horse we called "Bitey":

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And lots of mellow horses:

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And these guys:

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There now, time for more wine and — this being Cincinnati — more chili.

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63 comments:

traditionalguy said...

A true horse operation. That is real everyday work for many people, and keeps the economy going. Have a happy horsey life.

Chip Ahoy said...

Gosh, I wonder how he ended up with a name like Bitey.

* thinks *

Rose said...

Beautiful.

traditionalguy said...

Now Althouse is a cub Horse Whisperer. You can do it Professor. But leave Bitey to the old hands until he tells you that you are fully trained to handle him. A friendly hint about Horse People is that they always keep the Upper Hand over their live stock.

TitusMyLiepchins said...

I love horseys. So beautiful. This reminds me of a book I just finished last night, Farm Boys, Lives of Gay Men From The Rural Midwest. My sister gave it to me for Christmas. I can so identify with the farm, the country and animals. I am seriously thinking of moving back to Wisconsin. My father has a 400 acre farm in Lodi and I have been thinking of building a prefab house on the land that I saw in the magazine Dwell. I love the solitude of the country. But what if I return someday and am miserable?

By the way I wouldn't actually "farm the land"-there is an actual farmer that does that. But I would be willing to birth a horse or have a punch of dogs and a cute latino poop pick up guy.

TitusMyLiepchins said...

If I came back would we be girlfriends Althouse?

TitusMyLiepchins said...

"We call bitey".

So familar and naming things together already.

Slow down MAREy.

TitusMyLiepchins said...

Our farm has a beautiful barn also that I always thought could be a really cool house.

But what if you have a really cool house and no one is around to see it?

JAL said...

You move back to NYC, and have a cool condo that no one sees?

TitusMyLipchins said...

You are so right JAL. No one sees my cool place now. Thank you JAL. Green Acres here I come.

If I ever move from NYC I don't come back. That is it. I did my time, had my hog, left my mark. That day will come too.

JAL said...

You could put pictures on a blog, Titus. Then everyone who wanted to could see your cool casa and your rare clumbers, too!

JAL said...

So Althouse, did you ride?

Michael Haz said...

Titus, forget the pre-fab. You need a log cabin, deep in the woods.

JAL said...

It looks like an opeartion run by someone who knows something. In which case Bitey would have been cured by now. :-)

JAL said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JAL said...

We only have three. Horses, that is.

Looking to add a BLM donkey, maybe, for companionship and coyote protection.

Cool animals.

TitusMyLipchins said...

If I lived on my fathers farm I would probably never see actual people. I think I would be completely fine being completely alone-is that sad?

I go on trips and weekend getaways alone (with the rare clumbers) all the time. I kind of hate being around people. So what do I do? Live in the most crowded city in the country. I am a dichtomy snuggled in a riddle and surrounded by a something else.

TitusMyLipchins said...

I just put my hands in my armpits and put them up to my face real fast and just smelled.

Thank you for allowing me to be so candid with you. I feel much better.

J. Cricket said...

And we call you Lisa Douglas!

Slumming it on a farm for spring break. How precious.

TitusMyLipchins said...

Did you know Gay Farm Boys from the Rural Midwest enjoy solitude and don't fit it in either their small town they came from or the large urban jungle they moved to?


It's true.

Ann Althouse said...

"If I came back would we be girlfriends Althouse?"

Yes! We'll come up to your farm for a nice country dinner. I love Lodi. Or you can come down to Madison and we'll go shopping on State Street. You can help me buy clothes at Karen & Company and I'll take you to Jazzman.

TitusMyLipchins said...

Yea, Althouse and I can be girlfriends.

We can so see Suzie The Duck in Lodi too.

Shopping, yea!!! Trying on outfits, getting feedback, "lunching", checking out guys.

AllenS said...

Don't stand in back of the horse they call "Kickey".

David said...

I had a girlfriend I called nibbles.

bearbee said...

Bitey in a stare down thinking ***git that friggin' camera outta my face or I'll kick yer ass***

Maxine Weiss said...

We all know what "taking someone out to the barn" is code for.

Can you imagine the lurid things those horses have seen over the years ?

If only horses could talk.

http://twitter.com/maxinesplace

Smilin' Jack said...

There's the horse we called "Bitey"

Soon to be known as "ALPO."

A true horse operation. That is real everyday work for many people, and keeps the economy going.

Yes, if there were a horse shortage all those buggy factories would need humongous government bailouts.

Trooper York said...

I thought Bitey was what Titus calls the bus boy who delivers from Planet Thai?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Dude said...

Maxine, speak for yourself. I have never heard the phrase "taking someone out to the barn".

I think you are full of shit. But you have heard that phrase all your life, no doubt.

TitusMyLipchins said...

My mother and father were both born in Lodi. Both farmers. My father married my mother when they were 18 and are happy as can be to this day.

My father's farm was the farm that my mother was born and raised. It has been in the family for over 100 years.

My father's brother now owns my dads father's farm. In Lodi there are street names named after my father's last name as well as my mother's maiden last name.

Freeman Hunt said...

My mother dislikes horses and calls them "alligators on stilts."

TitusMyLipchins said...

One of my favorite parts of Wisconsin is Lake Wisconsin/Merrimac/Okee/Devils Head/and north to the Baraboo Bluffs. Oh and Devils Lake-love that.

traditionalguy said...

I always think of the horse owning culture as Nascar without the noise. It is inherently competitive and has Trophys for every imaginable type, and age, and gender range, all written up in their own publications. A horse has always represented Strength, like the racing car engines from Nascar. Would Crack see this as a Cult?

TitusMyLipchins said...

I just wish they would do something with that old abandoned military place in Sauk Prairie. That land is great and they need to do something with it.

Maxine Weiss said...

Yeah, we all know what goes on "down on the farm".

If you squint your eyes it looks a little like the Inhabited Frat House !

Similar sorts of activities engaged in, too .

http://althouse.blogspot.com/search?q=Inside+the+Sigma+Phi+house

traditionalguy said...

Oh professor, has one of the horses taken your fancy? These creatures like people alot. I bet one or two of the horses has made eyes at you.

Michael Haz said...

Don't stand in back of the horse they call "Kickey".

Or "Farty". Or "Maxine".

Michael Haz said...

My mother dislikes horses and calls them "alligators on stilts."

My alligator dislikes your mother. So there.

David said...

Alligators on stilts. I like that.

I love Wisconsin, and Lodi is in a great part of Wisconsin. It may explain why Titus comes through his potty mouth discourse as decent and generous.

David said...

From the Lodi city web site:


The City of Lodi, meaning peaceful valley, was incorporated November 6, 1941 and is located in the heart of scenic south central Wisconsin, Columbia County. The City is situated in a beautiful valley among gently rolling hills near the Wisconsin River. Spring Creek meanders through the City including the Main Street Area. Lodi is approximately 25 miles from the State Capital and is currently home to 2,929 residents. Residents of the City of Lodi enjoy several beautiful City Parks and a free public pool in Goeres park. The City also offers a nine-hole public golf course. The newly constructed state of the art middle and high schools make the City an excellent place for families with children to live. The City also has a local library and is serviced by one of the best volunteer fire and emergency medical service in the State. Local merchants and an area farmer's market welcome visitors to the City.

Michael Haz said...

Lodi has it's own theme song.

David said...

Lodi is also the home town of Tom Wopat, who played Luke Duke on Dukes of Hazard. How much more fame can you get?

Trooper York said...

I thought Lodi was in Jersey. I remember Joey Gallo and Sammy the Syrian did a hit there once.

Alledgedly.

Maxine Weiss said...

Althouse making the most of her leisure at a red-neck barn, in a town famous for Pringles Potato chips and Tide detergent.

Another edifying, soul-satisfying vacation, and wonderfullesson in time-management by the blogosphere's most famous Professor !!!!

raf said...

There are Lodis all over. There's one here in OH on rte 83 just north of I71. Wouldn't have immediately said it was in a beartiful valley, though.

former law student said...

My mother dislikes horses and calls them "alligators on stilts."

Freeman's mother must have met Bitey.

I was taught when young to keep my hand completely flat when offering a horse a carrot or piece of apple, lest it bite my thumb off.

The Dude said...

Maxine - try that again in English.

And please omit the racist words, you racist.

Anonymous said...

there was a certain dichotomy in junior high. the girls who read books about horses and those who didn't. I didn't.

It was my husband who taught me to respect animals and nature moreso than my relatives on the farm taught me. These pictures remind me of the life out in the German country side and the professional woman next door. She must have been a horse book reader. She moved to that idyllic countryside. It was sad in the end when she let the horses out of the barn too quickly into the new springtime gassy grass and the vet had to come to do the unthinkable. I'll never forget that truck driving away and the lesson I learned.

I still have this thing that horses or at least ponies belonged in chincoteague, maybe not the tristate cincy league ones.

Cows on the other hand… You can love a woman till the cows come home.

AllenS said...

A horse is a horse
of course, of course
and no one can talk to horse, of course.
That is, of course,
unless the horse
is the famous Mister Ed.

I've got nuttin for Bitey.

chickelit said...

My daughter loves horses and is competing this year in her very first show. She's up against girls 4 years older than her. As a doting father, I bought her a $60 ratcatcher shirt.

Last Saturday, she was describing the personalities of all the horses she's gotten to know over the past two years where she rides. Each horse lives in its own stall, with its own name. Some are mares and some are geldings. There are no stallions. Amongst themselves, some horses are universaly loved, while others are universally loathed. Some will actually fight if brought too close together. And each horse has its own history: some were abandoned by their owners; some are retired racehorses; some were "mere" broodmares. The thing about them all was that they are now all well cared for and loved by the owner. Also, each one is adored by some child, and is taken out for a ride once and a while.

Freddy Hill said...

Do people in that part of the country understand that if you know beans about chili you know that chili has no beans?

I'd rather comment on the horses, but I don't know beans about them myself.

ricpic said...

Simple Glory

Horses standing in a field are nothing like cows standing in a field:
The mystery is simply in the shape of horses sealed:
When shapes were being dealt by God to all the beasts
He leant the horse a hint of glory at the very least.

KLDAVIS said...

50 comments and not one reference to, "I call the big one Bitey." What's happened to you, Internet? You used to be quick with the Simpsons jokes. Anyway, Bitey was an opossum, not a horse...perhaps a clue to today's earlier puzzle?

MadisonMan said...

Willllllburrrrrr!

rhhardin said...

Francis Ponge, The Horse

Man, somewhat lost on an elephant, is at his best on a horse, truly a throne to his measure.

Trooper York said...

Wasn't Lodi one of the singing ho's in Spinderella?

Lisa Lodi Lopes I think her name was. I think she burned down some NFL dudes house or something?

rhhardin said...

Central Ohio Kroger has gulten-free cheese snacks.

The Dude said...

Gulten or glutton? D'oh!

TitusMyLipchins said...

There is a Lodi California as well. Lodi Wisconsin has a wonderful Swedish Bakery called Webers...yum. The guy who owns it is a classmate of my dad's.

My dad curls in Lodi. Lodi has a curling club. Curling is cool.

michael farris said...

Bitey looks like he's gonna bite your face off if you don't get that camera out of his grill.

chickelit said...

@Titus:

The original Lodi is in Italy. The name translates as plural for "load".

KLDAVIS said...

Curling is an amazing sport...it can capture the unknowing with the beautiful motion and lines of ice skating, but very quickly you learn the strategies are as multi-layered as billiards and chess.

rhhardin said...

Imus covers curling live (9 clips, real audio) Feb 13, 2006.